Count on it. Arkansas will make headlines for this. The House State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee today rejected, 11-6, a resolution congratulating Barack Obama’s election as president.

Republicans made up most of the opposition. They objected to language saying the nation was founded by slave owners. Not all Founding Fathers were slave owners, they said.

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Here’s the roll call:

For the resolution: Harrelson, Shelby, Hutchinson, Lindsey, Cheatham, Saunders. (Only Hutchinson is a Republican in this group.)

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Against the resolution: Garner, Hall, Greenberg, Baird, Lee, Dismang, Wilkins, Hopper, Carter, Rogers, Slinkard. (Hall, Rogers and Wilkins are Democrats.)

Did not vote: Cowling and Tyler. (These weenies are Democrats.)

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Absent: Smith

Harrelson comments.

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UPDATE: Told ya so. Here’s Wonkette, picking up wire coverage. Comment on coverage linked above:

It seems that racists still haven’t gotten over Barack Obama’s election victory, alas. For example: Arkansas. The Arkansas House Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs rejected a standard symbolic resolution congratulating Barack Obama on his historic victory this morning, 11-6, after a couple of Republicans took issue with language describing “the United States as a nation founded by slaveowners.” Oh my god.  …

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Where to even begin? Questions of historical accuracy aside, how is this language “potentially divisive” today? It might piss off the slaveowner lobby?

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