Pace looks back on legislative victories, a few defeats
Posted on Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Pace
SILOAM SPRINGS — State Rep. Daryl Pace, R-Siloam Springs, looked back Monday on some of his legislative accomplishments.
He has nearly completed his third and last term in the Arkansas House of Representatives. Term limited because of a constitutional amendment, Pace could not seek re-election in 2008. But on election eve, Monday, Pace said he is glad to look back on some solid achievements in three terms and is content with the three-term limit. After all, he knew term limits were in place when he ran for his first House term in 2000, Pace said.
For one thing, he helped beat back an attempt to eliminate Saturday early voting, Pace said. That legislative victory was something that undoubtedly made it easier for some people to participate in the 2008 election, Pace said.
“ There was a big fight to eliminate Saturday early voting. The county clerks came up here trying to undo that, and I made that one of my issues, and I fought tooth and nail, and was successful, to keep them from eliminating Saturday voting. There are so many people that work that can’t vote … (at other times ), and they need to go on a Saturday. So I’m very proud of that. If you’ll look at the turnout, the county clerks said we only had a few people vote in that first year, and I said, ‘ If you’ll give it five years, you’ll be shocked at the number of people that vote early. You’re seeing this year, … as early voting is catching on nationwide, it will be records. So I’m very proud of that fight. That was something we did that was good for the working guy, ” Pace said.
For another accomplishment, Pace recalled, at the height of the housing boom he got passed a septic-tankinspection law that saved homeowners and would-be homeowners some money and increased government efficiency, he said.
“ I’m very happy about some legislation I passed that cured some of the septic-tank-inspection problems we had in Benton County, and also Baxter County. If you were building a house and waiting on the state to come out and say your septic system was OK, (before his legislation was passed ), sometimes you’d have to shut down the work on your house for weeks because of the backlog. And so we changed some laws about how those inspections were done. I think … the inspections are better quality, but we made somebody accountable, and you don’t have to shut down your house. Of course, that’s kind of subsided with the housing boom slowing down. But at the time of the peak of our housing (boom ), literally, it could cost a homeowner thousands of dollars for shutting down a project, ” Pace said.
He’s also glad to have encouraged a partnership between property owners and some cemetery maintenance and preservation groups, the state lawmaker said.
“ We passed some laws that made it a lot easier for people that wanted to take care of cemeteries to get on some of these private old cemeteries — and that was a good thing — while still protecting property rights. There are a lot of groups, … and a lot of them in Benton County, that spend their Saturdays cleaning up old cemeteries. So we fixed it to where there was a partnership between the landowner and those groups, ” he said.
Pace acknowledged legislative battles not won, including legislators’ rejection of a change, urged by him in the House and by state Sen. Steve Bryles, D-Blytheville, in the state Senate, that would have set up an incentive program for universities to improve their graduation and retention rates.
“ The presidents and chancellors got together and had a stronger lobby than I was able to defeat. … We (Pace and Bryles ) made a major attempt to reward universities that improved their graduation rates. And you’ll see that we’ve spent thousands of dollars in the last two years creating a task force to figure out how to improve this. Well, the presidents and chancellors were able to beat that back. And they put a cap on the amount of money, which negated the entire value of it. And that was a heartbreak, ” Pace said.
Also, he wanted to require school millage elections to be held on the same day as general elections, Pace said. Lower turnout on other days takes unfair advantage of taxpayers, Pace said.
Overall though, he’s glad to have had the legislative career he’s had, Pace said. He quickly pointed out, too, that, with about two months left in office and work on a state budget already under way in preparation for the 2009 state legislative session, his work as a legislator is not over yet.
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