The holiday-shortened week ahead for Arkansas lawmakers will likely see movement begin on two big-ticket items: tax cuts and government reorganization, according to legislative leaders.
Lawmakers are off for Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday on Monday. They are to return to Little Rock on Tuesday to take up their second week of business in the 92nd General Assembly.
Already, more than 360 different bills have been filed for consideration, including more than 100 appropriations bills. Committees met for the first time last week, but focused largely on introductions and organization. Only a few bills were passed on to either chamber. The Legislature wasn't in session Friday.
This week's agendas for several committees -- including those on education, local government, state agencies and public health -- already include stacks of bills ready for consideration.
Meanwhile, legislative leaders are beginning to roll out the first pieces of Gov. Asa Hutchinson's plan for a reorganization and consolidation of state government.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported Friday that that effort, which will result in a bill exceeding 1,500 pages, is first being handled in separate smaller bills, a process that should be finished soon.
[RELATED: Complete Democrat-Gazette coverage of the Arkansas Legislature]
After giving rank-and-file lawmakers about a week to review the different parts of the plan -- which will consolidate the number of agencies reporting to the governor from 42 to 15 -- the legislation will be rolled into one omnibus bill to begin the legislative process.
While that process is underway, lawmakers also hope to begin work on the governor's promised individual income tax cut. It would be the third reduction since Hutchinson took office in 2015.
"I think you'll see some finalization of the focus on tax cuts," Senate President Pro Tempore Jim Hendren, R-Gravette, said Friday. "I think you'll see a bill next week."
Hutchinson's proposed tax cut has been dubbed the "2-4-5.9" plan, because it would reduce the number of tax tables from three to one, with a top rate of 5.9 percent for people earning more than $18,000 a year. The state's current top income tax rate is 6.9 percent, applied to people earning more than $79,300 a year. The proposal would take three years to implement and ultimately reduce taxes by $192 million a year.
The sponsor of the tax cut package will be Hendren's predecessor as Senate leader, state Sen. Jonathan Dismang, R-Searcy.
Dismang, an accountant, said Friday that he was still working out calculations and details before filing the plan as legislation, adding, "It's not a quick process."
Lawmakers also have yet to unveil draft legislation for a third major item on their agenda: a long-term funding plan for state highways.
House Speaker Matthew Shepherd, R-El Dorado, said last week that lawmakers were "still trying to narrow down and determine what are the viable options" for highway funding. He said details of a plan could emerge in the next week or two.
Beyond hammering out the final details of their big-ticket items, Shepherd said, the second week of the session will be a time for the Legislature to start "ramping things up" and begin to move bills through committees.
Many of the items on committee agendas were drafted during the pre-session filing period that started in late 2018. Bills listed on the agenda for this week include a proposal to reduce concealed carry license fees; to name an official state gun and state knife; and to require that journalism be offered as a course at public high schools.
"Obviously, we've got a lot of bills out there that can spark a lively discussion," said Hendren, the Senate leader.
Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee's first meeting of the session focused on a bill by Sen. Trent Garner, R-El Dorado, to prevent convicted sex offenders from taking or downloading photos of children. The bill became hung up, however, after criminal defense attorney Jeff Rosenzweig spoke up to raise constitutional concerns.
Typically, one of the busier committees in the Senate, the Judiciary Committee will likely again take up Garner's bill and other legislation on its docket this week.
"If we've got lots of work to do, we're going to get on it," said Sen. Alan Clark, R-Lonsdale, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "We're not going to wait."
Democrats, meanwhile, will take the long weekend to familiarize themselves with their new committee assignments and the legislation filed by their Republican colleagues, said House Minority Leader Charles Blake, D-Little Rock.
Beginning the week of Jan. 28, Blake said, every Tuesday during the session the House Democratic caucus will issue news releases highlighting Democrats' "focus and priorities" for the week.
While no such focus has been set for the second week, Blake and his Senate counterpart, Minority Leader Keith Ingram, D-West Memphis, said Democrats are prepared to speak out against legislation filed by a Republican state senator to exempt many employers from paying a minimum wage increase approved by voters in November.
The week's agenda kicks off Tuesday with a Joint Budget Committee meeting at 9 a.m. The House and the Senate will convene later that afternoon. Neither chamber is scheduled to meet next Friday.
Information for this article was contributed by Michael R. Wickline of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Sunday on 01/20/2019