LR music store owner makes gubernatorial ballot as an independent
Posted on Tuesday, June 27, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/National/158878/
The race for governor of Arkansas became a three-candidate affair Monday, an independent candidate having qualified for the Nov. 7 ballot for the state’s highest executive office for the first time in 66 years, the secretary of state’s office said.
One of the new candidate’s first thoughts was to seek financial help so he can campaign effectively.
The secretary of state certified that Rod Bryan of Little Rock barely collected enough signatures of registered Arkansas voters to be an independent candidate for governor in the general election.
Bryan, 37, is the owner of AnthroPop, a music store in Little Rock’s Stifft Station area. He’s married and has two children.
He said he’s making his first run for public office. He said he decided to start his political career running for governor because “I think it’s time for a person who is an average citizen to make a stand. I think politics has become an elite game that is marginalizing common people and I consider myself a common person.”
Bryan joins the more widely known and far better financed Democratic gubernatorial nominee Mike Beebe of Searcy, who currently is Arkansas attorney general and was a state senator for 20 years, and Republican gubernatorial nominee Asa Hutchinson of Little Rock, a former congressman who led the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and was a top executive in the Department of Homeland Security.
Although Arkansas has had occasional write-in candidates for governor, Bryan is the first candidate to qualify as an independent candidate for governor since 1940, when Walter S. McNutt ran unsuccessfully, the secretary of state’s office said. The write-ins were never significant factors in the outcomes of the elections for governor.
Several employees and in- terns in the secretary of state’s office verified 10, 052 signatures on Bryan’s petition after it was submitted May 1. Bryan submitted 11, 750 signatures, said Kathleen McQueen of the secretary of state’s office. Under Arkansas law, Bryan needed 10, 000 voters’ signatures.
“When I turned them in, I knew it was going to be tight,” Bryan said. He said he collected most of the signatures in person, telling the people who signed his petition that they had to be registered voters.
“I had my doubts, but at the end we made it just barely. Every signature was important,” he said.
Bryan said he and his wife, Lennie, plan to campaign at community festivals for the July 4 weekend, though “we have absolutely no budget to do it.
“ Hopefully, people will rally around us to give us a budget to do it,” he said.
Through the end of April, Bryan reported $ 5, 058 in contributions and $ 5, 192. 75 in expenses. His campaign reported a deficit of $ 134. 75 at the end of April. Beebe reported raising $ 3. 5 million and spending $ 1. 4 million. Hutchinson reported raising $ 1. 7 million and spending $ 805, 718.
Bryan said he hasn’t thought about how much money he needs to raise to run for governor.
But he said there are many people looking for an alternative candidate for governor.
“I am running to win and to make a point,” he said. “The fact I am on the ballot [shows ] a point has been made.
“ I think people in general in Arkansas and in this nation are waiting for someone to be more of a leader and the choices they’re being offered are greatly watered down,” Bryan said. “I haven’t been discredited as a wing nut yet, and I am sure that might start now.”
He said his top priorities as governor would be education, the economy and energy.
Bryan said he opposes tax increases but would like to see a restructuring of the tax system because he believes the poor pay too much in taxes and the wealthy pay too little. Beebe and Hutchinson both have offered varying tax-reduction proposals.
He said he opposes the death penalty and spending state dollars on pesticides and herbicides to maintain state grounds.
Among other things, Bryan said he would: Donate half of his annual salary “back to the state program deemed most deserving by me and my advisers,” and ride his bicycle most days as his primary form of transportation. In the fiscal year starting July 1, the governor’s salary will be $ 80, 848.
Run state government like he has run his store by recycling all paper, bottles and cans, composting orange peels, apple cores, egg shells, coffee grounds, etc. Put solar panels in the Governor’s Mansion by cutting the budget for other things.
Bryan said he hopes such efforts will serve as an example to others in government and the private sector to “sacrifice some personal conveniences in the name of a larger cause.”
Spokesmen for Beebe and Hutchinson welcomed Bryan to the campaign.
“Asa always been a strong advocate, throughout his political career, of greater competition and new ideas in the political arena,” Hutchinson spokesman David Kinkade said. “Mr. Bryan certainly brings that to the table, so we’re happy to welcome him to the race.”
State law requires an independent candidate for a state office to file a petition signed by at least 3 percent of the registered voters of the state or containing 10, 000 signatures of registered voters, whichever is less.
There’s a chance Arkansas could end up with a fourth candidate for governor on the November ballot. Last month former state Rep. Jim Lendall, D-Mabelvale, said he intended to sue the state after a petition to certify the Green Party as an official party in Arkansas was rejected by the secretary of state’s office.
Lendall, who wants to run for governor as a Green Party candidate, has said that he believes the state makes it so difficult for a third-party candidate to get on the ballot that the rules violate the U. S. Constitution. The established parties are the Democratic Party of Arkansas and the Republican Party of Arkansas.
He has said he turned in a petition signed by 18, 000 people, but the secretary of state’s office said Lendall needed 24, 171 signatures. Arkansas law requires third parties to obtain signatures from registered voters equal to at least 3 percent of the votes cast in the last race for governor.
Lendall could not be reached for comment at his home or via e-mail.
However, Rita Sklar of Little Rock, executive director of the Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said that organization plans to file suit today challenging Arkansas’ laws governing certification of third parties.
The secretary of state’s office said it also has certified four independent candidates for other offices:
Alderman John Parker of North Little Rock for state House of Representatives District 41 to challenge Maumelle Republican Ed Garner.
Jimmie Johnson of Uniontown for House of Representatives District 87 to challenge Rep. Mark Martin, R-Prairie Grove. Prosecuting Attorney Thomas Deen of Dermott in Judicial District 10. Prosecuting Attorney Robert Dittrich of Stuttgart in Judicial District 11-East.