House filing alters rules on members
Posted on Thursday, July 24, 2008
Leaders of the state House of Representatives filed a resolution Wednesday to amend the chamber’s rules to ban anyone who resigned from public office as part of a felony plea bargain from becoming a House member.
“Everyone’s referring to this as the Dobbins rule,” said House Speaker Benny Petrus, D-Stuttgart, referring to former state Rep. Dwayne Dobbins, D-North Little Rock.
Dobbins resigned from the House in 2005 as part of a plea bargain that reduced a felony charge of sexual assault to misdemeanor harassment. The rule would apply to Dobbins, “but this is taking care of everyone else’s situation in the future and other possible scenarios,” Petrus said.
The House will meet Aug. 5 to vote on the measure, Petrus said.
The vote shouldn’t be close, he said.
“We’ve surveyed our members, and it’s got overwhelming support,” said Petrus. “A couple of members haven’t made their minds up.”
Dobbins is black and, earlier this year, some members of the Black Caucus voiced reservations about attempts to squelch his candidacy.
But Petrus said the amendment had nothing to do with race. He cited the fact that the amendment resolution’s sponsors include two black House members, Rep. Tommy Baker, D-Osceola, and Rep. Fred Allen, D-Little Rock.
“This is not a racial issue,” Petrus said.
Allen agreed, saying “I don’t think this is a Black Caucus issue.... The highest standards of ethics should be practiced by the members of the General Assembly. Once integrity has been shattered, credibility falls apart.”
Allen said “there comes a point in time where you have to make a stand.”
“You have to make decisions that are not safe, not political, not popular but because it’s the right thing to do,” he said.
The other sponsors are Petrus; incoming House speaker Robbie Wills, D-Conway; and Reps. David Dunn, D-Forrest City; Bryan King, R-Berryville; and Steve Harrelson, D-Texarkana.
In March, Dobbins surprised party leaders by filing for his former seat in House District 39 on the last day of the filing period. Earlier, Dobbins, 45, had resigned his seat after acknowledging that he fondled a 17-year-girl.
After his resignation, his wife, Sharon, won his seat in a 2005 special election. She was reelected unopposed in 2006 and was widely expected to run again. She has said work obligations prevented her from doing so.
Earlier this week, state Democratic Party Chairman Bill Gwatney mailed a certified check refunding Dwayne Dobbins’ $ 3, 000 filing fee.
Dobbins didn’t return a call for comment Wednesday. His consultant on this matter, Little Rock attorney Leon Johnson, also didn’t return a call for comment.
Last week, Johnson said any potential legal action to contest the House rule change would depend on its language.
The proposed amendment reads: “Qualified and certified persons to be seated and officially receive the oath of office may do so only at a time and place prescribed by the House. No person having resigned from public office as a provision to a plea agreement to avoid felony prosecution shall be seated or administered the oath office.”
Pulaski County prosecutor Larry Jegley said Dobbins’ plea was read in open court and was incorporated into the judge’s order.
Wills said any House action “would stand on firm legal ground.” He cited the Arkansas Constitution, which in Article 5, Section 11, makes the House “the sole judge of the qualifications, returns and elections of its own members.”
And clearly spelling out when and where the oath of office will take place closes “a possible loophole,” he said.
By tradition, people elected to the House become members when they’re sworn in on the first day of the legislative session in the House chamber, but the rules didn’t specify that.
“There was no rule that said I couldn’t find a circuit judge to swear me in,” Wills said.
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