Splitting counties remained contentious Monday as legislative committees met to discuss redistricting bills for the final time before the Arkansas General Assembly reconvenes to tackle redrawing the state's four congressional districts.
Legislative leaders on Monday issued a proclamation to call the state Legislature back into session starting at 10 a.m. Wednesday to work on redistricting.
More than a dozen redistricting bills have been filed, and the House and Senate committees on state agencies and governmental affairs met Monday for the third time to discuss some of the proposals.
Two bills co-sponsored by Sen. Breanne Davis, R-Russellville, and Rep. Jim Dotson, R-Bentonville, would add Pope and Cleburne counties to the 2nd Congressional District while dividing either Pulaski County or Saline County between two districts.
Dotson said House Bill 1963 takes into account feedback from lawmakers at the first two committee meetings. It proposes splitting Saline County roughly along Interstate 30, with the northwest portion remaining in the 2nd Congressional District and the southeast portion, which includes the cities of Benton and Bryant, in the 4th Congressional District.
The proposal would move Madison County from the 4th Congressional District to the 3rd Congressional District and make Newton County and Searcy County -- which are divided under the current lines -- whole, moving them entirely into the 1st Congressional District. The bill also proposes placing Marion and Boone counties into the 1st Congressional District.
It keeps the southeast corner of the state the same and leaves Jefferson County split in the same way it is currently -- between the 1st and 4th districts.
Officials from the Fort Smith area expressed their desire throughout the meeting to place Sebastian County, where the state's third-largest city is located, entirely in the 3rd Congressional District. It is currently split between the 3rd and 4th districts.
"Talking to my county judges and mayors, it's extremely tough for everybody to get representation," Sen. Mat Pitsch, R-Fort Smith, said of living in a county divided between two congressional districts.
Others questioned splitting Saline County.
Sen. Trent Garner, R-El Dorado, said Saline County has been in the 2nd Congressional District since the 1970s and that its geographical makeup is more similar to the rest of that district than Pope County.
Davis said moving Pope County into the 2nd Congressional District adjusts for population changes in the 3rd Congressional District, which grew substantially in the last decade. She also argued that it makes sense to have Pope County in the 2nd Congressional District because it does a lot of business along the Interstate 40 corridor.
Sen. Kim Hammer, R-Benton, said the proposal would disadvantage Saline County, which is growing and will continue to grow over the next decade.
Davis argued, as other lawmakers have, that having two voices in Congress can be beneficial. She said the proposal splits along natural boundaries while keeping farming communities together, adding later that the bottom half of Saline County aligns with counties in the 4th Congressional District.
"You trade one thing for several other issues," Davis said. "We've tried to address as many concerns as possible."
The other bill, Senate Bill 725, is the same except it splits Pulaski County instead of Saline County and changes one precinct in Jefferson County. The legislation would divide the state's most populous county using the Arkansas River and interstates as boundaries, putting Little Rock in the 2nd Congressional District and North Little Rock in the 4th Congressional District.
Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, said some people were very concerned about the Pulaski County split.
Elliott and other Democrats put forward proposals that place all or part of Pulaski County in a redrawn 2nd Congressional District that would also cover southeast Arkansas, but they didn't seem to have support among the majority-GOP committees.
In presenting Senate Bill 728, Elliott said lawmakers seem to meet every other redistricting criteria except minority representation. She said her bill gives an opportunity for groups with common interests to have the influence to elect who they want.
[DOCUMENT: Proclamation » arkansasonline.com/928proclamation/]
She later noted that Arkansas is the only Southern state to have never elected a Black member of Congress. Elliott has run for the 2nd Congressional District seat twice in the past, but said Monday that she was not going to run again.
Sen. Bob Ballinger, R-Ozark, said bringing racial minorities together into one district dilutes their voices in other districts.
"If we're talking about race there's a lot better chance that we're going to draw something that's unconstitutional," he said.
Elliott said she disagreed, adding other maps "crack" the minority population.
Other Republican proposals include House Bill 1964 by Rep. David Ray, R-Maumelle. It splits Pulaski County between the 1st Congressional District and the 2nd Congressional District, putting an eastern swath with the Arkansas Delta. The legislation would also add Yell County to the 2nd Congressional District and put Sebastian County completely in the 3rd Congressional District.
It would also extend the 4th Congressional District to the Missouri border by adding Pope, Boone and Marion counties.
House Bill 1966 by Rep. Stephen Meeks, R-Greenbrier, would move Pope County to the 4th Congressional District while putting Madison and Van Buren counties in the 3rd Congressional District. It would also put Crawford and Sebastian counties completely in the 4th Congressional District.
Senate Bill 729 by Sen. Mark Johnson, R-Ferndale, also moves Sebastian County to the 4th Congressional District but places Pope County in the 2nd Congressional District.
The Arkansas Legislature is tasked with redrawing congressional district lines for U.S. representatives while the Arkansas Board of Apportionment redraws legislative boundaries for state senators and representatives. There are 3,011,524 people living in Arkansas, according to the latest U.S. census numbers, making the ideal population for one of the state's four congressional districts 752,881.
The proclamation from Senate President Pro Tempore Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana, and House Speaker Matthew Shepherd, R-El Dorado, states that the General Assembly when it meets later this week shall conduct business related to considering vetoes, correcting errors and oversights, completing its work on congressional redistricting, considering legislation related to the covid-19 public health emergency and distribution of covid-19 relief funds, and considering the need for further extension of the regular session of the 93rd General Assembly.
Asked what the scope of the remainder of the session would be and if bills relating broadly to covid-19, including any addressing issues such as employer-mandated vaccinations, could be considered, Hickey said his belief was that "the session should only deal with approving the redistricting which is in the resolution."
Hickey said that when the Legislature met earlier this year, the federal government had just decided that the American Rescue Plan funds would be distributed to the states.
"However, the U.S. Treasury had not yet provided guidance on how these funds would be distributed or whether the states would need certain statutes in place to acquire the funds. I asked for this item to be placed on the resolution solely as a way to be prudent to make sure we acquired these funds and came back into session immediately if a certain requirement had to be met," he said in a text message.
Shepherd's spokeswoman said he would have to "review each bill individually before determining if it meets the criteria of the proclamation."