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Political Notebook: Fayetteville couple regulars for Washington fly-in Sunday, May 4, 2008 By Aaron Sadler Stephens Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - Fayetteville's Jack and Jane Meadows are as common as the stale jokes and bland potatoes at the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce's annual Washington banquet. Jack Meadows said he's probably been to "about 42 or 44" of the events. The 49th annual congressional dinner was last week. Business and industry executives from across the state come to the nation's capitol for the dinner - which has often featured Arkansas lawmakers joking at one another's expense - and a couple days of intense lobbying. The only times Meadows and his wife have missed a Washington fly-in is when they briefly lived on the West Coast, he said. "I've always through the years felt that they were very productive," Meadows said. "I think it's a very good thing for the business community to have a good relationship with the congressmen, and especially the staffers." Meadows, 88, was a lumber industry official in south Arkansas before moving to Fayetteville. He heads Meadows Enterprises, Inc. The corporation owns Stonebridge Meadows golf course and development in Fayetteville and racquet clubs in Fayetteville and Rogers. The visits to Washington have always included a banquet, designed to recognize lawmakers and their employees, Meadows said. Local chambers of commerce and people from different parts of the state set aside time during the trip to host meals or meetings with individual members of the congressional delegation. Meadows said he was always glad to see the late Rep. Wilbur Mills, who as chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee was a friend to the timber industry. Those one-on-one meetings are more important to Meadows than the dinner, where 400 or more people cram into a hotel banquet room. "Most of them don't say anything about the issues, they just start talking about something humorous," he said. Among the tries at humor at last week's dinner: -Gov. Mike Beebe described Rep. Vic Snyder as "just left of Leon Trotsky every once in a while." Snyder, D-Little Rock, is considered the most liberal member of the state's delegation. Trotsky was a Marxist and Russian revolution leader. -Rep. John Boozman, R-Rogers, referred to himself as the state's "senior Republican" and its "junior Republican," a nod to his standing as the only GOP member in the delegation. After his Democratic colleagues praised Boozman, Beebe said the Democrats were nice because Boozman "is the only one that can get them into the White House," - since President Bush is also Republican, Boozman's office can more easily obtain tickets for White House tours. -Rep. Mike Ross, D-Prescott, said he was accustomed to waving in Arkansas when another driver honked his horn while Ross was in his pickup. In Washington's heavy traffic, when Ross waves, the other driver waves back, "with one finger." Arsenal provision denied Though a Senate committee rejected new legislation to ease a bureaucratic headache at the Pine Bluff Arsenal, the effort to implement the measure will continue, a spokeswoman for Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., said last week. The Senate Armed Services Committee, meeting in closed session, had problems with the wording of a provision requested by the Arsenal, said Lisa Ackerman, Pryor's press secretary. Pryor's office plans to change the wording to more specifically relate to problems at Pine Bluff and then try to add the new version to a broad defense bill during debate on the Senate floor. Arsenal officials have asked Congress to eliminate a regulation that requires them to seek permission from outside the Pentagon to extend duty contracts for civilian security guards. In order to add time to the four-year terms of civilian employees, the Arsenal must get formal approval from the Office of Personnel Management. The new provision allows the secretary of the Army to authorize contract extensions. |
