The electoral path Donald Trump cut to the White House is the same one Jan Morgan hopes to blaze to the governor's mansion.
A Citizens for Trump national spokeswoman, Morgan, who's seeking the Republican nomination for governor against incumbent Asa Hutchinson in the party's May 22 primary, wants to tap the vein of disaffection Trump mined for 684,872 votes in the 2016 general election, the most votes a presidential candidate has ever polled in Arkansas.
"I'm seeing people who are fed up with politics as usual," she said. "I'm seeing Republicans who want us to get back to the Republican platform of conservative leadership. I'm seeing support from business owners who know what it's like to run a business and profit at all under the excessive regulatory burdens."
That aversion to regulation finds its fullest expression in her animus toward gun laws. A Second Amendment absolutist, Morgan said an armed citizenry serves as a check on government overreach.
"My bottom line is the Second Amendment is solid -- it's very clear," said Morgan, who's appeared on Fox News as a gun-rights advocate, is a certified firearms instructor and owns the Gun Cave Indoor Firing Range. "The right of people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. That is not a permission slip for people to carry. It's a directive limiting the power of the government."
Morgan said her rebuke last year of legislators who were debating an amendment to the bill that allows concealed carry on college campuses crystallized her decision to make the leap from punditry to candidacy.
Morgan said the amendment places an undue burden on gun owners, whom she said are protected by the Second Amendment from state-imposed restrictions. Rules the Arkansas State Police promulgated in December place a hardship on firearms instructors such as her, she said, who are required to teach both the regular and enhanced training courses.
Morgan said the video of her addressing the legislative committee evoked a groundswell of support once it began circulating on social media.
"It was basically me delivering a blistering admonishment to misrepresenting representatives who were representing the will of the governor over the will of the people who elected them," she said. 'People at that point told me by the thousands, when the video went viral, that it was like an alarm clock that opened the eyes of this state that things were not right in their state government."
Morgan sees the same dynamic that swept Trump to the Republican presidential nomination at play in state politics. She wants to exploit the schism that has estranged the traditional wing of the party from the restive populists that bore Trump to the nomination, and ultimately the presidency.
"The Republican Party is divided," she said. "That's not a secret. It's the conservative base versus the establishment, progressive side. What we're seeing in Arkansas is the same thing that happened on a national level -- an outsider versus the establishment.
"In this case, I'm not an outsider. I've been a Republican my entire life from the conservative base of the party."
Her aim to restrain the state's taxing authority is part and parcel of the conservative bona fides she's touted on the campaign trail. Revenues need to be curtailed, she said, lest more money goes to "waste, fraud and abuse." She said state income tax cuts for people earning between $21,000 and $75,000 a year and those earning less than $21,000 a year adopted during the last two regular legislative sessions have been undone by new point-of-sale levies, such as the increase in tire removal fees that support the state's Used Tire Recycling Fund.
"It's a shell game," she said. "They talk about revenue neutral. We don't need more revenue neutral. We need tax cuts for the people of this state. You're not really cutting taxes if you cut over here and then you raise taxes over here."
The elimination of 43 state sales tax exemptions the Arkansas Tax Reform and Relief Legislative Task Force will review when it meets Wednesday is projected to raise annual revenues by $1.4 billion. Exemptions under consideration include partial exemptions for food and food ingredients purchased at grocery stores, prescription drugs, newspapers and the back-to-school tax holiday.
"Commissions are what politicians do when they know they don't have the guts to do what they know they ought to do by the will of the people," Morgan said. "That commission is not looking for ways to reform the tax code. They're looking at more ways to squeeze blood out of the turnip. They're looking at ways to repeal tax exemptions on areas that will hurt Arkansans."
Monday is the voter registration deadline for the May elections. Early voting begins May 7.
Local on 04/22/2018