Panel’s Senate report on Crumbly June 12
Posted on Friday, May 9, 2008
The Arkansas Senate next month will hear a committee’s 4-3 recommendation that Jack Crumbly of Widener retain his Senate seat in a historic election contest case filed by former Rep. Arnell Willis, the chairman of the Senate committee said Thursday.
Sen. Steve Faris said the State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee’s report will be heard by the Senate on June 12 in a session starting at 9 a.m. in the Senate. A court reporter’s transcript of the committee’s hearings has been completed, clearing the way for him and Senate President Pro Tempore Jack Critcher, D-Batesville, to schedule the meeting.
The plan is for the Senate to vote June 12 on whether to accept the committee’s recommendation, but it’s possible the Senate could take more than one day, said Faris, a Democrat from Central.
A senator may be expelled only upon a two-thirds majority vote, which is 24 votes in the 35-member Senate. The last time a senator was expelled was in 1974.
Willis has contended he defeated Crumbly in a 2006 Democratic Party runoff in Senate District 16 and that the outcome was reversed by election fraud.
Crumbly, a member of the committee, recused from its handling of the election contest case. The other seven members all said “flagrant” fraud and irregularities existed but that there was no evidence that Crumbly personally committed any.
The panel agreed to ask the U. S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas to investigate. It also agreed to ask the Arkansas State Police and the Arkansas Board of Election Commissioners to monitor elections in St. Francis County until convinced that election officials there follow state election laws, particularly those regarding handling ballots and counting votes.
The board has decided to send election monitors to the county for the May 20 election.
Crumbly said he’s looking forward to the Senate’s vote and a final resolution of this election contest.
“I maintain all along my innocence,” he said.
But Willis said he’s “still shocked at not seeing the outrage coming from the citizens across the state of Arkansas demanding that justice prevail. What happened to me is un-American that a man could win on election night and then have the election stolen from him and nothing happens,” he said.
Willis declined to speculate on the Senate’s vote. “At least they should have called a special election, and I would have beat him again,” he said.
The Senate would have to expel Crumbly and declare the Senate seat vacant for the governor to call a special election.
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