Bills are abominable

Last Sunday, this newspaper published an editorial warning of the consequences of a bill in the Arkansas Legislature to remove legal advertising from newspapers. This would reduce transparency and make it more difficult for the public or reporters to hold public officials accountable. A bad bill.

In fact, this legislative session produced a rash of abominable bills. There are bills that would criminalize transgender people, librarians, and doctors seeking to help trans youth or women seeking abortions. A bill that siphons our tax dollars away from public schools to private schools and bans large swaths of American history. Bills to pretend that racism does not exist such as banning affirmative action and banning training on implicit bias. Bills to ban books, undercut the solar-power industry and investors who care about the environment. The governor happily signs these flawed laws.

This same editorial staff endorsed candidate Sarah Sanders for governor knowing her previous job was working for a guy who insisted on misinformation and lies, which she regurgitated. Did you think she would suddenly care about social justice and transparency in local news? This paper and more than half of Arkansas voters choose candidates with an R next to their name, not for qualities indicating they would serve the public interest, but well … just because. Yes, we will live with the consequences.

Many of these terrible bills are copycat legislation created by extremist out-of-state think tanks and are rife with authoritarianism. With the specter of local newspapers going under, perhaps the Democrat-Gazette will now work to expose the sources and money behind these laws and to call out elected officials who oppose civil and human rights.

TERI PATRICK Little Rock