In a party-line vote, the Arkansas Senate voted to override Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe’s veto of legislation requiring people to provide photo identification to vote.
The House also approved a resolution in support of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, and legislation to curb feral hogs.
On the 73rd day of the 2013 legislative session, Beebe also warned that bills cutting the state’s income tax and capital-gains tax would become effective before the state has enough money to pay for them.
Two days after Beebe vetoed Senate Bill 2 by Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, the Senate voted 21-12 to override Beebe’s veto.
In his veto letter, Beebe called King’s measure “an expensive solution in search of a problem” that “is not supported by any demonstrated need.”
King told senators voter impersonation is voter fraud,it’s been occurring in Arkansas for many years and, unfortunately, it has been denied by a lot of people.
“As far as it being an expensive solution in search of a problem, we need to improve the integrity of our elections,” he said. “It was hurt by the Hudson Hallum situation. It’s been hurt by places in Carroll County where we have had voter manipulation go on there and I try to recruit good people to run to office and they don’t believe that they can get a fair shake for election.
“The one thing that we should get down here for the people of Arkansas is a fair shake for elections, and I believe this bill will do so,” King said.
In September, Hallum and three other men pleaded guilty in federal court to bribing absentee voters with cash, chicken dinners and vodka in exchange for votes in three special elections in 2011. Hallum, a Democrat from Marion, resigned his seat in the House after entering his plea.
King’s bill passed the Senate by a 22-12 vote, and it passed the House by a 51-44 vote. It takes a simple majority to override a veto.
King said he expects the House today to vote to override Beebe’s veto.
State Rep. Walls McCrary, D-Lonoke, joined 50 House Republicans in voting for King’s legislation.
But McCrary said in a letter dated March 14 to the House that he intended to vote no on SB2.
The House comprises 51 Republicans, 48 Democrats and one member of the Green Party.
House Speaker Davy Carter, R-Cabot, who didn’t vote on King’s bill when the House approved it, said he hasn’t decided whether he’s going to vote to override the governor’s veto.
“I’m going to go back and read, and I still haven’t, read the [attorney general’s advisory opinion about the bill] and the governor’s reasoning on why he vetoed the bill,” Carter told reporters.
King’s bill would instruct the secretary of state to create rules requiring county clerks to issue voter-identification cards at no cost to individuals who don’t have other valid forms of identification and want to vote.
If enacted, the bill would become effective Jan. 1, 2014, but only if the state had the money to issue the voter-ID cards.
The Bureau of Legislation Research estimates it will cost $300,000 to purchase the needed equipment.
Under current state law, poll workers ask for identifying documents, but voters are not required to show them.
TAX CUTS
Beebe told reporters Wednesday that bills cutting capital-gains and income taxes would go into effect before money is available to pay for them, calling it the “big problem.”
“What I’ve said all along is that we can afford some tax cuts if we do Medicaid expansion. But Medicaid expansion doesn’t get any savings until fiscal [2015], so the effective dates of some of these tax cuts have to coincide with that or else you gut the [2014] budget,” Beebe said. “It needs to be scaled in a way that it takes effect, for the most part, in fiscal [2015].”
The income-tax reduction, House Bill 1585 by Rep. Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville, and the capital-gains cut, House Bill 1966 by Carter, are pending before the House.
Collins’ bill would reduce state revenue by $28.6 million in fiscal 2014 and $57.2 million in fiscal 2015, according to the state Department of Finance and Administration; Carter’s bill would cut state revenue by $3.1 million in fiscal 2014, $10 million in fiscal 2015, $18.3 million in fiscal 2016 and then $27.9 million in fiscal 2017, the department said.
Beebe said he has asked the bill’s sponsors to adjust the dates.
Carter said he will delay the effective date, if it is necessary, to pass the bill.
The state’s general-revenue budget is $4.727 billion in fiscal 2013, which ends June 30, and Beebe has proposed a budget of $4.947 billion in fiscal 2014, including $10 million in rainy-day funds.
“You can pass tax cuts without Medicaid expansion,but it guts a lot of folks. All you’ve got to do is look at the proposed budget,” Beebe said.
He said that of the $219 million increase in his proposed budget, $50 million goes to public education and $90 million goes to fill a gap in funding for the current Medicaid program. The rest is for the rainy-day fund, colleges, prisons and a cost-of-living raise for state employees.
Asked whether he’s sure that the state budget can afford $100 million in tax cuts in fiscal 2014 that legislative leaders are aiming for, Senate President Pro Tempore Michael Lamoureux, R-Russellville, replied, “If the numbers that we get from our budget staff are accurate, yes.”
Unless Beebe raises the general revenue forecast for fiscal 2014, and he hasn’t indicated he plans to do so, Lamoureux said, lawmakers would have to carve $100 million out of Beebe’s proposed budget for fiscal 2014 to finance a $100 million package of tax cuts that legislative leaders said they have yet to finalize.
The tax-cut package could include 10 or so bills, but it will include Collins’ income-tax cut, he said.
He said legislative leaders haven’t figured out how they can chop $100 million out of Beebe’s proposed budget.
DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE
The House of Representatives approved on a voice vote a resolution in support of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, on the day the U.S. Supreme Court took up a case questioning the law’s constitutionality.
Rep. Jim Dotson, R-Bentonville, said House Resolution 1049 was reaffirming what voters had already approved in 2004 with Amendment 83, which received 74.95 percent of the vote. The amendment states that “marriage consists only of the union of one man and one woman.”
Rep. Deborah Ferguson, D-West Memphis, said voting against the resolution would be a chance to stand on the “right side of civil rights.”
“This resolution is hurtful. To our sons, our daughters and an entire community. … It says we don’t value them as equal citizens,” Ferguson said. SCHOOL FUNDING
The House voted 67-16 in favor of a bill that would eliminate the need for the state Department of Education to make whole a school district’s foundation funding amount when the district’s net revenue meets or exceeds the amount set for an equal and adequate education.
Rep. Robert Dale, R-Dover, said Senate Bill 425, sponsored by Sen. David Johnson, D-Little Rock, would allow the state to not send additional money to school districts that are already raising enough for an equal and adequate education on their own. He said the bill would allow the state to keep those funds and apply it to general revenue.
Under the current law, the state will provide additional funding at the end of the school fiscal year if the net revenue is less than 98 percent of the uniform rate of tax multiplied by the property assessment of the school district.
Under the bill, that additional funding would not be provided to school districts with tax collections that fall below the 98 percent rate if the district has already collected enough revenue to meet state adequacy standards.
Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Hot Springs, said the bill would unfairly affect school districts such as Fountain Lake and Eureka Springs that have a wealthy tax base.
FERAL HOGS
In a 88-1 vote, the House approved a bill aimed at curbing feral hogs.
House Bill 1478, sponsored by McCrary, would allow law-enforcement officers and public employees to capture and kill feral hogs on public land without a hunting license.
Information for this article was contributed by Sarah D. Wire of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/28/2013