Press Conference with Speaker-designate

For more information visit www.fema.org The business of leading the House of Representatives, and I now offer congratulations and all the best wishes and support to Speaker Desinette, Darren Williams. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First let me say it is such an honor that the members of the 80th General Assembly have elected me as the Speaker-designate. I am thrilled beyond measure, and I'm humbled that they think I have the qualifications necessary to lead this body. As I said today, I respect this institution and its traditions, and I look forward to work with each member of the General Assembly to move our state forward and continue to build on the progress that we have made in the 88th General Assembly. Moore has done an outstanding job leading this General Assembly and with his leadership and his guidance, I look forward to beginning the work to prepare for the 89th General Assembly. Our work begins today. We've got a lot of things to do to live up to the example that Speaker Moore and the leaders of the 88th General Assembly have given to us to follow. So I'm going to begin work immediately to prepare for an efficient and an effective 89th General Assembly, just as we've done in the 88th. Now, I'm the speaker designate. Robert Moore is still the speaker. So I look forward to working with him throughout the remaining 10 months as chair of Judiciary as we continue to handle the people's business. I'm honored that he asked me to serve this leadership position. And again, I'm so humbled and honored that my colleagues in General Assembly have asked me to be their speaker for the 89th General Assembly. Thank you. Isn't that the beauty of the secret ballot? I'd only be speculating to tell you how that vote came down, but I'm proud to have the support of 54 members, and I believe we'll work together to get the support of all. This body has an ability to pull together and do what's best for the state of Arkansas, So I'm going to continue what I've always done, continue to reach across party lines and work to build consensus, because that's what I've done since I've been here. And I just think we'll continue to do that. And I think we'll come together as a house, and we'll do what's best for the people, because the folks in this chamber, they care about the people of Arkansas, first and foremost. So I'm excited to have this opportunity. I don't want to speculate on what the vote is. I'm the speaker-designé. I plan to work with every member to do the work of the people. well that's a question I've been asked quite a bit I'm I didn't run because I was an African American and I don't think they voted for me because of that but I'm proud that my members voted for me obviously black and white so sure it has historical significance and for my kids I'm happy that they see it but what my daughter said to me today was that I don't I don't want you to be the black speaker she said I'm praying for you because I want you to be speaker and so I don't want to have a label in front of the speaker. I am the speaker designate for the 89th General Assembly, and I look forward to serving with everyone and doing what's best for the entire state of Arkansas. Well, you know, clearly it's nice, but I've been black for 43 years, so I'm kind of used to this, so I don't feel any different. I'm excited, again, to lead the body in the 89th in the same fashion that our great speaker, Mr. Moore has done, and he had the full support of Republicans and Democrats, blacks and whites, and I hope that I have that same ability to forge consensus and move forward. Our state is a wonderful state, and I think this election, though, is historic and important, maybe it speaks volumes to where we're going as a state, and I am proud of that. Well, first and foremost, again, I'm speaker-designate, and I don't want to get ahead of myself. We've got plenty of work to do in the 88th General Assembly, and I'm going to continue to work with Speaker Moore to do that. But moving forward, going to the 89th General Assembly, I think the real duty of the Speaker is to make sure we have an efficient and an effective session. So I'm going to begin working immediately to build on the fine leadership and the examples that have been set by Speaker Moore so we can have an efficient and an effective session. The people want us to come down here, get their business done, and go home. And if we can come together and prepare and plan, we'll be able to do that. We're going to have a lot of new people who have not served in the House before, no matter what happens in the outcome of this election. And so we've got to begin to prepare to orient them, to get them ready for this job. And so we've got a lot of work to do. And I look forward to work with Republicans and Democrats to prepare for the 89th Journal Senate. Well, in my mind, it doesn't complicate it at all. I was not elected Majority Leader today. I was elected Speaker-designated for the 89th General Assembly, and that's to represent and to work with everybody, both Republicans and Democrats, and if we have our Independent or Green Party, we'll work with them as well. So I look forward to working with the entire House, regardless of what their party affiliation may be. Our rules say this vote is the vote for which we make for those, because we intend for this person to be speaker. That's what our rules say. And that's what we've always done. There's never been a change. And I think we'll just continue to move forward because if we wait until November after the election to start figuring out what we need to do to get the peoples done in the 89th General Assembly, we're going to be grossly inefficient. And it's going to cost the state money. You know, it costs us about $30,000 a day to be here. And if we wait to start planning after November, then that's just more money that we're going to cost the state because more days we're going to be here. I want to do what Speaker Moore has done, and that's to leave an effective and efficient general assembly. Well, I am going to, again, work with the starting day one. I shouldn't say starting day one. I've always worked with the members of the Republican Party. I enumerated three pieces of legislation that had broad-based support, both Republican and Democrat. Got great friends on the other side of the aisle. I don't know that we're as partisan as the people in the media think. When we get inside these walls, we want to do what's best for the people. And I respect their vote. I think my members will respect their vote. And we're just going to work hard to do what's best for the people of Arkansas. I'm sorry? I don't worry about possibilities there are a number of possibilities we could have additional Democrats as well so the elections will take care of themselves this body this house was lost that's this is not the place for an election elections happen out there we'll let that take care of itself I'm going to work inside this walls to build a consensus and to move forward Absolutely. Absolutely. It only makes sense if we work in a bipartisan. This is not new. I just went through three bills, and I'll repeat them. The scrap metal bill, 64 members of the House signed on. 20 of the 28 Republicans serving signed on. About 46 members, both Republican and Democrat, signed on to my taxpayer bill. And, of course, Speaker Moore asked me to lead the passage of our Senate reform bill. 71 members of the General Assembly signed on. I think that speaks volume for how we can come together and work together, so that's what I look forward to doing. Well, absolutely, this session was a success, and I think it starts with this man right here. He did an outstanding job of keeping us together. Speaker Moore had a unique job of serving as speaker at a time where our house was as closely divided as it's been in maybe forever. But think of this. This fiscal session ended in 19 days. last year, it ended in 18 days. We had a significantly more number of Democrats in here, and that's because of his leadership. So he did a great job, and I hope that I can build upon the example he set. I want to take a holistic approach to looking at that. You can talk about them reducing their income tax, but you've got to ask what's their property tax or other taxes. So to take one part out and highlight that's probably not the way we want to serve. We want to take a holistic approach at looking at the revenue as well as how we spend our money. We have been fiscally conservative in this state. There are, what, 40-plus other states would love to be in our position right now. That's because our governor, in partnership with this legislature, has a history of balancing our budget. I'm going to continue that as speaker. Again, I didn't run to be majority leader. I ran to be leader, speaker, designee, and then speaker in the 89th General Assembly. Robert Moore set a good example. I don't feel that he was a Democratic speaker or a Republican speaker. He was our speaker, and I don't intend to do anything different in that regard than he's done. I intend to lead the entire House. Again, in my speech, I said, you know, we need to foster an environment where we function like a patchwork quilt, not like red blankets and blue blankets. Everybody needs to join this and do what's best for the people of Arkansas. And so I'm not going to worry about elections. I'm not going to worry about what they're going to do. I know my friends on the other side of the aisle. They respect this vote. I also know they're conservative, just like most Arcandons are. They don't want to spend any additional money by delay because of an extended session if we choose to change horses midstream or actually late in the game. So I'm looking to move forward and build on a fine example that Speaker Moore has given us and have an efficient and effective session. Well, sure. But, again, I think we should have strong debate and much discussion. That's when we get good policies. You know, again, I don't believe Republicans or Democrats have a monopoly on good ideas. We need to put all those good ideas on the table and do what's best for Arkansas. I have a number of issues that I'm passionate about. But I'm going to work with this entire body to formulate our policies as we move forward. I am not the king of the house. I'm the speaker of the house, and I'm going to work in partnership with my members, and we're going to fashion our direction. We're going to move forward as a team, unified, and we'll set the policies that make sense. We know there's some challenges. We know we've got to continue to fund education. We've got to make sure that our students have an opportunity for world-class education. We've got to make sure that we take care of our Medicaid problem. That's a serious problem. And we must continue to promote policies and work with this governor that will build Arkansas up by creating economic development and more jobs. We know those are things we're going to work on. Beyond that, we'll see as we talk among ourselves and set our policy in our direction. I just listed three. I'm hoping to highlight that we continue to grow jobs. I'm hoping that we solve this Medicaid problem. And above all, we've got to continue to invest in our students by investing in education. There are three points there, Sarah. You want to keep them in? I don't know how many more you want to give me. That's three good ones, I think. If we can get that done, I think we've had a great session. Sure, that's a good question. And our Department of Human Services, they're working and our agencies are working. Maybe changing the way we provide fee, we pay for our services. I want to work in partnership with the governor and his administration to solve that problem. I don't know the answer yet, but we're getting there and we're working on it. We've got teams of people working on that, so I look forward to working with them to implement that. Well, we'll see. Right now, it's estimated that we still may have some funding gap, but we're going to make sure that we take care of the needs of the people of Arkansas. with regard to Medicaid no I don't have anything specific in mind we've got some things that we need to continue to do we've made great strides in education we're going to continue to do that I'm proud of where Arkansas is now ranked national education we got to keep that keep that going the government's quick action closing fund has been tremendously successful we want to make sure that he continues to have those resources to bring jobs my district district 36 has been the benefit of That Quick Action Closing Fund, Wells Fund, the Salt Falcon Jet, Century Industries, all those companies worked in partnership with the government to grow jobs. So we're going to continue to do that. I sure hope that's it. Well, I can say unequivocally that the 88th General Assembly, following the rules of our house, said that I'll be the speaker-designate. And it's never happened before, but that's been changed. So I'm looking forward to way to moving forward and doing the people's business. We can't wait and worry about elections. I'm going to move forward to be Speaker of the International Center. Well, it's up to the voters, I think, my colleagues here. And we're going to continue to work. We're going to pull that 54 together and those 46, we're going to bring them together. We're going to work hard to make sure that we get the people's business done. And I don't think we're going to worry about this election. We're going to worry about moving forward. We want to go forward, not backwards. This one's done. well not according to our rules according to our rules the members elect the speaker and speaker and so we're making a lot of assumptions here that the vote 5446 was down party lines and it very well may have been but it's a secret ballot we don't know that so I don't want to make those assumptions I want to be the speaker of the house not the majority or minority leader thank you Thank you.