2014 highlighted by GOP sweep in Arkansas

Little Rock, Ark. (AP) — For the past three election campaigns, Republicans warned Democrats the days of Arkansas being the holdout in a solidly GOP south were numbered. Those days came to an end in 2014, and on a scale that surprised even some GOP figures.

By the time the election results were tallied, Republicans in November claimed all of Arkansas' constitutional offices, toppled a two-term Democratic U.S. senator and expanded their grip on the state Legislature. It was a dramatic sign that this was no longer Bill Clinton's Arkansas, and the Democratic base that produced the former governor and 42nd president was no longer in place.

"This election is about a new day in Arkansas," Republican Gov.-elect Asa Hutchinson told supporters after defeating Democrat Mike Ross in their heated race for the state's top office.

Hutchinson's successful bid for the governor's office and Republican Tom Cotton's rout of two-term Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor dominated Arkansas' political scene in 2014. The two rivals and outside groups combining to spend more than $64 million.

Both stuck to familiar themes throughout the year. Pryor touted himself as someone capable of working on both sides of the aisle, and accused Cotton of being beholden to rich donors and outside groups.

"My opponent is much more of a 'my way or the highway' type politician, and that leads to dead-end politics," Pryor said in the final days of the campaign.

Cotton, meanwhile, regularly tried to link the incumbent senator to a deeply unpopular president.

"Barack Obama has said his policies are on the ballot, every single one of them. I agree," Cotton said in a televised debate with Pryor in October. "In Arkansas, those policies are called Mark Pryor."

It was a message that Republicans had used successfully up and down the ballot to rout Democrats, who had hoped a ballot initiative gradually raising Arkansas' minimum wage would draw their supporters to the polls. The ballot issue did pass, as did one imposing new ethics rules on lawmakers and easing their term limits.

The GOP's victories came at the end of a year when Republicans were trying to oust one of their own who had ascended to office during a similar anti-Obama wave. Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Darr announced in January he would resign from office over ethics violations tied to campaign and office spending.

Republicans' gains at the ballot box also were a stark contrast to the setbacks they saw in the courtroom on some of their key initiatives. A federal judge struck down a 12-week abortion ban and a Pulaski County rejected a ban on same-sex marriages.

More than 500 same-sex couples were issued marriage licenses in the week following the judge's ruling — before the state Supreme Court issued a stay. A federal judge struck down the ban in November, but suspended her ruling in anticipation of a state appeal. The state Supreme Court was weighing whether to uphold Piazza's ruling.

Another Republican priority fell by the wayside in October, when the state Supreme Court struck down the state's voter ID law as unconstitutional.

Even as the 2014 campaign was underway, the next election wasn't far from politicians' minds. Republican U.S. Sen. John Boozman had emergency heart surgery in April, and two months later said that he planned to seek a second term in two years.

"I'm planning on running, very definitely," Boozman said in June.

The future was less certain for Arkansas' "private option" compromise Medicaid expansion, which was narrowly reauthorized in March for another year. A wave of new legislators who were elected after vowing to kill the program, which uses federal funds to purchase private insurance for the poor, and Hutchinson staying mum on its future raised fears among supporters that Arkansas could be the first state to abandon its Medicaid expansion.

Architects of the program once touted as a conservative alternative to expanding Medicaid acknowledged the likelihood the private option would dramatically change next year.

"I think there's one thing that's clear and that's the private option is not going to exist in its current form," said Senate President Jonathan Dismang, R-Beebe.

By Andrew DeMillo, Associated Press. Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Gayly – December 28, 2014 @ 11:30am