Senate Convenes
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Transcript
Bills discussed (2)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
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SB2
Act 99
· 4 mentions in transcript
Matched: “Okay. Senate Bill 2 by Senator Hendren, an”
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AN ACT FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION REAPPROPRIATION. | Joint Budget Committee | Notification that SB2 is now Act 99 |
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HB1
· 1 mention in transcript
Matched: “…to be transmitted to the House. They're voting right now on House Bill 1. The only difference between the two bills is there's a dif…”
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Pre-2017 bill |
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Senate will be called to order momentarily, we'll do my part.
Chair
Unverified
0:52
on her to call the roll. Madam Secretary, please call the roll. Ballinger, Bledsoe, Bond, Caldwell, Cheatham, Chesterfield, Clark, Cooper, Davis, Dismain, Eads, Elliott, English, Flippo, Flowers, Garner, Hammer, Hendron, Hester, Hickey, Hill, Ingram,
Irvin, Blake Johnson, Mark Johnson, Letting, Malick, Pitch, Rapert, Rice, Sample, Stubbefield, Starch Teague Wallace. Everyone please rise including the senators in the gallery. Senator Jason Raper will lead us in a word
of prayer. Members before I pray I'd like for us to take a moment of silence. We're now
Senator Jason Rapert
Unverified
1:34
at a point where many of us know people that are near death. We know some of these folks that have
already died and unfortunately and I think it bears stating the stress that we're under. I just got off the phone with a professional in our state who has a colleague that took his life. And so I just want us to bear in mind that it's not just the people that are sick with the COVID-19, but we're now seeing stress that's coming out because of the business situation. And so I think it's fitting that we take a moment of silence as we pray today.
father in heaven we come to you today asking for you to see us here that you would have grace and mercy upon us at this time in this hour in the national health emergency father untold devastation is happening we know in your word it says in the bible that satan it cometh not, but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. In this national health emergency, we see what's happening.
Wealth, resources are being stolen, people's businesses, many of their lives being destroyed, and obviously many are being killed through this time. So, Father, we ask for you to have mercy. We pray that Angelicos would come and stand guard over our friends and our neighbors and our loved ones to guard them as it says in psalm 91 that we could rest under the shadow of the wings of the almighty so father today we ask for you to lift this off of our
country and off of our state just as you lifted and had mercy during passover for the children of israel we pray god that you would have mercy and let this pass over us as well thank you father for the leadership that's been given through this body and the house and all of our elected officials over the past few weeks as we've dealt with this. I pray a special prayer for our governor and his team as daily they are bearing the weight of this situation. And Father God, I pray a special
blessing and prayer upon our frontline responders, our doctors, our nurses, those that are in emergency rooms. Father, pray that you'd be with us. And Father, today we pray that you'd bless the proceedings. Let everything we do here honor you and pray that you would remember the great state of Arkansas in the days and weeks ahead. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. I
pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it
Speaker 24
4:27
stands, one nation under God, indivisible for the liberty and justice of all. Any announcements? Any items
at the desk? I'm sorry, someone wished to be recognized? Senator Bond? You wish to be recognized? Okay. Any items at the desk?
Speaker 30
4:58
Okay. Senate Bill 2 by Senator Hendren, an
Chair
Unverified
5:14
act to create the COVID-19 Rainy Day Fund to transfer funds to the COVID-19 Rainy Day Fund and declare an emergency. Senator Hendren is recognized.
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
5:28
Thank you, Mr. President. members, I think we did this in Committee of the Whole. I'm not going to belabor it. I do want to clarify a couple questions that have come up. I also, for the benefit of Stephanie Flowers, Senator Flowers, who I know is watching and texted me two or three times yesterday and told me to quit touching my face and clean off this nasty podium. I have done both, and we are going to try to do better today with doing good CDC protocol. Senate Bill 2, again, the only thing I'm going to address today are some questions that some of you have brought. One of the things I have put on your
desk is this because since we met yesterday the federal government as you know has passed a huge relief package that is going to impact all the states and there's been some questions how that would impact or if it would impact the legislation that we would have and that question primarily comes from some words that are used on page two of the bill line one of page two where it says any revenues provided by law. Okay so some think that would mean that not only this
unallocated reserve fund that is actually transferred in the in the bill itself but a whole lot of other revenue could flow into this. So I've confirmed with both the governor's office and with Kevin at BLR that is absolutely not the case. The reason that language is in there anything provided by law is so that when later in the bill we transfer that 170 million dollars into this fund it is allowed because we changed the law to allow that barring that law we cannot
transfer any other dollars into that fund now in the fiscal session if we come down here and decide we want to transfer more into that fund we could although again realize this fund balance is all transferred back June the 30th anyway I also want to clarify this if you look in this and I just had a a chance to glance over it, but one of the things that was pointed out to me that I think is important for us to understand why Senate Bill 2 is so critical, the federal legislation specifically precludes us from using those dollars to fill budget holes created by economic
downturn. So in other words, you remember we talked about in Senate Bill 2, there's a $350 million hole in our budget because of the economic downturn, and we've got this $670 million and hopefully some other fund balances and reserves that we can use to try to fill that hole. None of these federal dollars can even be used for that under federal law. These federal dollars are used are to be used for things directly associated with the health care consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. So this bill, Senate Bill 2, as we said yesterday, allows for the one-time
transfer of the fund balance that is clearly dictated in the bill and then it allows for those funds to be used to fill budget holes or for other emergencies directly related to the health care and I think we cleared that up yesterday and I won't go through it but I'll be glad answer any questions I think we kind of discussed it yesterday so I'm not going to go through the section by section but again I'll be glad to
Speaker 6
8:33
answer any questions for Senator Hendrick. Senator Gardner. Thank
Senator Trent Garner
Unverified
8:38
you, Lieutenant Governor. So the federal legislation says that
we're unable to use this $1.25 billion to reimburse funds we have already allocated for the Wuhan COVID-19 virus. So to say that if money from this allocation was used for emergency purpose, that money then could be reimbursed by the federal side. So
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
9:02
buy ventilators and PPE, my understanding is that then federal dollars could be used to either buy those. I don't know that they could directly reimburse the state,
and again, we're just going through this, but in the future and moving forward, certainly we would have a choice. Are we going to use this $170 million to buy
Speaker 39
9:21
those ventilators, or if we have federal dollars, can we use those? Follow-up, if I may.
Senator Trent Garner
Unverified
9:29
Thank you. The governor has roughly, I believe 40-something million dollars already in a emergency fund to address immediate emergency needs. Is there any discussion of maybe shifting this to just budget needs so that that can be filled up since the federal dollars, once they come, can't be used to meet that emergency need or to reimburse ourselves?
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
9:46
Well, that's outside the scope of this bill, but there are discussions. And again, you may say, well, if it's $170 million, how are you going to fix a $350 million hole? And that kind of tells you what we're facing. And the fact is, yeah, the $40 million rainy day fund is on the table, as is the quick action closing fund, as are fund balances that agencies have accumulated up to this point. So probably the only thing that is not able to be utilized between now and the end of the fiscal year is the long-term reserve, because, as you know, that takes legislative action.
Thank you. Any other questions for the senator? Any other questions? Anyone wish to speak against? Anyone wish to speak for? Senator's close. Senator Bond, you wish to be recognized
Speaker 2
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this time? Is this related to the bill? Someone.
Okay. No one wish to speak on the bill.
Senator's close. Senator's close. Ballinger.
Chair
Unverified
10:56
Aye. Bledsoe. Aye. Bond. Aye. Caldwell. Aye. Cheatham. Aye. Chesterfield. Aye. Clark. Aye. Cooper. Aye. Davis. Aye. Dismaine. Aye. Eades. Aye. Elliott. Aye. English. Flippo. Aye. Flowers. Aye. Garner. Aye. Hammer. Aye. Hendren. Aye. Hester. Aye. Hickey. Aye. Hill. Aye. Ingram. Aye. Irvin. Aye.
Blake Johnson, Mark Johnson, Letting, Malik, Pitch, Raypert, Rice, Sample, Stubbefield, Sturge, Teague, Wallace. Anyone wish to vote who did not vote or change their vote?
Senator Garner is aye. Anyone else should change their vote? cast up the ballot
35 yay zero nays the bill is passed transmit the bill to the house
emergency clause was adopted senator bond wishes to be recognized at this time somewhat related to the previous bill and somewhat independent of the previous bill.
Speaker 50
12:17
Senator Irvin had called and asked that a statement be read to explain why she isn't here at this
time, and so that's for the purpose. Members of the Senate, I am not with you because my husband is on the front line
seeing patients in the clinic and hospital. I did not want to risk exposing any of you unknowingly during this critical time. We are elected to lead this state through what possibly could be one of the worst disasters in our state, country, and the world has ever faced. I'm blessed to be in this with each of you. As we do our work in this special session to address the huge cost of this epidemic to our budget, let us never forget the biggest cost of this war is the lives of our citizens that have been lost and we will lose.
Two of the first Arkansans we have lost resided in my district, the beautiful town of Greer's Ferry. There is much suffering amongst this entire community, especially the church that has been hit so hard. They came together to worship God, unknowingly exposing themselves and others to this deadly virus. They, along with all our citizens, need all the support we can give them through our prayers, but also through our intense focus to win this war. Senator Irvin had asked that we take a moment of silence. We've already done that today and I think
it would be appropriate now at this time for us all to express our appreciation and to our frontline medical care providers and their families who are engaged in the battle against this virus for all of us. Thank you. Senators recognize.
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
14:03
Members, I want to say thank you again for coming together
for good, healthy debate, for the legislative process, and for us being able to do something 35 to nothing that's going to really make a difference in some people's lives. So I appreciate that very much. I always appreciate the debate, and I think the state's better because of it. We will, this Senate bill, as you know, is going to be transmitted to the House. They're voting right now on House Bill 1. The only difference between the two bills is there's a difference in the number of sponsors, so committee the whole will not be required on either side. When House Bill 1 comes back here,
we can vote on it at midnight tonight, which we will do. I know many of you plan to head on back, which is fine. Just make sure that if you, before you leave, I would like to get a 35 to nothing vote on the house bill as well. So make sure you leave your proxy, make sure that your designee knows it's their job to get you voted. Remember the rules do allow for multiple proxies to be held by one designee. Remember the social distancing thing as we have the rest of the afternoon to catch up
on some of our other chores and work. And we will be back in session tomorrow at mid 12, whatever it is, 12.01 AM. We will convene for the purpose of considering House
Speaker 58
15:28
Bill 1. Thank you. Mr. President, tonight I went on the dress with my colleagues. I want to thank you for everybody dressing appropriately, I just want to say that to
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
15:40
have Senator Teague rebuke you for clothing makes this even more extraordinary than the session had already been.
Thank you all. Senator Malek wishes to be recognized without a
Speaker 62
16:01
tie. Senator's recognized. Thank you, Mr. President. members, typically when we come together, we consider and confirm gubernatorial appointments from our districts, and most of you have responded. Before I present those, I'm going to ask Senator Hammer, are you prepared to confirm the appointments that are from your district?
I respond. Okay. So, the appointments from each of the senatorial districts with the exception of senator davis simply because we have not heard from her so we're pulling out all of the appointments in senator davis's district and senator mark johnson has one that he wants to pull out and Ann knows which one that is.
Senator Trent Garner
Unverified
16:49
Was it? Are you good? Oh, we're pulling one out? Okay. Senator Garner? Yes, I've been in contact with Senator Davis. Let me step out for two minutes
Speaker 62
17:00
to see if she wants to put it in there. Okay, we'll wait just a moment and see if we can confirm those just real quick and then we will approve and confirm the appointments that have been made to date or that have been provided to us to date. Give us just a moment.
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
17:31
While we're waiting, I just want to relay a
Speaker 72
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message from Senator Flowers for the group. She said,
Speaker 2
17:57
Jim, in keeping your hands off the podium. Bon obviously did
Speaker 84
18:43
Okay, members, we are holding the appointments of Senator
Speaker 62
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Davis's district, and can either do them tonight or do them in fiscal session, and we're holding one of Senator Mark Johnson's appointments, and they have that here. Otherwise, I move that we confirm the appointments that the governor has provided to us, other than those that have been mentioned. Without objection, motion carried.
Anybody else have any announcements, anything at all, anything they want to say? Any other business? Now, Secretary, do you
subject to the reading across the desk. We'll see you at 12 midnight.
Agenda
Call to Order
Senate Bills for Third Reading and Passage
Adjournment
Documents
No documents posted.
Speakers
Senator Will Bond Chair
Unverified
Speaker 6
Speaker 10
Chair
Unverified
Senator Jason Rapert
Unverified
Speaker 24
Speaker 30
Senator Jim Hendren
Unverified
Senator Trent Garner
Unverified
Speaker 39
Speaker 2
Speaker 50
Speaker 58
Speaker 62
Speaker 72
Speaker 26
Speaker 11
Speaker 78
Speaker 84
Speaker 85