they couldn’t trust Nelson not to mislead them in the campaign, they couldn’t trust him togovernor. A couple of days later, I was reelected, 57 to 43 percent.
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Painting From Photo , The victory was sweet in many ways. The people had decided to let me serve fourteen years, longer than any other Arkansas governor in history. And for the first time, I had carried Sebastian County, which was then still the most hard-core Republican big county in the In a campaign appearance in Fort Smith, I had promised that if I did win there, Hillary and I would dance down Garrison Avenue, the town’s main street. A couple of nights after the election, along with a few hundred supporters, we kept our commitment. It was cold and raining, but we danced away and enjoyed every minute of it. We had waited sixteen years foa general-election win there. The only really dark moment of the general election was purely personal. In August, Motdoctor discovered a lump in her right breast. Forty-eight hours later, while Dick, Roger, and waited in the hospital, Mother had the lump removed. After the procedure, she was her uchipper self and was back at work on the campaign in no time, though she faced months of chemotherapy. The cancer had aleady spread to twenty-seven nodes in her arm, but she didn’tell anyone this—including me. In fact, she never told us how bad it was until 1993. In December, I resumed my work for the Democratic Leadership Council, launching the Texas DLC chapter in Austin. In my speech, I argued that, contrary to our liberal critics, we were good Democrats. We believed in keeping the American dream alive for all people. We believed in government, though not in the status quo. And we believed government was spending too
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Piano oil painting , the United States was beginning its buildup for the Gulf War, which in two months would development, the infrastructure. I said the DLC stood for a modern, mainstream agendaexpansion of opportunity, not bureaucracy; choice in public schools and child care; responsibility and empowerment for poor people; and reinventing government, away frotop-down bureaucracy of the industrial era, to a leaner, more flexible, more innovative mappropriate for the modern global economy. I was trying to develop a national message for the Democrats, and the effort fueled speculation that I might enter the presidential race in 1992. During the recent campaign, I hadsaid on more than one occasion that I would serve out my term if elected. That’s what I thought I would do. I was excited about the coming legislative session. Though I stronglydisagreed with many of his decisions, like killing the Brady bill and vetoing the Family and Medical Leave Act, I liked President Bush and had a good relationship with the White House. Also, a campaign to defeat him looked hopeless. Saddam Hussein had drive the President’s approval ratings into the stratosphere. On the morning of January 15, 1991, with ten-year-old Chelsea holding the Bible for me, I took the oath of office in Little Rock for the last time. Following the custom, I delivered my informal address in the crowded chamber of the House of Representatives, then, at noon, made a more formal address at the public ceremony, which was held in the Capitol rotunda because of inclement weather. The new legislature had more women and blacks than ever. The Speaker of the House, John Lipton, and the president pro tempore of the Senate, Jerry Bookout, were progressives and strong supporters of mine. Jim Guy Tucker was lieutenant governor, probably the ablest person ever to hold the job, and we were working together, rather than at cross-purposes, for the first time in years. I dedicated my inaugural address to the men and women from Ar-kansas serving in the Persian Gulf, and noted that it was appropriate that we were making a new beginning on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, because “we must go forward into the future together owill all be limited in what we achieve.” Then I outlined the most ambitious program I had ever proposed, in education, health care, highway
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American oil painting , ria; hanging around with them outside the chambers or in the cloakrooms; calling them late at night; and bringing umas, one of the state’s most distinguished and astute columnists, said, “For education, it was one of the best legislative sessions in the state’s history, arguably the best.” alth The legislature had its biggest fight over the school health clinics. I favored allowing the passed the National Rifle Association’s bill to prohibit cities and counties from adopting local gun-control ordinances, the same measure I had vetoed in 1989. No passed
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Decorative painting , In education, I proposed a big increase in adult literacy and training programs; apprenticeships for non-college-bound youths; college scholarships for all middle-class and low-income kids who took the required courses, made a B average, and stayed off drugs; preschool programs for poor kids; a new residential high school for math and science students; conversion of fourteen vo-tech schools into two-year colleges; and a $4,000 raise for teachers over two years. I asked the legislature to raise the sales tax half a cent and the corporate income tax half a percent to pay for them. There were also several reform measures in my package, including health insurance for pregnant women and for children; the removal of more than 250,000 taxpayers, more thpercent of the total, from the state income tax rolls; and an income tax credit to offset the sales-tax increase for up to 75 percent of the taxpayers. And for the next sixty-eight days, I worked to pass the program, bringing legislators to moffice; going to their committee hearings to argue personally for bills; cornering them inhalls, at nighttime events, or early in the morning at the Capitol cafete opposing legislators and their allied lobbyists together to hammer out compromises. By the end of the session, virtually my entire program had passed. The tax proposals received between 76 and 100 percent of the vote in both houses, including the votes of a majority of Republican lawmakers. Ernest D
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Fantasy oil painting Dumas noted that we also passed the largest highway program ever; greatly expanded hecare for poor families; improved the environment by passing proposals for solid-waste recycling and reduction and for “weakening the hand of polluting industries at the state’s pollution control agency”; and “spurned a few religious zealots” by providing school health clinics in poor communities. clinics to distribute condoms if the local school board approved. So did the Senate. The more conservative House was devoutly anti-condom. Finally the legislature adopted a compromise offered by Representative Mark Pryor, who in 2002 became Arkansas’ junior U.S. senator: nostate money could be used to buy condoms, but if bought with other funds, they could be distributed. Bob Lancaster, a witty columnist for theArkansas Gazette, wrote a hilarious article chronicling the struggle of the “condom Congress.” He called it, with apologies to Homer, the “Trojans War.” The legislature also southern legislature could say no to the NRA. Even in the more liberal Senate, this bill 26–7. At least I got the Senate to pass it late, so I could veto it after they went home and thecouldn’t override it. After the bill was sent to me, I had an extraordinary encounter with the
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Landscape oil painting , In April, I went to Los Angeles to speak to a luncheon for Education First, a citizens’ group dedicated to improving public education. After Sidney Poitier introduced me, I recounted three recent experiences with education in California that reflected both promise and peril for America’s future. The promise I had seen more than a year earlier when I spoke at California State University in Los Angeles to students with roots in 122 other nations. Their diversity was a good omen for our ability to compete with and relate to the rest of the global community. The perils were evident when Hillary and I visited with sixth-graders in East Los Angeles. They were great kids who had big dreams and a deep desire for normal lives. They told us their number one fear was of being shot going to and from school. They also said they did practice drills crouching under their desks in the event of a drive-by shooting. The children’s number two fear was that, when they turned thirteen, they would have to join a Texas if you veto this bill.” I knew I was getting older and more seasoned when I didn’t slug him. Instead, I smiled and said, “You don’t get it. I don’t like this bill. You know gun control will never be a problem in Arkansas. You’ve just got a chart on the wall in your fancy oin Washington with this bill at the top and all the states listed below. You don’t give a damn
led Components led Power led light led street light led interior light led ceiling light led droplight led tube led flood light led spot light led tin lantern get your gun and I’ll get mine. We’ll saddle up and meet in Texas.” As soon as the legislaturewent home, I vetoed the bill. Soon afterward, the NRA began running television ads attame. It wasn’t until I began writing this account that I realized that in my confrontation with the NRA lobbyist, I had acknowledged that I was considering running for President. At the time, I didn’t think there was a chance I’d do it. I just didn’t like to be threatened. After the session, Henry Oliver told me he wanted to leave. I hated to lose him, but after decades of proud service in the marines, the FBI, and local and state government, he had earned the I spent the next few months making sure our massive legislative program was well implemented and traveling the country for the Democratic Leadership Council. Because I wout there making the case for how we could regain “mainstream, middle-class” voters who “have left the party in droves for twenty years,” the press continued to speculate that I mightrun in 1992. In an interview in April, I joked about it, saying, “As long as nobody runs, everybody can be on the list, and it’s kind of nice. It makes my mother ha
