Contrasting views, claims of misleading statements on display in Arkansas House District 69 race

Kwami Abdul-Bey (left), the Democratic candidate for Arkansas House District 69, and incumbent Rep. David Ray, R-Maumelle (right), participate in a forum for candidates running to represent southern Faulkner County on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024 at the Mayflower Chamber of Commerce. (Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate)

Throughout an occasionally caustic competition for Arkansas House District 69, Republican Rep. David Ray and Democrat Kwami Abdul-Bey have emphasized their differing opinions on public safety, welfare, direct democracy, government transparency and public education.

District residents recently notified Abdul-Bey of a flier from Ray, a two-term incumbent from Maumelle, that called Abdul-Bey an “extremist” who “will make Arkansas more dangerous.” It listed several statements Abdul-Bey said were misleading about his views on the carceral system.

Additionally, the flier’s image of Abdul-Bey had “a backdrop reminiscent of the 9/11 attacks,” which he took as “aiming to exploit racial and cultural tensions” alongside the extremist label, he said in a Saturday news release.

Asked whether this was intentional, Ray said: “As usual, Mr. Abdul-Bey has no idea what he’s talking about.”

Ray describes himself as a “conservative reformer” and said Abdul-Bey’s views “are just a cornucopia of left-wing ideology and grievance politics.” At a Sept. 26 candidate forum in Mayflower, Ray called Abdul-Bey’s policy stances “so radical they would make Kamala Harris blush,” referring to the Democratic presidential candidate.

Abdul-Bey has advocated for voter registration efforts and citizen-led ballot initiatives as the elections coordinator for the progressive Arkansas Public Policy Panel. He was previously the legislative political action chairman for the Jacksonville branch of the NAACP.

He said on X that he is an Independent campaigning as a Democrat because it’s “difficult for a non-wealthy Independent to run in this state.”

Abdul-Bey said Ray’s statements about his views are consistently “out of context.” He also said voters have told him Ray does not respond to their attempts to contact him; Ray said this is false.

“I answer calls, texts, emails and letters from constituents almost every single day of the year, and he’s going to find out on Nov. 5 just how many of my constituents choose to stand with me as opposed to him,” Ray said.

House District 69 covers southern Faulkner County and much of northern Pulaski County, including where Abdul-Bey lives just west of Sherwood.

Government openness

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders called a special legislative session in September 2023 and expressed support for several exemptions to the state Freedom of Information Act. Ray was the lead House sponsor of the ensuing legislation.

Bipartisan pushback from the public and some lawmakers blocked most of the proposals, such as shielding from public view all documents reflecting communications between the governor’s office and any cabinet secretary. The bill that became Act 7 of 2023 shielded only records and communications concerning the planning or provision of security services to the governor and other state elected officials.

Ray sponsored the less restrictive legislation and implied it was a response to a Little Rock blogger’s lawsuit over unanswered FOIA requests to Arkansas State Police pertaining to Sanders’ security and associated costs.

District 69 voters still disapprove of Act 7, Abdul-Bey said.

“That’s the first thing they bring up, and when they bring it up… they talk about how frustrated and upset they are with David Ray,” he said.

Abdul-Bey helped collect signatures in support of a pair of ballot measures put forth in response to Act 7. One would have amended the FOIA, including repealing Act 7, and the other would have made government transparency a state constitutional right. Neither received enough signatures by July 5 to make the November ballot.

Education, government transparency measures fail to meet signature goal

Abdul-Bey said he plans to either collect signatures for a future ballot measure campaign or introduce legislation to achieve the same goals as the two proposals.

Asked whether he would support more changes to FOIA, Ray said government transparency is necessary, but “just because something is good and valuable, like FOIA laws, doesn’t mean they’re perfect and can’t be improved.”

“For example, there’s a very significant amount of taxpayer cost associated with complying with very frivolous and abusive FOIA requests, and the taxpayers have to foot the bill for that,” Ray said. “There’s also no attorney-client privilege in the current FOIA.”

Education and direct democracy

Ray has also criticized Abdul-Bey’s participation in last year’s effort to repeal the wide-ranging LEARNS Act of 2023 via a citizen-initiated referendum. Ray said this means Abdul-Bey opposed raising teachers’ minimum starting annual salary from $36,000 to $50,000.

A former teacher, Abdul-Bey said he supports paying teachers a living wage but opposes several other aspects of LEARNS, including what he considers insufficient financial support for longtime educators.

“You can’t go out in public and be proud that you wrote a law that gives $50,000 to freshman teachers and doesn’t do jack for later-career teachers,” he said.

The LEARNS Act increased minimum teacher salaries but eliminated the requirement for increased pay for more experience and education. The state helped public school districts pay for the salary increases , but Abdul-Bey said LEARNS created multiple “unfunded mandates” that strain district budgets.

Ray said LEARNS did not do this but was instead “a massive investment in public education.”

The LEARNS repeal effort did not have enough public support to make this year’s ballot. Neither did a proposed constitutional amendment that would require private schools that receive state funds to be held to the same standards as public schools. The proposal was a response to the school voucher program LEARNS created, and supporters are now working to put the amendment on the 2026 ballot .

A Republican-led 2023 law increased from 15 to 50 the minimum number of counties in which ballot measures must garner a certain amount of signatures.

Ray was one of the most vocal supporters of a 2022 ballot measure that would have raised the threshold for passing a ballot measure from a simple majority to 60%. The proposal failed with 59% of voters opposing it.

Ray said he would support further changes to the ballot initiative process, such as requiring a fiscal impact statement for a citizen-led measure. Lawmakers are required to include the projected cost of a policy when proposing legislation.

“If the cost of something is going to add $3 billion, $4 billion or $5 billion to the state budget, that’s also going to mean higher taxes, and people need to know that,” Ray said.

Abdul-Bey said the Legislature should be held to the same standard of transparency as the public would under Ray’s suggested requirement.

Public safety and welfare

The candidates butted heads over state prisons when asked at the Mayflower forum how to address crime in Central Arkansas.

Ray supported the Protect Arkansas Act of 2023 , which removed the possibility of parole for the most serious offenders.

Abdul-Bey said on X last year: “The Protect Arkansas Act is a very prison industrial complex-centered law meant as a perpetual revenue-generation scheme. Any Arkansan without the necessary resources to challenge it is susceptible to getting caught in this web.”

Ray criticized Abdul-Bey for agreeing with a comment in the same X thread that said the law creates “modern-day slavery.”

“If you stab or shoot or rape somebody and you go to prison, that’s called crime and punishment, not slavery,” Ray said in an interview. “I can’t think of anyone who is more out of touch on these types of issues.”

He also took issue with Abdul-Bey saying in a since-deleted X post that “it shouldn’t take more than 25 years to rehabilitate & correct citizens’ criminal behaviors” and criticizing a proposed state crime laboratory in a May YouTube video .

Abdul-Bey said in the video that state officials should direct budget surplus funds to programs that “benefit an overwhelming majority” of citizens rather than on crime-focused initiatives that impact “only a small percentage of Arkansans.”

He told the Mayflower audience that it’s “not a solution to a human problem to build more cages to put humans in.”

“You cannot address a public safety issue without addressing the underlying public education, public health and public welfare issues that lead to the public safety issue,” he said.

Ray said in an interview that Abdul-Bey “wants a massive expansion of the welfare state.”

To Abdul-Bey, that phrase means “corporate welfare, where corporations get tax cuts and get the resources that should be going to the humans in our state,” he said.

“I’m definitely not for that. I’m for people over politics, people over parties, and people over profits,” he said.

He also said public benefits helped elevate him from homelessness to becoming “a gainfully employed homeowner” with multiple degrees rather than dependent on the government.

“If we can agree that we’re all human and that no human should be homeless, let’s provide scaffolding to make sure our citizens get the housing they need,” Abdul-Bey said. “…If we can agree that we are all humans and that every human should be able to eat, then let’s make sure no Arkansan goes to bed hungry.”

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