Hays, Hill turn up heat in House bid

Tone of ads shifts toward accusatory

In an increasingly contentious race, former North Little Rock Mayor Patrick Hays and banker French Hill of Little Rock are dueling to succeed U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin in the 2nd Congressional District.

Graphic artist Debbie Standiford of North Little Rock also is vying for the position.

Hays is a Democrat. Hill is a Republican, and Standiford is a Libertarian.

Griffin, a Republican, is running for lieutenant governor in the Nov. 4 general election rather than seeking re-election to the position he has held since 2011.

The district includes Conway, Faulkner, Perry, Pulaski, Saline, Van Buren and White counties.

After airing generally lighthearted television ads in their campaigns, Hill and Hays started airing ads nearly two weeks ago sharply criticizing each other.

A Hays ad said Hill and his fellow bank executives

donated thousands of dollars to former state Treasurer Martha Shoffner and “it paid off big time,” with Shoffner directing $700 million in tax dollars to Hill’s bank, Delta Trust & Bank. The ad said Shoffner was convicted on 14 counts of bribery and extortion, and resigned for her state position “but French Hill’s bank got to keep the money.”

In response, Hill aired an ad quoting an Arkansas

Democrat- Gazette editorial that called Hays’ attack on Hill “dishonest” and said Hays should apologize for his “cheap attempt to mislead the voters.” The ad says “career politicians like Hays will say anything to get elected.”

Hays defended his ad in an interview Wednesday.

“All we stated in the ad were the facts. Contributions were made. Business went up. Shoffner left office. Business went down,” Hays said. “[Shoffner was] indicted, convicted and left office.”

But Hill said “Washington is dysfunctional, health care costs keep rising, and middle-class families are hurting.

“Instead of focusing on the issues, Patrick Henry Hays wants to lie to Arkansans with Washington-style gutter politics cooked up by [U.S. House Democratic leader] Nancy Pelosi. The notion that I made ‘millions off a $250 donation’ is beyond preposterous,” Hill said.

In 2009, Hill contributed $250 to Shoffner and his bank donated an additional $2,000.

Deputy Legislative Auditor Jon Moore said auditors found no indication that the contributions were tied to bond purchases made by the treasurer’s office through Hills’ bank. And the treasurer’s office chief investment officer, Autumn Sanson, said the bond purchases through the bank were done through competitive bids from several bond brokers.

Shoffner, a Democrat from Newport, was caught on camera accepting bribes from bond broker Steele Stephens, who worked for Russellville-based St. Bernard Financial Services. She resigned as the state’s treasurer in May 2013.

During Shoffner’s trial, Stephens testified that he secretly gave Shoffner $36,000 in cash over a 2½-year period, during which time his employer’s share of the state’s bond business increased exponentially.

Hays said voters should cast their ballots for him because he focused for 24 years as mayor of North Little Rock on making people’s lives better and dealing with issues and problems “without regard to party.”

He said he balanced 24 budgets, reduced the city’s debt and laid the foundation for creating jobs.

“We stand on our record, and we feel that record reflects the kind of activity that is needed in Congress,” Hays said.

Hill said voters should elect him to Congress based on his experience of more than three decades in the private sector creating jobs, helping others create jobs, and seeing their struggles and successes. In contrast, he says Hays focused on raising taxes and spending money as mayor of North Little Rock.

He said his experience in state and federal government would allow him to have “an immediate high level of productivity” representing people and helping them deal with the federal government.

Hill said he would be “a check and balance on the Obama administration, and my opponent is going to caucus with the Democrats and he’s going to vote with the Democrats.”

Hays said he’s been endorsed by the Blue Dog Coalition and “if I had my choice, I’d form a third party and call it the GPP party for the grandparents’ party. … I am my own Democrat, and I am going to answer to the constituents of the 2nd District.”

The Blue Dog Coalition, formed in 1995, is an official caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives comprised of 15 fiscally conservative Democrats who are deeply committed to the financial stability and national security of the United States and dedicated to finding bipartisan solutions to the nation’s biggest challenges, according to its website.

Standiford said voters should vote for her because the Democratic and Republican parties have created more government, less prosperity and fewer jobs over the years.

“I want my children to have more freedom, not less freedom,” she said.

Hays said he wants to improve workforce training and infrastructure, such as highways, to create more jobs. He said he would like to serve on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

“They keep kicking the highway bill down the road,” he said, referring to Congress. “I think we need to find a permanent way to deal with increased funding for transportation. I don’t have an answer, but I would certainly work in a bipartisan way to find it.”

Hill said he wants to work on changing the federal government’s regulatory and tax policies that make it difficult to create jobs and improve workforce education.

“My focus is going to be on public policies that will increase economic growth in Arkansas and across the country,” he said. “The expense and burden of the tax system is an impediment to small-business capital formation.”

Hill said he would like to serve on either the House Fi- nancial Services Committee or the House Ways and Means Committee, but the committee that he serves on “is a secondary issue to providing good representation.”

Hays said he doesn’t favor repealing the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act enacted in 2010, but “I am for fixing it.”

Among other things, he said certain record- keeping requirements could be reduced, taxes on Cadillac health insurance plans that are more expensive could be cut, and the federal government could negotiate cheaper Medicare drug costs.

Money made available under the federal law has paid for the state’s fledgling private-option program through which the state is using federal Medicaid dollars to purchase private health insurance for low-income Arkansans. More than 170,000 Arkansans have enrolled in these private health insurance plans.

Hill said he favors repealing the federal health care law and “replacing it with market reforms that actually create affordable health insurance and maintain physician-patient relations that encourage competition and reduce mandates that have lead to the higher costs.” He said he’s reading bills to find the best ideas for replacing the law.

Standiford said she favors repealing the health care law and focusing instead on health savings plans to allow people to use their own money more wisely and reduce health care costs.

Hill said he favors cutting federal corporate income taxes because the nation has the highest corporate income rate among developed countries, which makes it tempting for U. S. corporations to move jobs and profits overseas.

Hays said there should be a continuing review of the nation’s tax structure “with the emphasis on trying to maintain fairness of the burden as it applies at all levels. We ought to inspire development and we ought to inspire innovation.”

Hill said he opposes raising the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour because he views it “as a barrier to creating more careers and opportunities for people [and] the people that hurt the most in that situation are the young people where we have the highest unemployment rates.”

He said he would like to be able to support a proposed ballot measure to increase the state’s minimum wage from $6.25 to $8.50 by 2017, “but I want to make sure it doesn’t have a material impact on job opportunities, particularly in our district.” He said he’s consulting economists and local businesses to try to understand the proposal’s impact on jobs.

Republicans gubernatorial nominee Asa Hutchinson and U.S. Reps. Tom Cotton, Rick Crawford and Tim Griffin have said they plan to vote for the ballot measure to increase the state’s minimum wage.

Hays said he’ll vote for the measure, and he doesn’t believe that “it would have any effect on job production.”

He said he favors increasing the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, and he hopes “we can figure out a bipartisan way to come up with a number.”

Standiford said she opposes raising the federal minimum wage because it will reduce introductory-level jobs and make it more difficult for young people to gain the experience that they need. She said she’ll vote against the ballot measure raising the state’s minimum wage.

Standiford said she wants to eliminate the federal departments of commerce, education, energy, housing and urban development and interior.

Hill said he supports eliminating the U.S. Department of Education because too much of its money is spent on overhead and bureaucracy and “not spent productively as grants back to helping states and local governments solve problems.” He said the federal government should send block grants to states to allow them to design their own workforce training programs at less cost than the myriad of federal work training programs.

Hays said “there is a lot of waste” in the federal government that he’ll work to eliminate it, such as spending $2 billion a year on unneeded real estate rent payments.

Among other things, Standiford said she wants to work on removing marijuana from the list of federal controlled substances and repealing the Patriot Act and eliminating the National Security Agency.

Hays said decisions about abortion “ought to be between a woman and her family and her God.”

Hill said he opposes abortion except to save the life of the mother and in cases of rape and incest.

Standiford said government “doesn’t have a role to play” regarding abortions because they would be performed underground if they were illegal.

Before considering sending large amounts of American ground troops to Syria and Iraq to fight the Islamic State, Hill said he would ask “is this a clear and present danger to the United States and our interests, may we design a clear mission that our military commanders believe is achievable with our resources and our coalition resources,” and “is this mission something that is likely to have the support of the American people and the Congress.

“We should utilize American ground forces only … once we have exhausted all other alternatives,” he said.

Hays said “we don’t need to be the cowboy riding in on the white horse. I think we were that in Desert Storm II,” the war in Iraq under President George W. Bush.

“While I know that the international connectivity that we have doesn’t leave anybody immune, I think that those in Europe and the Middle East that are nextdoor, they ought to shoulder a concomitant part of the responsibility” in Iraq and Syria, he said.

“At this point, I don’t believe that has been happening,” he said.

Standiford said she is opposed to sending America combat troops to Iraq and Syria to fight the Islamic State.

“Our military was meant to defend our country and our people, and not to nation-build and maintain law and order around the world, and certainly not to protect our interest in commodities across the world,” she said.