BRIAN CHILSON
led him to chair Regnat Populus, a ballot question committee named after the state’s motto, “the people rule.” It sought to put a wide-ranging ethics law on the ballot that would have limited the effects of money on politics. It failed to make the ballot after a paid canvassing firm did not gather the number of signatures needed to place the measure before voters. Spencer later worked to influence the passage of Amendment 94 to the Arkansas Constitution, which banned direct corporate contributions to state candidates and extended the amount of time former legislators must wait to serve as lobbyists. (The law left a few massive loopholes, which Spencer has been critical of.) Spencer also worked with primary opponent Tucker on an ethics package Tucker sponsored in the General Assembly. Spencer said he admires Tucker, but believes that by accepting money from political action committees and by working with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he’s abandoned important values. “What I teach my kids is that anybody who wants to serve their country can do it,” Spencer said. “It shouldn’t be predicated on the small nucleus of insiders from Washington, or the Heights for that matter, who anoint you. We shouldn’t have to go through the tollgate of democracy to do what we want to do to serve our communities, and I think that’s what the DCCC has become, unfortunately.” Spencer, whose website is cantbuypaul.com, has made the refusal to accept donations from PACs a centerpiece of his campaign. So far he’s raised $251,479 from more than 4,000 donors across the country, according to the most recent campaign finance records, filed March 31. He’s spent $131,155 and has $120,324 cash on hand. Spencer’s fundraising has been substantially helped by his inclusion in the Great Slate, a fundraising campaign start by Tech Solidarity, a 501(c)4 organization of tech workers, largely from the San Francisco Bay Area. The Great Slate includes 10 first-time “progressive” candidates with day jobs, “an excellent campaign team, and a clear path to victory in a poor, rural district.” In the first quarter of 2018, the Great Slate raised $753,865 for the candidates. David Simon, the creator of HBO’s “The Wire” and “The Deuce,” also hosted a fundraiser for Spencer and a few other like-minded candidates in New York
and has contributed $4,000 to Spencer’s campaign. Spencer had never heard of Simon before. That fundraising haul has allowed him to hire a campaign staff of 17 and pay canvassers $15 per hour, in keeping with his call for a $15 federal minimum wage. Spencer has advertised widely online and in print, but spokesman Reed Brewer said the campaign would not run TV ads. “The effectiveness of television ads in recent elections — especially primaries — has been proven to be marginal at best, and a waste of funds at worst,” he said. MARCHING: Combs (second from left) leacing the Women’s March for Arkansas in 2017. Spencer has rolled out extensive additional policy proposals. He supports Sanders’ Medicare for qualifying. work here.” He said he’s encountered a All bill, universal housing vouchers for Spencer is pro-life. “I believe that lot of Democrats outside Pulaski County households with income of less than human life begins at conception and I in the 2nd District who are pro-life. $54,000, the elimination of $1.4 trillion believe that an unborn child is a human in student debt and establishing a sys- being,” he said. Poverty is responsible Marching on tem of banking within the U.S. Postal for some 40 percent of abortions, he Service to reach the 88 million Ameri- said. “I can work to fight poverty; I have GWEN COMBS SAID she’s running cans who lack the minimum amount no desire to fight against the law that for Congress because she believes we of money to open an account at a tra- is already on the books now in regard need to return to a more representaditional bank to abortion.” tive democracy. All of those proposals would stimuSpencer said he supports the Hyde “I believe in government of the peolate the economy and pay for them- Amendment, which prevents federal ple, for the people, and we just don’t selves, Spencer said. Eliminating the funds from being spent on abortion have that in Washington now. I’m the layers of profiteers that siphon away except to save the life of a woman or only woman, the only veteran and the Americans’ health care dollars before in cases of rape or incest. He also said only [public school] teacher running they reach medical providers — includ- he supports banning abortion at fetal for this seat, and I think that gives me ing insurance companies, lawyers, lob- viability, wherever “medicine deter- the ability to relate to almost everyone.” byists, pharmacy benefit managers and mines.” (The viability threshold is Combs, 43, of Little Rock, is a gifted advertising agencies — and moving to a almost inevitablity a political deter- and talented teacher at Stephens Elesingle-payer health care system would mination as well as a medical and sci- mentary School in the Little Rock especially be a boon, Spencer said, sav- entific one. Courts have generally deter- School District. The school is 93 pering the country, by his estimate, around mined viability to be between 24 and 28 cent black, 2.2 percent Latino and 87 $500 billion annually. weeks, though some state legislatures, percent low-income. Questions her stuSpencer has pledged that, if elected, including Arkansas’s, have successfully dents asked her during the 2016 presihe would only serve for three terms defined viability at 20 weeks.) Spencer dential campaign compelled her into and then return to teaching and farm- said he supports Planned Parenthood activism, she said. ing. That he doesn’t have further politi- and would not vote to deny it Medic“Leading up to the election, one cal ambitions makes it easier for him aid funding. [of my students] asked me, ‘If Donald to advocate for average Arkansans Spencer said Democrats in Arkan- Trump is elected, will I be deported?’ through policies that, while uncon- sas understand his position. Some have And another asked me, if Donald Trump ventional, would dramatically improve said, “You can’t have any opposition to was elected, would he be murdered. their lives, he said. abortion, or you’re dead in the water,” That was the point when I said, ‘I really Meanwhile, Combs and Dunkley cite Spencer said. “That [attitude] might have to be noisy about this.’ ” Spencer’s position on abortion as dis- work in Brooklyn, but it’s not going to After the election, Combs read about
arktimes.com MAY 10, 2018
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