With days to go before the general election, the Little Rock Public Radio newsroom wanted to hear what you had to say about the state of politics.
Little Rock Public Radio took part in the 2024 America Amplified election reporting initiative along with public media organizations in all 49 other states.
LRPR News Director Daniel Breen spoke with All Things Considered Host Maggie Ryan about this year’s new initiative. You can find an edited transcript of the conversation below.
Daniel Breen: Arkansas has a consistently low rate of voter turnout, in fact we ranked last in the nation in the last presidential election four years ago. So we wanted to hear from our newest voters, either people who were just turning 18, or just now registering to vote, about what excites them and is causing them to show up at the voting booth. So just after the start of the new school year, we embarked on a two-week road trip across Arkansas, stopping at nine colleges, universities and community colleges. And while our goal was to talk about politics and the elections, we had a very simple opening question; what do you like about your community?
Daniel Breen
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Little Rock Public Radio
Little Rock Public Radio Politics/Government Reporter Josie Lenora speaks with Reagan Schulz, a junior marketing major at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, on Sept. 27, 2024.
“The roundabouts, we have 35 and counting and we’re building two / You know, you can go in the store and not know anyone and they’ll make you feel welcome / We have the best Hogs spirit in the town / I just like the people that are actually trying to make a difference here.”
DB: That was Ana Brandon from the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, Justin Braylock from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Ethan Doan from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville and Marineisha Harding, also from UAPB. And these sentiments were echoed by a lot of people we talked to on this trip. Those four who you heard from, none of them were from the cities where they were going to school, some aren’t even from Arkansas, but they seemed to have just as much pride in their new communities as the people we spoke to who were born and raised there.
Maggie Ryan: Alright, well give us a little more of a rundown of what we heard and where we heard it.
DB: Like I said, we went to nine schools in total, mainly here in central Arkansas, but also in the northern part of the state. And, because we didn’t want to just reach college students only, we also went to a few community events. Here’s what we heard from Sherwood resident Amber Cushman at a Fourth of July event at the Historic Arkansas Museum in downtown Little Rock.
“I’d like to see us get a president that will take us away from the wars that we’re headed toward and the conflicts that we have right now, and we don’t have that currently.”
DB: Cushman was joined by her son James Camp, who had just registered to vote for the first time. Cushman supports former President Donald Trump and was outspoken against President Joe Biden, who was still the presumptive Democratic nominee at the time. But one thing I found interesting was both of their opinions on the Arkansas LEARNS Act. Cushman drives her kids from Sherwood to Vilonia every day to attend school in what she views as a better school district. But both criticized the LEARNS Act, which gives public funds to families to help them pay for their kids’ private, religious or homeschool education.
“It would be better to improve the schools in the community than have to do school choice / I get the intention behind them wanting to make our education system a lot better, but that is coming straight out of our pockets, our tax money.”
DB: And, of course, Arkansas LEARNS is one of the biggest priorities of Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a prominent Trump ally and former member of his administration.
Daniel Breen
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Little Rock Public Radio
Arkansas Razorback fans gather around cheerleaders at the Hogs’ first home game of the season in Fayetteville on Sept. 28, 2024.
MR: What other political topics were college students talking about?
DB: Well a lot of students we talked to had two main political concerns; the economy and reproductive health. A lot of students said they were disappointed that they wouldn’t be getting the chance to vote on legalizing abortion in Arkansas this election cycle. But UAPB student Imani Hopkins said she’s still optimistic about going to the polls.
“No cap, I’m really excited. It might be a female president, so I’m glad to be alive to see that history being made.”
DB: And when it comes to the economy, a lot of students said they felt a disconnect between the people in power and the people who are really hurting. Van Ezell is a senior biology major at UCA, and says he wants more transparency about how our tax dollars are spent.
“I think people would really want to give if they could actually say to you, like, ‘We all gave to this, and here’s the fruits of it.’ Right now it kind of feels like it’s being wasted, so yeah, I would like less taxes for sure.”
DB: Cole Young also echoes those sentiments. He’s originally from Washington State, and is just now beginning grad school at Arkansas Tech in Russellville. He feels pretty strongly about keeping money out of politics.
“There need to be amendments passed saying that no Congressional member or Senate member should take foreign aid, as well as the president, or as well as other money from companies. And I know that’s a hard thing because they’re already doing that right now.”
Students at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff speak with LRPR News Director Daniel Breen.
DB: Young says he’s also in favor of term limits, and of the federal government focusing more on domestic priorities rather than foreign policy. He says he originally supported independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but since he dropped out of the race, he’s been on the fence.
“COVID was kind of a derailment and I think he did a terrible job with it, but I think he’s kind of grown from that. And so I lean a little more towards Trump. And I think Kamala, while I think potentially she could do some good, I feel like she lies a lot and I don’t really want that from a politician.”
DB: And we also spoke with Marleigh Hayes, she’s president of a relatively new student organization at Hendrix College called the Hendrix Justice Initiative. She wants judges to do a better job educating the public about what happens in the courtroom. She says that’s a barrier that leaves people confused and sometimes intimidated to go into the courtroom.
“That impacts appearance rates, that impacts the outcome of appearances, and that’s something that I, in my work at Hendrix with our Faulkner County court watch and my work at DecARcerate, value deeply.”
DB: And that’s just a very brief rundown of some of the political issues we heard from college students across Arkansas. But one theme I noticed is that most of the students who spoke with us are really more interested in more quality-of-life issues on the community level. And we’ll talk a bit more about that in the second part of our conversation Friday.
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Publish date : 2024-10-31 02:10:00
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