LITTLE ROCK — State House members will vote Friday on who they want the next speaker of the House to be, though the results may not matter if the winner’s party is not in control of that body come January.
Reps. Terry Rice, R-Waldron, and Darrin Williams, D-Little Rock, are the announced candidates to succeed Robert S. Moore Jr., D-Arkansas, as speaker.
If Williams gets the position, historians believe he will be the state’s first black House speaker. Rice would be the first Republican speaker since Reconstruction.
Democrats hold a majority of House seats now — 54 out of 100 — but which party will be in the majority when the next regular session convenes in January will not be known until after the Nov. 6 general election.
If Williams wins on Friday but his party loses its majority in November, the House could install Rice next year; conversely, Rice could win on Friday but see the speaker’s chair go to Williams if Democrats retain their majority.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Rice said he would respect the wishes of the next General Assembly, whether that works in his favor or against it.
“It’s the next assembly (that installs the speaker). We can’t hold them to what we do,” Rice said.
Williams said the winner of Friday’s election should be installed as speaker. He said that if he is elected he will start planning for the next session immediately.
“We’re going to have a number of new members who’ve never served in that body. We cannot wait until January when we’re sworn in to start planning,” he said.
Williams said it would be costly and inefficient to switch gears at the start of the next session in January, adding, “I’m sure my colleagues, who are very conservative in their financial affairs of state, they don’t want to do that.”
Rice said that after Friday’s election the House will have “two people maybe getting ready.”
Rice, 57, is the owner of Rice Furniture and Appliance in Waldron and a second-term House member. He said he is seeking to become Arkansas’ first Republican House speaker because he wants to “bring the balance of a two-party system to Arkansas and show that it can be done to work towards a smarter, more efficient state government.”
Rice said he has experience as a successful businessman and a record of working with members of both parties. As an example, he said he helped Rep. Eddie Cheatham, D-Crossett, get a proposed constitutional amendment to ease interest-rate limits through the House. The amendment, which also incorporated two other legislative proposals by the time it reached the ballot, was approved by voters in November 2010.
Rice also said he helped his opponent in the speaker’s race pass a bill that targeted copper theft by requiring scrap metal dealers to keep records on their scrap metal dealing. Gov. Mike Beebe signed the bill into law during the 2009 session.
“If we’re going to accomplish anything, and I think the last two sessions show, there will have to be that proverbial bipartisanship everybody talks about,” Rice said.
Asked to name his signature legislative achievements, Rice said he has tended to work “behind the scenes” to help pass good bills and block bad ones.
“I don’t really think I’ve got any bright and shining signature achievements,” he said. “I personally think we pass too much legislation and we do a lot of things that may not be necessary.”
Williams, 43, is a lawyer and a second-term House member. He previously served as an aide to former U.S. Sen. David Pryor, a member of the Little Rock Planning Commission and chief of staff and chief deputy for former Attorney General Mark Pryor, now a U.S. senator.
“Managing 130 employees and a budget of about $15 million gave me significant management experience in state government, but also, working in that office gave me a holistic understanding of all of state government,” Williams said. “The AG also had a legislative package, and I was able to take that package and get it passed. So when I came into the General Assembly in 2009, that wasn’t my first time out there.”
Williams said he decided to enter the speaker’s race after other House members of both parties encouraged him to run. He said that in addition to his experience, he would bring to the speaker’s chair a proven ability to build coalitions and reach across party lines.
“I realize that Republicans and Democrats both have good ideas,” he said.
Williams is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. His signature achievements as a legislator include sponsoring a law to protect taxpayers from fraud by tax preparers; guiding through the House a sentencing reform bill proposed by Beebe that seeks to ease prison overcrowding; and sponsoring the scrap metal law that Rice cited.
He acknowledged that Rice was a co-sponsor of the scrap metal measure.
“I appreciate him signing on, but he was not in the meetings, he did not forge the consensus, he did not help draft the legislation,” Williams said.
The election is predicated on the assumption that the winner will be re-elected. Neither Williams nor Rice has drawn a Democratic, Republican or independent opponent; the Libertarian and Green parties have not yet nominated their political candidates.
The Senate last year voted to make Larry Teague, D-Nashville, its president pro tem for the 89th General Assembly.