The Tolbert Report

Rep. Dan Greenberg currently represents house district 31 and is a candidate for state senate district 22 (Benton, Bryant, Bauxite, and west Little Rock.) Greenberg will face former state representative Jeremy Hutchinson in the Republican Primary for the chance to face either Rep. Dawn Creekmore or Todd Witham in the general election

Tolbert: Why are you looking to make the move from the house of representatives to the senate?

Greenberg: I am running for state senate for the only reason anybody should ever run for office: I believe I would do a good job. I am the best qualified candidate to deliver what the majority of the people in my state senate district want and deserve: a conservative, capable, principled public servant with a record of achievement.

Relatedly, earlier this year in the House we passed a number of measures for tax relief, just about all of which got blocked in the Senate. Arkansans need a stronger conservative presence in the Senate, especially on tax and budget policy. More generally, each legislator gets 1 out of 100 votes in the House but 1 out of 35 votes in the Senate. Each vote counts for more (about 3 times as much!) in the Senate. Finally, and because this year especially, I saw a great deal of partisanship in the House that affected the legislative process, I think I would be more effective in the smaller and more collegial environment of the Senate.

Tolbert: What are some of the major issues you will be focusing on?

Greenberg: First, I think about the most important thing I can do as a legislator is help make sure state government is a help, not a hindrance, to economic growth. Economic growth is a vague term. Let me make it more concrete: we need to encourage job growth, capital investment in Arkansas, and tax relief. This is especially crucial in the tough economic times we are in now, given the national climate of job contraction/elimination we’re seeing. One of the most important things we could do for our economy is broad-based tax relief, not just rifle shots in the tax code that benefit particular industries. I am proud of my history of opposition to tax increases and I have been a leader in this area, and I have a bill prepared that will extend tax relief to the everyday citizen, not just to the special interests that can bankroll lobbyists who will work for one particular tax break.

Second, we need to couple an economic growth plan with high scrutiny of our state budget, particularly with regard to blocking unneeded growth in government and ending outmoded government programs. I have been a leader in this area: I am one of the few legislators who has actually ended a government program.

Third, we need to continue the Arkansas tradition of ensuring that our legal system is not a hindrance to job creation, economic growth, and social cooperation generally. I have been a leader in this area; despite the fact that we have powerful special interests in the state who resist any improvements to our legal system (I am referring here to the ‘gentleman’s agreement’ between numerous special interests and lobbyists that we shouldn’t ever change anything in tort liability, an agreement between lobbyists which many legislators are scared to violate), I was able to write and pass a measure in 2007 that gives innocent rescuers civil immunity from lawsuit. A year or two after I passed this, there was an expensive and destructive case in California where one woman rescued another in an accident, and the rescuee’s response was to sue her because the rescuer wasn’t careful enough. Rescuers are protected in Arkansas because I anticipated this problem.

Fourth, our education system needs to aim at excellence and to protect parental choice. Parents are entitled to know that the values that their kids learn at home are echoed in the schoolhouse. In both my state house and my state senate district, there’s a variety of schools and school districts, and consumer satisfaction with education is mixed. Excellence in education is a vital part of preserving the economic growth and development that our region of the state has seen.

Fifth, we need a stronger voice in the legislature for transparency and ethics in state government. I have been a leader in this area. Earlier this year, because the legislature has a history of passing new loopholes to the Freedom of Information Act without drawing attention to them, I passed the most important protection to our FOIA rights that the state has seen in many years. The problem of new exemptions and loopholes to the FOIA had become such a serious one that the FOIA coalition (a group of journalists, public officials, and citizens who protect government transparency) had actually stopped tracking them because they were so frequent and nearly everpresent in legislation, and also hard to find and detect. The law I passed forces state legislators to expressly announce it in legislation whenever they create a new FOIA exemption, which forces disclosure and makes those exemptions easier to spot and resist. We have some existing laws that create government secrecy that need to be eliminated, and we have some existing attempts to create government secrecy that must be resisted. We also need to put the state budget online and available to the public in as much detail as possible, which I tried to do earlier this year with my Open Checkbook bill.

Sixth, citizens are entitled to public officials who are careful listeners and who take their concerns seriously. For a long time I have disciplined myself to pursue excellence in this area, and I am confident in saying that I have a good record of listening to constituents, being present in the community and available to the public, performing constituent service, and helping to guide citizens (and being their advocate) through sometimes confusing state government bureaucracies. If you have watched other candidates for this Senate seat, I’m sure you have seen them praise Shane Broadway, the holder of the current state senate seat. I am my own person and cannot claim to have all of Shane’s many fine qualities, but I think one reason that Shane is held in such high regard is that he (like me) recognizes and acts on the importance of listening skills and constituent service. I don’t want to pat myself on the back overmuch, but I think I have a lot of grass roots support precisely because I have focused on the nuts and bolts of representation: listening carefully, returning phone calls, and ensuring constituents’ concerns are reflected in my official actions, such as votes, amendments, floor speeches, legislation, and so forth.

Tolbert: You mentioned you received some endorsements. Who has endorsed you?

Greenberg: Some of my supporters, as well as the two of us, were in the room at our meeting last night: Saline County Judge Lanny Fite, Saline County Prosecutor Ken Casady, Saline County JPs Tom Lish and Buster Warrick, and several county committee members who are not elected officials. Other supporters include Little Rock residents like state representative Allen Kerr and Lisenne Rockefeller of the Academy at Riverdale. I haven’t put together a formal list of endorsers, but I will do that soon.

Tolbert: (Soon to be a standard Tolbert Report question) If elected will you support legislation to put the senate online which video feeds from the senate chamber and committees?

Greenberg: Yes. As I just said, government transparency is a central concern of mine. All citizens must have the right and the power to know what their government, whose only legitimate purpose is to protect and assist them, is doing.

Tags: 2010 Candidates