Highway Commission at Issue Among Arkansas Truckers
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Accusations flowed that commission mismanagement of highway spending has allowed interstate highways to crumble, as did declarations that the elected governor and Legislature would be more accountable than a five-member body that answers to no one.
The commission has been the sole authority for highway spending for 45 years. Voters approved Amendment 42 in 1952 to shield highway improvement from political taint following a scandal involving the way former Gov. Sid McMath's administration spent road dollars.
Only toward the end of a lengthy conversation recently did the trucking lobby leaders acknowledge a big reason why truckers want to oust the constitutionally independent body that controls state highway spending: Getting rid of the Highway Commission may be the only sure way for the trucking industry to keep toll booths off Arkansas interstates, the state highways that truckers travel most.
When a legislative highway plan seemed in doubt months ago, Chairman Herby Branscum Jr. of Perryville declared the commission's authority to put toll booths at bridges on Arkansas' interstates without legislative approval.
The commission later voted to apply for acceptance in a federal pilot program for toll roads and publicized a plan to collect $1 billion at more than 100 booths along interstates crisscrossing the state.
Truckers would have paid about 75 cents of every dollar collected.
The trucking lobby vehemently opposed the measure as a tax on roads for which the
riving public already had paid.
The Arkansas Motor Carriers Association joined the American Highway Users Alliance, Americans for Tax Reform and the National Association of Truck Stop Operators and others in a national anti-toll campaign that they said would begin in Arkansas.
Lane Kidd, president of the Arkansas industry group, likened some members of the five-member Highway Commission to the autocratic Russian politburo, with unbridled powers to tax.
Gov. Mike Huckabee joined with the coalition of road users last November, saying he was philosophically opposed to any tax increase, including tolls, enacted by any non-elected entity without public debate and approval by him and the Legislature.
So far, Huckabee has distanced himself from truckers' drive to put a proposal to kill the commission on the 2000 ballot.
Legislation introduced during the recent session would have wiped out the commission's authority to impose tolls by amending the 1973 Arkansas Turnpike Authority Act.
When the measure died in committee, some lawmakers who had insisted that voters should decide any highway funding plan began looking seriously at legislated fuel tax increases as a reasonable alternative to tolls.
During the debate that followed, Branscum offered quietly that more tax dollars for highways would diminish the need for tolls.
Lawmakers eventually passed tax increases of 4 cents for diesel and 3 cents for gasoline, and referred a $575 million bond issue for interstate highway improvements to a June 15 public election.
The prospects of toll booths on the interstate had cooled, for the time being. Truckers may see killing the highway commission as their best shot at keeping it that way.
