Eleven weeks into the regular session of the 92nd General Assembly, lawmakers say they're coming into the homestretch, but there's still time to file new legislation.
"The calendars are getting fuller, and a lot of bills still need to be worked," said Senate President Pro Tempore Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs, in an interview Friday. "We're getting more legislation finished and pushed out. The committees are working hard and long hours."
Committees are meeting in the morning, as usual, but sometimes again in the afternoon once the House and Senate adjourn. Some meetings last into the evening.
Hendren predicted another three weeks until the session's end.
"I still think we'll have about an average-length session; maybe even earlier," he said. "There's plenty of time to file new bills, but after this week, it starts getting more and more challenging."
Today is the 71st day of the session.
Under House Concurrent Resolution 1006, approved by both chambers, the House and Senate may recess April 12 -- if not earlier -- and reconvene before noon May 6 to take care of matters such as fixing bills or overriding any vetoes. The session would then adjourn.
[RELATED: Complete Democrat-Gazette coverage of the Arkansas Legislature]
April 12 would be the 89th day. The General Assembly met in regular session for 96 days in 2011, 101 days in 2013, 82 days in 2015 and 86 days in 2017. (Fiscal sessions, in even-numbered years, are of shorter duration.)
So far, representatives have introduced 900 bills and senators 628 bills, according to the General Assembly's website late Friday afternoon. By the end of the 2017 regular session, representatives had filed 1,280 bills and senators had filed 789 bills, for a total of 2,069, according to Bureau of Legislative Research records. That session had a nonappropriation bill-filing deadline on the 55th day.
But this year, the deadline was scrapped, making comparisons to previous regular sessions difficult. The most bills filed in the previous four regular sessions was 2,492 in 2013.
House Speaker Matthew Shepherd, R-El Dorado, said it would be difficult to see anything filed at this point make it through the session.
"I'm not going to say it couldn't happen, but it would have to be something that had a lot of support or on a very critical issue," Shepherd said. "But again, a lot of it depends on the committees, too. Some committees have relatively small agendas, so it may be there's time to be brought up and get to the floor. Other committees still have pretty sizable agendas. I'm not going to say it's an impossibility, but we're at the point now where our focus is on working through the bills that were filed up to a week or so ago."
Shepherd said the House committees have been "very active in trying to work down their agendas and give people the opportunity to run their bills."
"Now that we're down the final closing weeks, we may have some meetings on Fridays and we may do some other things from a schedule standpoint," he said.
INTERNET SALES
Shepherd said this week's priority is the marketplace fairness bill by Sen. Bart Hester, R-Cave Springs, which would make changes in the state's corporate income tax code and require out-of-state sellers without a physical presence in Arkansas to collect sales and use taxes from sales in the state of more than $100,000 a year. It's aimed at Internet sellers that don't collect sales and use taxes on purchases.
"That's the next focus for me," Shepherd said of Senate Bill 576.
The Senate Revenue and Taxation Committee recommended approval of SB576 last week, with Sen. Keith Ingram, D-West Memphis, dissenting.
Hester said he doesn't "have any feel" on which direction the bill will take this week if it goes through the House.
"I'm very confident that we're going to get it off our floor," Hester said. "The plan is to have it in the House committee on Tuesday."
SB576 also would require online vendors to collect sales taxes if they sold products and services for delivery in Arkansas on at least 200 separate transactions.
The bill also would phase in a reduction in the state's top corporate income tax rate from 6.5 percent to 5.9 percent.
And the bill would allow an extension from the current five years to 10 years for the carry-forward period for businesses' net operating losses and provide for a single-sales factor for the corporate formula for income-tax filings.
The legislation also would provide a sales-tax exemption for certain providers of car-washing services; exempt from sales tax all purchases for carwash operators; and levy a new annual fee on certain carwash operators and monthly water-use fees on operators of carwash tunnels.
AGENCY CHANGES
The Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee plans to meet at 7:30 a.m. each Tuesday and Thursday until it completes its review of legislation that would implement Gov. Asa Hutchinson's plan to reduce the number of state agencies reporting to him from 42 to 15, said Sen. Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana.
During the committee's first meeting to review House Bill 1763 since it cleared the House, Hickey said last week that he is hoping that by the end of this month, "we would have amendments placed on the bill in the committee" so Hester "would be prepared to run it out somewhere right around the first of April" to the Senate floor.
That would give time for the House to consider concurring with whatever amendments the Senate adds to the bill, said Hickey.
Hester is the Senate sponsor of HB1763, sponsored by Rep. Andy Davis, R-Little Rock.
The bill is 2,049 pages long and is a compilation of 16 bills introduced earlier in the session to allow the public and lawmakers to review the legislation and comment about it. Davis introduced HB1763 on March 8, the House State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee endorsed it March 13, and the House approved it March 14.
Hickey said he intends to try to amend the bill so the Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities, would be a "stand-alone entity" and would not become part of the proposed Department of Energy and the Environment.
"I believe the governor is in agreement with that," he said.
The Public Service Commission is a rate-making agency, "so it is probably best left alone," said Hickey.
Hutchinson said he met with committee members Sens. Ron Caldwell, R-Wynne, Bill Sample, R-Hot Springs, and Hickey last week to discuss their thoughts on possible amendments to HB1763.
"It was a very productive meeting and I appreciate their time to discuss this issue. At this point, I am waiting to receive their suggested language in amendment form before committing support to those changes," the Republican governor said in a written statement.
Hickey said he also wants to keep the bank, insurance and securities departments in the proposed Department of Commerce.
"But we are going to try to work on that consultation language, so we are trying to work on an amendment to that," he said.
Asked whether the committee is taking too much time to review the legislation, Hutchinson said, "Chairman Caldwell has indicated the committee will finish its work by approximately April 1.
"This time frame is workable and hopefully will lead to passage by the full Senate. I appreciate all members of the committee for the time they've invested in reviewing this historic legislation to transform state government," he said in a written statement. "They have been thorough, and I am grateful for their feedback. Their diligent work has made this legislation even stronger. This legislation has tremendous support in the Senate, and I look forward [to] the bill's passage in committee."
Information for this article was contributed by Hunter Field of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
A Section on 03/25/2019