Ethics
Ethics Commission Addressed 15 Complaints Against Huckabee in Career, Five Resulted in Violations. The Arkansas Ethics Commission addressed 15 complaints against Mike Huckabee during his political career. Five resulted in findings that he violated ethics guidelines. [1]
As Governor, Huckabee Hired and Paid His Brother In-Law With Taxpayer’s Money for Position that “Wasn’t Necessary.” State legislators discovered that Arkansas is paying salaries with money that could go toward lowering interest rates for low-income homeowners. One legislator responded, “You mean [former] Governor [Mike] Huckabee had been using these positions for people to go running around instead of work for the state?” According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, “the $72,000 annual salary of Jim Harris, Huckabee's brother in-law and former press spokesman who worked at the state Department of Emergency Management, was funded through the finance authority.” Arkansas’ new governor fired Huckabee’s brother in-law in January saying his position wasn’t needed. [2]
Huckabee Chief of Staff Brenda Turner Suddenly Left the Campaign. Huckabee’s long time aide, his chief of staff during his tenure as governor, unexpectedly left Huckabee’s presidential campaign. A spokeswoman first said Brenda Turner is “taking a break” from the campaign, and then Huckabee’s campaign manager confirmed that Turner “is no longer with the campaign. Neither cited any reason other than she Turner “was tired.” [3]
Fired Judges Said Huckabee’s Chief of Staff Directed Them to Rule in Favor of Business and Insurance Agencies Over Workers. An Arkansas attorney alleged “that a top aide to ex-governor and presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee pressured judges to rule against injured workers and played a role in the firings of three judges who say they were removed for favoring claimants over business.” Affidavits signed by two of the fired judges “allege a pattern of intimidation that left administrative law judges openly joking around the Arkansas Workers' Compensation Commission offices in Little Rock that they could be fired for ruling against Wal-Mart.” One of the judges “said he was told after he was hired by former Huckabee Chief of Staff Brenda Turner that he needed to be mindful of Huckabee's pro-business stance. ‘She later stated that I should 'remember that we have a very pro-business governor,’’ Daniels said in a March 21, 2005, affidavit. ‘I believed then that I was being directed by the governor's chief of staff to interpret act 796 of 1993 and any cases which came before me in a manner that would result in decisions favorable to respondents and the business and insurance industry without regard to the facts and the law,’ Daniels said in the affidavit.” [4]
Huckabee Used State Aircraft More Than 700 Times In 9 ½ Years as Governor, Cost Taxpayers Nearly $500K. Gov. Mike Huckabee used state aircraft more than 700 times during his 9 ½ years as governor. During his tenure, Huckabee logged more than 1,400 taxpayer-funded flight hours. Mike Huckabee cost the state $485,062 for his travel on state planes since 2002. The number of flights on state aircraft made by the governor, his family or staff went from 66 in 1997 to 106 in 2002 to 80 in 2005. But his out of state trips in those years went from four in 1997 to 17 in 2002 to 40 in 2005. [5]
Recent ethics stories
Do As I Say, Not As I Do?
You remember those robocalls on Huckabee's behalf that Huckabee criticized? Well, it turns out that he has accepted contributions from that same group:
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More Gifts
Huckabee's ever-growing list of ethics complaints gets a little bit longer:
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Huckabee Loves Gifts
Mike Huckabee recalls the tale thusly: "At a campaign stop in Michigan yesterday, a woman came up to me and said 'I don't have any money but I want to give you something for the campaign.' Then she reached out to me and gave me a gold ring."
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Huckabee Hit For Gifts From Appointees
Maybe Huckabee was just helping to spread the giving spirit throughout the year. But apparently, as governor, Huckabee thought it was better to receive -- thousands of dollars worth of gifts from donors, staff and appointees -- ignoring the obvious ethical concerns.
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It's War in Iowa
Phone/email campaign highlights Giuliani's shady inner circle and includes mentions of "pedophile priest" accusations.
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Environment
Huckabee Dodged Taking Position on Global Warming, But Said The “Earth Belongs to God” and We “Have No Right to Destroy It.” Asked if he would make global warming a central issue in his campaign, Huckabee said “I don’t try to get into the middle of the science of global warming.” On human’s role in climate change, Hucakbee said, “There may be. But whether there is or there isn’t, it doesn’t release us from the responsibility to be good stewards of the environment. It’s the old boy scout rule: you leave your campsite in as good or better shape than how you found it. It’s a spiritual issue. [The earth] belongs to God. I have no right to destroy it. I think we work toward alternative energy sources. [We need to make it] like the Manhattan Project or going to the moon. We need to accelerate our energy independence.” [6]
Recent environment stories
Huckabee And Thompson: Global Warming Overblown
"Tonight on CBS Evening News, each of the 10 leading presidential candidates will be asked, “Do you think the risks of climate change are at all overblown?"
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Health Care
Arkansas Ranked 46th in State Health Rankings. Hobbled by obesity and smoking ranks and low per capita spending on public health, Arkansas ranked 46th out of the 50 states by the nonprofit United Health Foundation. The state ranked next-to-last in the amount of money spent on public health programs and in the bottom ten for the percentage of its population that smoked, were obese, were uninsured or had not been immunized. The percentage of obese in Arkansas grew from 26 percent to 28 percent from 2005 to 2006. Arkansas was criticized for immunization coverage for small children, which the report said dropped from 82.4 percent to 67.8 percent from 2005 to 2006. [7]
Huckabee Said Universal Health Insurance Would Bankrupt America. Asked if he would have to raise taxes to cover his national health care ideas, Huckabee said “I don’t think we have to raise taxes. The problem is when people think the answer is universal health care. The issue is universal health. We do need a broader coverage, but it can’t be everything you want any time you want it. We have universal health care for acute trauma. We don’t have universal insurance coverage for everybody. It would bankrupt us under the current system. What we need a system is where everyone has skin in the game, personal responsibility, where there are incentives for healthy behavior and for management of one’s health-care expenses.” [8]
Recent health care stories
Huckaboom? Try Hucka-Bush!
Mike Huckabee may have chuckled his way to an Iowa caucus win, but the voters are serious about rejecting President Bush’s failed leadership. The fact is, a vote for Mike Huckabee, like all the Republican candidates, is a vote for a third Bush term on everything from Iraq to health care, to sticking with Bush's budget busting special interest tax cuts. The American people, though, want real change and new leadership. Huckabee's not alone, and he may not win the GOP nomination. One thing is clear: whoever wins, a vote for any of the Republican candidates is a vote for a third Bush term.
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Immigration
Huckabee Said He Would Consider Anti-Citizenship Law for Children of Illegal Immigrants, But That It Wasn’t His Top Issue. Asked if he would consider laws that would say the children of illegal immigrants shouldn't automatically become citizens, Mike Huckabee said, “Maybe that should be looked at. I mean, if people are rushing across the border, illegally, delivering a baby and then saying, ‘Whew, now we're here.’ I think that's a little disingenuous to the concept of really being a naturally-born U.S. citizen. But it's not an issue that I have put a stake in the ground and said: This is how we ought to handle it.” [9]
Huckabee Proposed Extending College Scholarships to Illegal Aliens. Governor Mike Huckabee proposed extending scholarship eligibility and in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens who graduate from Arkansas high schools. [10]
Huckabee Stands Closer to Ted Kennedy and John McCain on Immigration. “Wherever he goes, Republican audiences ask him about illegal immigration, and he answers with a meandering metaphorical anecdote about why the nation's borders should be as rigorous as airline security. But there is little doubt that Huckabee stands closer to President Bush, Ted Kennedy and John McCain on the issue than he does to the send-them-back-to-Mexico base of his own party. He speaks of creating a new process for receiving immigrants ‘who do want to come here, do jobs that we need them to do, do them in an orderly legal way.’” [11]
Huckabee Suggested Alien Worker Permit Process Might Be Appropriate. “Clearly our laws are antiquated - they don't reflect reality anymore,” Governor Mike Huckabee said, suggesting that some kind of alien worker permit process would be more appropriate. “They need to tell us who they are, where they are and why they're here, and if they are healthy,” Huckabee said. “We need to know that for our own security purposes. We need to know that from a standpoint of public health, and know it from a standpoint of making sure that when people do come, that they are taking jobs because we have no one else to fill them.” [12]
Huckabee Against “Real ID” Law. Mike Huckabee criticized the “real ID” law, which charged DMV staffers with ensuring that applicants for drivers licenses were who they said they were. Huckabee called the move “outrageous.” “You're essentially asking the front-line clerks at the DMV to become an INS agent and a law enforcement agent,” he said. [13]
Recent immigration stories
The Tancredo Effect
Another installment of Governor Huckabee vs. presidential candidate Huckabee. This time, Mike continues his rightward spiral on immigration:
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Dissent Among the Ranks?
Yesterday I talked about Huckabee's flip-flop on immigration. After his top immigration surrogate claimed he supported a constitutional amendment to deny birthright citizenship -- and after his campaign refused to back away from it -- they later put out a statement reversing his position.
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Huckabee Flip-Flops on Birthright Citizenship
Today the Washington Times reported that Mike Huckabee vowed to amend the Constitution to prevent children born in the U.S. to illegal aliens from automatically becoming American citizens. It attributed this information to his "his top immigration surrogate," and fits nicely with his recent sharp right turn on immigration.
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Iraq
2007: Huckabee Saluted Bush’s “Stubborn” Stance on Iraq. Huckabee saluted President Bush’s speech calling for tens of thousands of additional troops sent to Iraq. “I think we have to give the commander-in-chief an opportunity to make this succeed. You said people have said he’s stubborn. That’s a good quality in an executive. You don’t want someone who changes the course of a military every time there’s a new opinion poll…It was an important move for the president tonight…It’s a pretty gutsy thing for the president to do…First of all, to say there have been mistakes and then to say we’re going to put more troops in. He’s putting a lot of things on the line.” [14]
One Week After Attacking McCain for His Support of the Iraq Troop Surge, Huckabee Said He Would Vote for It If He Were In the Senate. Mike Huckabee said that if he were in the Senate he would vote for the President's troop surge, yet Huckabee attacked McCain for his support of the surge a week earlier when Huckabee “took issue with Senator John McCain's support of additional troops in Iraq, warning that stance could prove to be as unpopular with voters as the war on the whole appears to be. 'That, and a Washington address, are probably not strong attributes at this point,' Huckabee said.” [15]
Huckabee Supports an Iraq Timetable, But Not Date Specific. Asked to better explain the timeline in Iraq that he calls for in his book, Mike Huckabee explained “Well, I was careful not to say there should be a specific timetable. In fact, I've said it's like a baseball game, not a football game. You can't put it on a specific clock…We have to tell them, look; we're not going to be here indefinitely. What we're going to expect of you is, you're going to have to get control of this sectarian violence, this civil war that is just ripping this whole thing apart. Because the American people are not going to stay indefinitely. Now, when I say a timetable, I want to be very careful that you don't just say, OK, December 31, that's the last day; we start pulling out the helicopters and fly away. [16]
Huckabee: Unrealistic to Think We’ll Be out of Middle East in Single-Digit Amount of Years. “If we look at even our participation in World War II, we were decades in Japan and Germany and the rest of Europe,” Huckabee said. “In fact, for the rest of the world. I think it’s unrealistic to think that we’re going to be out in a matter of months or even in single-digit years in that part of the Middle East.” [17]
Huckabee Doesn’t Have a Real Position on Iraq. “On Iraq, Huckabee has technically supported President Bush. ‘That is his decision to make, and also his decision to sell,’ Huckabee said of Bush's plan to surge troops into Baghdad. ‘Let's hope he is right.’ Then in a patent dodge that will not be sustainable in a national campaign, he points out that he does not get the same classified briefings as President Bush, making it difficult for him to weigh in on the details of the plan. ‘If he is wrong then I think it's not just a political tragedy, it's a human tragedy for the people who have paid with their lives to be there,’ Huckabee says, sounding less like a Republican candidate than a disillusioned man on the street.” [18]
Huckabee Said He Wants Troops Home But Not In the Face of World War III. Asked if he would look for a plan to bring the troops home were he President, Huckabee said, “We're always looking for a way to get our troops home. You know, 80 percent of our National Guard troops in Arkansas were deployed, many of them twice, and some of them are looking to go back. I'll guarantee you, if there's anybody's son or husband who's in Iraq, I want him home. I want him home where he's filling a role in his community and is back at work and he's back reading his kids stories at night and tucking them into bed. But we also are at war. This is World War III, and the Islamic fascists are serious about killing us; not just making life miserable for us, they want to destroy us. These people know why they're there as soldiers. I want them to come home, but I want the job to be done before they do.” [19]
Recent Iraq stories
Huckabee Admires Bush's Stubbornness on Iraq
Following President Bush's address to the nation on Iraq, Arkansas Governor and Republican Presidential contender Mike Huckabee said he supports President Bush's refusal to change course in Iraq. In an interview on Fox News Channel Huckabee explained, "you said people have said he's stubborn. That's a good quality in an executive."
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Social Security
Huckabee Defended Bush Social Security Plan but Acknowledged it Doesn’t Solve Long-Term “Financial Difficulty.” Former Governor Huckabee defended President Bush’s social security proposal and “questioned why Democrats are criticizing the proposal without hearing the details for the private investment accounts. Huckabee, in an interview, acknowledged that the president's plan may not necessarily solve Social Security's long-term financial difficulty. ‘I don't think anyone pretends it solves the long term issue of solvency,’ Huckabee said. ‘It's trying to address methods to improve the system and broaden the base of how it is funded.’” [20]
Taxes/Deficit
After Huckabee Signed No-Tax Pledge, Anti-Tax Activists Remain Wary. According to the Associated Press, former Governor Huckabee has not convinced fiscal conservative's that he can be trusted to cut taxes. "During his 10 years as Arkansas governor, Huckabee supported numerous tax increases. Now that he's left office and is running for president, the Southern Baptist minister is struggling to convince fiscal conservatives who wield significant sway in the GOP nomination race that he can be trusted not to sin again. Huckabee recently signed a no-tax pledge, but anti-tax activists remain wary of his claim to have reformed his ways." [21]
Club for Growth: Huckabee's Record "Does Not Indicate a Strong Commitment to Limited Government." "The Club for Growth, which advocates limited government and lower taxes, has repeatedly criticized Huckabee since his formation in January of a presidential exploratory committee. It notes that as governor, Huckabee increased taxes on sales, gasoline, cigarettes and nursing homes. 'I'm glad to see he signed the pledge, but as a given matter what politicians have done is a better indicator than what they say they're going to do. His record clearly does not indicate a strong commitment to limited government,' said Pat Toomey, president of the Club for Growth." [22]
Huckabee Raised Taxes Over His Tenure As Governor, Hurting the Middle-Class. Governor Huckabee pushed for a sales tax increase in 1996, 2002 and 2004, and a fuel tax in 1999 squeezing the pockets of middle-class citizens on everyday purchases and for workers who needed to drive to and from work. Huckabee also made it clear he opposed sales tax exemption bills because they would hurt his tight state budget. A conservative fiscal group pointed out that “by the end of his ten-year tenure, Governor Huckabee was responsible for a 37% higher sales tax in Arkansas, 16% higher motor fuel taxes.” [23]
Huckabee Buckled On Tax Pledge. After reversing positions on signing an anti-tax pledge, Huckabee said “I was not pressured by ATR, because I have always shared their vision for fair, flat and low taxes,” he said. “I'm glad I had the opportunity to sign the pledge.” But only weeks ago, asked about the very same pledge, Huckabee said “I think that it's a very dangerous position to make pledges that are outside the most important pledge you make, and that is the oath you take to uphold the Constitution and protect the people of the United States.” And further, “I don't want to put myself in a box and make a pledge to an interest group that isn't really as sacred as the pledge that I would make to the people of the country to uphold the Constitution.” [24]
Recent taxes/deficit stories
Huckaboom? Try Hucka-Bush!
Mike Huckabee may have chuckled his way to an Iowa caucus win, but the voters are serious about rejecting President Bush’s failed leadership. The fact is, a vote for Mike Huckabee, like all the Republican candidates, is a vote for a third Bush term on everything from Iraq to health care, to sticking with Bush's budget busting special interest tax cuts. The American people, though, want real change and new leadership. Huckabee's not alone, and he may not win the GOP nomination. One thing is clear: whoever wins, a vote for any of the Republican candidates is a vote for a third Bush term.
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Huckabee To Sign Pledge He Called "Dangerous" "Gimmick" No Tax Promise Ignores High Tax Record
In a complete about face today, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee announced during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Committee conference that he would indeed sign a no new taxes pledge. But conservatives may not be aware that prior to his announcement, Huckabee declared that such pledges were "dangerous" and were "gimmicks"...
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Busy Huckabee Tries to Fudge His Record On Taxes In New Hampshire
Despite evidence to the contrary, Huckabee continues to deny his record of raising taxes as Governor in attempt to pander to the right wing conservative base. But the truth is, Mike Huckabee has a long history of fiscal irresponsibility and was rated one of the worst among freshman state executives by the Fiscal Policy Report Card
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Huckabee Brings His Questionable Ethics Record to the Presidential Race
Immediately out of the gate, Huckabee found himself on the defensive, deflecting questions regarding his tenure as Governor of Arkansas and his record of ethics violations and fiscal recklessness. The most recent scandal surrounding his draining of the state's emergency funds and the destruction of government property before leaving office is bringing to light his long history of bilking tax-payers for his own benefit.
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Footnotes
[AP, 11/23/06; AP, 2/2/07]
[Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 3/8/07]
[AP, 3/7/07; Arkansas News Bureau, 3/7/07]
[www.workcompcentral.com, 3/7/07; Arkansas Times Blog, 3/8/07]
[Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 2/12/06, Pine Bluff Commercial, 2/13/06]
[Newsweek, 3/5/07]
[The Morning News, 12/5/06]
[Newsweek, 3/5/07]
[ABC, This Week, 2/10/07]
[Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 2/6/05]
[Salon.com, 3/5/07]
[Arkansas News Bureau, 3/9/06]
[The Capital Times, 7/21/05]
[Hannity & Colmes, 1/10/07; Fox & Friends, 1/11/07]
[The Hill, 2/7/07]
[ABC, This Week, 2/10/07]
[USA Today, 2/13/06]
[Salon.com, 3/5/07]
[MSNBC, Hardball, 2/13/07]
[Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 2/4/05]
[AP, 3/14/07]
[AP, 3/14/07]
[Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 1/19/06; The Commercial Appeal, 7/1/99, The Associated Press, 4/2/99; Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 11/15/02, The Associated Press, 11/15/02; AP, 2/6/04; Arkansas Democrat Gazette, 1/19/06; Club for Growth, Presidential White Paper #1]
[AP, 3/8/07; NBC, Meet the Press, 1/28/07; ABC, This Week With George Stephanopoulos, 2/11/07]
