State deserves better

Growing up in the Jim Crow South, I developed a thick skin. When I was integrating my high school, time and time again I saw the powers-that-be bend the rules and slant the truth to keep me down.

That was in the 1960s. In 2020, it’s despicable that we’re seeing the same kind of race-baiting falsehoods in the race for Arkansas’ 2nd Congressional District.

French Hill has repeatedly chosen lies over truth and fear-mongering over meaningful discourse. Arkansans deserve better than someone who will do this to cling to power.

Congressman French Hill has released two separate attack ads that flat-out lie and put politics over public safety. Recently, Congressman Hill released a blatantly manipulated, false Facebook ad that played the race card to instill fear in the hearts of voters. He used a picture of me from the November teachers’ rally and Photoshopped it, claiming it was from a recent, fictitious riot.

This paper’s own editorial pages have come to my defense, correctly stating my opposition to rioting and defunding the police.

Arkansans deserve better in Congress than someone who plays the race card to lie and scare voters.

Before that, Congressman Hill attacked me for joining Republicans and Democrats to vote for a Republican-written bill to save our endangered 911 system. The bill’s Republican sponsor was quoted in this paper saying it “had overwhelming support from basically every county judge and sheriff and person involved in law enforcement and emergency services in the state.”

Arkansans deserve better in Congress than someone who chooses politics over a critical public safety measure.

Don’t worry about me. I’ve faced deceitful, desperate attacks like this before. I’m worried about the people of central Arkansas. It’s time we had a representative in Congress who stood for truth over lies and people over politics.

JOYCE ELLIOTT

Little Rock