Staff Report –

JONESBORO, Ark. – Republican Congressman Rick Crawford was a no show Thursday night in his home town televised debate by Arkansas State University Television, as Democrat Rodney Govens and Libertarian Steve Parsons went back and forth on the critical problems facing the people in U.S. House District One and potential solutions for the folks in Eastern Arkansas.

The Libertarian consistently took the position that solutions from the federal government were not the answer, while the Democrat took positions consistent with Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, as well as President Joe Biden.

When asked about the problem of residents leaving the district in part because of the lack of educational options and adequate, affordable health care, Parsons took a position that was antithetical to the MAGA Trump Republican Party and suggested that immigration has long been the driver of population growth in the U.S. He also came out against international tariffs, a solution Trump tried to promote by starting a trade war with China, which is one driver of the inflation we have experienced in recent years and only costs the taxpayers money in the form of higher prices on goods and services.

Govens said the rural population decline happens for reasons, one being the high maternal death rate per capita in Arkansas. He suggested expanding rural health care.

He said 27 counties of the 31 in the district have no OBGYN, a medical doctor to take care of a woman’s reproductive health, including the delivery of babies.

“Our population is going down because we can’t keep them healthy,” he said. “We need to have accessible health care for every single person across the Delta.”

Another problem is the lack of widespread availability and access to broadband internet infrastructure.

“We need to go ahead and invest in our broadband infrastructure and fix our maternal death rate here,” he said, “so that our kids don’t feel like they have to leave.”

In addition to being a major agricultural area, Eastern Arkansas attracted the steel industry in recent years. One of the panelists asked how they would support that.

Govens suggested not just subsidizing the steel industry, but also providing incentives and helping the workers in the industry. But he also said agriculture has been in decline, and the incumbent Congressman has done nothing to help the cotton and soy bean farmers as they have lost federal subsidies.

“Arkansas feeds the world,” he said. “But we treat our farmers like trash.”

According to Parsons, Crawford has proposed a 25 percent tariff on Mexican steel to protect the Arkansas steel industry.

“Tariffs in general are amazingly bad policies,” he said. “Ask farmers in Arkansas how the trade war with China went.”

He said Mexico is the most important country on the planet to people in Arkansas, “because it is our biggest customer,” Parsons said. “Canada is number two.”

He also pointed out that if people are concerned about the problem of illegal immigration, and the illegal importation of fentanyl, he said, “We need help from Mexico.”

“So the last thing that you should be doing,” he said, “is trying to protect Arkansas steel by having a tariff on Mexican steel. Tariffs simply don’t work. They lead to inflation. It’s bad policy.”

Parsons made some comments opposing federal regulations, but Govens said regulations are needed, especially environmental regulations on products like pesticides.

“I don’t want my kids getting cancer from crazy pesticides that some farmer wants to use, simply because we want to deregulate,” he said, making the case that we need regulations. “But they’ve got to make sense.”

For example, the U.S. banned the use of DDT for mosquito eradication in the early 1970s because it weakened the egg shells of eagles, pelicans and other important and endangered bird species.

One panelist asked about student debt. The Libertarian, not surprisingly, came out against student loan forgiveness.

Govens, on the other hand, said the problem is the high price of education and low wages.

He said more case workers were needed in the foster care system, as well as more law enforcement officers, more public servants like firefighters, where in some cases, students have their debt forgiven for working in service fields.

Another problem that came up was the housing shortage.

Govens focused on the need for a Landlord and Tenant Act, since some landlords take advantage of renters, and he proposed oversight and a policy of “renter’s rights.”

“It’s unfair for a landlord to not get their rent,” he said. “But it’s also unfair to live in a place that has no AC in the summer.”

Parsons took the opposite position, saying constraints on landlords will only make the housing shortage worse.

He want back to the immigration issue, and argued for policies that make it easier to bring workers in for construction as well as agriculture. And he said, once again, that one solution is to “end the trade wars and reduce tariffs.”

The last question had to do with the lack of trust in government instutitions and restoring faith in democracy.

“I believe this is an amazingly important topic,” Parsons said, citing studies that show between 10 and 40 percent of the people believe political violence is acceptable under certain circumstances.

He said anyone running for public office should sign a pledge advocating for “election integrity,” as well as to pledge there should be “no political violence.”

“There’s no place for political violence in this country,” he said.

The third thing is to accept the rule of law, including the outcome of elections.

“Biden was legally elected in this country,” he said. “By the way, that’s something that the incumbent (Rick Crawford) as best as I know, has never said.”

Govens agreed.

“At the end of the day, the 2020 election was fair,” Govens said. “There was no fraud. Donald Trump did not win that election.”

He said he would have no problem recognizing “the election results as they are” whether he wins or loses in November.

In closing statements, Govens pointed out that the incumbent Congressman, Risk Crawford, did not even have the level of respect of the people in this district to show up.

“We have an incumbent who doesn’t answer his constituents’ Facebook messages, emails, phone calls,” he said. “We have an incumbent who is suing the United States of America’s taxpayers in Federal Claims Court for a pay raise and back pay. We have problems with our incumbent right now in the First Congressional District. We have a choice when it comes to November at that ballot box.”

Watch the full debate video here:

Panelists for the debate included news media representatives Brandon Tabor, KASU News Director; Jerry Don Burton, A-State Herald Editor-in-Chief; and LaGanzie Kale, KLEK General Manager.

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