{news} Arkansas elected Green, Richard Carroll

[Tim McKee]

----- Original Message -----

From: "Jay Parks"
To: "The natlcomaffairs (aka USGP-DX) listserv is used to discuss issues
related to coordinated national actions and current issues."
Subject: [usgp-dx] Arkansas Green, Richard Carroll
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:12:23 -0500


I found the following story about Richard Carroll very interesting. I had
thought Carroll was a Green who the Democrats were trying to convince to
convert. The article certainly portrays him in a different light.

http://www.arktimes.com/Articles/print.aspx?ArticleID=bf458f35-158e-4226-982
6-1f2e1ffb209f

Mr. Carroll goes to Little Rock
NLR rep is America¹s highest ranking Green.
Published 1/29/2009

With his silver hair, sunglasses, and crisp black suit, Richard Carroll
certainly looks the part of a state legislator. A resident of the Baring
Cross neighborhood near Fort Roots in North Little Rock, Carroll was
elected
on the Green Party ticket to represent District 39 back in November,
winning
more than 80 percent of the vote. Currently, he's the highest-ranking
Green
in the United States.

Though he cleans up well, his button-down work as a legislator is a far
cry
from what he really does for a living: a dirty, dangerous job as a
boilermaker for the Union Pacific Railroad, Thanks to what he calls his
very
³civic minded² employer, Carroll has been allowed to work the night shift
at
the Union Pacific yards in North Little Rock part time so he can come to
the
legislature during the day. From 11 p.m. to around 3 in the morning, he
helps rebuild locomotives that have been damaged in derailments and
accidents. He catches a few catnaps before and after work, and sleeps a
lot
on weekends. ³I get a couple hours sleep before I go in to the Capitol,²
he
said. ³I may stay until 7 o'clock, go home, get a couple more hours
sleep,
then go to work.²

Since the replacement of steam locomotives with boilerless diesels,
Carroll
said, railroad boilermakers have become the ³support craft² of the engine
shop. ³We uncover and take the component parts off the locomotive so the
machinists can work on the engine or air compressor or radiator section.
We
expose it, they work on it.² When he's at his night job, Carroll said,
he's
typically in jeans, a T-shirt, a welding cap. A bandana keeps grit and
grime
from going down his neck. Prior to being elected, he already owned one
weddings-and-funerals suit, but he recently bought another for the Ledge.
³I'll try to shuffle enough shirts between the suits,² Carroll said. ³And
Jim Lendall, the ex-Representative from the Green Party, he gave me some
jackets, but he was a 48 and I'm a 42. Some of them I can maybe get
altered.²

Carroll's route to the statehouse was a bit out of the way. A former
chairman with North Little Rock's International Brotherhood of
Boilermakers
Local No. 66, he said he'd never even considered running for public
office
until what he usually refers to as the ³situation² involving Dwayne
Dobbins.
The former District 39 Representative, Dobbins resigned from the House in
2005 as part of a plea bargain that reduced a felony sexual assault
charge
to a misdemeanor harassment charge after allegations that Dobbins
improperly
touched a 17-year-old girl. Dobbins' wife Sharon Dobbins subsequently won
a
special election after her husband resigned. Though the Democratic Party
expected her to run again in 2008, her husband filed for the race an hour
and a half before the deadline. The Democrats refused to support Dobbins'
candidacy, and went looking for write-in candidates.

³I felt like I needed to step up,² Carroll said. ³It's the way he went
about
filing. If he had given the opportunity for others to know that he was
the
one filing, there would have been ample time for someone to step forward
and
run.² Once he decided to make a try for the seat, Carroll knew he had an
uphill climb. His district is majority black, and though his wife is
African-American, more than one person flatly told him that a white
person
could never get elected.

After he decided to run, he contacted both the Democratic Party and the
Green Party. With the Democrats, he was told his only option was to run
as a
write-in candidate. With the Green Party, his name would actually be on
the
ballot. He went with the Greens, even though polling suggested he
couldn't
win.

³The polls showed than a write-in candidate would end up getting more
votes
that a Green Party candidate on the ballot,² he said. ³I proved that
wrong.²

While technically a Green Party representative, Carroll admits he's not
³hardcore Green.² ³I may not agree with their platform 100 percent, but
as
long as I don't come out publicly in opposition to their platform, they
don't have a problem with me. I respect them for that. They gave me the
opportunity to run on the ballot, and I will represent the Green Party.²

A staunch union man, Carroll said he would be a strong friend of labor as
a
legislator. The biggest items on his agenda, however, all have to do with
improving life in urban communities like his own. There have been eight
murders within a mile radius of his home in two years. Driving to work,
he
often sees the results of teen pregnancy, drugs and unemployment, and
working people who don't make enough to survive.

³I see all those things every day,² Carroll said. ³People having to walk
to
the bus line and then walk back carrying their groceries because they
don't
have the money for gasoline or a car, a lot of young, high school-age
mothers pushing strollers around.²

Carroll said he'd like to see legislation to hold slumlords more
accountable, and improved communication between local police departments
and
the State Police. ³Individuals don't just do crime in one neighborhood,²
he
said. ³They're doing crime in multiple areas, and a weapon that's used in
one city might be used in another city. They could end up discovering
that
things are tied together.²

To help convicted felons avoid the lure of criminal life, Carroll said he
plans to lobby local union shops to assist in the creation of training
programs, and to talk to local companies about hiring graduates of those
programs ‹ including those who are trying to go straight. ³I feel like
the
unions are willing to train individuals if we're able to find companies
to
employ them. If [convicts] come out and get a routine, they don't have to
go
back to their old habits when trying to provide income Š ²

For now, however, Carroll is just trying to find time between his night
job,
his day job, and his family life (he has two young sons at home, one of
whom
is disabled) to get a little sleep, all while keeping the checkbook
balanced. While he's excited about the new session, he said the long-haul
rigors of life as a nighttime boilermaker and daytime legislator will
decide
whether his name is on the ballot again.

³That's probably going to be the biggest factor that determines what I
decide to do. It's not as simple as showing up and passing some bills and
making up some laws. It's very in-depth decision making. The main thing
is
how I'm going to fare working 24 hours a week at night.²


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******************************************
Tim McKee, Manchester CT, main number cell-860-778-1304, 860-643-2282
 National Committee member of the Green Party of the United States and is a spokesperson for the Green Party of CT.
BLOG-http://thebiggreenpicture.blogspot.com

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