State Agencies & Govt'l Affairs- House
Video
Transcript
1 document
Bills discussed (66)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
|
SB343
Act 734
· 3 mentions in chapter, agenda, transcript
Matched: “SB343 Irvin TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING STATE-OWNED MOTOR VEHICLE…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING STATE-OWNED MOTOR VEHICLES; TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PUBLIC PROPERTY; … | Irvin | Notification that SB343 is now Act 734 |
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HB1024
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1024 A. Collins TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PUBLIC EMPLOYEES; AN…”
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TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PUBLIC EMPLOYEES; AND TO REPEAL THE LAW PROHIBITING COLLECTIVE BARGAINING. | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1028
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…S; AND TO REPEAL THE LAW PROHIBITING COLLECTIVE BARGAINING. HB1028 A. Collins TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF THE LAW CONCERNING OBSCEN…”
|
TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF THE LAW CONCERNING OBSCENITY AND THE PROCESS FOR CHALLENGING MATERIALS INCLUDED … | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HB1035
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1035 A. Collins TO CREATE THE ONLINE VOTER REGISTRATION ACT OF 2…”
|
TO CREATE THE ONLINE VOTER REGISTRATION ACT OF 2025; TO ALLOW ONLINE VOTER REGISTRATION; TO … | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HB1036
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1036 A. Collins TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING VOTER REGISTRATION;…”
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TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING VOTER REGISTRATION; TO ALLOW VOTER REGISTRATION DURING EARLY VOTING AND … | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HB1037
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…TE THE ARKANSAS FORWARD ENGAGEMENT COMMITTEE WORKING GROUP. HB1037 A. Collins AN ACT TO CREATE THE PREREGISTRATION TO VOTE ACT…”
|
AN ACT TO CREATE THE PREREGISTRATION TO VOTE ACT; AND TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF ARKANSAS … | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1038
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 51. HB1038 A. Collins TO CREATE THE NO-EXCUSE ABSENTEE VOTING ACT OF 2…”
|
TO CREATE THE NO-EXCUSE ABSENTEE VOTING ACT OF 2025; TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ABSENTEE … | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HB1039
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…NG; AND TO REPEAL VOTER QUALIFICATIONS FOR ABSENTEE VOTING. HB1039 A. Collins TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING ABSENTEE BALLOT…”
|
TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING ABSENTEE BALLOTS; AND TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING ELECTIONS. | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HB1040
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…EE BALLOTS; AND TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING ELECTIONS. HB1040 A. Collins TO CREATE THE WATER IN LINE ACT OF 2025; AND TO…”
|
TO CREATE THE WATER IN LINE ACT OF 2025; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING … | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HB1041
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…LS, AND COMMISSIONS. REGULAR AGENDA Number Sponsor Subtitle HB1041 R. Scott TO PROHIBIT DECEPTIVE AND FRAUDULENT DEEPFAKES IN…”
|
TO PROHIBIT DECEPTIVE AND FRAUDULENT DEEPFAKES IN ELECTION COMMUNICATIONS. | R. Scott Richardson | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HB1042
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…ES FOR MISDEMEANOR OFFENSES RELATED TO VOTING. Page 3 of 5 HB1042 A. Collins TO CREATE THE DIRECT DEMOCRACY ACT OF 2025; TO R…”
|
TO CREATE THE DIRECT DEMOCRACY ACT OF 2025; TO REPEAL THE ENSURING ACCESS FOR ALL … | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HB1043
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1043 A. Collins TO REQUIRE DISCLOSURE AND REPORTING OF NONCANDID…”
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TO REQUIRE DISCLOSURE AND REPORTING OF NONCANDIDATE EXPENDITURES PERTAINING TO APPELLATE JUDICIAL ELECTIONS; AND TO … | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1058
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1058 Unger TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ETHICS AND CONFLICTS OF I…”
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TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ETHICS AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST FOR PUBLIC OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES; … | Unger | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1059
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…GIVING ADVANCE NOTICE TO ENTITIES OF REQUIRED INSPECTIONS. HB1059 Unger TO PROVIDE THE OPTION FOR A FREE LIFETIME HUNTING AND…”
|
TO PROVIDE THE OPTION FOR A FREE LIFETIME HUNTING AND FISHING LICENSE TO A COMMERCIAL … | Unger | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1069
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1069 S. Meeks TO OBSERVE STANDARD TIME YEAR ROUND IN ARKANSAS; A…”
|
TO OBSERVE STANDARD TIME YEAR ROUND IN ARKANSAS; AND TO ELIMINATE DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME IN … | S. Meeks | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1078
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…PROVIDES CERTAIN INFORMATION RELATED TO HUMAN TRAFFICKING. HB1078 Long TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING RUNOFF ELECTIONS; AND…”
|
TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING RUNOFF ELECTIONS; AND TO PROVIDE FOR A RUNOFF ELECTION FOR … | Long | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1162
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…TO ADOPT NEW LAWS CONCERNING APPELLATE JUDICIAL CAMPAIGNS. HB1162 Duffield TO ESTABLISH GOOD FRIDAY AS AN OFFICIAL STATE HOLI…”
|
TO ESTABLISH GOOD FRIDAY AS AN OFFICIAL STATE HOLIDAY. | Duffield | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1281
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1281 McAlindon TO AMEND REPORTING FOR A CANDIDATE FOR CERTAIN MU…”
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TO AMEND REPORTING FOR A CANDIDATE FOR CERTAIN MUNICIPAL OFFICES AND FOR COUNTY OFFICE; AND … | McAlindon | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HB1365
Act 938
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1365 K. Brown TO REMOVE RACIAL AND GENDER QUOTAS AND QUALIFICATI…”
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TO REMOVE RACIAL AND GENDER QUOTAS AND QUALIFICATIONS OF MEMBERSHIP FOR CERTAIN BOARDS, COMMITTEES, COUNCILS, … | K. Brown | Notification that HB1365 is now Act 938 |
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HB1415
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…E ARKANSAS CODE THAT RESULTED FROM INITIATED ACT 1 OF 1996. HB1415 L. Johnson TO REQUIRE LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT TO RESPOND TO A…”
|
TO REQUIRE LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT TO RESPOND TO A REQUEST FOR A FIRE INQUIRY. | L. Johnson | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HB1459
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…TATE AGENCIES TO PUBLISH FEDERAL GUIDANCE DOCUMENTS ONLINE. HB1459 L. Johnson CONCERNING RECURRING REPORTS SUBMITTED TO THE GE…”
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CONCERNING RECURRING REPORTS SUBMITTED TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. | L. Johnson | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HB1461
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1461 L. Johnson TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE EVALUATION OF NE…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE EVALUATION OF NECESSITY OF VARIOUS COMMISSIONS AND BOARDS. | L. Johnson | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1494
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1494 Hawk TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS GUIDANCE OUT OF THE DARKNESS AC…”
|
TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS GUIDANCE OUT OF THE DARKNESS ACT; AND TO REQUIRE STATE AGENCIES … | Hawk | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1614
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…aty, Jr. CONCUR IN SENATE AMENDMENT Number Sponsor Subtitle HB1614 Lundstrum TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING DESIGNATIONS RELATED…”
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TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING DESIGNATIONS RELATED TO CERTAIN CRIMINAL JUSTICE GRANT PROGRAMS. | Lundstrum | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HB1621
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…MENT TO BECOME OR BE EMPLOYED AS A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER. HB1621 Wardlaw TO AMEND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967; AN…”
|
TO AMEND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967; AND TO EXEMPT PERSONAL INFORMATION OF … | Wardlaw | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1631
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1631 Wardlaw TO ADDRESS THE ISSUANCE OF HUNTING AND FISHING LICE…”
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TO ADDRESS THE ISSUANCE OF HUNTING AND FISHING LICENSES TO FOREIGN EXCHANGE STUDENTS. | Wardlaw | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HB1632
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…estrictions designating areas as 'Members and Staff Only'. HB1632 Wardlaw TO REQUIRE REIMBURSEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS STATE GAME…”
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TO REQUIRE REIMBURSEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS STATE GAME AND FISH COMMISSION FOR FREE OR DISCOUNTED … | Wardlaw | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HB1667
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…AND THE STATE LIBRARY BOARD TO THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION. HB1667 Bentley TO AMEND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967; AN…”
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TO AMEND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING … | Bentley | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HB1720
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1720 Vaught TO CREATE THE BABIES AT WORK ACT; TO ALLOW STATE AGE…”
|
TO CREATE THE BABIES AT WORK ACT; TO ALLOW STATE AGENCIES TO PERMIT PUBLIC EMPLOYEES … | Vaught | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HB1753
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…G THEIR INFANTS SIX MONTHS OR YOUNGER TO WORK. Page 4 of 5 HB1753 Long TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING VOTER REGISTRATION; TO OPT…”
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TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING VOTER REGISTRATION; TO OPT-OUT OF THE NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION ACT … | Long | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HB1769
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…BLIC MEETINGS UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967. HB1769 Barnett CONCERNING LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER STANDARDS; AND T…”
|
CONCERNING LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER STANDARDS; AND TO REQUIRE A PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION OR ASSESSMENT TO BECOME … | Barnett | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1773
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…END PROVISIONS OF ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 51, § 5. HB1773 Long TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING CONTRIBUTION LIMITS FOR BA…”
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TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING CONTRIBUTION LIMITS FOR BALLOT QUESTION COMMITTEES AND LEGISLATIVE QUESTION COMMITTEES. | Long | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1846
Act 946
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1846 S. Meeks TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS 2036 COMMISSION.”
|
TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS 2036 COMMISSION. | S. Meeks | Notification that HB1846 is now Act 946 |
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HB1849
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…NS. HB1846 S. Meeks TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS 2036 COMMISSION. HB1849 Gramlich TO ALLOW FOR THE CROSS DEPUTIZATION OF MUNICIPAL,…”
|
TO ALLOW FOR THE CROSS DEPUTIZATION OF MUNICIPAL, COUNTY, STATE, AND TRIBAL LAW ENFORCEMENT ON … | Gramlich | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1867
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…EMENT ON FEDERALLY-RECOGNIZED TRIBAL LAND WITHIN THE STATE. HB1867 B. McKenzie TO ESTABLISH THE NO GOVERNMENT TRESPASSING ACT;…”
|
TO ESTABLISH THE NO GOVERNMENT TRESPASSING ACT; AND TO PROHIBIT GAME WARDEN TRESPASS ONTO PRIVATE … | B. McKenzie | WITHDRAWN BY AUTHOR |
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HB1878
Act 978
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…CT; AND TO PROHIBIT GAME WARDEN TRESPASS ONTO PRIVATE LAND. HB1878 McGruder TO ENSURE EARLY VOTING ACCESS FOR ARKANSANS RESIDI…”
|
TO ENSURE EARLY VOTING ACCESS FOR ARKANSANS RESIDING IN POPULATION CENTERS; AND TO REQUIRE A … | McGruder | Notification that HB1878 is now Act 978 |
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HB1883
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1883 Long TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS FOURTH AMENDMENT PROTECTION ACT…”
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TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS FOURTH AMENDMENT PROTECTION ACT; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE … | Long | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HB1884
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1884 Long TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE MARKING AND COUNTING O…”
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TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE MARKING AND COUNTING OF PAPER BALLOTS. | Long | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HB1891
Act 715
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…ISSION FOR FREE OR DISCOUNTED HUNTING AND FISHING LICENSES. HB1891 Ray TO ALLOW A PERSON FILING AS A CANDIDATE FOR THE OFFICE…”
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TO ALLOW A PERSON FILING AS A CANDIDATE FOR THE OFFICE OF JUSTICE OF THE … | Ray | Notification that HB1891 is now Act 715 |
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HB1925
Act 846
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…LE OF THAT POSITION AS A PREFIX WHEN FILING AS A CANDIDATE. HB1925 Beaty Jr. TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ABSENTEE BALLOTS; AND…”
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AN ACT TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ABSENTEE BALLOTS; TO AMEND THE ABSENTEE BALLOT VOTER … | Beaty Jr. | Notification that HB1925 is now Act 846 |
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HB1929
Act 797
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…TEE BALLOTS; AND TO REQUIRE AN OATH FOR AN ABSENTEE BALLOT. HB1929 McAlindon TO CREATE THE RECOGNIZING JUDEA AND SAMARIA ACT;…”
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TO CREATE THE RECOGNIZING JUDEA AND SAMARIA ACT; AND TO PROHIBIT STATE AGENCIES FROM USING … | McAlindon | Notification that HB1929 is now Act 797 |
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HB1934
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…SING THE TERM "WEST BANK" IN OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT MATERIALS. HB1934 McAlindon TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS FORWARD ENGAGEMENT COMMITT…”
|
TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS FORWARD ENGAGEMENT COMMITTEE ACT; AND TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS FORWARD ENGAGEMENT … | McAlindon | Died in House at Sine Die adjournment. |
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HJR1009
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…MMISSION. CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS Number Sponsor Subtitle HJR1009 K. Brown AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO BE KN…”
|
AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO BE KNOWN AS THE ARKANSAS VICTIMS' BILL OF … | K. Brown | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1014
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…NCLUDING VICTIMS IN THE ADULT AND JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEMS. HJR1014 Beaty Jr. A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING ECONOMIC DE…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE STATE OF ARKANSAS; AND AUTHORIZING THE GENERAL … | Beaty Jr. | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1016
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…OMIC DEVELOPMENT DISTRICTS TO PROMOTE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. HJR1016 Ray A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO REPEAL THE PROVISION OF A…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO REPEAL THE PROVISION OF ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, ARTICLE 5, § 1, ALLOWING … | Ray | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1017
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…TIVE OR REFERENDUM PETITION TO CORRECT OR AMEND A PETITION. HJR1017 Ray A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROVIDING THAT A PROPOSED ST…”
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A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROVIDING THAT A PROPOSED STATE-WIDE INITIATED ACT OR CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT SHALL BECOME … | Ray | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1018
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…N THE ELECTION AND A MAJORITY OF THE COUNTIES OF THE STATE. HJR1018 Ray THE CITIZENS ONLY VOTING AMENDMENT. DEFERRED BILLS Numb…”
|
THE CITIZENS ONLY VOTING AMENDMENT. | Ray | Approved by the Governor |
|
SB12
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB12 B. King TO AMEND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967; AN…”
|
TO AMEND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967; AND TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING … | B. King | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SB184
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB184 D. Sullivan TO TRANSFER THE POWERS AND DUTIES OF THE ARKANS…”
|
TO TRANSFER THE POWERS AND DUTIES OF THE ARKANSAS EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION COMMISSION AND THE STATE … | D. Sullivan | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SB241
Act 885
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB241 J. Scott TO AMEND THE UNIFORM ATTENDANCE AND LEAVE POLICY A…”
|
TO AMEND THE UNIFORM ATTENDANCE AND LEAVE POLICY ACT; AND TO GRANT PAID LEAVE TO … | J. Scott | Notification that SB241 is now Act 885 |
|
SB351
Act 592
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB351 J. Dismang TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ETHICS AND CAMPAIGN…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ETHICS AND CAMPAIGN FINANCE; TO AMEND PORTIONS OF INITIATED ACT … | J. Dismang | Notification that SB351 is now Act 592 |
|
SB357
Act 572
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…IONS REGARDING REDISTRICTING BY THE BOARD OF APPORTIONMENT. SB357 J. Bryant TO AMEND THE UNIFORM ATTENDANCE AND LEAVE POLICY…”
|
TO AMEND THE UNIFORM ATTENDANCE AND LEAVE POLICY ACT; AND TO APPLY MILITARY SERVICE CREDIT … | J. Bryant | Notification that SB357 is now Act 572 |
|
SB376
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…OF THE DEATH OF A PUBLIC EMPLOYEE'S FAMILY MEMBER OR CHILD. SB376 A. Clark TO AMEND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967; A…”
|
TO AMEND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING … | A. Clark | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SB445
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB445 K. Hammer TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE LICENSURE OF ELEC…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE LICENSURE OF ELECTRICAL INSPECTORS. | K. Hammer | Died on House Calendar at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SB471
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…THE LAW CONCERNING THE LICENSURE OF ELECTRICAL INSPECTORS. SB471 A. Clark TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING CANDIDATES FOR NONPART…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING CANDIDATES FOR NONPARTISAN ELECTIONS; AND TO ALLOW CERTAIN CANDIDATES FOR … | A. Clark | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SB479
Act 593
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB479 K. Hammer TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING VOTER ASSISTANCE; AND…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING VOTER ASSISTANCE; AND TO REQUIRE A PERSON ASSISTING A VOTER … | K. Hammer | Notification that SB479 is now Act 593 |
|
SB491
Act 956
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB491 K. Hammer TO REQUIRE A VENDOR THAT CONTRACTS WITH THE OFFIC…”
|
TO REQUIRE A VENDOR THAT CONTRACTS WITH THE EMPLOYEE BENEFITS DIVISION TO SUBMIT DATA FOR … | K. Hammer | Notification that SB491 is now Act 956 |
|
SB508
Act 756
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB508 Irvin TO AMEND THE FREQUENCY OF PAYMENT OF A STIPEND FOR CE…”
|
TO AMEND THE FREQUENCY OF PAYMENT OF A STIPEND FOR CERTAIN MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC … | Irvin | Notification that SB508 is now Act 756 |
|
HB1683
Act 924
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1683 McAlindon TO PROHIBIT THE PROCUREMENT BY A GOVERNMENTAL ENT…”
|
TO PROHIBIT THE PROCUREMENT BY A GOVERNMENTAL ENTITY OF AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE OR A COMPONENT … | McAlindon | Notification that HB1683 is now Act 924 |
|
HB1800
Act 998
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1800 McAlindon TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING DISCLOSURE FOR CAMPAI…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING DISCLOSURE FOR CAMPAIGN FINANCE; TO REQUIRE DISCLOSURE BY A REPRESENTATIVE … | McAlindon | Notification that HB1800 is now Act 998 |
|
HB1837
Act 999
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1837 McAlindon TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING DISCLOSURE FOR MATTER…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING DISCLOSURE FOR MATTERS REFERRED TO VOTERS; AND TO BAN FOREIGN … | McAlindon | Notification that HB1837 is now Act 999 |
|
HB1870
Act 840
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1870 Wing CONCERNING VOTER REGISTRATION LISTS; AND TO ALLOW THE…”
|
CONCERNING VOTER REGISTRATION LISTS; AND TO ALLOW THE SECRETARY OF STATE TO PROVIDE A VOTER … | Wing | Notification that HB1870 is now Act 840 |
|
HB1896
Act 716
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1896 B. McKenzie TO CREATE THE JUNK FEE ELIMINATING ACT OF 2025;…”
|
TO CREATE THE JUNK FEE ELIMINATING ACT OF 2025; TO ABOLISH THE INFORMATION NETWORK OF … | B. McKenzie | Notification that HB1896 is now Act 716 |
|
HB1898
Act 837
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “HB1898 Painter TO CREATE THE REGULATORY DIVISION AND THE REGULATOR…”
|
TO CREATE THE REGULATORY DIVISION AND THE REGULATORY ENFORCEMENT DIVISION IN THE DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE … | Painter | Notification that HB1898 is now Act 837 |
|
SB433
Act 573
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB433 J. Dotson REGARDING THE DISPLAY OF THE NATIONAL MOTTO AND T…”
|
REGARDING THE DISPLAY OF THE NATIONAL MOTTO AND THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. | J. Dotson | Notification that SB433 is now Act 573 |
|
SB510
Act 594
· 1 mention in chapter
Matched: “SB510 J. Boyd TO ALLOW FOR THE CROSS DEPUTIZATION OF MUNICIPAL, C…”
|
TO ALLOW FOR THE CROSS DEPUTIZATION OF MUNICIPAL, COUNTY, STATE, AND TRIBAL LAW ENFORCEMENT ON … | J. Boyd | Notification that SB510 is now Act 594 |
Machine transcript
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- October 2, 2026
saw Senator Ervin here. And I think we were in the questions phase of the presentation. Senator Ervin, you're recognized.
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
0:25
Thank you. I just wanted to continue with, um, we try to to provide you, there's a handout that we tried to provide with DFNA and I have Jim Hudson here that can go over just some different uh additional information that we've handed out to you in addition to the
fiscal impact statement. Um that um that information has been passed out to the committee. The committee should have an opportunity to review that. And I guess what I would say since we are in the questioning phase of the uh presentation. If the committee has any questions about the handout that you've been given. Then we can bring uh Secretary Hudson to the table. And Allow him to answer any questions.
Speaker 12
1:26
Any questions? Happy to go over it. Representative Beck break up. I, I don't
really have a question. I think I'll, if you're gonna go, are you planning on going down there and just kind of listen these all out or I can do that. I mean, I don't,
I, I, I'm just what's the plan? I, I can ask a question on, on an item if
we want. All right. OK, so, uh, $500 to $1 million per year savings by having fewer vehicles in operation. Can you get a little bit more granular with that as to how, how well we came up with that number. how we came up
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
2:13
with that number? Yes, I'll have to have a Jim Hudson and uh they'll come up to the table, and they can answer that
question. I mean again, I think it's. Trying to take all of this
and digitizing it's gonna be a lot more
Speaker 26
2:34
cleaner data. I Mr. Chairman, with your permission, just Jim Hudson, secretary DFA, the, uh, the information
Speaker 28
2:40
that we have for the savings really came from the McKenzie study their projections, uh, just the consumables of having excess capacity in the fleet so all changes were
Speaker 29
2:51
going to avoid tires we're going to avoid buying just, you know, breakdowns that are occurring
just the maintenance of surplus vehicles. That's
where their projections came from. So, um, that's the the I reference a percentage is that like you're gonna have 20% fuel
Speaker 28
3:17
cars or Yeah, I believe what they did in their methodology was just, you know, project
Speaker 29
3:22
an annual cost of operation for each vehicle and then we're taking 300 vehicles roughly out. Of circulation and then just
assuming going forward that we'll have kind of a similar sort of um accumulation
Speaker 28
3:36
of the vehicles that are not being driven to the maximum extent that those would be ongoing costs that we could avoid if we're effectively managing the fleet.
I guess my concern is, you can tell I'm a numbers person. I would hope we'd all be my concern then is, is like the, the possible double what they would call double dipping cross over, you know, like where
you're saying, OK, you're gonna have less cars, but we're going to run our cars twice as many miles, so there's gonna be a net increase in that aspect of it, uh, which would reduce the reduction. So if you're saying 300 cars, And a reduction of 300 vehicles and then you have 2500 right now we heard and um so. Is that saying currently, so
you, you would be distributing a million dollars over 300 cars. Potentially, you know, I,
Speaker 29
4:37
I think the, the issue is in terms of the fleet that we retain, it probably will have better characteristics than the fleet that we're disposing. I, I understand
cars if you do the math there, that's a lot. You're paying a lot of money per car, and we have a lot of mileage on some cars from
driven for years and because they're older, they're breaking down a lot more. That's 3, that's what,
300,000? Per car per year? About 300,000 per car per year. No, I'm sorry, no, it wouldn't be 300,000, but, but it's it's,
Speaker 28
5:22
it's $1 million 1000 dollars. It could be $1000 could be $2000 per car. It would depend on, you know, what the breakdowns are. Some of them be
Speaker 29
5:28
more expensive than others, but if you're doing oil changes, you know, 3 to 4
times a year depending upon the mileage you're replacing the tires every other year, it does add up. I, I, I,
I, I, I don't want to get, I don't want to get too granule in, in this, but, but
you get. You're saying. That you're going to save a million dollars by getting rid of 300 cars. Now you're not getting rid of the functionality of those cars, it's gonna be, you're gonna be better, better utilize your fleet and, and so therefore you won't have the, I
would say the tags and insurance on those,
on those other cars, but That's still a lot of money. For 300 cars. So
Speaker 28
6:12
again I would say that the. The expenses that we're currently
Speaker 55
6:16
having really are a lot for an old fleet that is on average, I believe, 10 years old. At this point So, you know, ultimately having a nearer fleet. That is more fully utilized. I don't know that we'll
Speaker 29
6:30
have the breakdowns that we're having with an older fleet that's just
sometimes just sitting on the lot. That the number of incidents I know that we've had in state, the state fleet just with having, you know, parts being stolen. Because they've been setting out on a lot, they're, they're just maintenance expenses with having an underutilized
Speaker 43
6:48
asset that we'll avoid going forward. But, but this doesn't include state police cars. No, no, not at all, not at all. Uh, so,
Speaker 57
6:55
uh, just in doing the math, if you take like a million
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
7:05
dollars divided by 300 vehicles. I mean, that's roughly about $3,333. I don't know if you've bought a set of tires lately, but they're pretty doggone expensive, plus an oil change, plus if anything happens to the vehicle, if the air conditioner goes out, transmission needs to be fixed, you know, windshield needs to be replaced. Insurance on those vehicles, you know, all, all those things have to be taken into consideration and $3300 a year annually it's
probably about as much as I spend personally on my vehicle to maintain it. So I, I think that's reasonable maths. I, I,
if you think it's reasonable. I, I, I chuckle a little bit. You sound a little bit like one of those those car maintenance commercials, you know, a trans, you know, they always say the transition to $200 anyway anyway so I can just say with your numbers in 3000 I'm just repeating
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
8:01
what my husband tells me about me
driving my car trying to be a commercial here.
Speaker 29
8:09
I'm just trying to be a, yeah, I think, I think the broader point too is that the numbers. Come to us from McKenzie based on the more they have the granular data and we could obviously go mine that, but that's why we're bringing the proposal, you know, to, to the general assembly is there's an opportunity to save. If they're pro forma numbers don't pan out. I've got zero interest in continuing to subscribe to the service, you know, these are the projections, but we have to just look at it in reality and see does it
actually pan out? If it doesn't, then we need to discontinue the
service. OK. Well, thank you. I'll let someone
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
8:50
else ask a question. Representative Meeks, you're recognized. uh, thank you, uh, Mr. Chairman. So, uh, many of you may remember about a decade ago when I was first elected, I delivered pizzas at night to work off some debt and even back then over a decade ago when we got on the clock, we took out that little pizza topper thing, put it on top of the car, and
that had all this tracking stuff in it and so private industry has been doing this for a long, long time. And uh you know, whether it's pizza delivery, courier service, you know, 18 wheelers, records, uh, just about anybody who utilizes vehicles in the public sector now is using some type of technology similar to this. One of the, one of the reasons that um they employed this technology was to make sure that we were driving safely and by driving safely, the companies
got discounts on the liability insurance that they were having to to cover us and so my question is, is I don't, does the state pay any kind of insurance or liability insurance for employees who are driving these vehicles, and if so, is that a potential another source of savings that we could gain by proving that, hey, our, our employees are driving safely. We've got the data to, you know, prove it. Can we get a better, better rate, so we
Speaker 28
10:08
do self-insure um our automobile insurance as a state and that's
kind of part of the captive, uh, that y'all y'all
Speaker 29
10:16
be looking at uh in the session. You know, I think we that is not something we're currently considering for purposes of insurance. I think that's getting into granularity words kind of keep coming up that it's getting more granular in terms of tracking individual usage. I will tell you from my standpoint, my
Speaker 55
10:33
chair looking at this, uh, the thing that I'm most um supportive of is tracking the asset. Not the employee, and that's not a distinction about difference. I understand the employees are
in the cars, but the whole initiative is not aimed at the employee, it's aimed at the asset and to understand where the asset is, is the asset getting fully utilized if it's not, why not? And can we redeploy it to someplace else that can make full
Speaker 29
11:03
utilization of it and just really quickly, let me speak to utilization while that's an issue. Currently, current practice, each individual department. They all have several agencies in each of these agencies are
individually procuring a fleet and they're not sharing it within the department, let alone across departments. And so if a particular agency is not traveling very heavily, its vehicles just sitting on the parking lot. Versus another agency may have heavy travel. They can't borrow that other Carly on other cars available because we don't have the data on that. So the thing that I'm most interested in is is understanding are we using a very expensive asset. to the greatest effectiveness. Thank you. OK, and I wanna
Follow up on that because I think it's a good point. We're all about efficiency. We all want to save money. fleet management's important these tracking devices can be. Helpful in that regard. Couldn't you do a fleet management study, if you will, by placing the trackers on the car for a period of a year. 2 years determine how your fleet's operating. Where your efficiencies are. Make those changes and then.
Stop using the trackers and then every so often. Maybe do it again, but uh the way I understand it is. If we go with this proposal, it's an $850,000 a year cost year over year. Now I've heard multiple justifications. One of them is the fleet management perspective. First justification I heard was that so that state employees didn't have to fill out those boxes of paperwork. If that's the true justification. Then I have to go back to my constituents and say in order to save that many boxes of state
employees doing paperwork, we're going to spend $850,000 a year, or in other words, $8.5 million over the next 10 years. So that they don't have to do paperwork. I don't think my constituents would like that very much, but If it's fleet management, why don't we just do a study, figure it out and implement it as opposed to a permanent solution. So I'd like to hear a response to that. Thank you. Yes, sir, if I may, back to your first point in terms of the what
Speaker 29
13:23
you say to your constituents, you know, it's the state CFO. I don't like that result either. I don't think
Speaker 55
13:31
the primary. Justification for doing this is work avoidance for state employees. I don't. I do think gathering data in a better way in a more reliable way that can be centralized and then can be studied. I think that's a good reason to do it, but to me the primary benefit of having this, these telematics is
to understand are the vehicles actually being driven where they're being driven, who's driving them in sense of the, the agency that's doing the, the driving and then doing the analysis based on that. To your point, could we just do study, uh, you know, I think we can do anything. The, the question would be if we take it off. And then we decide that we need to do it again. I think we are losing some efficiencies in that process, but I would make you this commitment. I'm just as interested as you are.
And understanding that we have a genuine ROI on the expenses that we're incurring as a state. And if this does not pan out and does not actually give us actionable data.
Speaker 29
14:36
To make decisions about our fleet, I will be the first one to recommend to the governor, we need to discontinue this. Well, so my, my
response to that would be the easiest way to do this would be to do it on a temporary basis as a as a study.
determine where the efficiencies are, make the changes. And then you don't continue to incur that cost year over year over year once you have determined. What the efficiencies are, and I think that's a fair point. I think the efficiencies again my opinion. Could be determined by placing the trackers for a period of time because, you know, one of the other concerns that's been brought up, Representative Becks mentioned it and others. is the fact that While you're tracking vehicles
if those vehicles are driven by people. It's like Representative Beatty said you put a tracker on his tie and you wouldn't be tracking him, you'd be tracking his time. Well, yeah, except the tie is tied to him, so you're actually tracking him. There's very little distinction there, so. Um, do you have any concerns with just the idea that. Understand just the kind of over. Bearing nature. The oppressive nature.
Of placing trackers on state employees' vehicles. Well,
Speaker 28
16:03
they're not state employees vehicles. They belong to the state of Arkansas and but they drive, you know what I mean. I understand that. I understand that, but I do think that actually is a very important
Speaker 29
16:14
point that, you know. Me as an employee, the state of Arkansas. I have a reasonable right of expectation of privacy when I hop in my pickup truck and I drive it from here to someplace else. If I'm in a state vehicle, I do
not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. That's, that's not my vehicle. And I would think. That if there is Lord forbid some critical incident that occurs. With the state employee. And allegedly was a vehicle. And
Speaker 55
16:42
people begin to ask questions, well, did we? Do we know where something was at? Do we know where this employee was driving. It's a safety issue as well. And our response is, well,
Speaker 29
16:55
no, we don't have access to that information. When the prevailing standard, I'd argue in most
industry is you do have that information. People would rightly ask us questions, why are we out of step? Now we are state actors. I get that's a little bit of a difference. I'm not personally advocating for and I'd want to squelch any conversation about using tools to over scrutinize and overtrack employees. I carry two phones, a personal phone and a state phone. My state phone has, you know, the find my phone function turned on, that's automatically loaded. That provides way more
detailed information about my movements, then being one of these trackers assigned to one of these vehicles. Well,
you bring up a great point because I think that's the next
logical step. Once we establish that we can place a tracker on vehicles driven by state employees, the next logical step is to do, as I understand Walmart does, that there are corporate headquarters you give every state employee a badge. You figure out, you know, how many times they go to the bathroom, you know, how long they spend logged on to their computer. You determine how efficient of an employee is this
or is this an employee that kind of likes to Be lazy and And not really do their work that much and at some point, you know, we have enough trouble attracting quality employees the state government as it is, but at some point, you know, you begin to become a bit oppressive and uh overburdensome, and I think we, you know, we have to walk a fine line in state government with that regard, you know, Walmart may can dictate that upon their employees and, and certainly based on the amount that they pay them, state governments in a little
different situation and I just think we we have to guard against. This micromanaging of people, this oppressive nature of constant surveillance of people's personal movements when they go to the bathroom, when they go outside for a break. Now hang on, I've got the floor. Um, when they go outside for a break, um, when they Uh, go to lunch and come back. I mean, it, at some point. You have to trust your employees.
And you don't micromanage them, scrutinize them, and surveil them 24/7 and so I just like to hear your response about that because I think there's a, I think there's a line I'd like to hear what you think it is, and if you want to speak
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
19:23
before I spoke with. Sure, I mean, I would disagree with you that that would be a logical next
step. To me, that's illogical. And I, I don't, I would not. To me, that would be an illogical thing to do and a waste of time and a waste of
resources to do that with state employees. So I, I don't think it would be a logical next step to go from what we're talking about as far as the state vehicle as an asset and trying to manage our assets knowing where they're even part or if that's a secure location or not, if they're gonna get broken into, whether we know that or not, I, I think what we're talking about here is state vehicle. s as an asset that we're just trying to manage more effectively and efficiently
utilizing the technology that we know that is already available and used in the private sector because it creates efficiencies. So my, my response to your question, Representative Galway would be uh There's a there's so many things that you could say, what if, what if, but again, we're just talking about the bill in front of us that's really dealing with an asset of the state of Arkansas just like a computer, just like any type of equipment
Speaker 26
20:44
that is utilized by a state employee. Mr. Chair, may I I
Speaker 29
20:49
would agree with you in terms of what you're concerns are about privacy, um. You know, being a lawyer for about 30 years at this point, substantial amount of my practice in the corporate world. Working in the labor and employment area, representing corporate clients. I spent a little too much time having to tell my clients, you might be
Speaker 55
21:06
able to do that legally, but that sure is a dumb thing to do. And so I, I don't think that we
want to go down the road of, of surveilling. I do think that we can give assurances that the access to the information pertaining these vehicles will be centralized and tightly controlled as it is, for example, with our computers, you know, if you're a supervisor and you want to get access to somebody's email, you just can't just call up information services and say send me my, you know, employees list of all their emails they've received and sent. There are protocols in place to make sure that We're not, you know, being too intrusive that there really is a
reason for that, and we have the right level of supervision, adult supervision involved in that sort of analysis. So I can tell you, you know, with
Speaker 29
21:55
a 100% certainty, my commitment to you. None of the conversations that I've personally been a part of. And the Arkansas Ford steering Committee, which I sat on for this issue, you know, came up. Not one time did we validate the
Speaker 55
22:08
reason for the initiative based on our ability to surveil employees. This is all about fiscal management from our perspective.
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
22:19
And but I do want to say too in response, the state police do utilize this type of technology for safety purposes and to recreate any type of a Car chase or anything like that so that they can recover evidence that may have been lost along the way. So, I mean, to the degree of what you're saying, they have to utilize it, but in a way that law enforcement, you know, utilizes it in, in those regards. So I would agree with you just that is happening but in a law
enforcement setting with our state police.
Well, thank you for that and I appreciate your responses truly I do. I, but I will just again have to respectfully disagree. I do think that it is not unrealistic at all to expect that at some point in the future and maybe not the too distant future. That there will be people sitting before this committee, uh, seeking to Surveil state employees more
than is being done now. It is happening in private industry and part of the justification that I heard for this bill was FedEx implemented this, this type of fleet management technology a long time ago. Well, Walmart has implemented, uh, Employee management technology, if you will, that uh is very much, I think, intrusive and surveilling in nature, but they're Walmart and so they have the ability to do that and I don't think again it's unrealistic.
Uh, to think that at some point and again maybe not in the too distant future. That we'll be having the conversation that I'm
talking about. Maybe we won't, and I hope I'm wrong, but um I, I would
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
24:02
be opposed completely to that because I don't think a state employee is an asset. Like we're talking about in this regard and while I understand that, I think the
response to that and the people who would bring such a bill who would justify it would say they are paid with taxpayer funds. And if we want to increase our
efficiencies, then as a taxpayer, I have the right to make, to, uh, I have the right and we have every justification to get the best out of our state employees and make sure that they're not taking too many smoke breaks. I think that'll be the justification we'll hear from that end of the table. I may not be here. You may not be here, but 10 years from now, who
knows? Anyway, all right, any other questions by the committee, Representative Ray, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr.
Representative David Ray
Unverified
24:48
Chairman. My questions are for Secretary Hudson. So I, I've got
a handful of questions here. I think I can move through them pretty quickly. As I understand it, the goal
of this legislation is to Optimize the utilization of the state's vehicle fleet in order to produced savings for the taxpayers and efficiencies on behalf of the state. Is that correct? That's correct. OK. Earlier this session, uh, I ran and passed a bill that's now been signed into law dealing with how um the sale of state property is conducted, or sorry,
the purchase of state property is conducted for building authority and the main reason That we're hopeful that that will benefit that that will create efficiencies is because we're trying to move from a decentralized process where every agency is in charge of their own real estate to a centralized process where there's somebody who has the right financial incentives and incentives for the for the
taxpayer to manage that, uh, that asset. Is it your contention that Agencies We'll have that we will have better incentives for the purchase, utilization of state vehicles if there is more of a centralized process than a decentralized process where every agency does their own thing. Yes, sir, I think you, you gain efficiencies, but you
Speaker 28
26:14
also leverage expertise, so Anne Laidlaw and DBA,
Speaker 29
26:18
she's a, she's a property manager. She understands how to do that. She understands, you know, how to
develop property. She understands what market conditions are. She understands where we
Speaker 55
26:29
have space underutilized. So right now if you look at it from the property standpoint, you know, the person who's handling that for a particular agency that is in other duties as assigned and they are not quite as motivated as Ms. Laidlaw is to make sure that we're as efficient as we can be. The other thing I think that legislation did is analogous to this is we're beginning to gather information across the board to understand how many
square feet we have in a particular building. What's the employee load in that building? Do we have the opportunity To put more employees in and gain efficiencies there. We lack a lot of data, a lot of metrics in state government and without data, you can't make good decisions, OK? And then
Representative David Ray
Unverified
27:13
I, I do kind of want to put you on the spot with these last two questions. Is the agency going to make an effort to document the savings from this if it passes so that
we can know a year from now, 2 years from now, whether this is producing savings as we
Speaker 55
27:34
hoped it might. They will, you know, it's going to be in Secretary Fiskin's department, but, you know, I get to play in their sandbox a little bit, so that's some things I'm gonna be looking for. And again, as I said earlier, as with all contracts, if there's not an ROI on this, we don't need to be doing it, and I want
Speaker 28
27:54
that means that you were spending 1 before and you're spending less than 10
Representative David Ray
Unverified
27:59
now. We gotta be able to do that, OK, and that that leads me to my last point and I think you've sort of said this. before. I just wanna Hear it
one more time. You can can you assure us that the centralization of the management of the state's vehicle fleet is is either going to a produce more savings than the telematics cost, or B, if it doesn't. Well we,
Speaker 28
28:24
will we be rolling this back in 2 years. So it's currently not getting managed.
So we're going to begin doing something we're not currently doing, managing it. And if the team that we vest with responsibility to do that can't manage it, we'll get a different team. We're going to do this. We're going to do it well and we're going to achieve savings for the taxpayers and we'll keep changing out the team until we do. All right, I've got a motion at the proper time. Representative Hawke, you're
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
28:53
recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um. Secretary, and there's been a lot of conversation about tracking
employees and, and like I, I've got two vehicles for my personal business that I've got trackers on, right? Because I want to know everything about what's going on. But one thing I do with my employees is I have them sign in uh uh not really a waiver, but just saying that they know that there's a tracker on this vehicle, just so that they acknowledge that this is a thing. Is that something that the department would be willing to do to, to, so, so that employees know that they're being tracked. Yeah, you know. I think we need
Speaker 55
29:25
to develop a whole set of processes, you know, when we implement this, but again I think the place I
would begin with is at the centralized level at TSS and us to be very clear who has access to the data and for what reasons? Because we should not be just disseminating seminating out somebody's driving, you know, record their driving history. There ought to be a legitimate reason for that, and it ought to be tightly controlled.
Speaker 104
29:49
Uh, my next question is, I think the last time
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
29:53
we heard this bill, We were talking about cost of these trackers for each vehicle. and so I, I believe, uh, Representative Clowney said it
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
30:02
was gonna be like $20 a vehicle. Is that correct? or per month or per month just on that
Speaker 55
30:08
point. And y'all right and proper to be asking questions about the cost. I do want to be clear this is not a procurement, you know, Bill, we're not, we're not actually making a procurement decision if this bill is passed, so that was just to give you a sense of a range of a potential cost. If the bill's passed, if we move forward on this, we'll go through the standard review process. We'll bring the contract to ALC and y'all be able to ask the questions, is
Speaker 29
30:34
that the right price? Is that the right functionality that we'll
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
30:37
need, but I guess what what my, my point of this was the same in your opinion, being the chief financial officer of the state. In your opinion, from based on the conversations that you've had. The savings that would be made on, you know, having these trackers and things would further be a good thing in in what the cost of this would be. Yeah, I believe we'll
Speaker 55
30:58
hit break even relatively quickly, but I think break even is not good enough. I think we have to
actually achieve savings on top of the expenses that we're incurring to do this, and that should not be in the
Speaker 28
31:12
too distant future. Again, if we don't see that, then my question is what are we doing and why are we
doing it? OK, thank you. No more questions. All right, um, just a couple more questions. So. This information that you're talking about will be housed centrally, uh. Regarding the use of the vehicles, is that subject to FOIA? I think it would be.
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
31:36
Absent an exemption. I think state vehicles though, uh, state police would, they, they maintain a FOIA exemption. The,
Speaker 29
31:48
the driving logs that we're currently maintained. That would contain the same information are currently foable as well again absent a statutory exemption. Gotcha. OK. Very good. And Are you, uh
Are you making a commitment now that in terms of what we talked about
earlier, uh. The, the surveilling of state employees, persons, I understand that this is a fleet management bill, but their persons is something that you would be opposed to going forward. As I heard
Speaker 28
32:24
Senator Urban say that. You will, you will not have me at the table.
Speaker 55
32:29
Advocating for surveilling state employees and you have my personal commitment that as we work out the processes.
Speaker 29
32:36
For implementing this. Based on the feedback, I mean, I'm slow, but I'm not that slow that I'm hearing at the table. This is a concern and your concerns are important to us.
Speaker 55
32:47
So we'll make sure that we have good processes in place so that we're tightly controlling dissemination of information and frankly, we're using it for the reasons that I have told you today, to manage the state fleet, honestly. If a supervisor needs to have a Tracker to man somebody. I got
questions about that supervisor. I think there's better ways to manage somebody. OK, so you won't be at the end of the table, but I
Speaker 45
33:19
take it your deputy and your uh other employees won't either. Uh, anybody that I get to
boss around won't be here. OK. All right. Very good. We also heard concerns in the last meeting that we had about this bill that it could be extended to the point, you know, to know how hard a person breaks. You know, in terms of how fast
they're driving, how hard they're breaking even. Do you intend to uh take it to that extent? I don't, and that
Speaker 28
33:45
has not been a subject of the conversation, uh. I can tell you I know that function is um. present in the insurance industry out there, you can turn that
Speaker 26
33:53
on, it can affect your pricing. I can tell you it's not turned on my car. All right, well, we, we did
hear that from the end of the table last time. I thought. Again, there's a fine line with
all of these things and to me that seemed a bit much,
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
34:12
but I think what you're referring to, I know like some insurance companies have like little devices that are, that are being put into people's cars. Is that right? That can Uh, I guess give you incentives or something like that, that's not. First of all, I don't think that, I think that would be a
waste of state employees' times to even be looking at that level of detail. That's my opinion. So the argument that the end of the
table was from a safety standpoint that and maybe it was just that the technology exists such that they could track such things including speed, how the degree of breaking and a number of other variables, not just location and that they would do that under the guise of. safety as we do so many things. So I just wonder if that's your intention and do you see it going that far? No. Yeah, and I would say that
Speaker 29
35:05
as we go through the procurement
process and, and that procurement document is produced for review. The services and all the features that we are buying with that will be made available to you and you'll be able to see what exactly we're asking them to provide us in terms of data. That's not something that we have scoped out as part of this project.
Speaker 76
35:25
All right. Representative Beck, you recognized him. And this came up
I think either I brought up someone brought this up last time.
Everything you want is on the vehicle and it's, it's a maintenance and I, I, I agree with you that those are great and I, I think you will have savings. I, I think you'll, you'll be surprised by it. But the, the, the problem I have is why are we putting a person in the vehicle. Here's what I'm, I'm I'm, I'm talking about. Why, why do we need to know who's driving the vehicle. You need to know how many miles it's been driven and, and quite honestly, if it's been driven way over speed or something like that, you could
always have a system to go back and say, who's got that car checked out now. The person would have to do nothing other than say I've got this car checked out. It's assigned to me and then have your system that gives you all the information you wanted just monitoring the fleet. It tells you The cars, how the cars are being utilized without any reference to who's utilizing them, uh, and then that gives you the information you need to check, you know, do the maintenance and the check back to go out and you and you don't have any of this
tracking issues that you that you have as far as like you're tracking employees because you're really looking at the car, the fleet, and then if something's going wrong or something, you could always go back and look at the day
Speaker 55
36:56
and say, who was that assigned to at that particular point in time. take your point. I guess the The reason why maybe a a name of an employee. would be valuable from an asset management standpoint is to understand what
Speaker 29
37:10
job duties. Are, you know, generating the
need to travel just to be able to kind of understand do we have the right cars, you know, sign in the right places. And again, the identity of the
Speaker 55
37:21
driver is currently being documented. This is not creating a new record. This is just transferring a paper record to an electronic record, but same data. But again, to the point that I made earlier, I think as we talk about generating reports to do the analysis. You know, if there's not a need to have a name on a report, then we should probably take steps to make sure that we're only
generating on the report the essential data elements to do the analysis, but there could be a reason when we discover something like we probably ought to know. because of a critical incident that occurred an allegation of a hit and run, for example, you know, who was driving the vehicle that day? I think that'd be valuable information that we would need, but only if circumstances warranted having that name to be able to disclose to a broader, broader group of people and, and, and I,
I just want to double down one down on this, you know, you, you can
understand the concern here because you're saying, I want to know everything about this fleet and all that, and I agree. I think that's all very valuable data, but then you step right over that line and says, OK, I need to know who's driving it, and that, you know, and that's tracking, whereas what I'm saying is the vehicle could be signed out by a person on a given day and then whatever occurs to that vehicle on that day, I mean the employee should know, hey, this vehicle's being tracked and you've signed it out, so don't be letting someone else drive it and all, all that stuff, you know, and that would all be, that would be information you would have all
the information you wanted and just by I just typed into my phone $14 a day, uh, and they'll they'll track, they'll give you every bit of information that you've said that you want, but it doesn't have anything about tracking who's driving the vehicle, and that's a. Management too. That's a company out there who does it. That's $14 a day and they tell you every place that vehicle went, how if it made quick stops and the speeds and every place it's been, so yeah, unfortunately,
Speaker 128
39:10
I think the dynamics of of the committee setting creates a kind of like, you know, opposite
Speaker 55
39:17
views on things we're not disagreeing about the concern. We really aren't. I think we all agree, at least I know I agree that we ought to be careful about being too intrusive into, you know, people's personal stuff. Totally agree with you on that. So I think $14 a
day. I meant $14 a month that's fine, but
Speaker 55
39:34
circling back though. We're not creating a new data element. We're not. The data element is currently being tracked and using that word tracked, it's, it's being archived.
It's being recorded and so we're just taking it from a paper. to an electronic format. That's, that's all this is doing. So we can make better decisions, do better analysis, but again, the idea that somehow we're we may take this employee name and their travel patterns and create some sort of broad, you know, dissemination of it, that's That is not our plan. That's not the goal, and given the concerns I'm hearing here, we ought to make sure in our implementation procedures we avoid it being an issue.
All right, any other questions by the committee?
Representative Stan Berry
Unverified
40:36
in bury you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We've talked since we've been talking here for
the last 30 minutes we've talked about two things, vehicles, vehicle maintenance, and tracking employees. Uh, are tracking vehicles. Is uh Do we have a problem with our
employees being in places that they don't need to be. And have they been,
no, this is not uh told what the policies are and, and I know. I Can you answer that? Sure,
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
41:15
thank you for the question. No, no, this is about management of what is a state asset, these vehicles that are
all over the place and all these different agencies, and you've got people that are
tasked to deal with it, instead of dealing with children and family services issues in the Department of Children and Family Services, they're having to deal with the state vehicles that are part of that agency. So this is centralizing the State vehicles into transformation and shared services so we can better manage those vehicles and when I say better manage them. That means you've got one centralized office that's looking at the maintenance of the vehicles.
The everything to deal with a vehicle that's their focus instead of it being in commerce and health department and Human Services Department and DCFS and DYS and all these different agencies. That's not really their function, it's just part of what they have to do as a state employee. We want To me, I want the state employees to be focused on their mission if they're hired at the Department of Health to be dealing with the Department of Health issues. To me, this is
about management of our vehicles and making sure that they're safe, they're well maintained, they're taken care of, and that they're available, quite frankly, uh, for people that need them and working with my work with DCFS in particular, Division of Children and Family Services and actually ran a bill uh based on the fact That you had a lot of traveling across state because these children were placed in the foster care system, and if there wasn't a family available in Fort Smith, and they may be in Faulkner County, but they were
having to transport these children back and forth for a court hearings and things like that. And so to me it's that's a safety issue and that's happening right now, so you know it's a safety issue for our state employees to make sure that they have a good working vehicle. I can use and that you've got one centralized office that's really tasked with making sure we're managing it to the very best of our ability. My husband manages our cars. I do not. I am not good at it.
Representative Stan Berry
Unverified
43:39
OK, I, I understand what the intent is, but I have to ask you a question. If this bill doesn't pass, you're not going to take that
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
43:49
pizza back, are you I feel bad because you didn't get lunch, so yes, I brought you pizza.
Hm Sorry. Alright, any other questions by the committee? Get like Seeing no further
questions by the committee. We have no one
signed up to speak for or against the bill. Senator Ervin, you're recognized to close
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
44:17
Streetville. Thank you. Um, I really do sincerely appreciate all the time that you've
spent hearing this bill and all the questions that have been asked about this bill. I give you my personal assurances that I will maintain, uh, my oversight over any implementation of this and bring anything before ALC, uh, that we might want or need as we work
through this, uh, during the interim, I think those are some really great questions that everybody put forward, um, but Again, I'm, I am interested to see how this is implemented and the information that we would receive from the data. So I really appreciate all the time and diligence you've given me on the bill, and I appreciate a good vote for the
bill and, and I will say that the governor's office is supportive of this, as is the governor. Thank you.
All right, Senator Irvin has closed for her bill. What are the wishes of the committee? See a motion to pass Representative Ray. Is that as amended? OK, motion to pass as amended. Is there any discussion on the motion, Representative Hawk, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Colleagues, I, I think that you
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
45:25
know we live in the 21st century and and things are going digital and, and we've got to be able to find cost saving measures in any way we can do it, and I think that this is a good first step to that. I, you know, when it comes to state
vehicles, they need to be used for state purposes and in, in that case, I, I think that the state should be able to track this. Going to do paper. and, and logs are the old way of doing things and there's more efficient ways to go about and, and figure out maintenance and, and things that that nature to to find those cost saving measures. I, I was just telling Representative Collins just a minute ago that uh whenever on, on the two vehicles I have for my business, um, the other day we were doing our taxes and one of my property management um
employees, he, he, we found that there were 6 trips to Okla over the past year through the tracking that we had and I went and asked him, I said, what, what he said, well, I went down to make a couple horse bats. Well, he was doing that deering work hours and, and we didn't, it was just a slap on the wrist, so let's not do that anymore, but it allowed for us to track that and, and correct the problem at the time. And so with all that being said, I think this is a good first step. I don't think there's any harm in doing this to try to save taxpayer money, and I'll be a yes vote. Any other discussion,
Representative David Ray
Unverified
46:43
Representative, you recognized. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to say real quickly, you know, um, what on the campaign trail I a line that I often use is that I believe state government taxes too much and spends too much, and we all love cutting taxes because the political incentives for cutting taxes are aligned with our constituents. The reason that it's so difficult to cut spending is because the incentives are often not aligned. It's hard to cut spending, but the one area that
can achieve real savings is in this sort of shared services arena and it doesn't really impact anything programmatically. So whether it's real estate, whether it's vehicle fleet management, um, whether it's IT there's all all sorts of buckets along the way that states can and should and have in other states find savings. So this is gonna help us optimize the usage of our vehicle fleet, uh, I believe. It'll move us toward a centralized process as opposed
to a decentralized process. I think at one point, I remember reading an old Democrat Gazette story during the BB administration where they said that um there was one agency that had more employees than they did vehicles. That will never happen again under this sort of a system, um, in my opinion, and with the exception of maybe Representative in it and Representative Hall, I probably represent more state employees than anybody on this. Committee in my district and so if there are problems with
privacy, um, I, you know, we, we will,
I, I feel confident that this committee will address it if it if it arises, so I'll
be a yes vote. All right, and I just want
to say, uh, for the record, I had some serious concerns about these bills. I've made, I've expressed those. I've made no bones about them. Particularly with regard to Um The overbearing nature of the oppressive nature of the, the surveilling of state employees. The uh tracking I have concerns
about that and one thing that has made me feel better, Senator. Urban has said from the end of the table that she intends to, I believe, protect those interests. That's not her intention. It is purely fleet management and to the extent that rules are developed or there's issues that will come before ALC. I know Senator Irvin will be mindful of that, and I appreciate those remarks. I also appreciate the remarks of Secretary Hudson, um, and my friend Secretary Fiskin, who I've worked well with over
the years, I believe that they all will work. To protect the interests of state employees with regard to their privacy. And utilize this in an appropriate manner and so I appreciate those commitments that were made today from the end of the table and then with regard to the Uh, fiscal impact, the financial costs that will be borne by this effort. I think that we're going to have to continue to analyze that. I trust Secretary Hudson, who says that if there's not an ROI on it, then we're not going to continue to do it and so we need
to continue to monitor that and scrutinize that very closely and if it's not there then uh then we need to rethink what we're doing. So I appreciate all those remarks. I think that uh it certainly helped, has helped to ease some of my concerns and so I just wanted to say that I appreciate that all very much and. With that, we do have a, does anyone else have a discussion on the motion? All right, seeing none, we do have a motion to pass as amended. All those in favor say aye. All those opposed.
The eyes have it. Congratulations, Senator Irvin, you passed your bill. Thank
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
50:25
you. Very much for your time and the input.
All right. Committee, we have met here for the purpose of taking up constitutional amendments. 1846,
Speaker 153
51:20
yeah. information OK. You said we were going to do it before we get. But before
we do that, I made a pledge to Representative Meeks that we would take up his amendment on
the 2036 commission. And so with that, Representative makes you're recognized.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
51:49
Thank you, Chairman. Hopefully this will be short and sweet. Uh, so, uh, colleagues, this amendment basically does what you asked me to do. We pull out all the per diem and we explicitly state that members of the commission will receive no compensation uh for serving on this uh commission and that I'll be happy to answer any questions when the
time's right. All right, Senator, I'm sorry, uh, Representative Meeks has explained his amendment. Are there any questions by the committee?
Seeing no questions by the committee, is there a
motion? Motion motion to adopt the amendment. Is there a discussion on the motion seeing none, all those in favor say aye. All those opposed. Amendment's been adopted Representative Meeks you recognized to present your bill as amended. Thank you, uh, colleagues. I think we've already discussed this bill, and that with
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
52:38
that, I'm ready to close and we'll make a motion do pass as amended. Representative Meeks is closed for his bill.
He's made a motion to pass as amended is there discussion on the motion.
Seeing no discussion on the motion, all those in favor say aye. All those opposed guys have it congratulations Representative Meeks, you passed your bill. employee Representative Beatty had a bill. Um, house bill. So just before we begin the constitutional amendments, uh. Representative Ray has a bill and then I see Representative Pilkington here and Representative Brown
here. If these are going to be Representative Hawk, Representative Unger. Now we convene for the purpose of taking up these constitutional
amendments. I just want to remind everyone of that if these bills are going to be quick, we'll run them, um, everybody tells me they're gonna be so quick, so I'm trusting you on that, Representative Beatty,
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
53:48
you're recognized. Representative Howard Beatty District 95, um, Mr. Chair, uh,
here to present House Bill 1925, uh spill from the Secretary of State's office. My understanding
is you have an amendment. I do. All right, we're gonna pass that out. Thank you. Always looking out for you. Well, actually,
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
54:11
the amendment is really the new bill because it changed everything in the bill.
All right, everyone should have a copy of the amendment. Representative Beatty, you recognize
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
54:46
to present the amendment. members basically what the amendment will do is basically everything that's after the enacting clause it substitutes all the language in the remainder of the of the bill so basically your amendment will be the bill. Representative Beatty's explained the amendment.
Are there any questions by the committee, Representative Collin are recognized. Representative Collins, OK, no
question. All right, any other questions by the committee saying no questions by the
committee. Representative Beatty, have you made a motion to adopt the amendment? Uh, yes, I offer a motion to adopt the amendment motion to adopt the amendment discussion on the motion,
seeing none, all those in favor say aye. All those opposedend's been adopted Representative Beatty, you recognized to present the bill as amended.
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
55:32
Mr. Chair, members of the committee, basically what this bill, um, it, it addresses the um Got my notes out of line here.
Basically it addresses the need on absentee ballot materials that will have an oath in the statement, um, confirming the voter's qualification to vote included in the ballot must be signed by the voter and witnessed by an individual, uh, who's at least 18 years older and the, the bill outlines the process for making, sealing, and returning absentee ballots. It details the steps of voter must follow to prepare and submit their absentee ballot, including providing identification in certain cases.
Exceptions are provided in the bill and overall the bill seeks to enhance the absentee voting process by implementing a more secure and transparent procedure ensuring the integrity of absentee ballots in the state of Arkansas to cover a few points, uh, as far as witnessing of absentee ballots and um you know, most of our, we've got many of our neighboring states that require absentee ballots to be witnessed by two citizens over the age of 8. um,
uh, Louisiana, uh, also has requirement that the absentee be witnessed by one person over the age of 18. Right now, Arkansas has not had a witness requirement, so it leaves some vulnerability there, uh, the bill requires a single witness for the absentee ballot voter statement. It would be, uh, it would not be applied to disabled or sick voters, military, military family, or religious observers. Uh, it's just a common sense step to put us on track to Be a leader in in election security instead of falling
behind, it lines up with the president's most recent executive order discussing the, the dangers of mail-in, uh, mail-in voting, um, uh, and it was one of the, one of the areas under election integrity that we were, we were lacking in. So it checks the box and will take care of that issue. With that, I'll entertain any questions. Representative Collins. Uh, thank
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
57:39
you, Mr. Chair. So, um, I guess you know there's a uh a woman who used to live in my
district and now doesn't, and she's 100 years old and she calls me every couple of months about. All kinds of things, but she, uh, you know, her, her husband died a long time ago. She doesn't have any family who live around here. She lives by herself. She's not in a long term care facility, um, she always votes absentee. She's not technically physically disabled, but she just You know, votes absentee all the time because that's how she does it, um, so.
I, I guess You know, someone like that, you would have to have a witness come to their house, um, I mean, who, who is she gonna have come to her house to witness something like this. Well, I would hope that someone would come visit her or that
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
58:33
she'd have a guest in there, so I think she'd have ample opportunity to have someone witness. There's no requirement on who
that individual could be, uh, it could be you representative Collins. You could go and take care of her and and be a witness on her
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
58:48
absentee ballot for her. Well, I've shelter
with this increasingly nightmarish process over the last couple of cycles, but this is gonna make it a lot harder for, for our elderly to vote. Don't, I mean, wouldn't
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
59:00
you agree? Well, I don't think it would make the it it that difficult or make it more onerous on them to, to vote, uh, there, there are exceptions in, in the bill that the voters um uh the wit witnessing requirement should not apply to a voter under one of the following, uh, that the voters unable to attend
the rolls on election day illness or physical disability. long-term care, uh, and, and, and a few other instances there so I, I think it, I think it provides enough exemptions, um, that, that we could find an exemption to take care of, of, of your um of senior citizens, um. So I, I, I really don't think that that's a legitimate valid concern that we should have in this issue. OK. Representative Clowley.
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
59:50
Thank you, Mr. Chair. um, Representative Beatty, this may be elsewhere in the code. I just wasn't able to look it up in time, um. What what happens on the back end if the person doesn't meet these requirements is the ballot just automatically tossed out? Does it become provisional? Is there a cure period? I'm just curious, the mechanics of that bit on
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
1:00:09
the absentee side, um, I'm, I'm not exactly certain on, on the absentee with
this new requirement, what would happen? I think it would follow the same, same procedures right now where that absentee ballot would
not be, um, it would be an improper, um, absentee ballot, but minus that witness signature. OK, thank you. Representative
Ms you recognize. Oh, thank you, Mr. Chairman,
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:00:36
and, and I apologize if I missed this in your, your opening. Um, what, uh, what, what problem are we trying to solve by doing this would be my first question, and then my follow up is, uh, with like the, the county clerks and secretary of states are because
they're gonna be looking at these witness, I mean, I, you know, I could forge, you know, a witness as, you know, statement kind of deal, so are, are they gonna have to be police that somehow representative Meeks, I, I think mainly what those folks will be doing
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
1:01:08
is just to make certain that there was a witness on, on that ballot, uh, on that absentee when it came in that they had someone witness uh and had that information on there. I, I don't know that there's gonna be a lot more policing outside of that. It just
provides for more transparent, uh, process. um, and, and the fact that it's, it's a statement from someone other than just the the individuals mailing that in that
they, they witnessed this individual, um, signed their absentee ballot. OK. Oh OK, so no
more questions on the committee, um, is there anyone here to speak for against the bill? All right.
What's the will of the committee? Oh, you, you, you, you didn't want to pass,
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
1:02:00
OK. All right, you're gonna close and I'm closed and not all for a motion to pass on the bill as amended. As we have a motion to pass as amended. All those
in favor say aye aye, a pulse. I'm gonna call it the habit. Thank you Mr. Chair. Thank you
committee. All right, next, Representative right, do you have a bill? Is this 1891? Yes sir, it is. Please identify yourself for the committee and
Representative David Ray
Unverified
1:02:46
you're good to go House District 69. Colleagues, I'm gonna try to be the quickest bill in committee today. Earlier in the session, we passed House Bill 1222 uh that bill was designed to
standardize, um, the way, uh, various judicial offices can use their title on the ballot, uh, in the case of judicial appointments after that bill passed both chambers and was signed into law. Someone thoughtfully pointed out to me that there's Another section of code that we left out and so this bill just goes back and captures that other area of code. Happy to answer any questions if there are any.
Committee say no questions. Well, we have no one here to speak for against
Representative Jeremy Wooldridge
Unverified
1:03:42
the bill. Oh. Representative Wooldridge. Thank you, Mr. Chair. um, Representative I'm, I'm sorry, I was like getting to the committee
meeting. Is this the bill this this has to do with judges using judge in front of their name on a ballot title. So is this like a judge that was a judge in a different state that moves to Arkansas runs different bill, that was a that's, that's uh a bill that Senator Clark
Representative David Ray
Unverified
1:04:02
has. I think that's scramble and get the agenda up. I'm just double checking. Yeah, now the rate just, yeah, I'll, I'll just go back and
revisit the purpose for the original bill, OK. It was because there's a discrepancy in the law where if you're a circuit judge or a district judge and you've been appointed to that position, if you run for a different position, you can use your ballot title as a prefix on the ballot. But if you're a court of appeals judge or a Supreme Court judge, for some reason you've not been able to and I'm not aware of any policy distinction
for that reason. So this is just standardizing the way all of those judicial offices are treated. I remember that discussion.
Thank you, sir. Are there any more questions? Saying none, and no one to speak. I want to sign up to speak for against the bill, anyone in the audience. Alright, so now are you. Ready to close. I'm closed for the bill and I move to pass. I mean, we have a motion do pass. All those in favor say aye. Any opposes.
Congratulations, Repent Ray, you've passed your bill, uh, next up Representative Brown, I have you down to be 1365. Please identify yourself for the committee and you're good to go. Representative Carolyn Brown, District
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
1:05:29
67, which is north. Mostly North Pulaski. Radius North Pulaski.
Yeah, you're good to go. Go ahead. Thank you. I'm here to re-present House Bill 1365, there
is no the only change in this bill is I remove section 7, this bill, let me. State, this, this bill is the uh act to remove racial and gender quotas and qualifications of membership for certain boards, committees, councils, and commissions and for other purposes. There were 22 uh
locations within our code that specified a race or gender quota. What we did not realize is that one of those. Bos was our ethics commission and that. was put into our statutes uh by uh. A referendum, voters referendum initiated act and so the vote
threshold to remove that those quotas or to amend that section of code required 67 votes. I got 61 votes on the House floor and I don't um at this point in time I've just decided to remove that section from this legislation and we'll deal with that one later. So I would appreciate a good vote and I, I think I've answered the only questions that could be asked about my change here. Or are there any questions? Committee.
Say none. OK, it's getting late, so I just
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
1:07:30
wanna confirm what you just said. So we're We're we're taking out the ethics commission so we're cherry picking ethics commission for all the rest of the commission just so we can get the bill passed, is that correct? Basically,
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
1:07:42
well, I mean, I don't want to be flip about this. We will deal with that later, but it requires
a 67 vote threshold for that one section. The rest of the sections are fine for
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
1:07:57
that one section it takes, I, I get what you're
saying. OK, thank you. Seeing no other questions. Is there no one signed up to speak for or against, you know, is there anyone here who wants to speak on the bill. See nobody, your the clause for your bill for the
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
1:08:18
bill, and I would appreciate a good vote. Thank you. Thank you committee. We have a motion to
pass from Representative Meeks. All those in favor say aye
in a polls. Congratulations, Representative Brown, your bill's
passed. Representative McClendon, uh, are you, do you need to be in
jump up real quick and Uh, is this going to be a House Bill 1929. I thought. I got those. So, uh, 19291.
I Recognize yourself for the committee and uh you're good to go. Oh, we have an amendment amendment. Simple amendment. All right.
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
1:09:31
I Ma. You recognize Mr. Chart real quick before we get started on this, um, I, I'm just asking maybe Carly or you. If we keep hearing bills, we're gonna be here all night and we were, we were intended for constitutional amendments and I keep seeing representatives come in the room and things like that. Is this gonna be the last
bill, or we, or what, what are we doing here? because I just, I like I know we all got bills to get out, but we had an agenda to do constitutional amendments, and we have yet to
get to those. I think I, I do recognize that, um. We're going to go ahead and do this bill and let
me figure out how we're going to proceed. Thank you. I, I understand we'll, we'll try to get to those as quick as possible. OK, uh, Representative Mindy McAlinden, House District 10.
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:10:32
Um, the amendment that you have before you just corrects the language of um on the first part of the bill from annexed to controlled and they are at the request of the higher ed, it deletes the phrase use work product document. Representative McAlinden has explained her amendment.
Are there any questions on the amendment saying nonrepresentative Underwood, you're recognized. Motion to adopt the amendment any discussion on the motion seeing none. All those in favor say aye. All those opposed. Yeah I have it. Congratulations. The amendment's
been adopted. Representative Macklin and you're recognized to present the bill as amended. Thank you so much. Thanks for
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:11:19
letting me be here and I'll be quick. I actually have a lot to say, but I'll be real quick to explain it to you because I know it's late with respect to Representative Hawk, um, the purpose of this bill is to actually require that in our governmental documents as
listed above, um, that we go back to calling what we currently call the West Bank, which is a political term back to Judea and Samaria, which is a historical term for the area is in keeping with our history with Israel is in keeping with our current uh newly approved ambassador to Israel and I think it is the right thing to do in order to honor the history and our partnership with Israel. I've got lots of information to share with you, but I'm gonna keep it concise. All right, Representative
McAlinden has explained her bill. Are there any questions? Representative Collins, you're recognized.
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:12:07
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, um, I guess my, my issue with this would be it's possible that this may be inconsistent with what the United States federal government does, and I'm not saying it is right now, but if we put something in the law, we're not following what the United States government uses necessarily, and I think the whole point with the Gulf of America discussion was that we should be following the new guidance, whatever that guidance is from the federal government when it comes to what
We put on maps and who we recognize and how we recognize them on, on in these sort of international conversation. So why would we set up our own nomenclature, separate and distinct from the federal government. Well, I won't say that it is separate and distinct from the federal government.
I think the government federal government as we've seen with Gulf of America does change what it calls different things, and I think in Arkansas, uh, we're not coming up with the term that no one has ever heard of it is a term that is used around the world for this.
uh West Bank is a very um A very political term that is used and actually very disrespectful to the people of Israel and so the the actual term of the land that has been there for thousands of years is JJ and Samaria, and there are maps that currently have it listed as Judea and Samaria. So it is not inconsistent, um, it is just not necessarily a term that everyone uses, but I think it is the right thing to do, to say, let's use the historical words for that area. Well, obviously, you know, we all know
it's a very, uh, you know, fluid situation out there, um. In many respects, and I don't necessarily have an issue with the terms. I have an issue with setting something up as a state where we are going to be on a different track from the federal government, um, and, and so maybe my follow up question that you would be what is the current Is there a federal government position on this, or is it anywhere I am actually I'm not sure, but I will say
there is a place for an exemption, if
there's a reason that it needs to be. Referred back to as the West Bank, there's actually a provision there to make that exemption as needed. OK. All right, any other questions by the committee? Seeing no further questions by the committee, we have no one signed
up to speak for or against the bill. Representative McAlinden, you recognized a close for your bill. I am closed for my bill and asked for a good vote. Representative McAlin and his his clothes for her bill. What are the wishes of the
committee? See a motion to pass Representative as amended Representative Carr due pass is amended. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing no discussion on the motion, all those in favor say aye. All those opposed guys have it. Congratulations, you passed your bill. Thank you. That's my understanding you
have another bill, Representative McAlinden. I do even faster,
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:15:00
um, no amendments on this one, surprisingly. So this is House Bill. This is Mindy oh House Bill 1934. Representative Mindy McLinon, House District 10. This is a bill that is setting up the
Arkansas Ford Engagement Committee Act and basically we are building, it's kind of an Arkansas doge if you. will. What we're doing is building off what's already happening with Arkansas Ford to to create a group that will review state spending as well as regulations identifying waste, fraud and abuse, improve operational efficiencies, optimize the use of public resources and foster a regulatory environment that supports economic growth. The working group consists of members such as secretaries of various departments, members appointed by the Secretary of the Department of Shared Administrative Services, members
of the House and Senate, all members are to work without compensation, including no per diem for legis. ator s This is a committee. Um, the working group is also required to submit a final report of its findings to the speaker and the president pro tem of the Senate by July 1st of 2026 and is set to be abolished on January 1st of 2027. Uh, the governor does have the option to extend it until 2029 if necessary. So again, the purpose of this bill is simply to identify ways to cut
spending, to cut regulations, to spur economic growth, no one is getting paid and it will sunset. All
right, are there any questions by the committee saying no questions by the committee, we have no one signed up to speak for or against the bill. Representative McAlinden, you're recognized to close for your bill my bill and
ask for a good vote. Representative McAlin is closed for a bill. What are the wishes of the committee? Motion to pass. Representative Rays their discussion on the motion, seeing none. All those in favor say aye. All those opposed, I have it, congratulations, you passed your bill. Thank you. Thank you, Chairman.
I said we weren't going to take up any Senate bills, but Representative Pilkington is here with the Senate bill, I
believe. He's been waiting patiently. He did talk with me about this beforehand, so we're going to take it up quickly. He promises me that it's going to be a very quick bill. So Representative Pilkington, you're recognized. I think I
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
1:17:00
have an amendment with this as well. He has
an amendment, so it's not going to be a deal. It's quick. Don't worry. This is, I'm sorry, Senate Bill 241. Staff's going to pass out the amendment.
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
1:17:15
And uh what they're passing that out, I just want to thank Shane Broadway for helping us with the language on this to make sure that it's correct and right and
not causing any issues, so. It's called boastering. What? bolstering your case by invoking the name of Shane Broadway. It's a good nice move, uh, uh, it's good. Uh,
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
1:17:40
we, you and me, we've been here a while. I All right.
Everyone should have a copy of the amendment representative Pilin recognized to present the amendment. Like
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
1:17:50
I said, this is, this is some
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
1:17:53
language change. It's and so uh it's Virtual sponsor, uh, what this, and like I said, we worked with with Shane to make sure that it's correct and so with that I asked for a uh Positive motion motion
Representative Rose to adopt the amendment. Is there any discussion, seeing none all those in favor, say I. All those opposed
the amendment's been adopted. Representative Pilkington, you're recognized to present Senate Bill 241 as amended. Thank you. I know it's
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
1:18:17
been a long day, so I'll be very short on this. This is essentially to create a uniform attendance policy when it comes to uh bereavement when uh a public employee loses an immediate family member, and so, um, essentially, you know, we've had different agencies doing different things. We want to standardize it. This came from the governor's office. We know that by by allowing us to have this, we'll believe that we'll be able to increase morale, um, increase retention, and of course uh when employees do return back to work, that they're able to focus on the
work they're here to do and not on uh the loss of their family members, so, um, with that, I'm
open to any questions. Are there any questions by the committee representative? No, no
Representative David Ray
Unverified
1:19:02
questions, Representative Ray. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, representative Pilkington, I, I think I
could support this if it were limited to like spouse or child because those are just so traumatic. But like grandmother, grandfather, I mean, everyone
loses their grandparents. I've, that's what happens when people get really old. Yeah, I'm, I've lost all of my grandparents. I have none left, and it was very sad when I lost them, but I knew that they were going to pass at some point. I, I just. I feel like, I feel like the state is pretty generous with. PTO in general and with sick time as well. Do we really need more is my question I would say, I believe we do. I
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
1:19:51
think this uniform, uniformity number one is good for agencies to know what to follow, um, you know, we have more intergenerational families now in Arkansas than we've ever had in the history of state. And for those who are unfamiliar with the term intergenerational family. It's oftentimes when the grandparents are the ones who are raising children or raising another family members and so um for instance in a case like that where a grandmother has raised their, let's say, grand. Uh, when that Essentially grandmother dies. I mean they were acting as the mother figure for that person, um, and so I would think that
they should be entitled to that. Now, once again, you don't have to take the entire leave, so like you said, I mean if I Grandmother were to pass, and you know, I'd known for quite some time that she was in hospice and this was coming, um, you know, I probably wouldn't need to take the whole 40 hour a week to to accomplish that, um, but, uh, some people might, and I think this is just um I think we've kept it tight enough that it's not extensive, you know, it's not cousins or uncles, but I think I think
those are should be included because of the amount of intergenerational families we
have. Any other questions by the committee? Seeing no further question about the committee, uh, Representative Pilkington, how long of a leave period, uh, are
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
1:21:16
you proposing? Uh, let me find it right here in the bill. It is uh. 40 hours of catastrophic leave, um.
So that would be 5 days if
you do an 8 hour work day. OK, and this applies to if there's a death of a family member
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
1:21:35
and to what degree of relation. Um, It is immediate family member means a father, mother, sister, brother, husband, wife, child, grandmother, grandfather, grandchild, in-law. Or a parent or guardian. So acting as a parent or guardian so right and then hold on real quick, sorry, I, I don't mean to interrupt your chair. Sorry about that. Uh, I just wanted to
make sure I was clear on this, on the child part we include biological children, unborn child, a stepchild, and an adopted child, so we made sure the child was very broad. OK. Well, I think
that's, I think that's very good. I like that. Thank you. uh, Representative Haw. Thank you,
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
1:22:12
Mr. Chair. Representative Pilking, what was the idea behind the whole week, like, rather than just like, like cause I know there's some companies that will only give 3 days, right? And why a whole week off?
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
1:22:26
Well, I just think that we thought was um We just thought that was appropriate. Um, I think, actually, and I would say this actually talking to another member who lost a family member, uh, recently, they had talked, they worked for a private company that just gave them 2 days, and they thought that that was, that was not enough. They think when it comes to making arrangements, especially for an immediate family member with funeral and all that comes with it. We thought a week was an appropriate amount of time, so, thank you.
Any other questions by the committee? All right, seeing no other questions by the committee, we have no one signing to speak for or against the bill. Representative Rose, you're recognized for
a motion. Motion to pass as amended. Representative. Actually, I went out of order. Representative Pilkington. I'm, I'm close for my
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
1:23:11
bill. Thank you committee. Thank you for the questions. It was a good discussion. Representative
Pilking is closed for his bill. Representative Roe's motion to pass as amended. All right, we have a motion to pass as amended. Is there any discussion on the motion? I, I want to commend you, Representative Pilkington. I think it's a great bill, and uh
Good work, so Uh, without seeing no further discussion on the motion, all those in favor say aye. All those opposed. I have it. Congratulations, you passed your bill. All right, uh, I believe we have Senate Bill
351 Representative Ray. Let's do it.
Representative David Ray
Unverified
1:24:00
351 Senate Bill 351. OK. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. David Ray, District state representative District 69. So this is Senate Bill 351. This was
originally uh Representative Eaves. He had some kind of energy bill he was running and said that uh If I could take this off his plate, that would be helpful. So this is um this is mostly a cleanup bill for the Arkansas Ethics Commission if there are questions, I could bring um
Director Graham Sloane to the table, but what I'm gonna do is just because I know people may not have had a chance to read this entire and its entirety. I'm just gonna go through section by section. And just quickly explain, oh I'm getting head shakes. OK. Well, all right, then I'll do, I'll do this. So there are a few things in this bill that are substantive. I do not believe any of them to be controversial, uh, most of these sections are clean up in nature. The clean up sections, most of them you'll see.
Um, are cleaning up references to carryover funds, if you'll remember in 2021, we eliminated carryover funds and replace them with remaining campaign funds. So that's what most of those are about, um, of the things that are substantive in section one, you know, currently the liability for an impermissible contribution is solely on the candidate. If somebody were to give you a contribution from an unregistered PAC or something and you Um, take that donation, the, the
liability is on you, the candidate, not on the person, not on the goofball that gave you the illegal contribution. This just makes it to where um it also extends to the contributors so that there's a dual responsibility. Um, section 4 is substantive, but it's not really, not really a big deal, just like campaigns are required to maintain records for 4 years. This clarifies that independence expenditures and PACs are required to do the same. Um, section 67 8 and 9 are clean
up, uh, section 10, this is substantive, but again, not a big deal. It puts reports for exploratory committees on consistent footing with those uh for candidates, um, section 11, same deal there, it just makes the reports for the IEs consistent with those of candidates, uh, section 12 is clean up 13 just says that the paid for. requirement for printed materials, uh, that extends to
Is and and um and uh just like they do campaigns. And um That's pretty much it. Happy to take any questions if there
Representative RJ Hawk
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1:26:54
are any. Representative. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, they, uh, Representative Ray, I, I, I appreciate this because uh I fell victim to this last go around. So let me just make it clear though, like, so, um, like for in my my instance as well as other candidates in Saline County, the like the Republican women, they didn't register as a
PAC, like they were supposed to, they gave out a bunch of checks and then next thing I know I was on the front page of the paper as taking the illegal contribution. So with this bill, um, that would not make me on the front page. It would
Speaker 270
1:27:21
not. on me anymore. It would just strictly be on them, correct? No, I'm afraid that you would still be, uh, you would still be in a bit of hot water, even though we, we did, we, they were originally uh a PAC and so it still falls on us. It it
Representative David Ray
Unverified
1:27:34
would, there would now be a dual responsibility, is my understanding that they would be in trouble for giving you the
contribution. There, there is a duty on behalf of the candidate to make sure that the contribution they accept is is legally
permissible, but there's currently. You know, since you brought up that instance, I'll I'll flesh that out a little bit. You'll remember the uh the legal defense of the pack, if you will, they, they pointed out that they basically said, well, it's not illegal to give an impermissible contribution. It's just illegal to accept one. So
they basically blamed you for something that they
did, which was sort of a trash thing to do, um, but this would at least this would at least give um Do responsibility to the, to the person making the
contribution. Thank you. OK. See Representative Barry. Mr. Chairman, we
Representative Stan Berry
Unverified
1:28:34
have someone in in the audience that knows probably more about it than anybody could
have asked Graham Sloane if he Has anything to add to
that? Please identify yourself for the committee
Speaker 273
1:28:53
and uh. Graham Sloan, director of the ethics commission, the, uh, the law was changed a few years ago and there's now a list of permissible contributors and the law says the candidate is prohibited from taking the contribution from somebody not on the list, uh, and so the
liability under current law runs to the candidate accepting the contribution, what this, uh, ads is a provision that if you're not on the list permissible contributor. that you won't make a contribution and so I think it's gonna cut down by placing responsibility, um, on the person making the contribution as well, you know, they would, I can't imagine it's gonna increase the number of impermissible contributions so it would serve to protect y'all but it doesn't take the responsibility of the candidate
for accepting a contribution from somebody that's not on
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
1:29:59
the list. Representative Crawford. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Sloane, you just said, uh, taking from someone who's not on
the list when we fill out a campaign report, it says there's a place to check if it's an unlisted pack.
So does it go into that of not on the list
Speaker 273
1:30:22
or is it different? Well, the law allows a candidate to take a contribution from an individual, from a political party, from political action committee from a county political party committee, um, that's 5, I think the the list might be 6. I, I, I'm, I don't have instant recall on what they all are, but, but basically if, if they're not on that list, you should. couldn't take the contribution, so if you've got a, if, if it's
a pact that's not registered, then it's not a permissible contributor. PAC is on the list and so if it's a, if it's a registered pack, you can
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
1:30:59
take the contribution if it's not registered, you can't. A follow up then why on the um For that we fill out doesn't say unlisted pack like some I'm confused because now I feel like because
I've had to do that. So have I been in jeopardy. think the
Speaker 273
1:31:20
And, you know, when you're talking about filling out the form, it's electronic filing with the Secretary of State's office. It's not our form, but I think that it will, you can start typing the name of a pack and it will auto it'll pull up a list and let you pick the one and then I think that if it's, if it's, if it's not one that's on the list, then doesn't mean they're not registered. It just means they're not, they're just not one of the ones you can choose, and I don't know how they get on the list, but you know, maybe there's one time to put them on there yet.
So you're, you're gonna manually input that information as opposed to click on the drop down. Yeah, I know how to
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
1:31:57
fill out the form. I'm just making sure I haven't done something wrong. So, uh, I guess I'll get with the Secretary of State. Thank you. Representative Ros, Mr. Sloan, I think she does make
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
1:32:12
a good point. There is a check down box and I think that's what she's talking about that you can select
an unlisted pack, and that is separate from what you guys are talking about because
that's with the Secretary of State, correct? Yes, I
Speaker 273
1:32:26
mean, as far as we're concerned, there's two types of packs. It's uh an approved pack, which is one
Speaker 287
1:32:31
that's registered at the time that they make the contributions and then there's a prohibited pact, which is one that is not registered at the time that they're making contributions and so the unlisted is just, that's just uh designation on the Secretary of State's website, and if, if I could add to or respond to Representative Crawford and Representative Rose's question.
Representative David Ray
Unverified
1:32:57
This does not change the the law regarding what is what is or is not a permissible contribution. It has for a long time uh been uh impermissible to take a contribution from a PAC that
is not registered. I think what you're talking about may be a glitch in the software that the Secretary of State's office
needs to take a look at, but um it's not an issue in the law. But
Saying no other questions, no one's signed up to speak for or against. Um, You recognize the clothes for your bill. Uh, I'm
Representative David Ray
Unverified
1:33:39
closed for my bill and I regret having prepared as much as I did for this, but um I would appreciate a good vote and I move
to pass. OK, we have a motion to pass. There wasn't, there was not a man, OK. There's a motion to pass. What's the, uh, all those in favor say aye and it post.
Alright, congratulations, Representative Wright, you've passed your bill, uh, representative Bongar, if you're ready for, and I forget what Senate bill that is. 357. He OK, you, you reckon I present identify except for the community you recognize to present 357. Thank you, Mr. Chair, committee, uh
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
1:34:23
bringing for you today Senate Bill 357. May I ask Mr. Wood to join me at the table.
Go ahead. I will be as quick as I can with this awesome noncontroversial bill. Uh, the subtitle to amend the uniform attendance and leave Policy Act to apply military service credit to public employees total service time for annual leave, accrual calculation. Senate Bill 357 is about recognizing and valuing the service of our veterans and current members of the National Guard and reserves who are employed by the state of
Arkansas. This bill allows their documented military service to count towards their accrued rate of annual leave, essentially acknowledging the time they've already served in uniform for state and nation when calculating how quickly they earn annual leave at state employees. It's important to clarify this. Bill does not provide additional leave. It simply credits relevant military service towards annual leave accrual. Senate Bill 357 helps Arkansas
stay competitive with the federal government, which already credits military service this way. The new federal employee with 5 years of military service starts out with an accrued annual leave at the same rate as a 19-year state employee. It sends a strong message that we value discipline, dedication, and military experience and will help us attract and retain high quality public servants. The bill explicitly prohibits double counting service time if the
individual was simultaneously a state employee and in the military. It also outlines proportional method to credit National Guard and Reserve members based on their accumulated points, assuring fairness and consistency with active duty service. This bill passed the Senate with broad support. 31 yeah votes and has the endorsement of attorney General Tim Griffin. I ask for your support and I'm happy to answer any questions and when I say aye, I actually mean Mr. Wood.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
1:36:42
Representative Meeks. So, in summary, state employee gets called up to work in the National Guard. They're deployed for
30 days. They will get credit as if they had worked those 30 days as a state employee for vacation. Is that a is that a 2 sentence summary. No representative did it real
quickly. When you're in the National Guard, you
Speaker 293
1:37:02
get points for every day that you're on duty, whether it's drill or everything, and so what we did is we took the number of points you accumulate in a year and divide that by 365, so it would
be fair to someone who is an active duty who gets 365 days credit. So the average guardsman gets around 80 or 90 points a year. So basically that would equate to about 2.2 months per year of National Guard service. This is just basically about being fair to someone who was on active duty the entire year so that a guardsman doesn't get credit for a whole year. All
right, So no other questions, uh, no one's here to speak for against the, the bill,
uh, Reboer, you're recognized the clause for your bill. Thank
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
1:37:48
you, Mr. Chair. This is a bill that benefits veterans and state employees, and I ask you for a good vote. Thank
you. We have a motion to pass. Uh, on the committee, so is there any discussion on the motion? Saying none. All those in favor say aye. and a pas. Congratulations Representative Unger, you passed your bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, committee.
Representative Hawks, uh, do you want to present Senate Bill 749 4 479, excuse me. OK. Another quick bill real fast. RJ
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
1:38:49
Hawk District 81, uh, Mr. Chair, uh, if you don't mind, I'll have uh Chris Madison with me at the table. Of course, Mr. Radisson, you're
Chris Madison
Unverified
1:38:58
recognized. Thank you. My name is Chris Madison. I'm director of the State Board of Election commissioners and this is a state board of Election commissioners bill and I'm ready to provide some information when Representative Hawk wants
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
1:39:08
me to. Yeah, really this is just concerning voter assistance at the ballot box. I'm gonna let Mr. Madison tell
the details of the bill, so if there's any questions. Real
Chris Madison
Unverified
1:39:16
quick, this was actually part of another bill in the Senate. Senator Tucker asked some questions about it, so we pulled this portion out, run it as a separate bill and what it does is it requires an assist store who's helping a voter in
the poll to vote, which is legal and can happen, uh, to provide identification. Currently, I could check in and help Representative Hawk and say my name is Chris Madison. I could help Representative Long and next say my name is Richard Madison, helped Representative Beatty and said my name is Richard Christopher. What this does is require photo identification, state board will adopt rules that says if you have an Amendment 51 qualifying ID we put your name down on the assisted log if you have a photo ID from somewhere else, the pole supervisor gets additional information. And lastly, if you don't have any identification, we get some
information from you, and you sign an affidavit and this only applies to people that are 18 years of age or older, and this was approved, uh, as I said, out of the Senate committee state agencies based on their comments and this was written for in response to those that I'll take any questions. Are there any questions
by the committee, Representative? cloudy. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Actually,
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
1:40:19
I answered my own question. Sorry. Thanks. Sorry. If we all do
Speaker 167
1:40:26
that. Representative Collins. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. So are
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:40:31
you currently are you allowed to be 16 and help someone like a grandparent. Yes. OK, well, what's gained by going to 18? Why, why is that something that's a public policy, so uh the part of it is, is a minor under
Chris Madison
Unverified
1:40:44
the age of 18 is under the care custody of the voter where a person over the age of 18 is an adult, and what we're really targeting with this are adults that are helping voters. I have actually been in the poll where the sister and the voter did not know each
other and I've also done investigations where the voter claimed that the assist or did not. mark their ballots as they were instructed and we had to figure out who the assistor was and so this is in response to that to protect voters to make sure that the assistors who are assisting voters, or at least identified. Well, and I understand that goal,
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:41:19
and I don't really disagree with it, I guess, well, I'm asking something a little bit different, which is why is it um why is it a bad thing if it's 16 or 17 year old is in there helping out a grandparent
to vote. I didn't say it was. I said that's perfectly acceptable. Oh, so they could do that under this bill, if this bill passes. That's correct,
Chris Madison
Unverified
1:41:41
and the whole idea is, is if the voter wants to be influenced by 16 or 17 year old, that's kind on the voter. If the voter wants to
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:41:50
bring an 18 year old or older, then we want to get their ID. OK, so if they, if so just bear with me on this, but if someone is helping and assisting a voter, and they ask for their ID and they say, no, I'm 17, I
don't have to do that. Do they have to do that? And how would they know if
Chris Madison
Unverified
1:42:08
they are 17? So part of that will be the rule that we work out, um, and that'll be worked out on the rule and probably they'll be handed off to the pole supervisor. We haven't adopted the rule yet, um, hand it off to the pole supervisor to get their information. Because, because there is some limitations and, and one of the things you gotta understand, there are minors who attend and vote with their parents who are just there for the experience and then this is actually targeting those people that are marking and casting the ballot, i.e., filling out the ballot or
pressing the selections on behalf of the voter and handling their ballot. OK,
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:42:38
alright, and but you guys do intend to write rules to continue to allow these older teens to help grandparents. Absolutely, yeah, this is not to prohibit that.
Chris Madison
Unverified
1:42:46
And, and really the reason we're doing it as a rule is it allows a little more flexibility if we find better processes based on uh our more populous areas or less populous areas, it gives us greater flexibilities to adjust it. What we want to do is identify the assistors and make sure that they are who they say they are.
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:43:08
OK, all right, well, um, I, I think I need to look at something else, another section of code, because as I look at this, uh, subpart B, it says that a person named by the voter who is present is 18 and presents the document, so I'm not seeing where they're exempted to be 16 or 17, is that in subpart A or C or something else it's a
different section that talks about a minor under the care custody of the voter. OK. And then finally, um, then I
will be done if somebody doesn't have an ID.
So they're helping their elderly disabled, whoever it is, uh, grandparent, and they just don't have the idea what happens to that person who's trying to vote, who has the ID themselves. So the voter ID
Chris Madison
Unverified
1:43:49
still is required, this doesn't take that. So if, if I'm coming to assist you and I don't have my ID, then under our rule, I will fill out some additional information and I'll swear an affidavit swearing that I am who I say I am. OK, thanks.
All right, any other questions by the committee? Seeing no further questions by the committee.
That we have no one signed up to speak for or against the bill. Representative Hawke recognized a
close for your bill. I am closed for the bill, and I make
a motion to pass. Hawks closed for the bill. He's made a motion to pass any discussion on the motion, seeing none, all those in favor say aye. All those opposed, the odds have it congratulations you passed your bill.
All right, I believe that concludes all the regular bills that we have, so we're gonna move, we're gonna move to the constitutional amendments. And so Give me one moment. All right, we're gonna start,
uh, just at the top in terms of the numbering, so
that would be HJR 1009. This is an amendment to the Arkansas Constitution to be known as the Arkansas Victims' Bill of Rights and to provide
rights for victims of misdemeanor and felony offenses, including victims in the adult and juvenile systems. Representative Barry.
Representative Stan Berry
Unverified
1:45:32
Explain, would you care to explain to me how we're going to do this exactly. Absolutely, so, and
I want to state for everyone who's here in attendance.
That we've already heard extensive presentations of these constitutional amendments we've had extensive public comment both for and against. The committee was here, the committee listened. We are very familiar, I think with these, although some of them, some of these it could have may have been a while since we heard them, so this is for the purposes of really just refreshing the committee's recollection before we Take a final vote in terms of ranking. What we're going to do is after we've heard each. Uh, constitutional amendment again.
Presentation of each constitutional amendment. We're going to rank them again on a, on a new ballot that has all 5, and we're going to rank them just the same way that we did the last time with one being your number one priority will be assigned 5 points, your second choice, 4 points, 3rd choice, 3 points, 4th choice, 2 points, 5th choice 1 point. Accordingly, and Uh, we will tabulate those and we'll arrive at the top constitutional top ranked constitutional amendment which will then be presented to the
full committee. For a vote by the full committee to advance that to the House floor if that vote fails the full committee, then we'll move to the second rank constitutional amendment, and that'll be voted on by the committee to see if it will advance to the House floor. Until we either advance one to the house floor or they all fail. And so that is the process and I would ask those in attendance to try to keep your remarks, uh, abbreviated. We've we've heard
again thorough presentations we've never limited debate. I don't intend to do that tonight unless the testimony goes obscenely long, but I would just ask in consideration of this committee who's already heard these bills and who's already heard extensive comment. That uh the presentations and any comment, the abbreviated. So with that, Representative
Brown, you're recognized to present House Joint resolution 1009. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair, uh,
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
1:47:46
Representative Carolyn Brown, District 67, presenting, um, House Joint Resolution 10009. I have a
handout. I just have two copies I'd like to pass them down both sides of the table, that's OK.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, colleagues. I'm here to present House Joint resolution 10009.
1st off, I want to sincerely thank the committee for including um this. HJR 10009 in your top choices for constitutional amendments. I can't tell you how much it means to the
crime victims and their advocates that I have spoken to. I respectfully come before you today to ask that you advance
HJR 10009 to the House floor. As has been mentioned previously, our constitution is a reflection of who we are as a state and that document we protect the things we hold most dear. I submit to you that protecting the rights of crime victims is among the values Arkansans believe strongly in. After all, we protect the rights of accused persons in the Constitution. Why should we not
protect the rights of victims in our Constitution. Think of the testimony we have heard at the hearing. People who are Thrown into the criminal justice system through no fault of their own deserved the rights, HJR 10009 would afford them. Most of these rights come with no cost at all to the state. It does not cost money to treat victims with fairness and respect. It does not cost money to have the safety of the victim
considered in setting bail. It does not cost money to confer with the prosecuting attorney or to allow victims to be heard and present in the courtroom. Yes, there could be some cost associated with notification, but Arkansas law already requires notification by statute. And with modern technology, the cost or time commitment should not be prohibitive. It is also important to note that several of the rights
included in HJR 10009 require a victim to request or opt in to access that right again limiting the time or cost burden. I also want to be very clear on some of the things HJR 10009 does not do. It does not create a new cause of action for victims to sue prosecutors, judges, or any other state actors for money damages. The Arkansas Constitution already grants immunity under
Article 5, Section 20, and HJR 10009 contains further immunity clause, page 4, lines 9 to 16. Yes, victims can file actions to ensure their rights are being followed, but not to sue any government actors for damages. It also does not make a victim a party in a criminal case. In fact, one of the provisions in the proposed amendment says a victim does not have the status of a party in a criminal
proceeding that's on page 4 lines 7 to 8. The amendment will give victims the right to ask a judge to ensure their rights are being followed. That is known as standing. But only in very limited ways that is exclusive to their rights and without this standing, the rights would not have any real meaning because a victim would not, would have no way to make sure they are enforced.
I ask you to think back to the testimony of the survivors at the hearing. They had real examples of their rights being violated when they were facing some of the toughest moments of their lives, and these are the rights that were violated that were mentioned by the victims here are rights that are already protected by statute. But They were not protected. And they had no meaningful way
of receiving redress, making them feel as if they were being re-victimized by
the criminal justice system itself. HJR 10009 will change that. And as you can see from the map I passed out there are 34 states, all surrounding states for Arkansas have a crime victims bill of rights. Arkansas does not. We are one of 14 states. 14 states that do not, let's see
3 or 16 whatever we, we are one of the states that does not have a crime victim's bill of rights in our Constitution. We do not have constitutional protections for our victims. This bill would allow Arkansas to do something really magnanimous for all the people of Arkansas. I believe that it would be. Receive an overwhelming majority of the votes of the voters. And I
Thank you and respectfully ask you to vote to advance HJR 10009 so that Arkansas can join the vast majority of states in providing rights to victims of crime. Representative Brown
has presented her constitutional than any questions by the committee, Representative Crawford. You guys. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Representative Cindy Crawford
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1:54:20
Representative Brown. I want to vote
for this. I want to. But I'm Scared, I guess would be a word, um. That 28 elected prosecutors. Have signed a letter where they're against it. And then I find out. That there was a bill um that you worked with the prosecutors
on HJR 1020 and then you withdrew that. And you come back with
Representative Matt Brown
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against it. Help me, please. OK, numerically speaking, 10009 was my original bill. Then, um, in consultation uh with the attorneys. And seeing that we had a looming deadline to file constitutional amendments. I went ahead and pulled up the text of.
The Senate bill that was run during the previous session, it was, it was a bill that the prosecutors had said that they would support that they were OK with the language. The deal with that is, is that that legislation is limited to violent and sexual crimes. And at per my conversations with the prosecutors, all of the
rights. In that Constitutional amendment are already provided for in statute. Now if those rights are provided for in statute. Why did the victims that were here Express the experiences they had of being taunted by the defendant and the defendant's family. Uh, why was Mr. Carter
and his father, why have Mr. Carter and his father received harassing male from the convicted. in prison, sending horrible mail to him and his father as well as the um criminal's family. So there are things that their rights that were not that are not being respected and if it and that's limited to these
violent and sexual crimes, but We feel that all victims should have rights if somebody burns your house down. Is that a property crime or is that a violent crime against you? Did they think that you were asleep in your bed? And it was attempted murder. I mean, there's and then there's other crimes, there's smaller crime. Where, um, the, the victim would not, you know, care to be
notified. But this gives victims a right and it gives, you know, they can opt in. My, um, just, you know, think about the uh the elderly person who's who loses all of their life savings because, you know, some Terrible person, uh, talked them out of their money. The money that they were going to live on to support them for the rest of their life. They're a victim and they have, they should have rights, they should
have a right to know what's going on with that defendant or that accused person. If you have, if you've lost a child to murder, uh, wouldn't you like to know that. When that suspect or defendant. Or Convicted individual gets out whether they. You know, whether they're released on recognizance or they
escape or whatever. You have a right to know where that person is to protect
Representative Cindy Crawford
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1:58:35
yourself and the rest of your family. Following Um. Can you Tell me the difference between 1020 and 1009. Yes,
Representative Matt Brown
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1:58:47
OK. The difference is 1009 protects all victims. 10:20 protects.
Only Victims of violent and sexual crimes. And it does not include crimes committed by juveniles. OK, thank you. Representative Hawk, you're recognized. Thank you,
Representative RJ Hawk
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1:59:21
Mr. Chair. Representative Brown after the last time that we were
here, we heard from prosecutors that they were concerned with standing, right? That, that was something that was said quite a bit, um, it wasn't just about one. In fact, I think there was one prosecutor that had been a victim, right? Um, was, have you had prior to this, did you have any conversations with the prosecutors on that and about a potential amendment for covering the standing portion. Yes Yeah, was there a reason why
we didn't try to do an amendment to, to help alleviate that if a
Representative Matt Brown
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1:59:58
victim doesn't have standing, there's no point in having a constitutional amendment. Thank you All
right, seeing no other questions by the committee. Thank you, Representative Brown, for your presentation. We do have individuals signed
to speak for or against the bill. First we have Leslie Abbott Boone. Signed up to speak for the bill. Spoon, if you would state your name
for the record, any organization you're here representing, you'll be recognized to present your
Leslie Abbott
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remarks. My name is Leslie Abbott Boone, and I'm representing myself a citizen of Arkansas. Who I bring with
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me today is Brianna Jane Alt, who was stolen from us and murdered in 2010 on September 13th. Her mother gave me the right to come and present to her today. This picture was not allowed in the courtroom. This is how easy it is to implement victims' rights with no cost that the family sends a
representative and a pitcher is provided in the courtroom. Sometimes when a person is a victim of a crime, they may be treated like a problem without solutions. Are the solutions are determined without their input. The solution is standing. It bridges the gap between the judicial system and the healing process. Victims' rights withstanding enable people impacted by crime to assert and enforce their
rights, knowing they should be treated with respect. Dignity and kindness. It empowers people to mitigate the impact of trauma. I appreciate the courtesies that our statutory laws provide our fellow Arkansans impacted by crime. But it's time now for the victims' rights to be elevated and enshrined in our Arkansas constitution. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Boon. Before you leave, there may be some
questions by the committee. Are there any questions by the committee? Seeing none, I do want to point out that in 2021 I sponsored a bill that passed that allows for a photo of a homicide victim to be displayed at the trial. Of the homicide victim. I'm not sure how often that's been used, but I did sponsor that and it passed and we
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thank you for that and we're telling people about it, so it's used more often and we hopefully will be enshrined in our Constitution. Thank you. Thank you very much.
That was an important one. That was a good one. If I do say so myself. All
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right, we have uh speak against the bill representative Bob McMahon. Sorry, did my title get elevated. It's, it's getting late I apologize. Didn't mean to insult you. OK, we can hear you just fine. All right, Bob McMahon, prosecutor coordinator representing the Arkansas
Representative Cindy Crawford
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2:02:58
prosecuting Attity Association, um, committee members, I know you heard a couple of weeks ago from any of our prosecutors. I will not go over any of that testimony. I believe in your
packets, you probably have a letter that was written, I think to you all on March 17th, uh, you heard a handful of prosecutors. talk about our concerns with the specific piece of legislation, um, again, as we said earlier, as it was mentioned, all 28 elected prosecuting attorneys opposed this particular version of this constitutional amendment. Let me ask you, why, why would 28 prosecuting attorneys along with many deputies and myself who spent pretty much our whole legal careers representing victims and trying to help victims come out
against something like this. Of course we continue to want to help victims. The problems that we see in this bill and Amendment rather or articulated by our prosecutors. Again, one of our biggest concerns is that it interferes with the, the criminal justice system oftentimes in cases we see things from the eyes of the vict the eyes of the prosecutor is often different from the eyes of the victims, a victim. We have to balance that in the criminal justice system and uphold everyone's rights. Uh, we do have statutory duties and responsibilities that are carried out by our victim
witness coordinators, prosecutors, and deputies to, to give victims these rights, um. And again, that's basically where we're coming from here, in our opinion, based on our collective experience, we believe that what we currently have in Arkansas law could certainly be amended to address certain things, but the specific way to address that if there are things that are missing in our victims' rights is to do it statutorily. This particular amendment we feel causes too many problems. Uh, I know that, um, you know, you've heard from a judge, uh, from Maricopa County, Arizona at the very end
of your last hearing and again, I wouldn't ever profess to talk about. Arizona law and how this bill works in Arizona, uh, and we're asking you to trust us as to how it would work here in Arkansas and not listen to somebody that has a different set of laws, and different experiences and things of that nature. So for those reasons, mainly the ones articulated in in our letter, um, we, we oppose this bill and I hope that answers some of your questions. Again, I wanted to be brief. I'll be happy to try to answer anything if you have them. There are a couple of other elected prosecutors here to address questions if, if I can't do that.
All right, thank you, Mr. McMahon. Are there any questions by the committee, Representative
Representative Cindy Crawford
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2:05:19
Crawford, you recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So can you tell me the difference between 1020 and 1009. I, I don't have both of them here
in front of me. I, I, I know there are differences, certainly the, the issue of standing is one of those, and, and I believe Representative Brown was correct in that this uh 1009 does extend those rights to different crimes than 10/20
did. I will point out to the committee that um that, that was amended. Our, our victim notification rights and the crimes that are affected by those statutes were amended with our Protect Arkansas Act, so you all did extend uh some. Crimes to our our duties for notification in the Protect Arkansas Act, so we're certainly not opposed, you know, to, to looking at situations that might not be addressed, but those are, those are, are very much two situations. I think Representative Brown said that are different in the bill. The standing issue, like I said, as you heard from many of the
prosecutors, is very problematic. You know, what does that actually mean? It's interpreted by many different people as many different things and, and it is not defined in that constitutional amendment, um, again, we believe that the better way to address some these things is with a statute, um, I hope that answers
your question. Follow up, please. Help me understand the uh standing.
I'm not an attorney. So what does it mean when you guys are concerned about
many different versions of a Marcy's law or a constitutional amendment exists, and they vary on what different levels of standing. Again, as I've said, I don't believe standing is defined in this bill enough to be very, very clear about that. Standing could certainly be interpreted to give somebody an attorney, um, that would, you know, represent. Then through the process, you, you could then possibly have, you know, 3 different attorneys in a situation. It could be interpreted that way, uh, certainly be interpreted to uh give someone the opportunity to uh bring a cause of action
against somebody that isn't uh doing what they want them to do in terms of enforcing their rights here, um, it does talk about a section uh where, you know, won't interfere with the prosecuting attorney's duties and responsibilities that the prosecuting attorney has under the law, but further down in the, in the amendment, it talks. about uh being able to compel that action. So I think that's an inconsistency there um in the particular uh way that the bill is drafted, but those are examples I believe of standing and again it could be interpreted, I think different way, ways by different people
because it is not specifically uh defined in in the amendment. Thank you.
Any other questions by the committee? Seeing no further questions about the committee. Thank you, Mr. McMahon. Appreciate, appreciate you being here. Thank you. Um, next we have signed up to speak. For the bill, Teresa Ballew.
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Hello everyone, I'm Teresa Ballou. I've worked in victims' rights for over 40 years, and you probably know best as my role as executive director of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. I currently am on the national or the regional board of MAD as a volunteer and also um I'm the chairman of the board of Speak Up about Drugs and an advocate with um crime victims rights of Arkansas. One of the questions that
victims ask before it's all over with is why, why? Why? Why did this
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happen? And I want to talk about some whys and some questions that I have today. Why
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is it that our prosecutors who do. A lot of good work. I have a great uh deal of respect for the work through the years that they've done and certainly um Representative Gasway, you, um, you're supportive of victim
advocates and others and, and, and the bills and the laws and the the protect Arkansas Act, all of those things that are there. Why is it that having the balance of criminals having standing and victims having standing, it's such an odious thing to um 28 elected prosecutors versus 34 states with prosecutors who over the last 30 years have victims in their states who have
standing and they've been able to negotiate and work this out. When this, it becomes an amendment. What follows is correcting. Writing, tweaking, whatever you want to call it, our state statutes so that everyone is comfortable with that. We'll have a whole opportunity for more debate about this and certainly the prosecutors will be at the table for that so these ideas of the things that can go wildly wrong.
Um, are just straw men for the argument against this amendment. Another why is this why is it necessary because victims deserve that their victims, that their voices be the same volume as offenders. When Representative raises another, you know, I. had such regard for him, he has 3 of of the amendments that you'll be considering today when he talked about this at the very beginning, he said to all of us,
he looks at two things one, is it possible? It is very much not possible to secure the rights to the same level as the criminal with outstanding. It cannot be done in statute, so the answer to that is no. Is it passable? The answer is yes. In the states where there have been boats on a constitutional amendment they have passed with 70% and more of the positive vote. Citizens want
this citizens who are upset about. Crime in our communities around the state will not understand why elected officials would stand in the way of them having equal standing with their criminals. Another question, another why is this? Why does this resonate? To the degree that it does to just a common person on the street who's not, they're not wondering why we're up here at 6:30 at night talking about resolutions. They're going about
their business when you say to them. Is it wrong? For criminals to have more rights than their victims. You wanna know what they say. Yes Yes, it's wrong. We have an opportunity to make that right. And I want to ask you to give the citizens the Arkansas and for the sake of all the victims that I personally have worked with, even those that the prosecutors have worked with and
those to come because unfortunately there will be more. To give them a voice and to give them the equal standing with the criminals and our Constitution that they do not have now, that they cannot have through statute. It's very, very important. This is the time to do it. And I don't know why. We would not. I can answer any questions. Hi.
Excuse me, thank you, Ms. Ballou for those remarks, and we appreciate you being here. Are there any questions by the committee? Seeing none, thank you so much for being here. Next, we have signed up to speak against the bill. Tom Tatum. I, I. Tom Tatum is going to wave his speaking, then we have against the bill, Chris Walton. Walton, I would encourage you while you're here if you want to make a statement to go ahead, go ahead.
You, OK. you'd state your name and your position on that one.
Speaker 338
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OK. Turn the other one. There we go. Better. Thank you, uh, Chris Walton Saline County prosecutor. it is not. That Victims' rights are not important. That is not the issue. The issue is that The prosecutors have gone through this.
And do not think this is the way to handle it. I personally have been on their side of the table. I have lost a family member and I have had my brother. Kidnapped at gunpoint. I don't want to rehash other old issues which I do feel like some of what they are, they broke away from our negotiation to try to get this right, in my opinion. And here we are now with the
bill that they stopped working with us on. And it was getting light in sessions, so they filed it. And we strongly 28 prosecutors who represent and fight for victims every day decided we, it was important enough to write a letter. Because we disagreed with it so much. That is the exact wedge we're talking about when you're
dealing with victim and deputy prosecutor or victim and prosecutor. We don't want this conflict. But they filed this. They have gone forward with it without us. And we have to be honest and direct. And state that we disagree with it and I, I hurt for them. I
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understand it, but this is not the solution, and that's what I would say. Mr. Walton, we
already do have just to be clear, we have
statutory protections for victims, is that
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right? 100% and as you pointed out earlier, you've added to those and when they come become necessary, we add to those. We advocate for court dogs in the courtroom, so that the dog can be by a victim. So that the victim has something comforting him or her. We add that type of legislation. We fight to get that done and we
will continue to fight. victims' rights as they Come forward as they are needed and we are willing to debate and talk issues, issue by issue. It is
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this particular piece of legislation that we disagree with. All
right, and um as an elected prosecuting attorney. You represent victims. Every day Is that right?
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Every day it's the whole reason I got into the business, uh, to help people to to work for people, to fight for victims. And, and I will continue to do that and my whole office will do that and I I will I will push out. Every victim's rights, because I have listened to all this, and I,
I, I, I, I don't, uh, all the time I disagree with my fellow prosecutors and, and Mr. McMahon surveys people, and I disagree, there'll be 26, yes, and I'm one or to know. I
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mean that, and I'm not, I'm not coming after you
Representative Ryan A. Rose
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2:18:58
for the letter. That's we could debate the merits of whether to or not to some other time, uh, it was just, I listened to your, your testimony where you um you you made the case, hey, listen. You know,
All 28 of us, we're, you know, this is my language, not yours, I'm paraphrasing, but we're legal minds. We, we have a very good understanding of the law, and we believe that this is bad and I did sense some irritation that the bill sponsors and maybe the team, the committee that put that together, kind of broke away from you guys and I guess I just wanted to say the position that you hold is, hey, from a legal standpoint, we really feel like this is bad, and I know that you have a personal tie as a family that's gone through tragedy, but
I also wanted to say, would it be fair to say that the folks who moved forward with this bill. May feel that they have some authority on victims. And how victims feel and what they're fighting for from a victim's perspective. I'm, I'm not even asking you to
agree if they're right or wrong. I'm saying is, is that a justifiable statement? Feel their pain and I, I
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hate it for them. I, I hate it. I, I do, and you know, I Spent a lot of time, uh,
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listening to victims and uh and feeling how awful the system is. I mean, I started off my testimony recognizing how rough it is. And, and I Understand The Them wanting to be, I mean, you know, there are victims that would prefer we didn't follow the law that hey, this, this senate is not enough. What do you mean the person can only get 40 years in the department of correction. That's
not right, uh, there are people that if you steal a lawn mower from them, they want to They want that person in jail for 30 days. I mean, it is. Sure, and I didn't mean to send you down. I'm just, I recognizing and admit and What
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specifically some of the individuals back here have gone through, I, I, I hate it for them. And I recognize why they're advocating certainly I understand that. Yeah, thank
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you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. and I will say just one thing, you know, I, I'm only giving my perception about how this bill Got
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to where it is and uh If they disagree, I, I, I, I, I, I, I respect that too. So I, I just, I wanted to
say that. OK, seeing no other questions, uh, thank you for your testimony. Thank you. Uh, next we have uh Keith Boone.
To speak For the bill? Thank you Mr. Chairman, committee members,
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Keith Boone, I'm also a citizen, so just a couple of comments. While I am speaking in favor of uh HJR 1009. It's not my voice. I want you to hear. I, whenever this resolution was presented a few weeks ago, this entire back section here was full of victims who came. There was one woman who hitchhiked up from Hot Springs because it was important
to her to make her voice heard. So Remember
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those voices whenever you're considering the resolution. It's all I
have. Are there any questions? Seeing that, we appreciate your
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testimony. Next up is Laura Abbott. Speak for the bill. Hello,
Laura Abbott
Unverified
2:22:53
my name is Laura Abbott. I'm a citizen of the state of Arkansas. I am so glad to be sitting here in reality, it has taken us a little over a decade to get our voices as victims to this table. We have tried and very transparent and good faith efforts as the citizens just like Mr. Smith goes to Washington to have discussions with people in this room. We appreciate and value the work of the prosecutors. I will forever be grateful to the man and his dad Tom Tatum and Tom Tatum
Senior, who helped convict. The man who ran over me multiple times and left me for dead on the top of a mountain where I called to the cabin where people prayed over me, saying how great those are. put a needle in my chest, said my heart had stopped beating. Went to a hospital, woke up. A doctor said, you're going to Oklahoma. I got 5 sets of titanium plates, 32 screws, and then I got to go through the journey of the legal system.
I will forever ever be grateful to the prosecutors of the state. However, at this point in time, and we have all been here a very long time. I'm going to be as transparent with you as I was in the beginning when I first reached out to Representative Charlotte Douglas and 12 other legislators in 2014 and we started on a vehicular assault law. Since I'm no longer able to be a runner and we started a college track team at UCA, um, I actually made money running, so I was a professional runner,
just a little humor here people. Um, I'm no longer able to play softball and I have watched Bob McMahon be the most phenomenal shortstop in the state of Arkansas regardless of the fact that he's over 60. Uh, these are our friends. These are our people. I'm sorry, I invited the outsider to come in and here's how that happened. Um, after Lawrence Carte was passed in the law in 2015, Arkansas's victims' rights card. My sister back here and her husband took us on a celebratory trip to Hawaii, and she said
this, we're on the last flight out. Give up your seat. I said, OK, I gave up my seat. They came back and got me. Next night, gave up my seat. As a school teacher, I had 4 days to use an $800 ticket. So my first time out by myself since I had been run over. I went to this national crime victim Law Institute, and all of a sudden I was the country mouse going to the city. I had entered into victims' rights utopia. I had met the people that across the United States are all colored in that green color on
the map that you see before you. I stood in front of a group of people with my country bump and broken voice from coaching and said, can anyone come to Arkansas and help us. At this point, Charlotte Douglas and I worked as diligently with numerous legislators in good faith and transparency with the prosecuting attorneys Association. I was told I was the only victim in my family was told they had a problem with the judicial system. As God would have it, since I had nothing but time on my hands and I started watching true
crime stories. I saw the story of a woman in Jonesboro. It took me 6 months for her to reach back out to me and when I reached her, I said, hey, how do things go in your case? So she tells me. Well She didn't know it because she had never been given information on victims' rights or if she had, it's traumatic people forget, but she had played deal away a victim's right to speak at a parole hearing. She cannot come and speak here. Because she has got to have a
relationship with her extended children. When there's domestic violence and a spouse has killed another spouse, and then there's children involved. The victims of our state are silenced. They're silenced due to the fact they may not have the money to come up here. They may not have a car to get here. They may not have a voice to speak. They may just be sadly a pitcher and in people's hearts, they cannot come and speak. I love this state. My family's been here for 6 generations. We have had 100. 140 or whatever Christmas is on the Abbott family.
We have tried in good faith. This is Mr. Smith goes to Washington. We've never taken a dime to help the victims of the state of Arkansas and I am asking you, it is now time for the state motto, Let the people ruled for these rights to no longer just be statutory because they're at the discretion of everyone in the judicial system except the victims that these are enforceable and enshrined in our Constitution and that Arkansas gets the gold standard of victims' rights instead of standing on the podium with the bronze.
for statutory rights. Thank you for your time and I'm open
to any questions. Are there any questions? Saying none,
we appreciate your testimony. Thank you. What the that that concludes. There are no more to speak for or against, uh. 1009, are there anyone in the audience that hasn't signed up? All right, we're gonna move on to the next, to the next resolution.
Oh. Did, did you want to call for your
Representative Matt Brown
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2:28:19
bill. You're reckon that. Thank you committee. Thank you, Mr.
Chair. Um, In, in no way did I feel like we had walked away from the prosecutors. Indeed we had met with them and. Um
We brought in some people who are experienced in this area. They've had other prosecutors, a judge. Um, from other states who have. Constitutional rights amendments. And we sat down at a table in a conference room in this building. And tried to talk to each other. And um, it became very clear to me that the prosecutors, um, and I'm not criticizing, I'm just
making a statement of fact. They were very clear on their stance that they would support HJR 1020 and nothing else, so from that standpoint, um, And knowing that. They had already told me that all the rights in that resolution were already in statute. And that that Piece of legislation that resolution did not include standing, and that was the only thing that they were gonna be
satisfied with it. They had put a lot of work into it during the previous session and they were happy with that and they were in, so I felt like if I was going to run a resolution, I was gonna run what we wanted. What we came to the table to defend. I wasn't gonna defend something that we didn't really have our heart into. So I just wanna say. That I have a great deal of respect for our prosecutors and
as you can hear from the testimony of these victims they do also. Um, they have tough jobs and so many of them are currently doing exemplary work with crime victims. However, we have heard from national experts on crime victims' rights, including other prosecutors who have said the fears. That our prosecutors have. Expressed about the application of a crime victim's bill of rights have simply not been seen
in other states with similar provisions. I appreciate the fear of change, but when we are being told other states including southern states are not experiencing the worst case scenarios, some prosecutors are predicting if we adopt HJR 1009, I think that fact should give us some comfort that we are on solid ground. And with that I would appreciate a good vote. Thank you all.
OK, will be rank ranking all these later on, so that completes the testimony
for um HJR 1009. Next up, uh, HAR 1014 representative Beatty. Please identify yourself for the committee and then you're good to go.
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
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2:32:31
You're to go. Representative Howard Beatty District 95, uh, members, I'm, I'm here to present um Uh what is HJR 1014. Um, you know, last time I went through this talking about the development and creation of an economic development district, uh, just kind of to lay it out there in, in, in layman's terms, all of us have had economic development projects in our districts and one of the top complaints that we hear out of our district is that there's no
tool and no vehicle that we can utilize in our counties in our cities for retail development for housing development as far as incentive money or help from the state. So right now everything is related to manu f act ur ing jobs, um, and industry. So the problem is, and that's what I was trying to explain with this bill is the first HJR 1014, uh, takes care of the Constitutional issue that we have right now, there's no authority provided in the
constitutional, uh, in the Constitution that allows for financing or or development projects and that's what this Um, resolution, this amendment to the Constitution would do, um, it would allow that, uh, allow that process to take place, uh, most states have this, and it's kind of a common practice, uh, you know, listening to Senator Dimay present and make his presentation to the Senate. All you have to do is travel the
interstate highways, um, once you leave this state, uh, into Texas and you'll see what this, all of those. Developments that you have or, uh, pretty much, um. Because of TIF districts and tax increment financing that allows for that, um, so that's what the bill does. Last time we got off in the weeds, we asked a lot of questions. I told you there was some other language and and what that is, it's a 31 page bill that goes through every one of the details and the things that
we were talking about, um. Talking about in those questions that you ask, um, it had all the provisions, uh, you know, this once enacted the Department of Commerce, uh, would provide support to, to the cities of the counties that create these, these, um these uh economic development districts. It could, it could be as small as a building, uh, for housing or some type of retail investment that would allow these um these
authorities to be created. It could, it could be as much as an entire. You know, a block of land or whatever for a development, but right now there's nothing that allows for retail development. It would expand competition, uh, within our counties, within the state for investment dollars to come in right now there, there's nothing on, on this side for retail or for housing investment. So all of you, if, if you talk to your mayors or you talk to your, your folks and your constituents back home, uh, when it comes to retail, the,
the hands of the state right now are tied. There's nothing. Can do. So if you want retail development and you want, you want a tool that will help um grow your communities and grow your districts and, and provide quality of life, uh, then this is the amendment that I would encourage you to support and, and vote for, um. So with that I'll entertain questions. Representative Collins.
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
2:36:06
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So when we talked last time, um, I believe that you were saying that the exemption on taxes was for any tax that would be property or income or sales or other, and I don't want to misstate what you said, but I believe that was our conversation and so then I, I just happened to look in between that meeting and this one at the fiscal impact prepared by DFNA and in particular the legal analysis and then they suggested amendments. I'm not too worried about the amendments, but
What I'm gonna ask you is it says that it may benefit from an amendment to clarify that the tax exemption is only an exemption from the ad valorum property taxes and not other taxes imposed by the state. So that's just to me that they're reading, which of course is not dispositive, but they read it as just property taxes, so are they right or are they wrong or are we going to let Supreme Court figure it out or, or what? I, I think
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
2:37:01
some of the intent there is primarily the property tax in those areas, uh, as far as the abatement of those taxes,
uh, right now you can't abate those property tax. You can't do a a payment in lieu of tax on a retail development. It's always got to be job creation or economic development project and, and retail doesn't provide for this, so that, that's one of the ways I look at this, yes. OK, all right. OK. Thank
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
2:37:25
you. Are there any other questions in the
Speaker 196
2:37:30
committee? Representative Long. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, so,
Representative Wayne Long
Unverified
2:37:38
um, Representative Beatty, um, You know, if they, I think this may have come up last time, but I, I don't remember for sure if she did. I'm sorry that I don't remember, but um if they chose to do it with the property tax, uh, where does the school funding come from in those situations.
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
2:37:57
The school funding will still be protected, um, on that side, my understanding is that that the school taxes are provided for. So there would be no reduction in the school taxes. That's my
Representative Stan Berry
Unverified
2:38:11
understanding. Thank you. Represent Barry. Is there any
limit? To how small a business this could Help someone. Representative Barry, I, I don't think there's like
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
2:38:30
a, a de minimis, uh, amount on, on the size or or quality of this business, I think what it would come down to is what your
leadership, what either the uh the governing body be that the quorum Court, be that the city or municipality, what they would want to target as far as what they would want in their community because it's gonna give you the tools to attract and and to tailor and customize uh incentive packages to locate. Uh, these businesses in your community. So I think that's gonna be up to the folks that decide what they want in the community, but I, this bill doesn't, this bill doesn't specify a de minimis amount or
size of a business. This is all about, uh, providing the tools and the resources for our, for our counties and for our small communities and our cities to attract the investment and, and assist with the development in in their communities as small as maybe. 5 to 10 employees
Representative Stan Berry
Unverified
2:39:32
maybe there's no limit. There's a possibility right? I mean, you know, an economic development, it all
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
2:39:38
ties back to the jobs that are going to be created and
I mean, you come in and put a billion dollars in or $2 billion or 5 billion and it's gonna go back to the jobs that are created. Uh, you may get a little bit on, on the property tax and avalorum that's coming in, but that state incentives are all tied to job creation and, and basically this deal could be as simple as you Your city decides they want a restaurant in town and and they want to work to get a restaurant or a hotel or something along those lines in your community. This gives them the resources to
to utilize, um, and, and try to attract that private investment into their community and right now we don't have anything. OK, thank
you. Alright, seeing no other questions. We have no one signed up to speak for against the bill. Is there anyone in in the audience
would like to speak either for or against the bill. Say no Representative, you recognize the clause for your bill. Well, I think the bus
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
2:40:39
is pulling up for all of uh the folks that we're going to speak in favor of this bill. They just
haven't made it into the room yet, but what I would say in closing is, you know, if you want real change and you want, you want to make a real impact in in your communities and throughout the state and see some of this investment in Arkansas that you're seeing in neighboring states, um, this is the resolution to to rank. Number one, I, I think if you went back and you talked with your mayors, your county judges, or even your constituents in your community that always complain, why can't we? Why can't we? Well, we can't because
we're bound by the Constitution. It doesn't allow us the authority to do this. This is important to your community, important to your constituents and so I would encourage you to consider that when, when you're ranking a lot of these resolutions are good. This will have the biggest impact on the quality of life in your communities. So I'd ask you to rate this as one and let's move from there because it's gonna have a a great impact and we'll see great things come from this. With that, I'm closed and thank you. Thank you, Representative Beatty.
Uh, next up we have Representative Ray H H J R 1016. Please identify yourself with the committee and
you are good to go. Alright, um, thank you,
Representative David Ray
Unverified
2:42:14
Mr. Chairman. David Ray, House District 69.
All right, so House Joint Resolution 1016 is very simple and straightforward. All it does is it eliminates the cure period from our initiative process, um, as most of you know, a cure period, by definition is a period of time for initiative proponents to collect additional signatures if they fail to get the required number by the initial deadline. So in Arkansas, if you get 75% of your signatures that are found to be facially valid, then you get an extra. 30 days to circulate petitions. I'm gonna give you 3 quick
reasons why I think this is a horrible idea to have a cure period and why we should um refer out this amendment to get rid of it. Number one, a cure period is unfair. Think about it this way, when you were in school, you undoubtedly had to write a term paper and there was a due date for that paper. When the, when the, when the due date comes, you turn in the paper and it's either do or sorry, it's either completed or it's not, um. Under a system like this, if you had a 10-page paper and the
teacher determined that you'd completed at least 7.5 pages, you'd get another 30 days to finish your term paper. That's ridiculous. You either finished it or you didn't. You either got the signatures or you didn't. There should not be a do over. Secondly, Arkansas is really an extreme outlier on this process. There's 26 states that have an initiative process. There's only 2 that offer a cure period. That's Arkansas and Ohio. Ohio's
cure period is 10 days. So literally, not only are we an outlier among the states that have this, of the two states that have it, ours is 3 times as generous. As Ohio's. Uh, and then lastly, I think this is the big one. I think the cure period really creates a perverse incentive that leads to a lot of the mess that we have currently with our initiative system. If there were no cure period, then canvassers and sponsor groups would have virtually no incentive to obtain duplicate or invalid or even fraudulent
signatures, and that's because in as they're being reviewed, the Secretary of State's office would call them from the total, um. But because of the cure period, sponsor groups are really incentivized to hit that 75% mark, no matter what, so that they can get the additional 30 days. Um, and I'm not gonna go through and reread the the story that I cited last time from the Democrat Gazette, but You know, We know from experience, um,
that groups try to game the system in this manner so that they can qualify for the cure period. So I think it's very important. Um, that we do away with the cure period and with that I'll be happy to take any
questions. Are there any questions from the committee? Representative Barry,
Representative Stan Berry
Unverified
2:45:16
you're recognized. Uh, just a statement, I guess. Mr. Chairman. All my adult life I have wandered. While we had a cure period.
Representative David Ray
Unverified
2:45:28
It never made sense to me. But all I can say is I agree wholeheartedly with what you just said, Representative Barry. Representative makes you recognize.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
2:45:42
Thank you. sport, what you're trying to do here, I guess my only concern is if we were to refer this out, how do you think the public would perceive this as far as
trying to actually get it passed. That's a great question, Representative Meeks, you know,
Representative David Ray
Unverified
2:45:58
we referred out an amendment in 2020 that included a repeal of the cure period. And it failed, unfortunately. I think the reason it failed was because it had 5 different provisions in it, and that
just made it really complicated. I think it would have a much better chance if it were referred out as a
standalone measure. OK, are there any other
questions? Seeing now, we have no one has signed up to speak for or against the bill. Is
there anyone in the room that would like to speak for or against. See now, uh,
Representative David Ray
Unverified
2:46:36
you recognize the clause for your bill. I'll just close for that resolution by asking the members of the committee if you agree with that idea and support it to please rank it as highly as you
are comfortable ranking it. And I'm closed. Thank you. And um I think you can just keep your seat, uh, next up is HDR 1017. And please identify yourself with the committee and you're
Representative David Ray
Unverified
2:47:00
good to go. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. David Ray, State Representative, District 69. So House Joint
resolution 1017 would require this is a proposed constitutional amendment that would require future initiated acts and constitutional amendments to receive a majority of the votes cast in that election like it currently is, but it would also require a majority of counties to vote in the affirmative in order for these measures to pass, so we have 75 counties that means at
least 38. Of the 75 we need to vote in the affirmative for the measure to pass. I do want to point out this would apply both to citizen initiated and legislatively referred measures. You know, the reason I, I brought this is twofold. Number one, I think when we're passing matters of statewide importance, you know, whether, whether it's abortion amendments, casino amendments, marijuana amendments.
There really should be some genuine consensus. There shouldn't just be one region of the state driving that there shouldn't just be um and this shouldn't just be driven by urban areas. There should be a real cross section of the state that supports it. And so I think that would make it um this amendment would help with that tremendously because there's no way to pass. There's no way to win a majority of counties if you don't have some, some genuine consensus. And secondly, I think this would
give a voice to a lot of our um rural counties, um, you know, under our current system, it would be very difficult, but it is mathematically possible to win the majority of a statewide vote from only 8 counties. So you could have a measure where literally 8 or 10 counties are basically. You know, dictating for the other 60 plus counties, um, what, what the statewide policy is gonna be even so far as amending the state constitution.
So I think this would just be an important safeguard for our
initiative process and, and it would, it would improve the system greatly. I'm happy to take any questions. Representative Collins, you're recognized.
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
2:49:25
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I can't remember if it was you who in our rank choice voting discussion talked about the importance of one person, one vote, and the idea that, you
know, and it may have just been the sponsor, but the idea that, you know, one person's voted in one part of the state is just as important as another person's vote and another part of the state, and this, it seems to me like really would go against that because someone's voting central Arkansas, Pullaki County would be less important than someone's vote and Another part of the state, um, under the reverse of your logic that a few counties can and, you know, results in. Something having overall majority.
So, um, also I think one person one vote is in the Constitution, the federal Constitution. How does this square with that idea,
Representative David Ray
Unverified
2:50:15
you know, uh, that was, that was Representative McCollum, I believe that made that remark in the committee, but I'll tell you what I was thinking of one of the things I was thinking about as I put this proposal together, Representative Collins was. Sort of how our federal legislature is put together. You have the House of Representatives that is based solely on population. And then you have the Senate
where each state has equal representation and in order for bills to become law at the federal level, they have to pass both the House and the Senate, um, and so, uh, in a similar way. If you required a majority of the Popular vote On a statewide measure and you required a majority of the counties to also affirm that. You would sort of be getting at a similar um A similar function
Uh, that's sort of what that, that's part of what I had in mind as I put this together and you know, I don't think the, I don't think the way our federal system, our federal legislature makes laws as undemocratic. I just think it has checks and balances that our founders were wise to put in place and um I was sort of drawing on that same idea
when I put this together. OK, thanks. Any other questions by the committee? Seeing no other questions about
the committee, we do have someone sign up to speak against the bill. Rebecca Zimmerman
There we go. Is there, state your name and then the organization you're here representing, you'll be recognized to present your remarks. Thank
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
2:52:07
you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I'm Rebecca Zerman, the community engagement
director at Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. Arkansas advocates believes that family should have a say in major decisions impacting them. That is why we support the ballot measure process and ask that you do not refer HJR 1017. For over 100 years, Arkansas has not only been a representative democracy, but also a direct democracy, a right of the people enshrined in our Constitution. Though the state legislature has passed a series of legislation to restrict this right. Voters
have again and again rejected legislatively referred amendments to the same effect. Issue 3 in 2020 failed with nearly 56% of the vote and in 2022, you two failed with 59% of the vote. It is likely that this measure too will fail when put to the people for their consideration. We hope that if that is the case, that the legislature will reconsider their attempts to restrict ballot access in line with the will of the voters on
this issue. Voters should not be denied the right to pass measures because of burdens and restrictions. The merits of the measure should be the deciding factor. We are thankful, however, that Representative Ray included legislatively referred amendments as well as citizen amendments in this resolution, but we ask that you do not move forward with HJR 1017. Thank you, Mr. Zimmerman. Are there any questions by the committee, Representative Rose, you're recognized.
Ms. Zimmerman, thank you for your testimony today. Uh, have you or
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
2:53:44
your organization done any polling on this? Uh,
on this specific measure, no, sir.
So your estimation that it would not pass is
based solely on your opinion. It's based on the results of the past similar measures, for instance, uh, issue 3 that was passed or it was uh issue two in 2022 would have had a similar effect. It would have increased the voting threshold to pass the measure to 60% of the voters. This would have a similar impact
to increasing the counties. OK, I'll defer to Representative Rain
is closing on that, but you guys haven't done any polling or anything recently, just basing on opinion and past performance of something similar, is that correct? Alright, thank you. All right, seeing no one else to speak for or against
the bill, Representative Ray, you recognized to close for your bill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, the only thing I would say
Representative David Ray
Unverified
2:54:46
in response to that is I, I
believe it's really, really important that we reform our initiative process um there's a lot of problems with it, and I know that um Previous efforts have been unsuccessful at the ballot box. That really does not deter me from continuing this effort because I do believe it's very important for the state, um, and I think it's just our
responsibility to continue um explaining to the voters why these reforms are necessary and so um Anyway, with that, I'm closed for the bill, and if you support this idea, I would just ask that you rank it in the uh in the rankings as high as you're comfortable ranking it. Thank
All right, next, um, We'll move to HJR 1018. All right. uh, Mr. Chairman, with your permission,
Representative David Ray
Unverified
2:55:43
if it's OK, I have a handout for the
committee and also have some folks that are here to help me present if
that's OK, to join you at the table and staff is pan handing out the Information
Representative Ray You're recognized her. State
Representative David Ray
Unverified
2:56:28
Representative David Ray, House District 69. You want to go ahead and introduce yourselves.
Speaker 380
2:56:33
Jack Tom Jack Tomzack, the vice president of Outreach for Americans for Citizen Voting. Becky Eps, the
Speaker 382
2:56:40
director of research for Americans for Citizen Voting.
Chris Arps
Unverified
2:56:43
Chris Arps emeritus, President Emeritus of Americans for Citizen Voting. All right,
Representative David Ray
Unverified
2:56:49
thank you, um, Mr. Chairman, colleagues, House
Joint Resolution 1018 is a proposed amendment that would ensure that only United States citizens can vote in our state and local elections. Start from the very simple premise that Arkansans should decide the future of Arkansas, and Americans should decide the future of America. And yet we have 4 states in the United
States plus the District of Columbia that allow for non-citizens to vote in their state and local elections. Additionally, there's 21 municipalities across the country, including some of the
major cities like Oakland, San Francisco, and even our nation's capital that allow for non-citizens to vote in state and local elections. Most states when they establish their state constitutions, they use language such as quote every citizen of the United States who is 18 years and older to vote. has
the right to vote. Arkansas's Constitution uses the phrase quote any citizen instead of every citizen. Uh, there are other
states that say all citizens. This language
protects our rights as citizens to vote, but it's insufficient to present non-citizens from being legally allowed to cast votes at the state and local level. Because whether you say every citizen, any citizen or all citizen, none of those phrases are sufficient because they constitute a floor rather than a ceiling. Um Using a floor that says any citizen can vote leaves room, as we've discovered in other states for people to be added to that
list and so by moving to the only citizen language. We're setting we're setting a ceiling for eligibility that only citizens may vote and nobody else. It's exclusive, unambiguous, and absolute. So I think. Almost certainly, each of you have voters in your district that have contacted you concerned about the issue of illegal immigration. Uh, they want us, our voters want us to do something about this problem and while our immigration crisis
can only truly be solved with enforcement at the federal level. I think states can and should take measures to help and to safeguard our elections. This is part of that closing the door to non-citizen voting will send a strong message to our constituents that were serious about addressing this issue. And the truth is we live in an age where radical ideas gain steam really quickly. 10 years ago, if you had asked me, um, will we ever have a national movement to defund the police. I would have told you that was
crazy. If you had asked me 10 years ago if half of our uh half of the members of Congress would be OK with biological men competing in women's sports. I would say no, that we would never reach that point, but here we are and so similarly with the issue of non-citizen voting, you know, I think we're in a position. where we can nip this in the bud, um, I don't want to wait 10 years and look back and, and have this issue become mainstream and wonder, you know, could we have addressed it or done something about it. This is part of a nationwide
movement. Um, there are. Um There's 20 states where their constitutions um dictate citizen only voting. 15 of those 20 have adopted this amendment. And 2 years ago, our neighbors in Missouri and Oklahoma adopted this constitutional amendment, uh, and on that same day voters in Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Wisconsin also adopted it. 2 years prior to that, Ohio and
Louisiana adopted it and 2 years before that, Alabama, Colorado, and Florida adopted it. So, um, and, and then lastly, uh, I believe very strongly that if we refer this amendment out to the voters, the voters of Arkansas will. Prove it. Every state that has had a chance to weigh in on citizen only voting has approved it with at least 63% of the vote in some states such as South Carolina, it received as much as 86% of the vote and the average
passage rate was 73.5%. Um, the last thing I'll mention on this is um the organization that um these fine folks are with conducted a poll earlier this month and found that 70% of our Kansans would for this bill, and I think that number would actually be even higher because there were some undecideds in that in that poll, and I think at least half of them would probably end up voting yes once they learn more about it. And with that, I'll allow them to fill in any gaps that I missed, otherwise we'll take questions. Right
Speaker 380
3:01:36
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members, Representative Ray, again, I'm Jack Tomsic with Americans for Citizen Voting, and we're a nonpartisan group that helps citizens and legislators passed these citizen-only voting amendments in the interest of time, I will not repeat all the great things that Representative Rey just said, um. The states that we work in, some states there is a a municipality would need state legislative approval to legalize non-citizen
voting. Arkansas is not one of those states. Your home rule cities have the power to determine voter eligibility for municipal elections, and they could legalize non-citizen voting tomorrow if they wanted to. Uh, South Dakota's another state like this, and they've already passed this bill, this session. Another state that was like this is Oklahoma. And last session, the bill that we had had died in committee because Nobody there quite understood
that part of it, so we, once we fully explained that in the last week they suspended the rules 6 times, got it through both bodies on the ballot and passed the 81%. So now in Oklahoma. The municipalities who have home rule authority. can't legalize non-citizen voting and hopefully Arkansas makes that same choice. Vermont 4 years ago, Vermont didn't have any cities that allowed non-citizen voting. Now they've got 3.
Speaker 384
3:03:10
It'll be more next year and the year
Speaker 382
3:03:17
after and the year after. Thank you. I'm Becky Ars, director of research for Americans for Citizen Voting. Thank you, Chair, members and for Representative Ray. I'll be really quick. The Arkansas Constitution does not reserve the right to vote to only US citizens. The state statute is focused on registration, thinking your hand out there are the relevant statutes and cons and Parts of the Constitution. If a
city or county in Arkansas wants to allow non-citizen voting. They'd maintain their own voter rolls, so it doesn't really matter about the about the registration. Home Rule says that cities or counties have a wide latitude as long as it doesn't violate state constitution or statute as stated, it doesn't. In fact, published constitutional lawyer Joshua A. Douglas and his University of Kentucky Law Review article, The right to vote Under Local law has determined that there are no
clear impediments to an Arkansas municipality allowing non-citizens to vote in local elections. The California Constitution says, like Arkansas, any person may vote who is a citizen. San Francisco City council voted to allow non-citizen parents to vote in school board elections. It was challenged in court. When challenged, the court found that nothing in statute or constitution prohibits expanding the electorate. You've probably seen in the news recently that the highest court in New York
State has said that allowing non-citizens to vote was unconstitutional. It's been challenged 4 times and only 1. Has it has allowing non-citizens to vote deemed unconstitutional. You really don't want to put that to a vote of your courts. Let's address this, really, let's let the citizens of Arkansas address this before it becomes an issue. Happily take any questions. OK
Chris Arps
Unverified
3:05:15
My name is Chris Arps. I am President Emeritus of Americans for Citizen Voting. I want to thank the chairman and members of the committee and
Speaker 387
3:05:23
Representative Ray. Uh, while I'm associated with Americans for Citizen Voting both through having served as president and through my wife's work as director of research, I come before you today as a concerned African American. We have traced my family back to the first freed slave, Steve Arp. That was the original name was the S was added to his name after the Civil War. He is my great great
grandfather. He was able to help found a church in Wynonna, Texas in 1870, but he wasn't able to vote. My great uncle Melly served in World War II as a buffalo soldier. He won 2 bronze stars. Uh, when he came back home from the war, he was unable to vote. When my dad turned 18 in 1962 in the state of Texas. He could not legally vote. It wasn't until, of course, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that any of my family were able to vote across the country. Now I'm
sitting here before you testifying in the great state of Arkansas. We have come so far and we are closer now than we have ever been to Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream that all people should be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin. Little Rock, of course, was part of the front line of that civil rights fight. That's why I find it so incredibly frustrating that there are cities in the United States allowing non-citizens to vote in their local elections. These are people that were not
born here. These are people that have come here and they have not made the commitment to this great country of ours. They have not taken the steps needed to become citizens. I think we could all agree that our immigration system could use some help instead of band aiding the system, we should work together with our federal legislators to fix. Our immigration system. It doesn't make sense to give a right that was so hard fought by so many people that haven't been willing to take those extra steps. We have fought long and
hard as a country to accomplish the dream that all US citizens would be granted their citizenship rights. It would be a shame in less than a generation to devalue those rights by giving them the people that haven't made the commitment to this country. This isn't about who or isn't president. This is about trying to disenfranchise people that look like me. This is about the value of United States citizenship. This is about how voting is an important right of United States citizenship. This is about giving the people of
Arkansas the opportunity to enshrine in their constitution that something so precious as voting is reserved for only citizens of the United States, both those born citizens and those who have decided to become part of this country by choice. of naturalization. Thank you all for your time and I'll entertain any questions if you have any. I think that concludes our
Chris Arps
Unverified
3:08:06
presentation. We'd be happy to try and answer any questions from
Representative David Ray
Unverified
3:08:10
the committee. All right, any questions by the committee. Seeing no questions by the
committee, Representative Ray, you recognized to close for your amendment. I just
Representative David Ray
Unverified
3:08:23
appreciate everyone's time and attention. I thank the members of the committee for choosing this amendment as their top choice on the first round
of voting, and I would just ask that um if you support this common sense idea as much as I do that you would rank it as as high on your list as your comfortable ranking it, and with that, I'm close. All right, I think it's time to rank.
All right, and just, uh, once
again. We have 5 constitutional amendments you put number one by your Top preferred, most preferred constitutional amendment. You'll rank that as your number one choice. Put a one. Your second choice too, 3rd choice 3, 4th choice, 4, 5th choice 5, they'll be assigned points. But uh we're going to rank them by
of one next to your most preferred choice, number one priority. Don't forget to sign your uh
We're going to be in recess for a brief period of time. Come, come back soon.
All right, everybody would start to take their seats, we, uh. I think we have a verdict. Defendant, please rise. Sorry.
All right, we're back from recess. Staff has tabulated the results and We do have a clear favorite,
I suppose. These are the rankings HJR 1018, the Citizens only Voting amendment has ranked
number 1 HDR 1017. 2 HJR 1016, number 3, HJR 1014, number 4, HJR 1009 number 5.
Which means Representative Ray, if you would like to present this, uh, if you'd like to present HJR 1018 right now in order
to for us to take a vote, to vote it out of committee. Into the house floor then uh you're recognized.
Representative David Ray
Unverified
3:22:03
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, David Ray, District 69, um, I'm not gonna present the full bill again because we've done that
twice, um, but I will, uh, attempt to answer any questions. This is the citizen only
voting amendment if there are any questions outstanding before we take a vote. I'd be happy to try and answer those
questions by the committee? Seeing none, we have no one signed up to speak for or against the bill. Representative Ray, are you closed for your bill? I'm closed for the bill and I moved to pass. Representative Ray has made a motion
to pass on HJR 1018. Is there any discussion on that motion, seeing none, all those in favor say aye. All those opposed
The Oz Abbott, congratulations, you've passed your resolution. And with that, we have concluded our business for the night. Thank you very much for all the great work, Representative Ray. Uh, question, um,
Representative David Ray
Unverified
3:22:51
is there any, do we know if the Senate, when the Senate plans to vote on their amendment or if they are planning to vote. I don't know
the answer to that right now. But we'll find
out and try to follow up with you offline. With that, we've concluded our business for the night. Thank you all so much for your excellent work. See you again Monday morning. Thank you. We're
Agenda
CONCUR IN SENATE AMENDMENT
Number Sponsor Subtitle
HB1614 Lundstrum TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING DESIGNATIONS RELATED TO CERTAIN CRIMINAL JUSTICE GRANT PROGRAMS.
RE-REFERRED TO COMMITTEE
Number Sponsor Subtitle
HB1800 McAlindon TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING DISCLOSURE FOR CAMPAIGN FINANCE; TO REQUIRE DISCLOSURE BY REPRESENTATIVES OF A NON-UNITED STATES ENTITY; AND TO AMEND PORTIONS OF THE ARKANSAS CODE THAT RESULTED FROM INITIATED ACT 1 OF 1990.
HB1365 K. Brown TO REMOVE RACIAL AND GENDER QUOTAS AND QUALIFICATIONS OF MEMBERSHIP FOR CERTAIN BOARDS, COMMITTEES, COUNCILS, AND COMMISSIONS.
REGULAR AGENDA
Number Sponsor Subtitle
HB1753 Long TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING VOTER REGISTRATION; TO OPT-OUT OF THE NATIONAL VOTER REGISTRATION ACT OF 1993; AND TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 51, § 5.
HB1773 Long TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING CONTRIBUTION LIMITS FOR BALLOT QUESTION COMMITTEES AND LEGISLATIVE QUESTION COMMITTEES.
HB1037 A. Collins AN ACT TO CREATE THE PREREGISTRATION TO VOTE ACT; AND TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 51, UNDER THE AUTHORITY GRANTED BY ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 51, § 19.
HB1041 R. Scott Richardson TO PROHIBIT DECEPTIVE AND FRAUDULENT DEEPFAKES IN ELECTION COMMUNICATIONS.
HB1837 McAlindon TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING DISCLOSURE FOR MATTERS REFERRED TO VOTERS; AND TO BAN FOREIGN FUNDING FOR BALLOT MEASURES; TO AMEND PORTIONS OF THE ARKANSAS CODE THAT RESULTED FROM INITIATEDACT 1 OF 1996.
HB1846 S. Meeks TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS 2036 COMMISSION.
HB1849 Gramlich TO ALLOW FOR THE CROSS DEPUTIZATION OF MUNICIPAL, COUNTY, STATE, AND TRIBAL LAW ENFORCEMENT ON FEDERALLY-RECOGNIZED TRIBAL LAND WITHIN THE STATE.
HB1867 B. McKenzie TO ESTABLISH THE NO GOVERNMENT TRESPASSING ACT; AND TO PROHIBIT GAME WARDEN TRESPASS ONTO PRIVATE LAND.
HB1870 Wing CONCERNING VOTER REGISTRATION LISTS; AND TO ALLOW THE SECRETARY OF STATE TO PROVIDE A VOTER REGISTRATION LIST TO FEDERAL COURTS.
HB1878 McGruder TO ENSURE EARLY VOTING ACCESS FOR ARKANSANS RESIDING IN POPULATION CENTERS; AND TO REQUIRE A COUNTY BOARD OF ELECTION COMMISSIONERS TO CONDUCT EARLY VOTING IN A CITY IN CERTAIN INSTANCES.
HB1883 Long TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS FOURTH AMENDMENT PROTECTION ACT; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE COLLECTION OF ELECTRONIC DATA AND METADATA.
HB1884 Long TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE MARKING AND COUNTING OF PAPER BALLOTS.
HB1683 McAlindon TO PROHIBIT THE PROCUREMENT BY A GOVERNMENTAL ENTITY OF AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE OR A COMPONENT OF AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE THAT WAS MANUFACTURED IN WHOLE OR IN PART USING FORCED LABOR.
HB1632 Wardlaw TO REQUIRE REIMBURSEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS STATE GAME AND FISH COMMISSION FOR FREE OR DISCOUNTED HUNTING AND FISHING LICENSES.
HB1891 Ray TO ALLOW A PERSON FILING AS A CANDIDATE FOR THE OFFICE OF JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT OR JUDGE OF THE COURT OF APPEALS WHO IS AN APPOINTEE IN THAT POSITION TO USE THE TITLE OF THAT POSITION AS A PREFIX WHEN FILING AS A CANDIDATE.
HB1896 B. McKenzie TO CREATE THE JUNK FEE ELIMINATING ACT OF 2025; TO ABOLISH THE INFORMATION NETWORK OF ARKANSAS; AND TO TRANSFER ANY REMAINING DUTIES OF THE INFORMATION NETWORK OF ARKANSAS TO THE DIVISION OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS.
HB1898 Painter TO CREATE THE REGULATORY DIVISION AND THE REGULATORY ENFORCEMENT DIVISION IN THE DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION; AND TO ALLOW PERSONNEL OF THE REGULATORY ENFORCEMENT DIVISION TO BE DESIGNATED AS AGENTS.
HB1925 Beaty Jr. TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ABSENTEE BALLOTS; AND TO REQUIRE AN OATH FOR AN ABSENTEE BALLOT.
HB1929 McAlindon TO CREATE THE RECOGNIZING JUDEA AND SAMARIA ACT; AND TO PROHIBIT STATE AGENCIES FROM USING THE TERM "WEST BANK" IN OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT MATERIALS.
HB1934 McAlindon TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS FORWARD ENGAGEMENT COMMITTEE ACT; AND TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS FORWARD ENGAGEMENT COMMITTEE WORKING GROUP.
SENATE BILLS
Number Sponsor Subtitle
SB351 J. Dismang TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ETHICS AND CAMPAIGN FINANCE; TO AMEND PORTIONS OF INITIATED ACT 1 OF 1990; AND TO AMEND PORTIONS OF INITIATED ACT 1 OF 1996.
SB343 Irvin TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING STATE-OWNED MOTOR VEHICLES; TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PUBLIC PROPERTY; AND TO AMEND THE AUTOMOBILE AND PICKUP TRUCK ACQUISITION ACT FOR THE STATE OF ARKANSAS.
SB12 B. King TO AMEND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967; AND TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING COMMUNICATIONS REGARDING REDISTRICTING BY THE BOARD OF APPORTIONMENT.
SB357 J. Bryant TO AMEND THE UNIFORM ATTENDANCE AND LEAVE POLICY ACT; AND TO APPLY MILITARY SERVICE CREDIT TO A PUBLIC EMPLOYEE'S TOTAL SERVICE TIME FOR ANNUAL LEAVE ACCRUAL CALCULATION.
SB241 J. Scott TO AMEND THE UNIFORM ATTENDANCE AND LEAVE POLICY ACT; AND TO GRANT PAID LEAVE TO PUBLIC EMPLOYEES IN THE EVENT OF THE DEATH OF A PUBLIC EMPLOYEE'S FAMILY MEMBER OR CHILD.
SB433 J. Dotson REGARDING THE DISPLAY OF THE NATIONAL MOTTO AND THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.
SB376 A. Clark TO AMEND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PUBLIC MEETINGS UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967.
SB445 K. Hammer TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE LICENSURE OF ELECTRICAL INSPECTORS.
SB471 A. Clark TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING CANDIDATES FOR NONPARTISAN ELECTIONS; AND TO ALLOW CERTAIN CANDIDATES FOR NONPARTISAN ELECTIONS TO USE THE TITLE OF THE NONPARTISAN JUDICIAL OFFICE ON THE BALLOT.
SB479 K. Hammer TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING VOTER ASSISTANCE; AND TO REQUIRE A PERSON ASSISTING A VOTER WITH A DISABILITY TO PRESENT IDENTIFICATION.
SB491 K. Hammer TO REQUIRE A VENDOR THAT CONTRACTS WITH THE OFFICE OF STATE PROCUREMENT FOR SERVICES FOR THE EMPLOYEE BENEFITS DIVISION TO SUBMIT DATA FOR VERIFICATION BY AN INDEPENDENT AUDITOR; TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY.
SB510 J. Boyd TO ALLOW FOR THE CROSS DEPUTIZATION OF MUNICIPAL, COUNTY, STATE, AND TRIBAL LAW ENFORCEMENT ON FEDERALLY-RECOGNIZED TRIBAL LAND WITHIN THE STATE.
SB508 Irvin TO AMEND THE FREQUENCY OF PAYMENT OF A STIPEND FOR CERTAIN MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOL EMPLOYEE HEALTH BENEFIT ADVISORY COMMISSION AND THE STATE EMPLOYEE HEALTH BENEFIT ADVISORY COMMISSION.
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS
Number Sponsor Subtitle
HJR1009 K. Brown AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO BE KNOWN AS THE ARKANSAS VICTIMS' BILL OF RIGHTS; AND TO PROVIDE RIGHTS FOR VICTIMS OF MISDEMEANOR AND FELONY OFFENSES, INCLUDING VICTIMS IN THE ADULT AND JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEMS.
HJR1014 Beaty Jr. A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE STATE OF ARKANSAS; AND AUTHORIZING THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY TO PROVIDE FOR THE CREATION OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DISTRICTS TO PROMOTE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.
HJR1016 Ray A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO REPEAL THE PROVISION OF ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, ARTICLE 5, § 1, ALLOWING THE SPONSOR OF AN INITIATIVE OR REFERENDUM PETITION TO CORRECT OR AMEND A PETITION.
HJR1017 Ray A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROVIDING THAT A PROPOSED STATE-WIDE INITIATED ACT OR CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT SHALL BECOME A LAW WHEN APPROVED BY A MAJORITY OF THE VOTES CAST IN THE ELECTION AND A MAJORITY OF THE COUNTIES OF THE STATE.
HJR1018 Ray THE CITIZENS ONLY VOTING AMENDMENT.
reconvene
DEFERRED BILLS
Number Sponsor Subtitle
HB1024 A. Collins TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PUBLIC EMPLOYEES; AND TO REPEAL THE LAW PROHIBITING COLLECTIVE BARGAINING.
HB1028 A. Collins TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF THE LAW CONCERNING OBSCENITY AND THE PROCESS FOR CHALLENGING MATERIALS INCLUDED IN A LIBRARY; AND TO REQUIRE A LIBRARY TO HAVE A POLICY PROHIBITING BOOK BANNING IN ORDER TO RECEIVE STATE FUNDING.
HB1035 A. Collins TO CREATE THE ONLINE VOTER REGISTRATION ACT OF 2025; TO ALLOW ONLINE VOTER REGISTRATION; TO AMEND ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 51; AND TO AMEND THE DUTIES OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE.
HB1036 A. Collins TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING VOTER REGISTRATION; TO ALLOW VOTER REGISTRATION DURING EARLY VOTING AND ON ELECTION DAY; AND TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 51.
HB1038 A. Collins TO CREATE THE NO-EXCUSE ABSENTEE VOTING ACT OF 2025; TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ABSENTEE VOTING; AND TO REPEAL VOTER QUALIFICATIONS FOR ABSENTEE VOTING.
HB1039 A. Collins TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING ABSENTEE BALLOTS; AND TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING ELECTIONS.
HB1040 A. Collins TO CREATE THE WATER IN LINE ACT OF 2025; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PENALTIES FOR MISDEMEANOR OFFENSES RELATED TO VOTING.
HB1042 A. Collins TO CREATE THE DIRECT DEMOCRACY ACT OF 2025; TO REPEAL THE ENSURING ACCESS FOR ALL ARKANSANS AND VOTER PROTECTION ACT OF 2023; AND TO AMEND THE PROCEDURE FOR THE FILING OF A BALLOT INITIATIVE PETITION AND REFERENDUM PETITION.
HB1043 A. Collins TO REQUIRE DISCLOSURE AND REPORTING OF NONCANDIDATE EXPENDITURES PERTAINING TO APPELLATE JUDICIAL ELECTIONS; AND TO ADOPT NEW LAWS CONCERNING APPELLATE JUDICIAL CAMPAIGNS.
HB1162 Duffield TO ESTABLISH GOOD FRIDAY AS AN OFFICIAL STATE HOLIDAY.
HB1058 Unger TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ETHICS AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST FOR PUBLIC OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES; AND TO PROHIBIT PUBLIC EMPLOYEES FROM GIVING ADVANCE NOTICE TO ENTITIES OF REQUIRED INSPECTIONS.
HB1059 Unger TO PROVIDE THE OPTION FOR A FREE LIFETIME HUNTING AND FISHING LICENSE TO A COMMERCIAL TRUCK DRIVER WHO IS A RESIDENT AND PROVIDES CERTAIN INFORMATION RELATED TO HUMAN TRAFFICKING.
HB1078 Long TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING RUNOFF ELECTIONS; AND TO PROVIDE FOR A RUNOFF ELECTION FOR CANDIDATES FOR THE SENATE AND THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
HB1281 McAlindon TO AMEND REPORTING FOR A CANDIDATE FOR CERTAIN MUNICIPAL OFFICES AND FOR COUNTY OFFICE; AND TO AMEND PORTIONS OF THE ARKANSAS CODE THAT RESULTED FROM INITIATED ACT 1 OF 1996.
HB1415 L. Johnson TO REQUIRE LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT TO RESPOND TO A REQUEST FOR A FIRE INQUIRY.
HB1494 Hawk TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS GUIDANCE OUT OF THE DARKNESS ACT; AND TO REQUIRE STATE AGENCIES TO PUBLISH FEDERAL GUIDANCE DOCUMENTS ONLINE.
HB1459 L. Johnson CONCERNING RECURRING REPORTS SUBMITTED TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.
HB1461 L. Johnson TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE EVALUATION OF NECESSITY OF VARIOUS COMMISSIONS AND BOARDS.
SB184 D. Sullivan TO TRANSFER THE POWERS AND DUTIES OF THE ARKANSAS EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION COMMISSION AND THE STATE LIBRARY BOARD TO THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION.
HB1667 Bentley TO AMEND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PUBLIC MEETINGS UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967.
HB1769 Barnett CONCERNING LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER STANDARDS; AND TO REQUIRE A PSYCHOLOGICAL EVALUATION OR ASSESSMENT TO BECOME OR BE EMPLOYED AS A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICER.
HB1621 Wardlaw TO AMEND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967; AND TO EXEMPT PERSONAL INFORMATION OF ELECTED CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS, JUDICIAL OFFICIALS, ELECTED COUNTY OFFICIALS, ELECTED MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS, AND THEIR IMMEDIATE FAMILY.
HB1631 Wardlaw TO ADDRESS THE ISSUANCE OF HUNTING AND FISHING LICENSES TO FOREIGN EXCHANGE STUDENTS.
HB1069 S. Meeks TO OBSERVE STANDARD TIME YEAR ROUND IN ARKANSAS; AND TO ELIMINATE DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME IN ARKANSAS.
HB1720 Vaught TO CREATE THE BABIES AT WORK ACT; TO ALLOW STATE AGENCIES TO PERMIT PUBLIC EMPLOYEES WHO ARE PARENTS OR LEGAL GUARDIANS TO BRING THEIR INFANTS SIX MONTHS OR YOUNGER TO WORK.
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — STATE AGENCIES & GOVT'L AFFAIRS- HOUSE, Apr 2, 2025 | Agenda | 5 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Representative Jimmy Gazaway Chair
Unverified
Senator Missy Irvin
Unverified
Speaker 12
Representative Rick Beck Chair
Unverified
Speaker 26
Speaker 28
Speaker 29
Speaker 41
Speaker 55
Speaker 43
Speaker 57
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
Representative David Ray
Unverified
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
Speaker 104
Speaker 45
Speaker 76
Speaker 128
Representative Stan Berry
Unverified
Speaker 153
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
Representative Jeremy Wooldridge
Unverified
Representative Matt Brown
Unverified
Speaker 223
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
Speaker 270
Speaker 273
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
Speaker 287
Representative Steve Unger
Unverified
Speaker 293
Chris Madison
Unverified
Speaker 167
Speaker 217
Leslie Abbott
Unverified
Speaker 323
Speaker 142
Speaker 332
Speaker 331
Speaker 338
Speaker 339
Speaker 341
Speaker 345
Speaker 348
Speaker 351
Speaker 352
Speaker 159
Laura Abbott
Unverified
Speaker 196
Representative Wayne Long
Unverified
Speaker 380
Speaker 382
Chris Arps
Unverified
Speaker 384
Speaker 387