This will be about Gov. Sarah Sanders' hyperpartisan style, which is not news. It also will be about the prison debate in Arkansas, which is mainly about how many prison cells taxpayers should build for how much and where.

But mainly I just want to ask about something having to do with state Sen. Bart Hester, the president pro tempore of the state Senate.

He holds forth as if he believes the way for him to lead the state Senate is to kowtow to Sanders because she's automatically and thoroughly right.

The maxim that the governor proposes, and the Legislature disposes ... I don't know that Hester ever heard of it. "L'etat C'est Sarah," he seems to believe, even if he might not say it.

It means, "Sarah is the state." It's almost like calling her Queen Sarah, which I have vowed not to do for reasons I can't recall and deeply regret but will abide by now that I've gotten that delicate sideswipe out of my system.

In a piece the other day on television station KATV's website, Hester was quoted about Sanders' appointing two pure political agents to the state Board of Corrections. It gives her what looks like political control of a board that has a little constitutional independence in the text of........

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