Can a citizens’ commission reform state government?
Arkansas serves as the testing ground Arkansans are still smarting from the 1992 presidential campaign, when Republicans charged that the Razorback State displayed the inbred politics and bloated bureaucracy of a banana republic. And the stream of scandals keeps flowing: Since last spring, one state legislator has pleaded guilty to mail fraud, a handful of others have been caught in a scheme to create a $3-million grant program for their own profit, and still others are under an FBI investigation for improperly influencing state contracts for personal gain. When Governor Mike Huckabee set up a hotline for reporting fraud, 125 calls were received on the first day. But after years of enduring jokes about Arkansas on late-night TV, a diverse group of dedicated citizens is seeking to remake the state government and, they hope, rescue Arkansas’s reputation. More than 200 Arkansans have formed a citizens’ commission, dubbed the Murphy Commission after its chairman, Madison Murphy, the charis
