After eight years, governor moves out, moves on to next phase

Gov. Asa Hutchinson's eight-year administration started with a contentious health care policy debate and then was marked by a once-in-a-century health care crisis.

The policy debate concerned whether to continue the "private option," the program begun under Gov. Mike Beebe that uses Obamacare dollars to purchase private health insurance for 343,000 Arkansans. You may have heard of it.

The crisis was the COVID-19 pandemic. I'm sure you've heard of it.

Hutchinson talked about those challenges and others in an interview in his office Dec. 20. This column is the second of a two-part series. The first concerned his potential campaign for president. He'll decide in the next three months if he's running.

During the pandemic, Hutchinson closed public schools to in-person instruction at the end of the spring 2020 semester, then reopened them that fall. While he closed some businesses temporarily and eventually instituted a mask mandate, Arkansas did not lock down to the extent some other states did. Much of his efforts were based on information and persuasion.

I asked how he balanced controlling the virus' spread with other priorities such as the economy and schools. How did he sleep at night while making life and death decisions?

"I had confidence in my decision-making ability. I've been in crisis situations before," he said. "But then secondly, I got asked the same question when I was at Homeland Security: How do you sleep at night when you know that if there's a terrorist attack, you could be held responsible? And the answer is, I believe in a sovereign God, and I pray about decisions. I make it based upon the best information I have, and I have confidence in that decision and the future, and Who directs the paths of nations."

He does not typically wrestle with decisions after he makes them. He does sometimes reflect on those that were made too quickly and without the right information, but COVID was not one of those situations.

"Obviously, there's some decisions that may be in terms of history judged rightly or wrongly," he said. "But I feel comfortable exactly what we did, and I think on the big issues we made the right decisions."

As for the private option, Hutchinson had to overcome early opposition from legislators within his own Republican Party to reach the 75 percent support needed for funding. He succeeded by buying time, through creative parliamentary maneuvering, and by adding a work requirement that has since been disallowed by the federal government.

Asked about the program's conservative rationale, he said it's a practical approach to government. Later known as Arkansas Works and now as ARHOME, it was already part of the state's health care system and the hospitals' financial structure when he took office. Then he added the work requirement, a conservative approach.

A lot has happened over the last eight years. When asked about his biggest successes as governor, he pointed to "those areas that would not have happened without my leadership. And so it's the tax cuts, it is the computer science initiative, it is leading through COVID, transforming state government. These are things that would have never happened without me going out there, putting forth my political capital, and leading our state in those areas. I think you can also add protecting the Buffalo River. That would have never happened in terms of buying out that hog farm without a governor stepping in."

Remember all that? Hutchinson cut taxes across all income levels, increased the number of students taking computer science classes from 500 to 23,544, and reduced the number of cabinet-level agencies from 42 to 15. The state announced it was buying the hog farm in January 2020 for $6.2 million.

Now that he's leaving office, Hutchinson, 72, has no plans to retire. He'd like to write a book. If he runs for president, he'll have to start soon.

In the short term, moving out of the Governor's Mansion and his office has been a big project. Eight years of archived materials are going to the University of Arkansas.

He'll locate an office in Rogers from which to pursue his national initiatives. The good news is, he won't have to find a place to live.

"We actually kept our home there, thank goodness, so eight years I've had my home there because otherwise I might not be able to afford one up there now," he said with a laugh.

Steve Brawner is a syndicated columnist in Arkansas. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @stevebrawner.