Arkansas Republicans have changed history in Arkansas. Delegates voted to oppose CRT and support closed primaries at the Arkansas GOP convention on Saturday, July 23, in Little Rock.
Jason Bollinger, chairman of the Faulkner County Republican Party, had earlier submitted the addition of closed primaries to the state’s Republican party platform.
On Saturday, he successfully presented the issue that resulted in a loud and largely unanimous voice vote from the 661 delegates who attended the half-day conclave from all counties in the state.
The opposition to CRT resolution was presented by the GOP Platform Committee and also adopted with little or no opposition from the delegates, who also heard briefly from Republican gubernatorial candidate Sarah Huckabee Sanders, as well as current AG/Republican Lt. Governor candidate Leslie Rutledge and various party officials.
71 Delegates Decertified
71 elected delegates from Pulaski County — the largest county delegation represented — were not allowed into the convention and were eventually decertified after a report from the Credentials Committee.
The Committee had ruled on a complaint that said Pulaski County used incorrect ballots to elect their delegates, and convention delegates then voted 305-295 to bar Pulaski County from participating in the convention. Those individuals, who were waiting outside the meeting room for the voting results, were escorted by Security from the hotel property where the meeting was being held.
Platform Statements
As reported by <a href=”https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2022/jul/24/sanders-to-unveil-plans-for-arkansas-education-in/” rel=”noopener nofollow” target=”_blank”>ArkansasOnline</a>:
“…the state GOP platform … states that:
• “… [W]e assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that unborn children have a right to live that cannot be infringed.”
• “Every opportunity for every family to enroll each child in the school of his or her choice should be secured by the government and offered to families, and “… the student’s educational tax dollars should follow the student to his/her choice of educational procurement.”
• “We applaud income tax cuts made into law by Arkansas Republicans in recent years and strongly support the further expansion of income and other tax relief for all of our citizens.”
• “Arkansas Republicans support the traditional definition of marriage “as a God-ordained, legal and moral commitment between one man and one woman.”
CRT Resolution
The resolution requests that Legislature “affirm its opposition to the teaching of Critical Race Theory [CRT] and any other similar teaching that promotes racial disunity, racial superiority and/or racial inferiority and anti-American rhetoric.
“These teachings sometimes single out or categorize students based on their race, color or ethnicity for the purpose of shaming or blaming them for current or past atrocities of others who may have been of the same particular race, color or ethnicity,” the resolution states. Critical race theory teaches as one of its main tenets that racism is inherent, unavoidable and systemic in the American culture, the GOP resolution states, but “we believe that racism is a learned behavior and not inherent in any human being.”
— Reprinted with permission from FaulknerCountyReports.com
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