LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Mike Huckabee’s Republican rivals, fighting back as he surges in the presidential race, are tagging him as soft on crime because of a law he signed as Arkansas governor that gave some methamphetamine offenders more credit for good behavior.
“Mike Huckabee’s solution? Early releases for meth dealers,” Fred Thomp son’s campaign proclaims.
Huckabee’s home state has passed legislation restricting access to the principal ingredient in methamphetamine. The law Huckabee’s rivals are referring to meant that some meth offenders, instead of serving 70 percent of their sentences would have to serve at least half if they behaved.
Opponents also point to Huckabee’s record of pardons and commutations: He had a hand in twice as many as his three predecessors combined, granting 1,033 pardons and commutations in his 10 1/2 years in office. The acts of clemency benefited the stepson of a staff member, murderers who worked at the governor’s mansion, a rock star and inmates who received good words from their pastors.
He answered critics of his record on methamphetamine Thursday, singling out former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in particular.
Sentences “for meth dealers in my state are more than twice as harsh as they were in his state,” Huckabee told an audience in Marshalltown, Iowa. “When people get desperate, they say desperate things, and sometimes dishonest things.”
