Frank D. White - Two Years As Governor

Two Years As Governor

White appointed numerous Arkansas Republicans to state positions. Former gubernatorial nominee Ken Coon was named to head the Arkansas Employment Security Division. Another former gubernatorial candidate, Len E. Blaylock of Perry County was named appointments secretary. Blaylock, who had a reputation as an extremely competent administrator, screened applicants for state positions. Former State Representative Preston Bynum of Siloam Springs in usually Republican Benton County in northwestern Arkansas, became White's chief aide. Harold L. Gwatney, an automobile dealer in Jacksonville, was named to the coveted position of adjutant general of the Arkansas National Guard. White also depended on the advice of his legislative counsel, State Representative Carolyn Pollan of Fort Smith. New to the legislature with the White administration was Judy Petty of Little Rock, who had waged a nationally watched campaign against former U.S. Representative Wilbur D. Mills in 1974.

White was far more conservative than Rockefeller. He signed a law which would have permitted the teaching of creationism in Arkansas public schools. The law was subsequently overturned in 1982 in the court case McLean v. Arkansas. White rejected the court's claim that "creation science" involves the "teaching of religion in the public school system. I think it is a theory, just like evolution is, and if we're going to have true educational freedom, then I think we deserve equal treatment."

A similar law was signed in Louisiana by Republican Governor David C. Treen, and it too was struck down by a Supreme Court decision, Edwards v. Aguillard, in 1987.

He also opposed the proposed Equal Rights Amendment and refused to include the issue in a call for a special legislative session in November 1981 to consider the measure. He declined to meet with ERA proponent and former Rockefeller staffer Leona Troxell of Rose Bud in White County, the longtime Arkansas GOP national committeewoman, who wanted to lobby White on the issue.

White also created a controversy within his own party in 1981, when he called Faubus out of retirement to head the scandal-plagued Arkansas Veterans Affairs Department. The selection was recommended by Blaylock and endorsed by Third District U.S. Representative John Paul Hammerschmidt. Other Republicans, such as Mrs. Troxell, questioned if there was a return to "machine" politics as practiced in the Faubus administration. Even state party Chairman Harlan "Bo" Holleman of Wynne in Cross County in eastern Arkansas, had reservations about the selection. Blaylock, however, explained that Faubus was uniquely qualified to head the veterans department and quickly rectified problems in the agency.

White took up the cause of Arkansas truckers and haulers and obtained higher weight limits to the economic benefit of truckers, much to the consternation of highway safety advocates.

White also clashed with U.S. Representative Edwin Bethune over the reappointment of the Little Rock-based federal Marshal Charles H. Gray, a cousin of U.S. Senator Dale Bumpers. White wanted to return Blaylock to the marshal's post that he had held during the Ford administration, but Bethune wanted to retain Gray on the grounds that the Democrat was "one of the top marshals in the country." Bethune won the day, and the Reagan administration reappointed Gray. Bethune still campaigned actively for White in 1982 and said that the governor's election was "the best thing that ever happened to this state."

David Vandergriff, a conservative attorney from Fort Smith, said that the rightist faction gained full control of the Arkansas GOP in 1981: "The Reagan Republicans didn't run off the Rockefeller Republicans, but they left for whatever reasons ... A lot of the Rockefeller Republicans disappeared when he left office, and those that remained have continued to fall by the wayside." In 1982, for instance, Bob Nash, the assistant director of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, not only opposed White but worked frantically for Democratic gubernatorial nominee Bill Clinton.