By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — The state NAACP has released a report card that gives flunking grades to all but one member of Arkansas’ congressional delegation.
The report card, drafted by the state chapter’s executive committee and approved by the general membership at a meeting on Saturday, gives F’s to Democratic Sens. Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, Republican U.S. Rep. John Boozman of Rogers and Democratic U.S. Reps. Marion Berry of Gillett and Mike Ross of Prescott.
Democratic U.S. Rep. Vic Snyder of Little Rock gets an A.
The U.S. House members were graded on their votes on two issues, the health care reform bill and the accompanying reconciliation bill that helped win passage of the main bill. Snyder voted for both, while Berry voted for the health care bill but not the reconciliation bill. Boozman and Ross voted against both bills.
The senators were graded on their votes on health care; their recommendations to fill vacancies on Arkansas’ federal bench; their positions on the Employee Free Choice Act; and their efforts to see that black farmers in Arkansas receive their share of a settlement in a class-action lawsuit that accused the federal government of discriminatory lending practices.
Lincoln and Pryor both voted for the health care bill but against the reconciliation bill. The state NAACP gave Lincoln and Pryor negative scores for their judicial recommendations and no scores on the other issues.
The report card differs from the national NAACP’s most recent legislative report card, which gave A’s to Lincoln and Pryor, B’s to Ross and Snyder, a D to Berry and an F to Boozman. The national organization looked at each representative’s votes on more than 20 issues.
The state chapter’s report card is the first it has issued. State NAACP President Dale Charles said today the chapter wanted to “let voters in the state get a snapshot of what kind of issues we hold dear to us and how they (Arkansas’ representatives in Washington) voted on them.”
Lincoln campaign spokeswoman Katie Laning Niebaum said Lincoln has been working on the black farmers’ settlement, though the work hasn’t been publicized, and noted that she and Pryor did recommend one black judicial candidate, Carlton Jones of Texarkana.
Jones later withdrew his name from consideration.
Ross said today, “I have long supported NAACP’s efforts to promote social justice and end racial discrimination in America. Although I have cast hundreds of votes the NAACP supported and have earned a B grade with the national organization, the Arkansas State Conference’s report card chose to only score the health care reform legislation and its reconciliation package, both of which I did not support.”
Ross said he believes health care reform is necessary, but ultimately he could not vote for the two bills.
“Had we been allowed to vote on the numerous provisions in this nearly 3,000-page bill separately, I could have supported many of them, including much-needed health insurance reforms and making health insurance affordable for the uninsured. Unfortunately, I never had that option,” he said.
Boozman said he stands by his votes.
“An F for voting against the Obama-Pelosi-Reid government takeover of health care and the ‘fixer’ bill should be for ‘favorable,’ not ‘failure,’” he said. “These bills spend an unimaginable amount of money, raise new taxes and cut Medicare programs without doing anything to contain costs.”
Phone messages left with spokespeople for Pryor, Berry and Snyder were not immediately returned today.
