'A Governor Who Doesn't Seem to Have Much Interest in Governing Arkansas'
At home, the Republican supermajority swiftly passed the LEARNS Act, a sweeping school voucher program overseen by an education official hailing from Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Florida, which raised minimum teacher salaries to $50,000, though scrapped a prior requirement for scheduled pay raises based on experience. It was a landmark bill for Sanders, signed early in her administration. But it also faced a bumpier rollout and more mixed reception than its expedient passage suggested. The concerns about LEARNS ranged from rural districts not wanting to subsidize private schools in suburban and urban areas to its anti-critical race theory language, which a lawsuit argues was used to unconstitutionally attack AP African American studies at Central High School in Little Rock, a city that is over 40 percent Black. (Sanders said of the lawsuit: “It’s sad the radical left continues to lie.”) When I asked Jacob Oliva, the state Education Department secretary, what concerns he’d heard, he said that some superintendents were worried about funding the teacher raises. Once they hear it’s coming from an additional pot of money, “they’re relieved and excited,” he said.
In September, Sanders faced a rare legislative setback when she tried to hatchet the state’s Freedom of Information Act in a special session after an attorney and blogger who now reports for The Arkansas Times sought her travel records. He then revealed a $19,000 lectern that she had purchased, which later raised legal questions. Sanders claimed FOIA put her family’s security at risk but sought to restrict a broader range of records. She was hardly the first Republican to target the state’s strong public records law, but she appeared to underestimate both the extent to which Arkansans supported it and the vigor of the Arkansas press. After a flood of public testimony against it, the Legislature passed a significantly weaker version.
It wasn’t the only local issue that chafed Arkansans. Sanders’ husband, Bryan, whose background is in political messaging and advertising, wanted to use that approach to market Arkansas’ natural beauty. Sanders appointed him chair of the Natural State Advisory Council. But when a holding company co-founded by Walmart heir Tom Walton, who serves on the council, floated the idea of redesignating land near the Buffalo National River as a national park and preserve via federal legislation, irate locals, concerned about possible influence from Bryan’s council, turned out in droves and set out an empty chair with Sanders’ and Bryan’s names on it.
“I don’t know how many people I’ve had say to me, had I known what [state government] was going to look like under Gov. Sanders, I wouldn’t have voted for her,” said state Rep. Jim Wooten, one of the few Republicans to vote against the LEARNS Act, citing the “disdain” Sanders and the Legislature had shown toward public education. A University of Arkansas poll conducted in October showed her with a lower approval rating than her two predecessors and her dad when he left office. (A person close to the governor rejected the comparison on the grounds that they faced different times and circumstances.)
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/05/17/sarah-huckabee-sanders-arkansas-maga-trump-00156647
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