Senator Jim Hendren went to the Benton County Republican Committee and compared Conduit to terrorists. Why?
Conduit For Action supports limited government, lower taxes, and more freedom. You know… conservative principles just like in the principles and platform of the Republican Party of Arkansas. In promoting these principles CFA exposed the liberal voting records of incumbent Democrats in the previous two elections and will do it again this election season. Conduit has also exposed the voting records of Republicans who pay lip service to conservative principles while growing government and playing shell games with taxes.
To Senator Jim Hendren’s mind the role of Conduit should be to support anyone who wears the Republican label even if they vote with the Democrats. He thinks CFA is supposed to be his cheerleading squad and to zip our lips when Republican politicians prefer to operate out of the Democrat playbook, so they can be players and deal makers in the game of big government.
Sorry, but CFA was formed to support conservative principles … not personalities.
Senator Jim Hendren was so upset that CFA exposed his weak voting record in 2017 that he made up his own scorecard and gave himself and his cohorts an excellent grade.
Instead of responding by voting conservative, his solution is to browbeat Republican County Committees into no longer inviting Conduit to speak at Republican events.
The Republican grassroots voters deserve to know if one of their officeholders is pulling a snow job on them. When conservative principles are ignored by Republican politicians they are also ignoring the Republican County Committee members who serve on the state board to write and approve the Republican Party’s principles and platform, and ignoring Republican grassroots voters who work so hard to elect people who they expect to support conservative principles through their actions.
Hendren especially dislikes that CFA articles have exposed his deceptions used to cover up liberal policies.
Remember when Hendren sponsored his Uncle Asa’s bill to establish a task force on health care? (Act 46 of 2015, SB96) Hendren boldly declared the bill would end the private option, end Obamacare Medicaid Expansion!
- Conduit dared to expose the truth – the bill did not move forward the scheduled end of the liberal program by even one second.
- Conduit dared to quote Hendren’s own bill to show that the first priority of the bill was for the task force to recommend how to continue the Obamacare program.
- Conduit dared expose the fact that the task force’s consultant was not free to recommend what would be best for Arkansas and instead was required to recommend how to continue Obamacare Medicaid expansion.
- Conduit dared to show that based on the voting records of the members of the task force the task force was heavily stacked with supporters of Obamacare Medicaid Expansion.
- Conduit correctly predicted the outcome would be the continuation of the Obamacare program under a different name. And, it was Jim Hendren himself who sponsored Uncle Asa’s legislation to do just that under the new name “Arkansas Works.” (Act 2 of 2nd Sess. 2016, SB 1)
Remember when Hendren filed a bill with a title saying that it was going to prohibit Arkansas from establishing a state-based Obamacare Exchange? (Act 398 of 2015, SB343) He amended the bill so the body of the bill instead retained (not prohibited) the authority for the state-based Obamacare Exchange, unless the U.S. Supreme Court happened to rule against Obamacare in a way that would have effectively ended Obamacare. The authority for the exchange remains to this day because of Hendren’s deception.
- Conduit exposed the deception, calling the title a lie. Hendren’s response was not to defend his bill (which he couldn’t) but to instead used another page out of the liberal playbook by playing the victim card for being exposed as a liar.
Remember when Hendren sponsored his uncle’s bill to create a tax task force? (Act 78 of 2017, SB115)
- Conduit dared point out that most of the members chosen for the task force he chairs had voted for more than one tax increase in 2017.
- Conduit exposed the task force’s consultant as having a liberal tax and spend bias. Eventually the task force dismissed the consultant … for poor work.
- When the task force thought it would be a good idea to study increasing the tax rate on groceries, Conduit repeatedly publicized it until Governor Asa Hutchinson was pushed into a corner by his opponents to reject the idea.
- Conduit correctly predicted that the tax recommendations would use the same tax cut plan the Democrats always used. What is the plan the Democrats used claim tax cuts while growing government and keeping Arkansas a high tax state? The Democrats (and now many Republicans), look at state revenue growth, decide how much they want to use to keep growing government (without ever evaluating which programs work and are needed) and then tithe part of the remainder in the form of a tax cut. … Look at the tax cut we got you but don’t look at how much we we grew government, or how much state agencies wasted, or how much was given away to favored corporations and communist countries; and certainly don’t look at national rankings that show Arkansas continues to be a high tax state.
So, in Jim Hendren’s eyes Conduit is terrorists because Conduit is not acting like a “team player” to cover up liberal votes and actions.
At CFA, we never expected state government to change in a day, even with a Republican supermajority. On the other hand, we didn’t expect Republican leaders to sabotage the Republican majority’s effort to bring about change by running away from conservative principles.
There are Republican officeholders who stand by conservative principles and they deserve our support. They need our support. They need your support because the Hutchinson-Hendren clan is trying to get rid of or marginalize them.
As for Conduit we will continue to fight for limited government, lower taxes, and more freedom. And we will continue to praise officeholders who fight for good legislation and who fight against government waste. We will continue to call out the voting records of big government Democrats and Republicans. Jim Hendren can call us what he wants, but we will continue to support conservative principles. Why? Because we believe in conservative principles and we think the lives of Arkansans will be better if politicians will follow the principles instead of following the deep pockets of special interests who want a bigger slice of the pie from bigger government.
