The Southern Progress Fund continues its profiles of promising Democratic candidates for legislature today with a report on a friend of mine, John Adams, the lawyer who made a run for Congress four years ago.
Adams is seeking the western Little Rock House seat held by term-limited Republican Allen Kerr. He faces Jim Sorvillo, who I think would proudly wear the Tea Party label he’s earned by extreme political positions over the years.
Adams has been a teacher, an assistant attorney general and, since 2011, a banker. He’s also been a stalwart behind the scenes in a variety of good-government movements, including the Regnat Populus effort to strengthen government ethics standards.
As I’ve mentioned before, I have personal connections. Little Rock native Adams, as an upperclassman at Yale, was the “Big Sib” to my daughter as an entering freshman, a program to help newcomers negotiate the beginning of college. My wife administered his oath to become a lawyer on a sidewalk outside a New York theater.
He’s a good guy. But political races are more about issues than personal connections. Start at the top: Unlike Adams, Sorvillo opposes the private option expansion of Medicaid pushed through the legislature with significant support from very conservative Republicans and to the everlasting benefit of hundreds of thousands of Arkansans. That’s a pretty good indicator of where you’ll find Sorvillo on issues — far outside the mainstream. (If not, clearly, in a West Little Rock Republican primary, where he defeated the other Pat Hays.)