No Democratic opponent for Tom Cotton’s Senate seat
LITTLE ROCK — The Democratic Party of Arkansas has announced it has no candidate for the 2020 U.S. Senate race. The chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party says there’s no path for replacing the challenger
to Republican Sen. Tom Cotton after the party’s previous candidate abruptly dropped out following the state’s filing deadline.
Chairman Michael John Gray said Monday the party has been unable to find a way to legally replace Josh Mahony, who ended his candidacy to challenge Cotton two hours after the filing deadline passed, citing a family health concern. Mahony was the only Democrat who had filed to run against Cotton next year.
“After exhaustive and careful examination with our legal counsel and our party leaders and without additional information from Mr. Mahony, the Democratic Party of Arkansas will not be able to field a candidate for United States Senate,” said Chairman Michael John Gray. “The narrow legal window to replace Mr. Mahony as our nominee would require evidence that has not been provided to us publicly or privately.
But Arkansas Democrats aren’t discouraged. There are top tier candidates in competitive state legislative and congressional races all across the state. Voters are ready to make a difference and make Arkansas a better place,” the Party said in a Monday statement.
Just hours after the filing deadline had passed, Mahony announced on Nov.
12 that he was dropping out of the race due to family health concerns.
Arkansas law allows parties to replace an unopposed candidate for nomination because of death or serious illness. Gray said Mahony has provided little information and so they don’t have evidence to support a claim of serious illness. ***
LITTLE ROCK – Keep Arkansas Beautiful’s annual fall Great Arkansas Cleanup attracted more than 7,000 volunteers in 58 counties who removed more than 180,000 pounds of litter over a two-month period.
From Sept. 7 through Oct.
31, more than 180 community events attracted 7,268 volunteers who removed 182,604 pounds of litter and collected over 391,345 pounds of bulky waste from 1,148 miles of roadsides and 979 miles of waterway. Volunteers also collected litter from 20,466 acres of public parks and trails, up 619 acres from last year’s cleanup.
“This fall cleanup, we saw a great influx in volunteers and the amount of litter they removed from waterways, roadsides and public areas, surpassing last year’s Great Arkansas Cleanup results,” said Mark Camp, KAB executive director.
“We had 1,710 additional volunteers remove 105,717 more pounds of litter than last year.”
Volunteers spent 37,086 hours volunteering during the cleanup, up from 25,743 hours, and removed an additional 2,169 tires over last year.
The Great Arkansas Cleanup was sponsored by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, Arkansas Department of Transportation, the Keep Arkansas Beautiful Foundation and Keep America Beautiful.
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11th pot dispensary in Arkansas open for business
FAYETTEVILLE — The state’s 11th medical marijuana dispensary opened Wednesday afternoon.
Purspirit Cannabis Co. in Fayetteville offers marijuana in its traditional flower form as well as concentrates and edibles, said Zack Erickson, a budtender at the dispensary.
Purspirit is the 11th medical marijuana dispensary to open in Arkansas and the fourth dispensary to open in Northwest Arkansas. The region’s first dispensary, The ReLeaf Center, opened in Bentonville in August, followed by The Source in Bentonville and Acanza in Fayetteville.
No other dispensaries are planned for Northwest Arkansas, said Scott Hardin, spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration. The state is authorized to have 32 dispensaries. The state is divided geographically into eight zones, and the intent is for four dispensaries to be in each zone. Zone 1 includes Benton, Washington, Madison and Carroll counties, which means Purspirit is the fourth and last dispensary the region can expect to see. Zone 1 is the first zone to have all of its dispensaries in operation, Hardin said.
