One and Done

Republican State Representative Aaron Burkes, a freshman from Benton County, announced yesterday that he won’t run for re-election next year. For the record when talking with a reporter, he said he wanted to spend more time with his family, and that's what was printed in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

More forthcoming when talking with the Benton County Daily Record, Burkes said it was frustrating being in the state legislature. He said some lawmakers just don’t care for the northwest region of the state, and "being a conservative northwest Arkansas Republican, I had a lot of strikes against me." It is tough being taken seriously when area Republicans vote against all new revenues and then complain about not getting enough funding for education or highways in Northwest Arkansas. It is even worse when many Northwest Arkansas Republicans seem obsessed with legislation about school prayer, intelligent design, school vouchers, abortion, gays, socialistic pre-K education, pornography, and immigrant bashing.

Representative Burkes was not among the reactionary Republican fringe like former Representative Jim Bob Dugger, former Senator Jim Holt, or the term-limited Representatives Eric Harris, Mike Kenney, and Daryl Pace. He appeared to be a thoughtful conservative. "When I got there, it seemed that many were out for themselves and getting credit than making decisions for the long-term interest based on logic and economics," Burkes said.

Burkes said "a number of the Republicans we have are not limited-government conservatives; they’re big-government conservatives, like Bush. I was down there to do some good. I realize that’s very difficult to do when you’re so hugely outnumbered. ” He said he'd just as soon not name names of lawmakers he described as big-government conservatives, at least at the moment. Benton County is presently represented by three GOP Senators and seven Republican state representatives.

Burkes' decision means that there will be six open House seats in Benton County. They could do a lot worse than Aaron Burkes and probably will.