{"id":656,"date":"2007-12-16T04:10:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-16T04:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.arkansasfreedom.net\/?p=656"},"modified":"2007-12-16T04:10:00","modified_gmt":"2007-12-16T04:10:00","slug":"huckabee-loves-gifts-illegals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/?p=656","title":{"rendered":"Huckabee loves gifts & illegals"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Huckabee Tries to Gloss Over Ark. Record<\/span><\/strong><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<\/span>Nov
\n28, 3:12 AM (ET)<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>By
\nANDREW DeMILLO<\/span><\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – Mike Huckabee’s presidential rivals are
\npointing to chinks in his record as Arkansas’ governor – from ethics complaints
\nto tax increases to illegal immigration and his support for releasing a rapist
\nwho was later convicted of killing a Missouri woman.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

The Republican presidential candidate has plenty to champion from
\nhis 10 1\/2 years as governor – including school improvements and health
\ninsurance for the children of the working poor. But his record has rough edges,
\nand Huckabee has a habit of playing fast and loose with it.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Other campaigns for the GOP nomination, watching Huckabee’s rise
\nin polls in Iowa, are starting to mine his past for political fodder. Take
\nethics, for example.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

“People are starting to contact us and they’re saying we want
\neverything on Mike Huckabee,” says Graham Sloan, director of the state’s
\nEthics Commission.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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What they’ll find is 436 pages of documents chronicling Huckabee’s
\nvarious tangles with a commission he’s derided as a political tool of Democrats.
\nIt’s a panel that has held proceedings 20 times on the former governor and
\nlieutenant governor.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

But the Ethics Commission files don’t cover everything, and this
\nyear – anticipating criticism – Huckabee’s campaign set up a “truth
\nsquad” to push his side of various stories. It often offers, at best, an
\nincomplete account of his record.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

On major issues:<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

_The truth squad says the only finding by the Arkansas Ethics
\nCommission that Huckabee accepted a gift improperly was tossed out by a state
\ncourt. In fact, the panel investigated 16 complaints against Huckabee and found
\nfive violations. Only one, for accepting a $500 canoe from Coca-Cola, was
\ntossed out.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Two of the complaints against Huckabee pertain to unreported gifts
\n– the canoe and a $200 stadium blanket received by his wife, Janet. Two stem
\nfrom cash the governor or his wife received but did not initially report. The
\npanel also ruled in 2003 that Huckabee’s campaign violated state law when it
\nused its funds to pay for an event during the summer of 2002 called Gospel Fest<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

During his tenure, Huckabee accepted 314 gifts valued overall at
\nmore than $150,000, according to documents filed with the Arkansas secretary of
\nstate’s office. (He accepted 187 gifts in his first three years as governor but
\nwas not required to report their value.)<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

_Huckabee has consistently understated his role in the parole of
\nrapist Wayne DuMond, who had been convicted in the 1984 rape of a distant
\ncousin of former President Clinton.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Two months after taking office, Huckabee stunned the state by
\nsaying he questioned DuMond’s guilt and that it was his intention to free the
\nrapist, who had been castrated by masked men while awaiting trial. Huckabee
\nsaid then he had “serious questions as to the legitimacy of his
\nguilt” and acknowledged later that he had met with DuMond’s wife about the
\ncase while he was lieutenant governor. Two months after ascending to the
\ngovernor’s office, Huckabee met with the woman again.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

The ex-governor now blames his predecessor for making DuMond
\nparole eligible – Jim Guy Tucker commuted a life-plus-20 years sentence to 39
\n1\/2 years – but distances himself from his role in DuMond’s release. Huckabee
\nmet privately with the state parole board, and two members have said he
\npressured them for a vote.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

“He made it obvious that he thought DuMond had gotten a raw
\ndeal and wanted us to take another look at it,” former board member
\nCharles Chastain said in 2001. “Some board members who were usually very
\ntough about letting people out … (later) voted in favor of him, and seemed
\neager to.”<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

On his campaign Web site, Huckabee says the parole board was made
\nup entirely of Democrats appointed by Clinton and Tucker. It doesn’t mention
\nthat Huckabee reappointed board member Railey Steele days before he voted with
\nthree other members to set DuMond free. DuMond was later convicted of killing a
\nwoman in Missouri and died in 2005.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

_Huckabee likes to say he was tough on taxes in Arkansas, noting a
\n$100 million tax cut in 1997 that until this year was Arkansas’ largest. When
\nasked about a fuel tax increase he backed in 1999, Huckabee says incorrectly
\nthat he joined 80 percent of Arkansas voters in approving it.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee in 1999 supported a $1 billion highway bond program,
\nincluding costs for interest and lawyers’ fees, but the question on the ballot
\nwas only whether the state could take on the debt, not how Arkansas would pay
\nfor it. Huckabee had signed the fuel tax increase two months earlier.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Shortly after taking office, Huckabee took a four-day trip by bass
\nboat along the Arkansas River to tout a 1\/8th-cent sales tax increase for
\noutdoor programs. (Two nature centers now carry the names of Huckabee and his
\nwife.) Taxes went up $40 million in the months before the $100 million tax cut
\nHuckabee touts.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Other taxes went up as Arkansas changed its property tax system
\nand made improvements to its school system.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

_Huckabee’s recent strong stand on immigration, including an
\nintolerance toward companies that employ illegal immigrants, runs counter to
\nthe image he crafted in his final years in office. He was battling
\nconservatives within his own party who were pushing for stricter state-level
\nimmigration measures.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

Huckabee opposed a Republican lawmaker’s efforts in 2005 to
\nrequire proof of legal status when applying for state services that aren’t
\nfederally mandated and proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Huckabee
\nderided the bill as un-American and un-Christian and said the bill’s sponsor
\ndrank a different “Jesus juice.”<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

That same year, Huckabee failed in his effort to make children of
\nillegal immigrants eligible for state-funded scholarships and in-state tuition
\nto Arkansas colleges. At the time, Huckabee said he didn’t understand the
\nopposition to it.<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

“It hurts me on a personal as well as a policy level to think
\nthat we are still debating issues that I kind of hoped we had put aside in the
\n1960s, maybe at the latest the ’70s, and yet I understand people have deep
\npassions about things usually they don’t fully understand,” Huckabee said.
\n

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Huckabee Tries to Gloss Over Ark. Record HH Nov 28, 3:12 AM (ET) By ANDREW DeMILLO LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – Mike Huckabee’s presidential rivals are pointing to chinks in his record as Arkansas’ governor – from ethics complaints to tax increases to illegal immigration and his support for releasing a rapist who was later … Continue reading Huckabee loves gifts & illegals<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-huckabee-shameful-record","category-presidential-candidates"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arkansasfreedom.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}