Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Arkansas Politics Nelson v. Game and Fish: 'Ego orgy'
Posted by Max Brantley on Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 6:32 AM
Is Sheffield Nelson's attack on the state Game and Fish Commission on which he once sat — richly and prominently covered yet again in today's Democrat-Gazette — really because he's chapped over loss of a fall turkey season?
John Brummett suggests that today. He also comments — and I'm beginning to share some of this feeling — that the whole affair is "boring and petty and an ego orgy."
The committee system devised by a handful of commissioners at the Millionaire Boys Hunting Club was probably a bad idea, though probably not illegal (and it only mirrors the legislative system). The commission's outside legal and PR contracts are certainly questionable expenditures, if you think thrift still matters at the gas royalty- and sales tax-rich agency. But I also think the constitutionally independent agency can do just about whatever the hell it pleases (see its use of gas revenues sorely needed to patch up roads and monitor pollution from drilling activity). I don't think, however, it can override state law, as it tried to do in the case of the Freedom of Information Act. There, at least, Nelson had a very good point.
Speaking of...
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Gas tax group alleges poll intimidation UPDATE
May 23, 2012Sheffield Nelson, who's leading a grassroots campaign to increase the severance tax on natural gas, said petition canvassers at primary polls yesterday were intimidated by representatives of the industry-funded group fighting the tax increase. /more/
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Nelson on right side of gas tax debate
April 11, 2012Sheffield Nelson is an odd person to be waging a one-man crusade against the business and political establishment to raise taxes on the Texas and Oklahoma gas producers who have been drilling in the Arkansas shale. /more/
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Sheffield Nelson, unlikely severance tax champion
April 10, 2012Times columnist Ernest Dumas, who draws on nearly a half-century of coverage of Arkansas politics, including the essential role gas exploration and taxation have played in politics, examines today former gas executive Sheffield Nelson's somewhat role as a severance tax champion and his past leadership of the very business orgtanizations fighting him today. /more/
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Sheffield Nelson schools Beebe on severance tax
April 6, 2012I never really expected Gov. Mike Beebe, who cut his teeth golfing with the lobby in the Senate, to be a supporter of the Sheffield Nelson-backed initiative to raise the pitifully low severance tax on natural gas. /more/
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Stands accused
March 21, 2012Is the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce "un-American," as Sheffield Nelson suggests? It's a close call; reasonable men might disagree. That the Chamber is unconscionable, on the other hand, was verified long ago. /more/
- More »
Comments (5)
Showing 1-5 of 5
We need Tommy Robinson in the news now. Enough of Sheffield. What kind of name is Sheffield, anyway. He's not from around here.
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You tell ‘um Ke-mo sah-bee.
“Have regard for your name,
since it will remain for you longer than a great store of gold.”
Ecclesiasticus 41:12
Mr Nelson is doing the state more good than average onlookers realize. If his reform bidness sets a norm then think how far it could be extended. He singlehandedly forced
Beebe to bump up severance (extraction) taxes even though the Po-boy from Armagon
sabotaged the plan with exemptions.
"I don't think, however, it can override state law, as it tried to do in the case of the Freedom of Information Act."
You are wrong. The AGFC can trump any state law they want, as they do with the firearm carry laws. They can ban people from public lands and rule them in any way they see fit. Per Attorney General Dustin McDaniel:
http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-fort…
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