After a three-day break, the Arkansas General Assembly this week will decide the fate of legislation to scrap the Arkansas Lottery Commission, shift some general revenue to state highways, boost religious freedom and overhaul the state’s criminal justice system.
Today is the 43rd day of the 90th General Assembly’s regular session.
If legislative leaders recess by April 10 and adjourn, as planned, by May 8, the session will reach the halfway point this week.
March 2 is the deadline to introduce appropriation bills and March 9 is the deadline to file all other bills, according to the Bureau of Legislative Research.
State Rep. Robin Lundstrum, R-Springdale, said she’ll ask the House of Representatives today to pass Senate Bill 7 by Sen. Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana, which would abolish the Arkansas Lottery Commission, create the Office of Arkansas Lottery in the state Department of Finance and Administration and require the governor to appoint the lottery director.
Lundstrum said she’s backing the legislation — endorsed by Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson — because she wants to see the lottery improved and she wants “to be part of the solution.”
“The best solution at this point is good or better management,” she said, referring to the lottery that’s experienced dwindling revenue and net proceeds for college scholarships for the past 2½ fiscal years.
The lottery has helped finance more than 30,000 Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarships during each of the past five fiscal years.
Rep. Dan Douglas, R-Bentonville, said he won’t ask the House today to approve his House Bill 1346 to shift some general revenue to road construction as a result of a call he received Thursday afternoon from the governor, who opposes the legislation.
“We’ll see when we are going to run it” after he meets with Hutchinson, said Douglas.
On Thursday, Hutchinson spokesman JR Davis said that “while the governor recognizes the need for improvements in the highway funding formula, he cannot support a bill that undermines the current [proposed] balanced budget and doesn’t provide a consensus on a solution to the funding gap.”
Douglas stopped short of predicting the bill will pass the House.
“We never know for sure. I think there is a lot of support for it out there,” Douglas said.
House Speaker Jeremy Gillam, R-Judsonia, said the bill has a 50 percent chance of clearing the House.
Under the bill, part of the sales taxes from the sale of new cars and trucks and “auto-related road-user items and services” would gradually be shifted from the state general revenue budget to the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, which now relies chiefly on state and federal fuel taxes.
In the first year, about $34.8 million would be collected from state general revenue and set aside for road construction, according to the state finance department. By the 10th year, the amount of state general revenue going for roads would be $548.4 million.
That $34.8 million is money “we don’t have without serious cuts or something,” state Sen. Larry Teague, D-Nashville, co-chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, warned Friday.
The state’s proposed budget for fiscal 2016 “is just tight. We don’t have any excess money,” Teague said.
Last week, the Joint Budget Committee delayed decisions on whether to authorize 35 more employees for the Arkansas Public Defenders Commission at an estimated cost of $3 million a year amid warnings that the state could be sued over understaffing of the system, and about the $5 million-a-year projected cost of pay raises for state elected officials recommended by the state’s citizen salary commission.
State Sen. Bruce Maloch, D-Magnolia, suggested last week that the $5 million estimated cost of funding recommended raises for elected officials could be better spent adequately staffing the public defender system.
Asked whether the state could afford his HB1346, Douglas replied, “Can we afford not to because we don’t have the money to maintain the roads we have?”
Good roads are important for economic development and the state’s continued growth, he said.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Jeremy Hutchinson, R-Little Rock, said he plans to ask the committee this week to approve his SB472 to follow through on the governor’s multipronged proposal to improve the state prisons as well as parole practices.
Among other things, it gives law enforcement officers expanded power over parolees, mandates that parolees and state prisoners seek Medicaid coverage before their release and makes changes to the state’s Parole Board. It also creates a Legislative Criminal Justice Oversight Task Force to compile reports detailing successes and shortfalls of new programs as well as track the money saved by using these programs.
Hutchinson said he also expects the Senate Judiciary Committee to consider legislation that its supporters say would bolster religious freedom.
Known as the Conscience Protection Act, HB1228, sponsored by Rep. Bob Ballinger, R-Hindsville, seeks to protect Arkansans from laws, ordinances or other government rules and policies that would “substantially burden” an individual’s right to exercise religion. Measures burdening religious beliefs would only be allowed if the government possesses a “compelling” interest in the regulation and if the regulation is the least restrictive option.
Opponents argue the bill is unnecessary, would lead to a variety of unforeseen legal problems, and would enable Arkansans to discriminate against gays and others.
Hutchinson said he anticipates that the Senate Judiciary Committee this week will consider SB229 by Sen. John Cooper, R-Jonesboro, which aims to protect Arkansans from the application of foreign laws when it would result in a violation of certain fundamental rights guaranteed by the federal or state constitutions.
“We actually will get some attention” now, said Hutchinson.
In other action, Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Eddie Joe Williams, R-Cabot, said he plans to ask the committee to approve his SB382 to study the restructuring of state government into 10 principal departments. State government has more than 50 state agencies and hundreds of boards and commissions.
He acknowledged that he got the initial concept from former Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee, who proposed his own ill-fated plan to reorganize state government. He said he has not talked directly to Hutchinson about it.
“It’s coming from me,” said Williams.
He said officials should study reorganizing state government every 10 or 15 years because it is an opportunity to save taxpayers’ money.