Arkansas Democrat Retires

Members of Congress have been announcing plans to retire recently. After awhile, that kind of announcement just becomes so much white noise.

But there was an announcement yesterday that caught my eye. Vic Snyder, who has represented the Second District in Arkansas for more than 10 years, announced he would not seek re–election, which appears to have been an increasingly daunting prospect for him.

If you read this blog regularly, I'm sure you know I grew up in central Arkansas — in a place called Conway, to be exact.

Conway was — and still is — smack dab in the middle of the Second District, which includes Little Rock, the state capital and Arkansas' largest city. And, for nearly 40 years, the district was represented by a man named Wilbur Mills, who chaired the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Congressional seniority is important to a small state. It is how a small state wields power, and, in the final years of his career, Mills was considered so powerful that he was approached by some Democrats to seek the 1972 presidential nomination, but, for reasons I discussed last year on the centennial of his birth, he never really caught on with the voters — and thus was spared the humiliation that was heaped on the eventual nominee, George McGovern, in his landslide loss to Richard Nixon.

Two years later, Mills sought another term in Congress but ran into problems of his own making. Less than a month before the election, he was found in the company of a stripper. He came back to Arkansas and campaigned hard for re–election, something he never really had to do before. 1974 was a good year for Democrats — Nixon resigned in August, Gerald Ford pardoned him in September, and the Watergate scandal contributed to huge Democratic gains in November. But Mills really had to work to win another term. Then, after being re–elected, Mills admitted he was an alcoholic, gave up his chairmanship and retired for good after his term ended.

When I was growing up, children studied Arkansas history — among other things — in school. I presume they still do, but I've been gone from Arkansas for more than 20 years so I have no first–hand knowledge of the subjects that are studied in Arkansas' schools these days. Anyway, when I was growing up, we studied the events that shaped the state from its earliest days. We studied the governors and the more important decisions they made over the years.

History is full of changes, of course. When you grow up in the South, your studies of your state's history cover what happened prior to the Civil War, then what happened in the state after it seceded, then what happened during Reconstruction and so on. I was always interested in history so that long and winding road was never much of a problem for me, but some of my friends were, shall we say, challenged in their efforts to follow the narrative.

From the perspective of a child trying to study state history, one of the nice things about living in a state the size of Arkansas was that there were never any changes to the boundaries — or number — of the congressional districts. There were always four congressional districts — although I understand there were more before I was born. But all my life, there have been four congressional districts.

In the mostly rural environment of the Arkansas of my childhood, political "machines" seemed to thrive, which was not a good thing. At the same time, though, there was something oddly reassuring about the fact that my senators, both of whom took office in the 1940s, and my congressman, the afore–mentioned Mr. Mills who went to Washington in the late 1930s, never changed.

But all things come to an end. As I said earlier, Mills' congressional tenure ended when he chose not to seek re–election in 1976. And I guess, after being represented by the same man for 19 two–year terms, the district was bound to go through more turnover in the years that followed. But it really went to the other extreme when Mills retired.

To take his place, the voters in my district voted for a fellow named Jim Guy Tucker, the state's attorney general, who left the seat after just one term to run unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 1978. Tucker's successor was a Republican, Ed Bethune, who held the seat until he decided to challenge Sen. David Pryor in 1984. When Bethune vacated the seat, voters elected a Democrat, a flamboyant sheriff named Tommy Robinson.

Robinson switched parties in 1989 and vacated the seat to run unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination to challenge Gov. Bill Clinton in 1990. Robinson was replaced by Ray Thornton, who achieved a certain measure of fame as the representative from another district in the 1970s. Thornton was a member of the House Judiciary Committee that approved articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon.

He was also born in my hometown, which has grown considerably in just my lifetime. Conway was little more than a bump in the road when I was a child. Today, it has nearly 60,000 residents and is one of the largest cities in the state.

Thornton's tenure was brief as well. He vacated the seat after three terms and went on to serve on the Arkansas Supreme Court for eight years. When Thornton retired from the House in 1996, Snyder was elected.

And he's been representing the Second ever since.

I don't know the particulars in the Second District this year. I don't know if Snyder expected to face a strong challenge from a Republican in the general election — or a fellow Democrat in the primary — or both.

Of course, it is always possible, I suppose, that it is exactly what he has said it is — a case of wanting to spend more time with his family. Possible. But, I would venture to say, not probable.

I do know from growing up in that district that it has leaned Democratic in most races. And even though I know the district has voted for a Republican in the not–so–distant past, I can't seem to shake my certainty that the district will not elect a Republican again.

Except that it certainly isn't so certain. If a charismatic Republican has emerged, he/she could well be elected. While the voters in the district were re–electing Snyder with around 58% of the vote in 2008, they were voting for John McCain, 54% to 44%. Arkansas, like most of the South, has been voting for Republican presidential nominees for decades but has continued to support Democrats in state and local races.

Was the split decision of 2008 a sign?