State Agencies & Govt'l Affairs-Senate
Video
Transcript
1 document
Bills discussed (23)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
|
SJR13
· 3 mentions in agenda, transcript, chapter
Matched: “…AL ASSEMBLY TO ESTABLISH BY LAW A REVISED ELECTION PROCESS. SJR13 J. Dotson A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO ALLOW A CANDIDATE F…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO ALLOW A CANDIDATE FOR SUPREME COURT JUSTICE, COURT OF APPEALS JUDGE, … | J. Dotson | Died on Senate Calendar at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SJR11
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…OR THE CREATION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY. SJR11 J. Payton A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO AMEND ARKANSAS CONS…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO AMEND ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, ARTICLE 2, § 5, TO PROTECT THE RIGHT … | J. Payton | Approved by the Governor. |
|
SJR12
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…ARTICLE 2, § 5, TO PROTECT THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS. SJR12 C. Tucker AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION REQUIRI…”
|
AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION REQUIRING THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY TO ESTABLISH BY LAW A … | C. Tucker | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SJR14
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…ION OR INDEPENDENT STATUS WHEN RUNNING FOR JUDICIAL OFFICE. SJR14 J. Dotson A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING THE DETERMI…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING THE DETERMINATION OF THE TRUE VALUE IN MONEY OF REAL PROPERTY … | J. Dotson | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SJR15
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…UE VALUE IN MONEY OF REAL PROPERTY FOR ASSESSMENT PURPOSES. SJR15 J. Dismang A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING ECONOMIC D…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE STATE OF ARKANSAS; AND AUTHORIZING THE GENERAL … | J. Dismang | Approved by the Governor. |
|
SJR17
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…OMIC DEVELOPMENT DISTRICTS TO PROMOTE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. SJR17 J. Dotson AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO CREA…”
|
AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS TAXPAYER BILL OF RIGHTS. | J. Dotson | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SJR18
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…STITUTION TO CREATE THE "ARKANSAS TAXPAYER BILL OF RIGHTS". SJR18 J. Payton THE CITIZENS ONLY VOTING AMENDMENT. SJR19 M. John…”
|
THE CITIZENS ONLY VOTING AMENDMENT. | J. Payton | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SJR19
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…IGHTS". SJR18 J. Payton THE CITIZENS ONLY VOTING AMENDMENT. SJR19 M. Johnson AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO EXE…”
|
AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO EXEMPT FOOD AND FOOD INGREDIENTS FROM THE EXCISE … | M. Johnson | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SJR2
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…NING ACCESS TO PUBLIC RECORDS OR ACCESS TO PUBLIC MEETINGS. SJR2 B. King A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS A…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS APPORTIONMENT COMMISSION TO APPORTION DISTRICTS FOR THE HOUSE … | B. King | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SJR22
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SJR22 G. Leding A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING THE QUALIFI…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING THE QUALIFICATIONS TO VOTE IN AN ELECTION. | G. Leding | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SJR23
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SJR23 M. Johnson A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO PROVIDE THAT PROCE…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO PROVIDE THAT PROCEEDS GENERATED UNDER ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 91, MAY BE … | M. Johnson | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SJR24
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SJR24 M. Johnson AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION CONCER…”
|
AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION CONCERNING INITIATIVES, REFERENDA, AND CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS REFERRED TO VOTERS. | M. Johnson | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SJR3
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SJR3 B. King A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING THE MEMBERSHI…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION. | B. King | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SJR5
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SJR5 B. King AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO REPEAL…”
|
AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO REPEAL THE OFFICE OF LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR. | B. King | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SJR6
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…S CONSTITUTION TO REPEAL THE OFFICE OF LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR. SJR6 B. King A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO PROVIDE THAT CERTAIN…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO PROVIDE THAT CERTAIN PROCEEDS FROM THE SALE OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA AND … | B. King | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SJR9
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…NSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 100, CONCERNING CASINO GAMING. SJR9 B. King A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PERMITTING THE STATE OF…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PERMITTING THE STATE OF ARKANSAS TO BE SUED AS A DEFENDANT IN … | B. King | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SJR1
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…im Dotson CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS Number Sponsor Subtitle SJR1 B. King AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO REQUIR…”
|
AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO REQUIRE A VOTE OF THREE-FOURTHS OF EACH HOUSE … | B. King | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SJR10
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…ORCE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OR AS OTHERWISE PROVIDED BY LAW. SJR10 B. King A CONSTITUTION AMENDMENT CONCERNING EFFICIENCY IN G…”
|
A CONSTITUTION AMENDMENT CONCERNING EFFICIENCY IN GOVERNMENT; AND TO PROVIDE FOR THE CREATION OF THE … | B. King | Sine Die adjournment |
|
SJR20
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…XCISE TAX LEVIED UNDER ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 75. SJR20 B. King A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING THE VOTE REQU…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING THE VOTE REQUIREMENTS FOR CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS TO BE CONSIDERED APPROVED AT … | B. King | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SJR21
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…ENDMENTS TO BE CONSIDERED APPROVED AT THE GENERAL ELECTION. SJR21 B. King A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING THE VOTE REQU…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING THE VOTE REQUIREMENTS FOR INITIATED ACTS AND CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS TO BE … | B. King | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SJR4
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…CONCERNING THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION. SJR4 J. Boyd AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO PROVID…”
|
AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO PROVIDE THAT THE ANNUAL SCHOOL ELECTION SHALL NOT … | J. Boyd | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SJR7
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…GRAMS AND ASSISTANCE FOR POST-RELEASE SUPERVISION SERVICES. SJR7 B. King AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO AMEND…”
|
AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO AMEND ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 98, CONCERNING MEDICAL MARIJUANA. | B. King | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SJR8
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…S CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 98, CONCERNING MEDICAL MARIJUANA. SJR8 B. King AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO AMEND…”
|
AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO AMEND ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 100, CONCERNING CASINO GAMING. | B. King | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
Machine transcript
May contain errors. Verify important quotations against the official video.
About transcript accuracy
- Source
- SliQ live captions
- Model
- SliQ live ASR
- Processing date
- October 2, 2026
So the only thing that we're going to be doing today is we're going to be hearing constitutional amendments. We're not going to be taking any votes and so
with that, um, Senator Lundstrom or Senator Representative Lunch from. You've got HJR. 13 members HCR 13.
Speaker 10
0:44
Yeah. You say yes or excuse me, SJR 13, yeah. The doctors, yeah. Yeah, you got the wrong send
Senator John Payton
Unverified
0:58
the sponsor on there. Yeah. He says you've got the perfect Senate sponsor
on there. OK, so, uh, Representatives, let's go
ahead and hit your mic. Introduce yourself, and then
Representative Robin Lundstrum
Unverified
1:15
you'd be recognized to proceed. Thank you. State Representative Robin Lundstrom, District
Speaker 6
1:23
18. All right, Representative Lestrom, you're welcome to present SJR 13.
Representative Robin Lundstrum
Unverified
1:27
OK, Senate Joint Resolution 13 is about judges running partisan Republican, Democrat, and Independent. We all got here because the voters knew exactly what they were voting for. And this would be the same for judges. We would in that cat and mouse game that is played every single election. Well, what do they believe in? What do they
not believe in? This tells them, this tells the voter exactly what they're getting. We started out in our state June of 1836 until the year 2000 we had partisan judges. We knew exactly what we were getting. It's quite a storied history. We changed that and we have hidden behind the cloak of a robe. We know more about what's in our Snickers bar than what's in our judicial candidates, so I want to pull back the robe and allow the voters to decide who will
Sit in judgment over them. With that all entertain any questions you've heard an explanation
Speaker 2
2:23
of the resolution. Are there any questions from members of the committee? Senator Dawson, you got anything you want to say since this is
Speaker 26
2:34
your SJR 13. Come. I don't know. She was here. All right, Senator
Senator John Payton
Unverified
2:39
Payton, Representative Luundstrom, have you ever eaten a Snickers bar? Oh yes, OK, they're pretty good, you know what's in them or not
Speaker 31
2:49
it's true. It is. Thank you didn't expect that question. I like it. All right. Any other questions from members of
the committee? Right, so you know, I see we've got the, uh, Joshua, Joshua Silverstein here to speak. He's going to be speaking against Joshua. Come on down, introduce yourself. I see you're here representing yourself. Looks
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
3:20
No, you're, when it goes red, you're on.
There you go. Good afternoon. My name is Josh Silverstein. I'm a law professor. I live and work here in Little Rock, but I'm speaking today in my individual capacity rather than representing the university at which I work. I think that Representative Lundstrom has done a nice job presenting the case for partisan elections. The signature argument in favor of partisan elections is it will provide more information to the voters. The signature problem with
partisan elections of judges is that the bulk of the empirical research in this area indicates that partisan judges are more likely to partisanly elected judges are more likely to vote in a partisan way and less likely to carefully follow the letter of the law. There's multiple studies I won't bore you with the details, but I can tell you that study after study has come to the conclusion that when judges are elected in a partisan manner, they're more likely to vote consistent with their political party. They're more likely to vote with
interests that donate to campaigns, and they're more likely to vote with interests that have more money generally. Partisan elections are also the judicial elections where the most money is spent, the worst ads are aired and the dignity of the judicial office is impugned the most. Studies have also shown that voters think less about who to vote for when judicial elections are partisan because they tend to just vote straight party, whereas when judges don't have a party identification, the research indicates they do a little bit more research, so I
think what it ultimately boils down to is what do we think is more important? Notice to the voters is important, I think the representative has made a good case for that, but I'm more concerned about how the judges actually rule and while the studies are not 100% in alignment. I have to disclose that in the interest of being candid. The bulk of the research indicates that judges elected in partisan elections are more likely to vote in a partisan manner in judicial cases than judges who through an appointed system or through nonpartisan elections. And I'm happy to take any
Speaker 43
5:25
questions members, any questions from the committee, Senator Tucker and Senator Payton. Thank
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
5:32
you, Mr. Chair. Professor, are you aware of any studies that demonstrate that more partisanship would make America a healthier country.
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
5:43
Phrased that broadly, probably not, but I can't say definitively because that's awfully broad. Intentionally so. Thank you, professor. Right,
Speaker 48
5:50
Senator Payton. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So you
Senator John Payton
Unverified
5:56
mentioned appointed judges and I, uh, do
you, do you think appointed judges are done in a partisan manner.
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
6:06
It is impossible to completely eliminate partisanship from the judicial process.
The question is, what mechanism minimizes it the best, and what I think the research shows is that both appointed systems and nonpartisan election systems do a better job of lessening partisanship, then do partisan elections, but a pointed
systems, there's definitely partisanship. I could summarize the research about the federal courts when it's a Republican president who appoints versus a Democratic president. you can make pretty good predictions as to how they're going to vote, so partisanship is inevitable. There is more partisanship when the elections
Speaker 57
6:42
themselves are partisan. So if we assume that partisanship is inevitable. Then why
Senator John Payton
Unverified
6:47
shouldn't the voter have the opportunity to know the party affiliation of the of the candidates. That's the argument. I think that's a
Speaker 59
6:55
good argument, but the most important thing to
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
6:59
me as a lawyer and law professor is to support the rule of law. It is more important that we have judges deciding based on the law than any other factor, and nonpartisan elections like we have now do a better job of keeping judges within the boundaries of the law than partisan elections do. Well, and I understand
Senator John Payton
Unverified
7:16
you're concerned about the Judges actions. But don't you think we would be better served by an informed electorate. All other things being equal, yes, but all
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
7:26
other things are not equal here, Senator. OK, thank you.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
7:30
Thank you, Senator Senator Clark. How much more? Pardon? You said that judges elected. The partisan election are more likely. To Be partisan. How much more is it?
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
7:55
This much or is it? It varies by study and it varies by subject area. For example, in areas where there are lots of
donations given, so disputes involving wealthy corporate donors. The difference is much larger than in some other areas. The area in criminal law, the difference is significant but not as significant, and the difference in criminal law varies over time. Judges vote less partisanly in criminal matters years before an than they do just before an election, so it depends, but in areas where there are moneyed interests that donate to campaigns and have interests in
outcomes. I think the difference could be fairly called significant.
Fairly fairly called significant, but I can't give
you exact percentage. I think so. I think that's the best read of the study. The one that was that I, I rely most heavily on was a study by Joanna Shepherd and Michael Caine, and they found a statistically significant relationship between campaign contributions and judicial decisions in favor of contributors only for judges in partisan elections, so in nonpartisan elections there
wasn't anything statistically significant. But in partisan elections it was statistically significant, and that's a big difference. Our judges in Arkansas allowed to know who contributed to them.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
9:11
I don't remember all of the rules of that they can't ask for contributions and
Speaker 75
9:20
they can't, but they often find out and I know judges who run for
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
9:26
us often find out who the donors are. They hold fundraisers. People go to the fundraisers, so they have
a, they have a sense even if they can't directly solicit. Having attended many of those fundraisers
Chair
Unverified
9:40
myself. Thank you, Sarah Clarke. Senator Dodson, you're recognized
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
9:46
for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
So, You're saying that Partisan judges will typically rule in line with a particular political philosophy. More so than not. And so the
electorate, if they're choosing. They will have a better sense of where a judge might land on issues that they care about and are important to them rather than being blindsided by someone that is an enigma. My claim is not nearly
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
10:18
that strong. The research shows that roughly 97% of all three judge panel decisions are unanimous. 97% and for partisan or nonpartisan. That's in both federal and state court. It's
across the board. So, so the statistically
insignificant. The vast majority of the time, judges are unanimous, and that's even true on state supreme courts in the US Supreme Court used to be unanimous more than half the time. So I think judges are following the law, the vast majority of the time and most cases are not that controversial, which is why that happens. What the studies look at are the controversial cases where there's room for difference of opinion on the law among reasonable. lawyers and judges, and it's in those cases where judges who are elected in partisan elections
are more likely to vote in a partisan way than nonpartisan judges. I wouldn't even say they're more likely to do it than not among themselves. I probably think that even in partisan elections, judges are going to vote in a nonpartisan way more often than not. They're just going to vote in a partisan way more than judges who are appointed or judges who were elected in nonpartisan elections. And since the thing that's most important to me. The rule of law. I consider that more important than notice to the voters, but that's an area for difference of opinion. So
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
11:40
Statistically speaking, 97% of the time they're unanimous whether they're partisan or nonpartisan, or whatever, but in those rare instances, less than 3% that there is a Interpretation of law that might go one way or the other depending on the judicial philosophy of the candidate. That judicial philosophy can be more accurately predicted by a partisan judge that voted that the electorate decided would go their way. So
Speaker 89
12:12
I don't know if it can be more accurately predicted writ large. What is more likely is
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
12:21
that they will vote in such a way that is consistent with partisan leanings. It may be just as easy to predict the other judges because you can predict that they'll be more likely to follow the law, so it's not a greater ability to predict the law writ large and how judges will rule
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
12:35
you just said that the the questionable prediction of the law is the cases in which it's it's questionable, so it's those s
of law that could go one way or the other depending on who's looking at it and so the electorate would be choosing based off of their own. Political philosophy or let's call it conservative versus liberal because it's not necessarily partisan. It's is this judge going to be a more conservative judge, or is this judge going to be a more liberal judge and we can Predict in less than 30% of the cases that this particular judge might lean liberally this one
might lean conservatively in the electorate would get to decide what sort of a judge they want to live under in the state if they knew what the political philosophy of that judge was before they elected
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
13:24
them. So let me meet you halfway. There's a reason I'm resisting a little bit. I think you are correct that the average voter will be able to predict better in partisan elections. I don't think that experienced lawyers can predict. better one way or the other because they're able to filter either way. The research has shown that on the US Supreme Court, the most contentious
cases where the judges are the most divided. Experienced Supreme Court litigators get those predictions right 80 to 90% of the time, even in those cases, and so I, I wouldn't say rit large, it's easier to predict what the judge will do, but I will concede that I think voters are going to get more notice and we'll have a slightly better time predicting, yes, with. partisan with partisan, yes, I think that's right. So now are you for?
Speaker 93
14:06
No, no, no, because I'm more concerned about the rule of law and how judges actually
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
14:14
behave, the notice to voters. Well, I am as
Speaker 61
14:16
well. But that's why I am against this, because I think
Chair
Unverified
14:20
that this will lead to more partisan voting among judges based on the research. All right, well we'll disagree there.
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
14:26
Thank you. All right, Senator Peyton, you got a question? Thank you, Representative Lundstrom,
Senator John Payton
Unverified
14:32
does your bill allow a judge to run independent or nonpartisan. Yes sir, it does, I mean, I
love to think that the judges are going to act.
by rule of law. But my concern is that the will of the voters Trump that Take precedence. So if an electorate in a certain geographical area. wants to vote nonpartisan,
they'll still have the opportunity to do that even if this becomes law. That's correct. They'll have if the judicial candidate decides they
Representative Robin Lundstrum
Unverified
15:07
don't want to be Republican. They don't want to be a Democrat. They can choose to be independent and again leave it up to the voters to decide. So
Senator John Payton
Unverified
15:17
if they chose that, they would be basically What was your
name? Silverstein or Joshtein too taking Mr. Silverstein's. position, so we would be able to find out what the voters want. That's correct. OK, thank
you. Thank you, Senator, Senator Tucker. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We're having a bit of a philosophical discussion.
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
15:36
Are we not, Professor? We have three branches of government. Right? Correct. There's the one that we serve in that's closest to the people.
Uh, and it was designed to reflect the will of the voters, correct on a on a local level and in a legislative capacity. Correct. Correct. The executive is led by one person and in that branch is designed to reflect the will of the voters, correct, correct. We get to the 3rd branch of government, the judiciary, and I think the point that you're making, I'm going to slightly rephrase it in a different way is
The actors in that branch of government, what should be their Top priority when they're making their rulings following the law, should it be? Do I need to worry about my next primary election, I would hope not, or should it be, do I need to apply the law to the facts of this case and make my ruling
Speaker 86
16:40
appropriately. That is the paramount concern. Thank you. Thank you, Senator, Senator Clark. Question. Professor So
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
16:51
The Supreme Court were getting rulings by the law or we're getting partisan
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
16:58
rulings. It's always a combination. The Supreme Court is unanimous around 35% of the time now when they took more cases it was 90%. It was over 50% of the time, and I think even in the hard cases, most of the time the judges are doing what they think is right under the law as best they can, but we're all human, we're all influenced by our ideological biases and to some degree the
political science research is pretty unanimous on this. Even Supreme Court judges, some the time are influenced by their ideological biases. So in the studies. Who decides
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
17:31
what is ruling by the law and what is partisan. That is one of the
Speaker 111
17:38
arguments against some of the studies in the
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
17:44
literature, but a lot of the research focuses on areas of the law that are not controversial,
and so it's easier to judge in those cases and as I said, in most of those cases the courts are unanimous, at least at the lower court level. In other circumstances there are the political scientists have put together a set of categories that determine how liberal and conservative judges are voting, and there's some debate over that. This is not an exact science. The way physics is, but they've got reasonable metrics that they're able to use to determine the influence of partisanship in these studies.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
18:23
I could name local cases where my idea that judges were nonpartisan went completely away, uh, and it's not in cases where they ruled the way I would have thought. The law was very clear, uh. But In was it Al Gore and George W. Bush. That we had the controversy in Florida, correct. And I found that very interesting. Because at each step where the Democrats.
were in charge. They rolled For Gore And when it got to the Supreme Court, where there was a majority of Republican. They ruled for Bush. Now I'm not suggesting that they didn't make the right ruling. At the Supreme Court, I would suggest they made the. Wrong ruling at other steps, but there's people who would disagree with me. Uh So Do you Would you think
That I would prefer If it were partisan, If everybody wasn't just doing what they thought was right. Would you think I would prefer that The judges in Florida that were ruling A way that I thought was contrary to the law and thought was partisan, or would you think I would prefer the Supreme Court decisions, which I thought were by the law. And not partisan, but might have been partisan. Uh, which do you think I would prefer?
Speaker 61
19:55
Well, I would be surmising that you would prefer the results of the
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
20:01
US Supreme Court in that case. Uh, so if partisanship because I don't see the nonpartisanship. I think that's what this bill is about is I don't see the nonpartisanship and nonpartisan elections. I find people very much going on with a bias, uh, that doesn't come from the Constitution, doesn't come from the law, and I, I appreciate the studies, uh, because I love studies myself, but it, but from my own personal observation.
I've got a better chance. If I know what the label is. Am I completely wrong?
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
20:35
I don't think you're completely wrong, but we can't make these decisions based on anecdotes. I have worked in both partisan nonpartisan and appointed lit before judges in all the different systems, and no system is perfect, and I think there will be circumstances where we're dealing with nonpartisan elections or appointed systems where the judges are going to do things that many people would
consider very partisan. Even judges on my side, I've been disappointed by. What I'm arguing as long run over the full span of cases. Partisan elections will lead to the
most partisanship in the law. I wish. That in a judicial election I
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
21:16
had at least anecdotal. Uh, as it is in Arkansas now. Are you aware that the bar association Association has rules that have been ruled
unconstitutional what judges can say and can't say in other states. There are a number of rules
Speaker 74
21:35
that govern lawyers and judges around the country that
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
21:38
I think are questionable under the First Amendment and have in fact argued against some of those rules in my career, but I think you can look at the very exact rules
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
21:46
and see the see the ruling on the very exact thing in other states. That it was ruled unconstitutional, that they couldn't tell anybody they couldn't say that. So like I said, I'd like to have some information, and right now it appears to me.
That that that information's been kept from me. It's been kept from my neighbors, uh, because, you know, some people got together on the golf course and decided who the next judge would be, uh, that's
how it's really seems to work in Arkansas at the moment. The Supreme Court ruled in Republican Party
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
22:18
v. White, that judges have a fair degree of flexibility to explain their views. What the law what the Constitution does allow though is to ban them from running on a party tickets.
But they are still allowed to explain their views, but many judges and many candidates for the judiciary take a very aggressive view about what they're allowed to say. When Justice Scalia came to visit our law school, he gave us his view on everything. Breyer, when he came, refused to tell us his view on anything. And those are just two different ways of reading the judicial canons when you see all the candidates who are appointed judges who tested for the US Senate. They almost all say I can't answer. Most legal ethics scholars think they could answer the bulk of those questions, but
they choose not to. They take a more aggressive interpretation. So it's not the law in many cases that prevents judges from explaining their perspective, they are taking a very cautious view of the judicial role. Thank you, Professor. My pleasure. Thank you. All
Chair
Unverified
23:11
right. And there are no other questions? Senator Dodson, Just realized you don't have to agree with each other. Thank you, Mr.
Speaker 123
23:19
Chair. Just a real quick question for you, um, and
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
23:32
I'm sorry, an additional, what, what is your area of expertise in as far as So professor of I teach principally
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
23:44
legal philosophy and constitutional theory and will be moving into constitutional law next year. So you, you understand the
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
23:50
political history of the state of Arkansas, the Constitution, and have studied it to know that For the vast majority of the state's history, we did have partisan elections for judges
and so that changed with Amendment 80 in 2020, I believe it was. So for the last 25 years, a very short period relatively speaking of our state's history, we've had nonpartisan races. I was elected to the legislature in 2012, and so I have served half of the time that we've had nonpartisan judicial races, and the entire time that I've been in service, I've heard complaints from constituents that they don't know where their candidates for judges stand. They continuously ask me. They can't find information about
them. They want to know what they are they a good judge, a bad judge, are they conservative? Are they liberal? Are they, they just want to have some clue or idea, and so That's what this is an effort to do is to answer the questions of constituents and really put it before the voters to let them decide the question on that issue in and of itself, and so I don't know if I have a question for you necessarily and all of that, but to say hopefully we can agree to
disagree on this particular issue, but hopefully the voters get to decide the issue. What I
Speaker 119
25:10
can say is you've made a very persuasive argument for the concern about informing the voters. Great. Thank you,
Speaker 131
25:18
sir. Thank you. All right, Representative. With your permission, Mr. Chair,
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
25:23
I'll just tell you, Senator Dodson, that Professor Silverstein, one of his closest friends on the faculty over there is Professor Steinbach, and they don't agree on just about anything, so, yeah. Why not? Come on.
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
25:35
For I would also point out Senator Tucker that uh
only of the two, well, there may have been more, so, uh, one of the most important. Uh Amendments that I put before state agencies, uh, Mr. Silverstein wrote, so uh we don't always have to agree on everything. All right, chair's not taking any more point of orders, any
conversations that can be handled offline out of this committee will be taking place there. All right, Robin, Representative Lungstrom. Thank you, sir. Let's you wrap up.
Representative Robin Lundstrum
Unverified
26:15
First of all, we should never be afraid of partisanship. This country was founded on our ability to have discussions and information. Second, we have President Secretary of State. We have treasurers, lieutenant governors, attorney generals. We've had judges in the past that have run partisan. We should never be afraid of telling the voters. The truth, they deserve to know
the truth. Knowledge is power, and sunshine is the best disinfectant. So starting with the truth is a great place to start, and with that I'd be honored to be here and remember all of us, we're elected by the voters. Should we not trust the voters? Thank you, Representative. Thank you, colleagues. Thank you for your time. Senator Johnson. I know you've got an amendment
Speaker 142
27:01
that hasn't been engrossed. Since the day that they were hearing it, SJR 19, Mr. Chair, I have a question. How many bills
do we have in our docket total. We're sharing the amendments, not bills or, you know, amendments just a rough estimate, 24, um. 23. And the Senate gets
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
27:21
how many? Excuse me, how many does the Senate get? Uh, one, there's agreed upon and this committee be, I'm just not sure of
the process. Well this committee be voting on that one, or do we recommend yeah, we're
going to be voting, we're going to be voting next week, but we're going to allow any of these sponsors that have one that's been filed the opportunity to present it before this committee. So but on the 3rd 1,
Senator Bryan King
Unverified
27:52
the house gets 1, the Senate gets one, but on the 3rd 1, it has to be been agreed upon between the House and the S. All right,
Speaker 66
27:58
Senator Johnson, thank you resolution are you which, which, well, I'll get to that if I
Speaker 153
28:04
could, Mr. Chairman, if you'll give me a little leeway. If you would just which one are
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
28:12
we so we know which one we're gonna start in the order they are, but if you'll let me explain, I I think you can save a committee a whole lot of time. Mark Johnson, Senate District 17, uh. I believe that Senate Joint Resolution 19 is not needed because of the legislation that's passed. I wasn't sure that we could do this by statute, but the bureau seems to think that we can, that is, take the last eliminate the 18 cent sales tax
for conservation from the list of items that's done, so I will be, will be withdrawing Senate resolution 19 from the 23. 23, uh, and I have just told Ms. Davenport. I asked her if she was here because of that. Thanks to Ms. Davenport. She ascertained and of course you all know she's general counsel for RAT, but formerly was with the bureau and worked with me when uh I was working on the constitutional amendment to make
Uh, the Money for the 30 crossing available if they needed it because of the, the amendment 91. She says that amendment, I believe it's 101, uh, which was subsequent to 91 corrected that problem and therefore it was not needed, so I will also be withdrawing SJR 23. So Mr. Chairman, if I could have a brief opportunity to discuss SJR 24, uh, I would like
to to do that if the committee would. agree. All right, members, you've heard an explanation. Any questions for Senator Johnson? Is there an amendment, do you have? Yeah, I hate it. that doctor this morning and to the grocery.
to do a synopsis. Yeah, go ahead and do the synopsis, we're here in the, uh, so we're here in the resolutions today, um, so he didn't have the amendment yet, so I just told him to come down and just go ahead and walk us through it. Uh uh just. This is all about uh concerning uh. Well, um, The important thing is about Senator Johnson, you turn your
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
30:50
microphone on. I thought I had. I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, the most important reason for this is to show that the initiated measures shall be readable, clear and concise. I'm working uh with uh member of the house to to have a bill that will hopefully address that, uh, the, uh The amendment Will allow the General Assembly to do that, but it also will
limit all constitutional amendments, not initiated acts, but constitutional amendments to 500 words. I looked it up and the Bill of Rights has like 483 words, and I figured if the framers could do 10 amendments in less than 500 words, then surely we could do one amendment. Much of the feedback I would get from voters when I was campaigning. especially door to door, was complaining about the complexity of constitutional amendments,
and I think the probably the worst example has been the late recent issue too, which is now an amendment, uh, people pretty sharp people were still having trouble figuring out exactly what it did. So I'm trying to make this readable. We're going to be working on legislation that will address that both from a readability standard as well as limiting the number of words. Now if I could touch on what the amendment that will be adopted tomorrow will do, uh, first of
all, uh, under our current uh uh Constitutional amendment. It's necessary to file petitions from at least 15 counties bearing signature and not less than half of the designated percentage of the electors in the county, and what I would do is change that from 15 to 50 counties, that's 2/3 of the counties and would change the petition signatures to 3/4 of the designated percentage of the
electors in each county. The second, uh, addition in the will be to this, I won't try to find the actual site, although it, it will be of course in the amendment in in Amendment 7, it will amend it to say that uh when approved by the number of votes cast. In addition to the approval by majority of the votes cast on the at the measure on a statewide level.
Itall also have to be approved by a majority. of votes cast on the measure in a majority of the counties of the state, And if anybody has a question about that, I'll clarify it, but basically to pass an amendment, it would be require a majority. Of the voters statewide as well as a majority of the votes, uh. In a majority of the counties. And however, and this is where it's different, and act measure of the portion of an act subject
to statewide referendum. That is something that's referred to the voters
shall be repealed if the measure is is rejected by a majority of the voters voting on the matter statewide regardless of the number of counties rejecting the act or measure or portion of the act. So that and that means that it leaves a portion in that the measure approved under the amendment will be operative after on and after the 30th day of the election where it's approved. Uh
And we get into this a little bit more meat of this, uh, on the verification, this will strike the language that says after the
statement that the person after the statement that person signing is a legal voter. It strikes the language that says, and no other affidavit or verification shall be required to establish the genuineness of such signatures, which means that, uh, and I'll get down to another section that refers back to that. Uh, also will strike the
language about uh uh what is generally referred to as a cure period. It will require that the petition be sufficient. And then, and this is the other, I would call me of the thing, uh, the journalists effort restricts unwarranted restrictions and I'm gonna law shall be enacted prohibiting and penalizing perjury, forgery, and all of the felonies, and other fraudulent practices in the securing of signatures or filing a petitions, that's
current law, and it adds this language and as the General Assembly may deem necessary to maintain public order. protect public safety, protect private property or maintain the integrity of the democratic process. So those, those are the changes it specifically authorizes a journal assembly. Yeah, you had that. I think your microphone just went off there, so there
you go. Battery must be going down, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
36:07
Thank you for reminding me and that is the, the ultimate uh Description of
it. I'm sorry it's not engrossed yet, but they did a good job of getting the amendment over to Anne, but we haven't been able to adopt it yet. And I'll be happy to answer any questions members, any questions from
Senator Johnson? Alright, so no questions, don't have I sign up, speak for or against. Um, we want to move on to SJR. That 24
Speaker 176
36:38
This is 24. OK. This is 24. OK, 23. Perfect, perfect. All right. Thank you, Senator. Thank you. Senator Ludding.
Speaker 178
36:48
Now we're not going to give you a second
over 2 hours, so please be brief. Oh we got a handout? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.
We're just gonna hand out this handout real fast. And then if you want to go ahead and introduce yourselves and oh
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
37:40
yeah, thanks. You're going to be doing. SGR 22 SJR 22 Senator Greg Lening District 30. State
Representative Diana Gonzalez for in District 9. Great. Welcome. All right. Representative Gonzalez, Senator Letty, you're recognized to present your resolution. Thank
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
37:48
you, Mr. Chair, and in the interests of the committee's time, we do plan to be very brief here. Some years ago, some high school students back in Fayetteville approached me. It was an election year. They were all going to be 18 and eligible to vote in November, but they were asking why they could not vote in the primary. If they were going to get a say in the general election, why couldn't they play a part in shaping the ballot, and so I did a little research and it turns out that 24 states allow 17-year-olds to vote in primaries in certain circumstances. I have this map here in front of you. Apologies to Pennsylvania and Maryland. They got cut off somehow,
but 24 states currently allow 17-year-olds in some cases to vote in primaries so long as they will be 18 on or by election day in the general election. So as you can see from looking at this map, it is not necessarily states that you might guess. It's a number of conservative states and in fact of these 24 states, the current president carried 16 of them. While it is true that young voters still hold a slight preference for Democratic candidates. There has been polling that shows in recent election cycles these younger
voters are trending towards Republican candidates, but more importantly, we also know that 18 to 24 year olds are the demographic group with some of the lowest voter turnout, and so we see this as a way of hopefully Engaging these voters, getting them more excited and getting them to pay attention earlier so that they might play a part in the process because again we're only talking about people who will be
Senator Greg Leding
Unverified
39:08
eligible to vote in November. That And Yes So your microphone off from here. I, I didn't know, right.
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
39:21
OK, I'm sorry, go ahead. So yes, as Senator Leding mentioned to help increase that civic engagement. This would also help Arkansas increase the number of voters at the polls. We tend to still be low when it comes to voter apathy voter engagement. So this having a 17-year-old going ahead and they're going to be 18 by the general. having them go ahead and register to vote, complete that
form, etc. would be a very um they would be very excited. I saw this personally when I was knocking doors in my district. Oftentimes, um, as we were not as our team was knocking doors, we would find families who may not necessarily have registered to vote, but they were qualified to they were qualified voters and they're 17 or 17-year old or high school children would help them fill out the form and they also said,
I'll be 18 next year and I'll be ready to vote as well and so the whole family ends up participating in that voter registration piece, and many of them also vote as a family. We've seen lots of families go and we encourage, you know, the whole family to go, especially when they're first time voters or they've just become citizens. This engages the whole family, so the 17-year-olds not only would they be able to register to vote, but they would also be able to help their families that
are eligible to vote. also if they're able to do this, let's say they're 17, they're, they're able to vote, register and vote in the primary. It's in the spring, then if they go off to technical school or college, and they're moving away from where their home permanent. residences is then they oftentimes they're, they say that, well, I'm not going to be here. I'm going to be going to college somewhere else. Sometimes it's out of state,
sometimes it's another county, etc. and then they also learn how they can vote. Um, in that absence, like with absentee voting, etc. so um just have seen a lot of excitement about about voting and engaging voters and the younger we can do this, and it's already been done in 17 other states thought this might be something we could also encourage in Arkansas. Thank you. Thank you, Representative. All right, members, you've heard a presentation.
Any questions from the committee? Senator Tucker, first of all, welcome to Senate State agencies Representative.
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
42:01
Since this would only enable 17-year-olds to vote in primary elections, that it wouldn't, it really wouldn't have any effect on on general elections, correct? I mean, because all of these 17-year-olds would be 18 before. The general election day, so they are partisan leaning would have no effect on the outcome of the general because they would have already been 18 by that day anyway. It would just, it's just for the primary election. Excellent point. Thank
you. Thank you, Senator Tucker. All right, members, any questions from the committee, Senator Sullivan. I would
Speaker 142
42:32
say that if people are voting in a primary election,
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
42:34
they have a tremendous impact on the candidates they're running in the general election. Would you agree? Yes, uh, but again that's sort of the point. If you're going
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
42:47
to be able to vote in November, we just feel that you should have a say in being able to shape the ballot,
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
42:52
but the statement was just made that voting in a primary Shouldn't make any difference if I'm correct. I would make very little difference in general. So
maybe I misunderstood, but let me rephrase my question. So if people are voting in a primary. Uh, makes a significant difference in who ends up running in a general. Would you agree? because that is how we determine who gets to run in the
Senator Greg Leding
Unverified
43:17
general, but I think Senator Tucker's point, and he can correct me
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
43:21
if I'm wrong, was that it's not going to necessarily change by allowing 17-year-olds to vote in the primary. It's not going to change the partisan breakdown because if they're voting in November they've probably already thought about the candidate. They probably already
have a partisan leaning. Yeah, you should probably right. Did say probably. Thank you. Anybody else have any questions? Alright, so you know I don't see my silence for or against. Thank you, Representative Senator Ludding, for being here. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Thank you. All right. So Are they yours? OK. Does it look like I'm going in
Speaker 203
44:04
order, Senator King. Yeah, I'm not, I'm getting the no members
here and we're going to start with members of
Speaker 205
44:15
the committee and I'll jump back off. OK. You got anybody else back there? Nope, Senator
Speaker 207
44:21
Dismay. Yep, you ready? Doctor, you're no longer on the
Speaker 210
44:37
impeccable timing we're only letting our members present. Oh. All right, you're gonna
be SJR 15 SGR 15, Senator Jonathan Dima District 18 members,
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
44:49
there was an amendment to this bill, and so there was a provision which we addressed, I think it was Section 4 on imminent or imminent domain it had made economic development districts apart of that that has been stricken and then the other portion there was a some
language that referred to utilities and that language has been in the bill, and so that kind of boils down to what I think would be absolutely necessary to be able to have a viable economic development district. Uh, so I just wanted to make you aware of those amendments. Um, as it stands right now, uh, there is really no way for cities to incentivize someone or a retail shop or even housing, whatever it may be to locate in their area. This is cities and counties, I should say. In fact, when we recruit businesses to
the state of Arkansas unless you're an industrial and manufacturing can utilize some incentives that are available for through economic development, you really only can look at whether or not you're in an opportunity zone as designated by the federal government. to receive a benefit or a
historic district to receive a benefit or a historic structure. Other than that, there are no incentives
in the state of Arkansas for people to maximize how they're utilizing their dollars and as you guys are all aware, if you're an investor looking to locate, you're you're
trying to do the best you can to maximize your dollars. If you were to go over into Texas, they have essentially what you would call an economic development district, and every one of their localities. And if you drive from here to Dallas, you're going to see the improvements that are being. made because of those opportunities. In fact, it is a stark difference if you're in Texar Canada to see what's happening in Texarkana, Arkansas, and Texarkana, Texas in regards to retail, and a large part of that is because of the incentives they're able to offer and create in Texarkana,
Texas. Um, and so what the bill does, it's going to be set out for the or not the bill, the constitutional amendment. It's going to set out what's called an economic development district. We would allow the taxing authority, whether it be the county and the city or both, depending on what was going to be utilized to set up an economic development district. This legislation would require substantive language which I think just finished getting drafted today, so I'll try to get that to the members. We would be the ones in essentially in charge of setting up the parameter of how these would be utilized, but in that
economic development district, it could be as small as a building that's dilapidated in the community that you're trying to find an investor to come and rehab or as large as a particular area that a that a city or a county wants to focus on trying to bring in new investment. It could be targeted and it should be targeted, for instance, if you're looking for housing or a new mix of retail or you're trying to lure a new retail customer or entity into your town, you could develop a district for that purpose. The way that the substantive language would be established or
at least as it is right now, um, that locality that taxing authority through the judge or the county or the county judge or the mayor would essentially nominate the members for the economic Development District, that quorum Court or Ms. How would you set the parameters for the economic development district and the those that were nominated to run the development district would be based on the approval of the legislative body, so it may be the quorum Court, the The city or both, but again, I can get that language to you. We we are missing out on
opportunity because we do not have the ability to provide opportunity. I guarantee you if you talk to your mayors back home, they would like to have the opportunity to compete. I think it's going to create incentive for competition for our municipalities and counties back home, which I think will be a good thing. It doesn't exist now. They do not have the ability to debate abate property taxes or sales taxes in our district. This would allow them to do that in a designated area that is governed by the legislative body and then the
the executive branch of whoever the taxing authority is. I apologize. I was going to make notes on the way here. I just walked out of a meeting. I think y'all realize it's been a long day and I'd be
happy to take any questions. Alright members, uh, Senator Hammer, thank you. you copy of your resolution. Here I got one. Yes, sir.
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
49:06
Is the bottom line is just open it up to where we're limited now to be able to offer for retail. And this is going to open it up
for us to have the avenue for retail, correct? Yeah,
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
49:18
every one of you is probably had at one point in time or another, uh, request in economic development for a retail projects, and they will tell you that is not what they do and they should not do that. Retail projects should be based on competition amongst neighboring areas. That's a healthy, good thing. Yes sir, retail and so I mean I think that's why you leave it to the localities to decide, you know, what is the best, what are they looking to advance and again I mean it could be from a
food desert that's in a small town in Arkansas that does not have the population, but it's too far away from a grocery store to abate their property taxes and sales taxes, you know, for that, you know, to try to recruit someone to come in to his large, I mean, to a, like I said, dilapidated hotel in a downtown area that no one's touched for. 20 years to an actual area in which you're trying to get a mixed-use development to come in to be a benefit to the city or County. So it could be, it could be
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
50:17
something the size is not restricted. It is open ended, but it allows the retail avenue that currently is not. So if we were competing, say, on the Texas side of the line for a Bucky that was on the Texas side or the Arkansas side, we're going to lose every time. Right. OK, thank you. And it's not just limited to that. I mean,
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
50:40
I again, I think it is healthy for neighboring cities to have competition as they try to recruit people,
businesses to come into their area. I think overall that's going to be a benefit. How many, how many states around us, you said Texas. What about most people would utilize what's called a tiff type district.
We have those Supreme Court ruling essentially made those irrelevant for usage in Arkansas. This is trying to set new parameters for a similar type program. It would allow the abatement of taxes or the collection ion of taxes above what is currently being collected, so that we know if it's school district receiving X today, they will continue to receive X and
those additional dollars could be used for bonding, for in infrastructure for the district or other needs to be able to create the development to lure the right, the right folks in, right, but
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
51:30
I'm I'm not sure the answer. So Texas, we're at a disadvantage because Texas, but as far as Louisiana, Oklahoma, Missouri. We are states that do not have a functioning. District
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
51:39
plan. I, I will go back and look and see. I don't want to say every, but we are, there are very, very few that find themselves in our position. OK, thanks.
Alright, you know questions from members. Alright, see you no don't see my son up, speak for or against this. Senator Dismay,
um. Anything else you'd like to add? No, I mean, again, I look forward
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
52:02
to visiting with y'all, you know, where we are in session, things have been busy. I think this is a critical thing for us for, you know, improvement in the state and creating some new opportunity that does not currently exist and I look forward to further discussion, hopefully consideration. Thank you, Senator. All right, Senator King. Where do you want to start?
Speaker 226
52:21
You've got what, 11 or 12 professors present this to uh SGR 2 and 9, and then we'll let him go and I'll jump back out and well, I mean like if you're gonna are you gonna run
Speaker 19
52:31
all of them? I'm just I'm just gonna talk uh briefly about Two of
Speaker 226
52:34
them and then talk in depth with one of them. Well, you've got to love it on here, so how many are we going to hear right now for the professor and then run night after
that and then I'll jump back out of the queue. But
Speaker 162
52:56
I'm Silverstein. I'm a law professor of. Let me try that again. My name
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
53:01
is Josh Silverstein. I'm a law professor and I live and work in Little Rock, but I'm speaking in my individual capacity, not on behalf of the university where I teach. I'm here to speak today in favor of SJR 2, SGR 2 would create an
Speaker 89
53:12
independent districting commission. We're not speaking a favor of the bill. You got to present the
resolution first, Senator. So you want to do that, and he can speak. State Senator Brian King, District 28, I'm presenting SJR 2.
Senator Bryan King
Unverified
53:27
And I would like for the professor
to be we're not speaking for it then you're going
Chair
Unverified
53:33
to be presenting the resolution, correct? Yeah, OK, OK, so I'm actually just presenting what
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
53:39
it is. OK, so what this resolution would do. is it would create an independent districting commission that would draw the lines for State House, state Senate, and Congress, so the US House of Representatives and the commission would have 9 members. They'd be appointed by the Board
of apportionment, and they would draw the lines in such a way as to be as nonpartisan as possible in the list of factors that can be considered what I want to highlight one thing that was left out. Which is communities of interest which is often used as a way to smuggle back in partisanship. So the idea would be to draw these lines based exclusively on nonpartisan
Chair
Unverified
54:24
factors, and I will quickly identify what those factors are, they are on.
They're the most important part of the bill. They are on. I went too far. On page 8 in lines 13 through 22. So you have to have population equality under the US Constitution. You then have to comply with any federal civil rights laws
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
54:45
because of the supremacy Clause, you then want to keep the districts as a single piece you don't want to break them up. Then you want to try to avoid the division of cities and counties, avoid the division of school districts. The next goal is to keep them as
compact as possible and not have strange shapes and then avoid The division of areas marked by geographical factors which people tend to live by, and then finally to draw House of Representative districts wholly within Senate districts, and I will say that in creating this list, what Senator King wanted to do was create a list of factors that is as nonpartisan as possible, and so that's the goal and then you see in Section C, these independent commission would not be considering
political affiliation, election results. Residency of the incumbent communities of interest or any other demographic information, and it really wouldn't consider anything beyond the eight factors listed, so I think that's the basic structure, this idea has been before this body during multiple past sessions. I'm happy to go into more detail, but I think I would probably best to stop there. All right, members, you've heard an explanation. Are there any questions from the
committee? Alright, say no. Let me add
Senator Bryan King
Unverified
56:03
something, uh, former Republican Representative Dan Greenberg and I worked on this when it was Democrats down here and he supports
something like, like an independent redistricting. OK. All right, so let's move on to SJR
9. So is there an opportunity to testify in favor
Chair
Unverified
56:22
of that one until we're going to just introduce both bills, both resolutions. I'm going to introduce the resolution. You can talk in favors
Speaker 238
56:28
or not, OK, so. But I also signed up to talk in
favor of SJR. So here's where the chairs, you know, confuse us like if
Speaker 239
56:38
he wants to talk in favor. So like intertwine that with
Senator King, how about you present the resolution. Joshua actually speaks in favor of it. It would be a very simple. OK, but you're wanting to speak in favor of SGR2 in favor of the one we just did. I don't know, he signed up to speak in favor of him. You want
him to present them, so, you know, you know, how about you would present the resolution. He can then speak in favor of
Speaker 241
57:05
it. OK, well, I'll present SJR too and then if you'll recognize and speak in favor of it, we'll
go from there. Well, I'll tell you what, since he's already done the presenting SGR2, won't you go ahead and speak in favor of it. Um, and then on SJR 9, Senator King, you present it and then he can speak in favor of it. All right,
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
57:27
thank you, Senator. What a simple process. So the United States elects most legislatures by single-member districts, and those districts are typically
Chair
Unverified
57:32
created by elected officials. The traditional criteria for crafting electoral
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
57:36
boundaries include equalizing the population of each district, which is required by the constitution, respecting city and county borders, contiguity, which means all parts of the district are connected and compactness, which means districts have simple shapes that keep all parts of a district close together. gerrymandering is the process of creating districts to advantage. take. Uh gerrymandering is the process of creating districts to advantage a particular group in
an election rather than focusing on traditional districting criteria, political or partisan gerrymandering occurs when boundaries are drawn to aid a political party. Gerrymandering undermines the right to vote by making it more difficult for some citizens to elect officials that represent their views under political gerrymandering, the votes of those in the minority party have less weight in elections. The purpose of elections is for the voters to select their representatives, but Jerry man der ing constitutes the representatives selecting their voters. Government officials decide which subsets of the population may vote in which
races partly or largely mooting elections. Voting is a fundamental right under the US and Arkansas constitutions, partisan gerrymandering undermines this right based on a person's political affiliation, making gerrymandering inconsistent with democratic principles embedded in our national and state constitutions. Imagine if a law was adopted providing that Republicans must pay 20% more in taxes than Democrats or the Democrats are only entitled to free speech 6 days of the week rather than 7, or the Republicans are only allowed 6 jurors when charged with a crime
where Democrats get 12. Such discrimination on the basis of party is precisely what gerrymandering does. Political gerrymandering is equivalent to a law providing that minority party votes are worth only 90, 70, or even 50% of majority party votes. While gerrymandering has a long history in this country. It's reached epidemic proportions in the last two decades because of advances in computer and data collection, which make it easier to draw districts that maximize the advantage of one party. Consider just two examples. In 2016, just 33 of the 435
positions. In Congress were decided by a margin of less than 10%. All of the remaining house races were landslides where the result was essentially settled before voters even cast a ballot in 2020, there were 12 competitive congressional districts in Texas after redistricting, there were only 2. Only 2 out of 38 Texas House races in 2022 were decided by less than 10%, so 2020 and 2022 with respect to Texas. Uncompetitive districts reduced
or eliminate incentives for ed officials to compromise with the other side because the greatest threat to their jobs is from within their own party, namely a primary challenge. Deep red and blue districts also reduce turnout. Why vote if the result is preordained by the district map. Political gridlock and the deep frustration most Americans have with our political system are heavily driven by gerrymandering. It is thus not surprising that polls consistently find that the vast majority of Americans of every political stripe strongly opposed the practice. How do we eliminate gerrymandering? We bar
the blocks from guarding the hen house. We remove politicians from the process of creating their own electoral districts. That is precisely what Senator King's proposed constitutional amendment would do. The commission is charged with creating legislative districts for the state House and Senate and the US House using only traditional districting criteria, and it bars political factors. Multiple states across the political spectrum employ these types of commissions, including Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, and Washington. And the same is
true for other countries with established democracies that elect officials via single-member districts like the UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, India, and Mexico. If independent commissions work in all of those places, they'll work. in Arkansas, so I, that is all I have to say in favor, and I'm happy to take any questions again. Great, members, any questions for the committee, Senator Tucker, you're recognized
Chair
Unverified
1:01:29
for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Professor, do you
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
1:01:33
think voters should choose their politicians or
politicians should choose their voters. I prefer the former, sir. Thank
you. And are questions from members. Alright, see none. Sarah King once you present SJR 9. Thank
Senator Bryan King
Unverified
1:01:52
you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to present SJR 9, which is about, uh, the sovereign immunity, so I'm gonna. turn
this over and I just won't say anything, and then you can recognize people to speak for it, and we can cut, cut to uh the professor speaking for it.
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
1:02:12
Professor, thank you. Oh OK. Once again, I will just renote that I'm speaking in my individual capacity, not on behalf of my university. The bill that was filed is a shell bill or shell resolution, but I think the thinking is we will do the same thing we did with the resolution that Senator Clark mentioned last session, and so where we work together and I presented with him that time. What we're looking for is two changes to the law of sovereign immunity. First, eliminating sovereign immunity for the state
of Arkansas and all of its instrumentalities. In cases involving constitutional rights, and then second, permitting the state legislature to waive sovereign immunity for any other type of claim. Now, before explaining why I think this would be a very positive change. Let me know what we would not be doing. We would not be addressing the immunities of individuals or corporations acting on behalf of the state. Sovereign immunity is a holdover from the era when most countries were monarchies. The legal basis for sovereign immunity was as follows because the monarch
created the courts. The monarch is superior to the courts, and thus the monarch is not subject to the jurisdiction of the courts, but the United States is not a monarchy, nor any of the individual states including Arkansas. The courts in this country do not owe their existence to a king, the legislature, or the executive. Instead, the courts are a coequal branch of government, as Senator Tucker mentioned earlier, created by our federal constitutions. As a result, the historical basis for sovereign immunity no longer exists. There are also no persuasive modern policy justifications for
sovereign immunity. In fact, sovereign immunity is fundamentally incompatible with the rule of law, due process of law, and the concept of a bill of rights. Modern societies use litigation to resolve our disputes and vindicate legal rights. If a human being injures you or breaches a contract, you may sue that natural person to recover for damages. If a corporation or other artificial person injures you. Or breaches a contract, you may sue them to recover damages, but if the state of Arkansas or some division of the state such as a commission or university,
injures you or breaches a contract, you cannot sue in court to recover for your damages. Instead you're consigned to the Claims Commission and then ultimately the legislature itself. There's a fundamental principle of American law that states that no person should be a judge in his or her own case, but that is exactly what happens when a person sues the state for money. The legislature itself, which is at the apex of our state, government ultimately decides if the injured person's entitled to relief from the government. That is inconsistent with principles of due process that underlie our entire justice system, and it
means that sovereign immunity makes it harder for citizens to enforce their fundamental legal rights, such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms. To make my analysis somewhat more concrete. Consider one hypothetical. Suppose in Arkansas citizen enters into a contract with both the state of Arkansas and the nation of Germany for the provision of business services here in Arkansas. Suppose further that Arkansas Germany both default on their contractual obligations. The citizen could sue Germany and Arkansas state court because of the commercial activity exception to the foreign sovereign Immunities Act, but to
recover for the breach from Arkansas, the citizen would have to resort to the Arkansas Claims Commission. In other words, current law makes it easier for a citizen of this state to sue a foreign country in Arkansas state court than to sue Arkansas itself. I submit that does not make sense. Sovereign immunity has no place in a modern constitutional democracy like the United States States or Arkansas and the United Kingdom, the source of the American doctrine of sovereign immunity eliminated it in 1947. A number of American states have also eliminated sovereign immunity in whole or in part. I'll briefly address
two counterarguments to what we're proposing. The first is that eliminating or limiting the way we would sovereign immunity will increase litigation. That's a feature, not a bug. As I said, litigation is how we resolve disputes. I just perhaps the most important mechanism for protecting fundamental legal rights and keeping the government in check. The alternative is simply that rights can be violated with impunity. There should be more litigation against the state because right now there's none. The second argument against weakening sovereign immunity is that will hold the citizens of the state financially responsible for the
wrongdoing of the government, but that again is a feature, not a bug. In a constitutional democracy, government officials represent and are chosen by the people. This means that all public employees are agents of the state. Another fundamental principle of American law is that if an agent commits a wrong, the principle is held responsible. If a corporate officer commits a tort, the damages are paid out of profits that would otherwise go to shareholders. What we are proposing would extend this concept to wrongdoing committed by government officials that violate constitutional rights,
and it permits the legislature to extend the concept to other concepts contexts such as with statutory rights. If a state official injures a person or breaches a contract on behalf of the state rectifying that wrong should come out of the taxes that every Arkansan pays. Moreover, holding all of us responsible. Creates an incentive for Arkansans to be more careful in how we monitor our government. If we see too much wrongdoing resulting litigation, we can vote to change our elected officials. I believe limiting sovereign immunity will almost
certainly save Arkansas's money because the threat of litigation will greatly decrease wrongdoing by the state, wrongdoing that causes significant financial harm to both the immediate victims and society at large. To sum up, litigation is the primary tool for enforcing legal rights. Thus, litigation should be available to challenge any government wrongdoing just as it is available with private wrongdoing, whether you're a conservative, liberal, or somewhere in between, you almost certainly believe in government accountability, limiting sovereign immunity will help to bring about greater accountability for our government using the best tool
ever invented to enforce legal rights. Lawsuits before independent courts, and yet again I'm happy to take any questions. Yeah, members, any questions? Senator Payton. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Senator John Payton
Unverified
1:07:59
I just got to correct something you said, and I think it came up
earlier. I think it came up earlier on a couple of bills. The legislature created the courts, the judicial branch and the legislature created the executive branch. The first
meeting of the of the Continental Congress. was a legislature and a legislative
act. They created the government that we have. That is not correct. That is not,
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
1:08:35
that is not a correct as a matter of law. The US Constitution was adopted through various assemblies in each state that were independent of the initial state governments. That is the body that is the source of federal of the US Supreme Court, the most important of our
courts, and it allowed Congress to create lower courts, but the judiciary as a branch was created by Article II of the Constitution adopted by the people through assemblies. Not through the legislature, and that is also the way I believe every state constitution operates. It is the state constitution of Congress gathered and met as
Senator John Payton
Unverified
1:09:11
a legislative body. That is correct, but the Constitution was
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
1:09:15
not created by the Continental Congress. The Constitution was brought into existence by bodies of regular people by individuals who are
not actually government officials. They might have some of them been, but they were not actually legislators and acting in a legislative capacity, and it is that constitution that is the source of the federal judiciary. Did you say they were acting in a legislative capacity. They were not acting in a legislative capacity and and and state constitutions. are generally adopted by the vote of the people and as those constitutions that create the courts. OK, I think we'll disagree on that.
Senator John Payton
Unverified
1:09:48
Thanks. Right, there are questions for members.
All right, see you then, Professor. Thank you for being here and thank you for rearranging the schedule for
Senator Bryan King
Unverified
1:09:59
me the professor if this one bubbles up to be considered and we'll put some language to it, so OK. Thank you again. Thank you. Sir King, don't you just stay down there. You've got, I think you've got
Speaker 19
1:10:08
9 or 10 more. Well, I mean like we're gonna hear them. Here's your opportunity. OK. Well, we're all now it's just well, I know, but we're all gonna have to have to be here to get the same time, so I said,
we're all members of the committee at this point, you can go
Senator John Payton
Unverified
1:10:36
Soenator Payton, don't you go ahead? You can present right here at 5. Thank you, members. 11, it's an amendment to the Arkansas Constitution pertaining to firearm rights under
the 2nd Amendment. Oh, sorry. Alright, SJR 11. It's an amendment to the Arkansas Constitution regarding firearms rights. Uh, real simple if you introduce yourself real quickly just for
the Senator Peyton District 22. There you go. Thank you. So I'll keep this really short. The Arkansas Constitution has A clause in it that somewhat mirrors the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. But it says the right to bear arms. This would add keep and bear arms. It would also, it currently says for the for their common defense. In on page 2 line 26.
We verify that that means individual right. And it also brings in the Keep and bear ammunition, accessories, and components. And that's what it does. All right, members, you've heard an explanation. Any questions from the committee?
Speaker 225
1:11:49
Alright, so no questions, don't see my Senate speak
Speaker 97
1:11:54
for against this. Sir Peyton, do you have another one?
Senator John Payton
Unverified
1:12:01
SJR 18 is actually a companion bill for a House bill by Representative Ray. It's the only voting amendment just says in order to vote in any election in Arkansas, you would have to be a citizen of the United States and then also meet the current criteria to be a qualified elector. And There's a lot of data that shows that the uh our constituents overwhelmingly support this type of action, uh, 75% opposed
non-citizens voting. Places that allow non-citizens voting or California, Illinois, Maryland, Vermont, Washington, DC. There are a myriad of Cities that have attempted to allow non-citizen voting, there are 5 states. They have it written originally written in their constitution in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Minnesota, Utah, and Wyoming. Uh
And there are a list of states that have passed similar legislation. In the last uh 5 years, I'll just start there. Florida, Colorado, Alabama, Louisiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Missouri, Kentucky, Iowa, Idaho. So I think if it goes to the Arkansas ballot. Arkansans will overwhelmingly support the idea that you must
be a citizen of this country to
vote in an Arkansas election. All right, members, you've heard an explanation or any questions from members of the committee, Senator
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
1:13:41
Dawson, thank you, Mr. Chair. Senator Payton, under this section that This is going into wouldn't this a be an amendment that would touch on, I think it's Amendment 501 or 52 that. 51 that Senator Tucker amended earlier. I mean, he moved to and to an or or something is a clean up language, but it was a 2/3
majority that we were able to pass to amend this section of the Constitution. I think this touches on the similar, similar place. Couldn't this be ran as a bill? I don't know.
Senator John Payton
Unverified
1:14:13
I didn't work with the bill drafter Representative Ray did, and so I haven't had those conversations. It's a companion bill. There's a House bill filed that mirrors it. I would think this one could potentially be ran as a bill to
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
1:14:26
to address that, but that would be nice. It wouldn't take up one of our
Senator John Payton
Unverified
1:14:30
places you might look into that. Thank you. Thank you.
All right, Senator King, we're back up to you. What you got? To the chair is going to let you run every single one, or excuse me, present every single resolution you have. Yeah.
Speaker 270
1:15:17
OK So I won't go through all of them because some of them are
Senator Bryan King
Unverified
1:15:26
just introduce yourself for the record, please. State Senator Brian King, District 28. So I'll go
Speaker 238
1:15:30
through some of them. One is a Doge constitutional image resolution is it if you just give us the number that you're going. tell you what, why don't we just
Senator Bryan King
Unverified
1:15:49
pass over that one and then let's go to SJR 3. I'm gonna briefly talk about that one. SGR 10 3 or 3? OK.
Speaker 235
1:16:02
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So basically I'm going to go very
Senator Bryan King
Unverified
1:16:08
briefly over SJR 3 because I know that if it does get bubble up and gets considered, we can talk about it more in depth, but basically our state highway commission is made up of 5
members. There are 1 from each congressional district and then you have an at-large. Well, when you have an at-large one, that means that one area of the state is going to have more proportional representation, uh, then uh the other areas. So this would basically break. down into districts, much like a Senate district. You can see the list of counties. We've got to make a technical crane, uh, and it's pretty close in population, as close as, you know, we can get it. But basically it would
say, you know, if you had to look at it, as I say, almost like 10 counties make up half the population now, big part. So to get a, to let us have proportional representation, you could have, you would have one commissioner from Benton, Washington. and Sebastian County, and then you would have one commissioner from basically Pulaski, Slane, Partner, I can't remember the exact details and then you would have, ah, Three other commissioners that would have breakouts of
districts where, uh, that would be more towards the rest of the state. So That's just basically in a nutshell, what it is, I can actually pass out a map and give it to you that I will give to you later that will show the actual ones, but they're, they're trying to be close in population. They're more of like the professor talked about communities of interest. If you look at the I-4-49 corridor, Bit in Washington Crawford Sebastian. Well, if you look at our congressional districts, Carroll and Madison County is not like, like that. And if you
look at like say Senator Payton's district up there and Sullivan's district, where there's different needs than what Bitton Washington Crawford and Sebastian are, but so you can have two commissioners. From those four counties. Well, that's not proportional representation. So I can give you a map later that really more clearly illustrates. Where the counties are like Senator Clark's back there. It's just, uh,
you know, Garland County and his Senate district
is different than Senator Tucker's district and different than Senator Dodson's district of the four counties, so. And it would also allow
whenever a commissioner is being appointed, they would have
to receive first appointment from the senators in that district. So I would not in Carroll County, I would not be a part of the first process to approve the commissioner and Senator Dodson's district or Senator Tucker's district. I think I would be in Senator Sullivan's district. Uh, which is more of a 412
corridor. And so is it perfect? No, but it would, you know, Senator Tucker and Senator Hammer would be the first ones to approve the commissioner in that. And the reason I'm doing that is just basically where, uh, the senators that are in that area would have more. Influence or power over who
their commissioner was. So But I will get you a map later that will show you the actual counties. It's a little better illustration. OK.
Senator John Payton
Unverified
1:19:26
All right, members, any questions for Senator King? I could ask. Yeah, go ahead. So I kind of like the objective here, but uh When you do this, it's a 10 year term. If they
move midterm. Do they have to resign or they stay on there if they move outside of their, I think I'd have to look
Senator Bryan King
Unverified
1:19:46
at the language law, but I mean, I, I think if they moved out of the district, then yes. I mean, we had a situation where there was a commissioner, I won't mention name, that actually probably more lived in Little Rock than they did the other district, but
yeah, I mean, if, if, uh, I'd have to look at the language and go back over it, but if they moved out of the district, it'd be no different than if you moved out of your Senate district. Well,
Senator John Payton
Unverified
1:20:08
we're up every 4 years. The House members up every 2 years. This is a 10 year term, so I think the likelihood that somebody may be moving, would be increased by the fact it's such a long term. Well, it could, but
Senator Bryan King
Unverified
1:20:17
if they're, if they're not living in the district that they represent, I mean, I don't think that if they moved out of the congressional district that they currently
have, if they're not the at-large one, then I don't know what the process is that they
would have to probably resign from that too, but. What you don't think so they can actually
not live in the congressional district. Yeah, I think as far as elected officials
Senator John Payton
Unverified
1:20:39
you only have to live in the district at the point you're on the ballot and then once elected, I'm not sure you have not to be reelected, you'd have to live in the district, but I'm not
sure about that. That's why I asked the question. Thank you. OK Yeah, I don't actually agree
with that. And for 3 months. Most of us live down here,
not me, so. But thanks, Senator Peyton, members, any questions? All
right, so you know, what's your next resolution here King? SGR 6 SGR 6. So if you look at this handout
Senator Bryan King
Unverified
1:21:20
and then why I'm going to talk about this in depth is because it's dealing with the proposed prison and what's going on. We were all on budget, so there's amendment filed for 750 or uh
aropriation bill to uh allocate 750 million now instead of 330 million, they went up 420 million on the prison. So I think that This is important to present because this is gonna toddle with with what we're dealing with the bigger, broader issue, but basically, As I said right now today, we face a three-headed monster out there. We face high crime, high overcrowding, and high incarceration rate. And basically this started in 2011, which I don't think.
None of anybody here was here during in 2011, but in 2011, basically Governor Bbe got in financial trouble. So any governor goes into just uh They want to let people out of jail early. That's just it. And so that's basically what happened. It was titled the Public Protection Public Safety Improvement Act and for other purposes. It was about reducing recidivism, how offenders accountable, and contain correctional costs. The reality was it was about retaining correction costs.
If you look at the next page where you see the violent crime statistics, you can see that didn't work. Actually, if you would look, our violent crime rate was actually going down. So you take 2011 session, this bill gets passed, which was supposed to reduce corrections costs. That was the only thing it would. The title of the bill was misleading. I did not vote for it, uh, and you'll see exactly what happened after that, and that's where we're at, and that's where this really started, where we have this high crime rate.
And and how overcrowding is what started with the Public Protection Act. Like I said, if you look at the statistics right here, the FBI statistics, violent crime was actually going
down. Property crime was actually going down at that time. So once again, a mistitled bill. Uh, that was supposed to protect the public did the opposite of that. OK, the real truth of that, once again, was about reducing cost to our state budget. So you will look, you come into 2015, which I think
most everybody was here during that 2015 session. Senator Jeremy Hutchison came up with the idea and we spent millions on consultants. This is why I do not like consultants being spent on uh to do the criminal justice Reform Act and implement measures designed to enhance public safety, reduce the prison population. And declare emergency. So this was basically supposed to reduce crime, reduce the prison population. You know, once again, it was
reform Act, spent millions on consultants, had meetings, and you will see the obvious result was. You look at the next page. We go in these tweets were out that I printed off to show what happened after that bill did not take care of anything. In fact, it made it worse. Arkansas's prison population is among the fastest growing in the nation showed a 22% increase. The next one inmate growth.
Uh, outstrips prisons. The next one 2016, if you look, it was November of 2016, right before our, our 17th session with
prisons overcapacity early release approved for more than 700 inmates. So once again, Jeremy Hutchison's bill that was supposed to reduce the prison population, you go back to 2011, was supposed to reduce the population. It did not do that. The opposite happened.
So in 2017, I filed a bill to make it work because our crime rate was so bad and getting worse, as I showed before, that if you got sentenced to corrections, you went, you got, you served 80% of your Senate. It had a big, huge price tag. So I fought the bill and got it out of the house. Uh, we got it out of the Senate, fought Governor Hutchison, who said it was going to wreck the budget, which it was not at that time, Amazon had started voluntarily remitting the internet tax. So I told Governor Hutchison, Senator Hester, and several of them. Let's use that as a revenue stream like a county
would a jail tax, and that was I think at the time maybe it was 30, 40 million they estimated. Our internet sales tax is, is exponentially much higher, probably 100 million, 150 million now. But what we should have done then was use that as a revenue stream to build more facilities and actually do things to reduce crime, maybe even look at mental health issues was discussed at the time, you know, an incapacity because we had the money to do that and it costs much less to do it then. Once again, you could see from the statistics, we had an incredible
amount of crime rate. Well, that bill did not go through, and you see in 2021, the FBI statistics show Arkansas is the top state for violent crime, 5th in property crime. Now those numbers fluctuate, but the reality is when you're in the, when you're in the bottom 40 or top 10, you're still bad. It's like what stage of the sewer are you in in crime and violent crime, and
that's why we have the crime problem that we do today. Yeah. So I'm having a hard time.
Senator John Payton
Unverified
1:26:45
Is there an amendment to this SJR 6, or are you talking about what SKR 6 is going to do yet, or you, I'm gonna get to
Senator Bryan King
Unverified
1:26:53
that, but I'm giving you some back information. So if you look at every $1 reduced, if you want to know where politicians where your priorities
lie. If you look at where your dollar goes in 2006 when I came in. This is very important for budget reasons because the only way we're going to get out of anything is with the budget. That's it. It's everything takes money to do something. So if you look at public safety, which is
state police, in 2006 when I came in, uh,
it was 1.9% of the budget. Education was 44.9 corrections, and this is what I
want to point out. Corrections was 8% of the budget. So 8 cents of every dollar went to corrections. Medicaid at that time was 24% higher ed was 16.3. Your county and city turnback dollars at that time was so much higher,
4.9%. If you look at the budget that was last approved.
Because this bill is about figuring out how to pay for something. That's all it is. Public safety as a percentage went down. State police. Now there's a few things that went up, but as a percentage, it went up. Education went down to 41%. This is what's got us in our crisis right now with our budgeting that's not happened. Corrections is still only 8% of the budget. If we were to put the money to corrections to take care of this stuff, corrections would be 12% of the budget, at least right now. But when you're only approving
88 cents of every dollar, there's nothing correct can can do. They can't build facilities. Now, what you may have had an increase. The reality is you're not given an increase to corrections or public safety because the cost of everything going up was eating everything. You could give a $42 million increase, but the reality is with the cost of doing everything, you're not keeping up with everything. Medicaid is 32%. So when I came
in, it was 24% of the budget. Now it's 32%. Higher ed actually down. And if you look at your county and turnback dollars at
3.6%. Where if you go to the next one on the bar graph, and this is where I'm concerned about state spending. You can see the top line is education and whether you support learns or not support learns. The big question was, how are you going to pay for it, education is gonna go up. You look at Medicaid, Medicaid is not going to go down. There's no foreseeable future of
reducing the amount of percentage or the money spent in Medicaid. In fact, it's still going up. If you look at all these figures, they all stay flat.
Well, flat is actually a cut. So my concern is if you look over the last year or so, or the last 2 years,
revenue is trending down. So your expenses are trending up and your revenue has been trending down. That's why RSA is the
most important bill. Uh, of the session and it gets the least amount attention. Well, whenever the governor came out with her prison plan that she came out in the 23 sessions, she said 470 million for for
3000 beds. That is so unrealistic because 470 million would not build a 3000 bed jail. That's only 156,000 per bed. So I said it wasn't even close at that time, even in 17, we couldn't have built a 3000 bed prison for $470 million. So if you look at our situation, and this is where it's going to go, where I'm trying to fight crime first. If you look at our inmates by county in in in incarceration, 8 counties make up 2/3 of the inmates in incarceration and county back law.
If you look at Pulaski County is 21% of our inmate and backlog situation while I think they're around 13% of the population. This next figure deals just let that when that deals with the staffing issues up there in there, but if you will look at the impact of what our budget's going to do, let me give you an example of why budgeting, and I'm trying to get the governor or anybody that's not that we need to know before we go is how you gonna pay for anything. Utah was going to build a prison for 500 and something million. It
wound up being over a billion. If you look at Alabama, and Alabama and Utah are more comparable situation in Arkansas. Alabama in 2021 was going Bill 24,000 bed prisons for 1.3 billion, 8000 beds for 1.3 billion. You read this article right now, they are not even half done with their prison right now. And they're estimating just the one is gonna be 1.3 billion. Now the legislature is having to go
back and borrow 500 million more to try to finish it.
Senator John Payton
Unverified
1:31:33
Senator King, can you please tell us how your bill is going to affect all this, and that's
Senator Bryan King
Unverified
1:31:37
what the biggest issue that we have today is the crime issue. OK, we're talking about prisons and overcrowding, but if you're not addressing the crime issue. Then you're not going to reduce the prison population and what's going in. What my bill would do is create a public safety fund, and I've got a regular bill to do that, that right now would take $100 million out of out of out of general revenue sales
tax, the 1st 100 million of our fiscal year. This is a regular bill that would hire 400 to 600 public safety officers. It would also allow the state police director he could hire state police people. He could also do partnerships with counties. So you could have counties designated much like we do our drug test judicial force, that they do partnerships with with federal and state funds. You could go to the counties because most of our county deputies, about all of them make less than cities. So there's such a high turnover, they would also be designated to
help probation parole, which is underfunded and overworked. But when you, when you don't out of this whole talk with the prison, if you do not take a substantial amount of money and put towards
Senator Bryan King
Unverified
1:33:56
years to even Maybe make 250 prisoners difference up there, maybe, maybe 500. And what my bill is do is about being physically responsible in this bill, if we pass the other one that hires a public safety fund because right now Pulaski County, I've visited with the Little Rock police chief. He's short 100 officers right now. So are you ready to take questions? Yeah. Do you have any questions
Speaker 271
1:34:16
for Senator King? I'll go ahead and take a shot,
Senator John Payton
Unverified
1:34:26
OK. So this peels off $100 million to constitutionally
and puts it into the Arkansas State Police. Why can't we do that now? We're in session without uh constitutional amendment. Why can't we? We're fixing to deal with the budget. Why, why wouldn't this legislature be able to cordon off $100 million and give it to the state police to cure this problem. I've already got a bill, Senate Bill 143, right now is going
Senator Bryan King
Unverified
1:34:53
to do that. What this bill would do, if passed to, you
know, because this will not be on the ballot till 2026. If it's passed, it will shoot off the money that Mous administration costs towards that 100 million. So what we need to do is pass the 100 million right now. I'm already doing that, but this bill would be an extra ad that voters could say, hey, you know what, this proceeds from medical marijuana and casinos can go to this public safety fund, so it basically would alleviate about 40, 40, 40 to $50 million. I, I can't estimate what it'd be at that time, but at least 40
million of the 60, 100 million. Then it would be a $40 million less hit to general revenue, but if by 143 passes, July 1st of this year, there's a $100 million set for this public safety fund. OK, thank you. Any other questions? Hammer, you're recognized for a
Senator John Payton
Unverified
1:35:43
question. And I'm sorry if I don't know
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:35:46
the answer to question, but I can't think of the answer right now, so I'll
ask you the Is any of the money earmarked under the passage of the medical
marijuana and the casino gaming. Constitutionally required to go to any certain Um, area. Well, if you voted for the school lunch, I think that's one
Senator Bryan King
Unverified
1:36:11
that they use medical marijuana proceeds that is going, so the legislature can You know, move the money, and I think the legislature did this last time, but if my amendment passes and the voters get to say, hey, I want public safety is the number one issue out there that we're trying to deal
and solve with and this would just say, the voters would say. This needs to go to a public safety fund to hire more officers to make our community safer, right? But
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
1:36:39
I mean, constitutionally is the money limited now as it is under the marijuana or the casino gaming or we've got the ability as The legislature has the ability right now to move that. I think they
Senator Bryan King
Unverified
1:36:50
just did that with the medical marijuana. OK, thanks. Any other questions? Is there anybody you speak for or against this bill?
Sarah King, you want to close? I just want to say everybody's talking about prisons, overcrowding. Let me just tell you something. If we do not reduce the crime rate, OK, which there's nothing in the foreseeable future. That it's gonna do anything to reduce crime rate. If you look at the statistics, the reason I went back, when you're only giving 8% to corrections and as a percentage of budget, you're only given so much of the state police. If you do not reduce the crime rate right now. OK, the best, most cost effective way to reduce costs in
prison and everything is to make sure the crime is not committed in the first place. If there's no once you make an arrest, it chains off a bunch of events. It goes to the court system, it goes to incarceration, it goes to a court date, it goes to more public defenders. It goes to if they serve a sentence, it goes to probation, uh, if they serve as say it costs money to incarcerate them, and then it costs money when they go out. It costs money to rehabilitate them or attempt to rehabilitate them, and then it costs money for probation and parole to do it.
The best thing you can do is if you reduce your crime rate on the front end, you stop all these dominoes from falling, that's going to keep costing money. That's why it's so critical right now that in our legislature, we have two paths we can take. You can put all the money and eggs into one megaprison up there, which I'm going to say is going to be a mega financial disaster. It's going to be 1.5 billion. There's no way this is going, this is going to be less than 300 and something,000 per bed. They're not providing an estimate. So either you want to put all your
eggs in one basket or we could hire 400 to 600 public safety. officers just designated for crime that could help out Pulaski County. They're short 100 officers right now in the city police. You know, if you look at myself, we're a border county with Missouri, so right now our county sheriffs and deputies, we have people coming across the border committing crime, and then they go back. You know, if you assist probation parole, if you looked, and if you could superimpose where those probation parolees
are, and that's what these officers would, would be assist probation parole. If you put where these parolees are
and more, more uh populated counties like Pulaski County, and you look at the crime, it's going to be in the same area. So you're going to have more of a positive police presence. You could even have Park Plaza Mall where there was just a, a mother was murdered out there in crimes being committed right down the road from us. If you have public safety officers making sure the crime's not committed, you then stop the arrest. You stop incarceration to a court date.
You stop a court date. Every domino, as I said, there's 7 dominoes that fall once somebody is arrested. If we reduced our violent crime rate and reduced people stealing out of you, like I said about Missouri, where we had more officers out there being a pause the priests were. Look at all the dominoes we save later. You don't have to rehabilitate them. Once again, the most cost effective way is to make your community safe where you don't even make an arrest. Either you want to go with this megaprison mega financial disaster, or you
want to go and hire 400 of public safety officers out here that's actually going to reduce crime. That's, it's a simple way. We've got a path right now that either you want to prove this other way and it's going to put all the eggs in one basket to this megaprison. Or you want to do something on the proactive side and reduce the crime rate. This megaprison thing will not reduce the crime rate. It just won't. We're going to continue 5 years from now, we're going to be have jail overcrowding, we'll have prison overcrowding. We will
have prison over if we do not reduce the crime rate, first, we will have prison overcrowding for 10 years from now. We'll have it 15 years from now, we'll have it 20 years from now. And it's going to take a significant amount of money with a dedicated revenue stream, and that's all this is about. Everything that I file today is about government actually spending less money. Not spending more. And figuring out actually how you pay for it. We have not seen anything out of the governor's thing that shows how we're going to pay for this thing.
But do you see my point? If you don't make, if you, if you don't commit the crime, you're not arresting them. You're not having a court date. You're not incarcerating them until the court date. They're not being sentenced in judicial sent. They're not being appointed a public defender. And then they're not being incarcerated, and then you don't have to have probation parole. Every state that has reduced the
crime rate has reduced their overall cost exponentially by just simply reducing the crime rate. Yeah, question,
Senator John Payton
Unverified
1:41:48
uh I already had the questions. We're on the closing. OK, I get it. Thank you. Go ahead, I'll give you a question.
Speaker 290
1:41:55
I'm sorry. Go ahead, you ask. Senator asked if we understood in my
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
1:42:03
response is, yes, I understand. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Sullivan. All right, so that's SG
Speaker 290
1:42:08
6. Do you have another one you would
Speaker 257
1:42:19
like to present, Senator King I need to talk about that because the rest of them are not that look
Senator John Payton
Unverified
1:42:27
like. OK. Senator Flippo, would you like the chair Matter of
Speaker 239
1:42:32
fact, I wouldn't. All right, Senator Dodson, you got a resolution,
I think Representative Long is on his way down. I'll let you present from there, uh, what's the number there? Um, if I might
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
1:42:50
just touch on SJR 14 1st while we're waiting on Representative Long to get here for SJR 17. Take all the time you need, sir. Well, hopefully I won't take all the time, but um this SJR 14 is is currently a shell, but it's a mirror copy of the House Joint Resolution 10. 12, which I've got copies of for members if you guys would like to to have these, uh, House Joint resolution 1012 is a Longer amendment that does a simple thing, and it basically
freezes, uh, property values at the current. Value of that house or that that real property. And so they won't continue to go up and up and up. It's the the and the only time the property value will change on the property is when it sells or if there's a substantial increase in the value, say somebody had bought a lot. And they built a house on it, then that substantial increase in property value could be
reassessed. Other than that, it's basically just a freeze on the value of of real property. And so that's a nutshell explanation. OK, members, any questions for Senator Dodson. All right, see
you in 9, don't have anybody I speak for or against this. Moving on, and then Senate Joint Resolution 17. I'll
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
1:44:15
get started representative Long. Hopefully we'll get here, um, before there's questions
that are super detailed that you might need to answer, but this is the taxpayer Bill of Rights. Uh, amendment and basically in a nutshell what this would do would freeze, um, well, not freeze, it would, it would limit the increase in spending for general revenue cap it at 3% or CPI, whichever is less each year. There is provision there for making sure we have reserve
funding, catastrophic reserve funding and that sort of thing. accounted for. So if there's a catastrophe, we've got the ability to dip into reserves, but would put into constitutional amendment that we can't increase our spending more than CPI or 3%, whichever is less in a given year and then if there is excess funds come in above that amount refund it to the taxpayer, and so a rebate check would be sent out to the
taxpayers for The the excess we collected from them. Senator Peyton, you're recognized for a question, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So the
Senator John Payton
Unverified
1:45:38
catastrophic reserve fund that's for like when you have
President Biden that creates such ridiculous. Inflation that catastrophic. Well, it, it would be in case of
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
1:45:50
emergency, so I mean we don't know what the emergency might potentially be that would cause
us to have to dip into that runaway inflation
Senator John Payton
Unverified
1:46:00
could be the Um. I would have to look at
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
1:46:04
the definitions under here real quick. I don't remember them off the top of my head, but theoretically consider that we might, if this is one of the ones that rises to the level that everybody's interested in and wants to put on the ballot. we can debate the details of what we want to put parameters for release of catastrophic reserve funds in case of emergencies. All right. Thank you, Senator Peyton. Any other questions from the committee?
Alright, those are the nutshells. See, you know, for questions. Nobody signed up to
speak for or against it. Thank you, Senator Dodson. Uh, has anybody else got any other resolutions to run? Oh, Senator Tucker. AR 12. SGR 12. You recognize Thank you Mr. Chair. Take
Speaker 299
1:46:53
us back to where we started the meeting with uh
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
1:47:00
philosophical discussion about government. When George Washington left office at the end
of his 2nd term of the presidency, he thought that partisanship was the greatest threat to America, and I think he was right. It's, it's driven a deep wedge in our society, and I think we're very polarized at this point in time. And I think there's no silver bullet to solve that, but, but one Way to help is with open primaries. In the United States right now, most legislative seats are either safe Democratic seats or safe Republican seats,
and I'll just use the US Congress for an example. There's 435 seats up for election every election cycle every 2 years. There's probably less than 40 competitive seats in the general election, which means there's 400 seats that are either safe from a from a Democratic or Republican standpoint. This creates political incentives for Democrats to move as far left as possible. Republicans to move as far right as possible, which is what creates tremendous gridlock in Washington. It creates a political disincentive from working with people on the other side of the aisle on a political
incentive to point fingers and pick fights, and I think this is generally harmful to us as a society. Beyond that, I'll pick on Democrats just to make the point. If you're in a safe democratic district, then the Republicans who live in your district have no say in who they're elected officials are because that decision is made in a primary, and there's no chance of a Republican winning that district in the fall, the same is of course true for Republican districts, so SJR 12 is an attempt to rectify the situation
by allowing a person to vote for whoever they want. they walk into a voting booth in primary on the primary day. They can vote for a Republican for governor, Democratic for a Democrat for lieutenant governor, a Republican for attorney general or whatever the case, they may, may be y'all may have experienced this, but I've had a lot of constituents who told me that they look for me on their ballot on primary day, but they didn't see my name and it's because they don't really know how it works. They they picked up a Republican primary ballot in this scenario, you would be able to vote for whoever you want. It's it's really a voter
freedom bill in that sense. And then after the primary, the candidates with the two most Who would receive the, the The top 2 most votes are on the ballot on the election day in November, the general election day, uh, even if they're in the same party, so there's a lot of state legislative districts in Arkansas that would have 2 Republicans on the ballot in November if this were to become law, and there might be a handful that would have two Democratic candidates, but, but the point is that, you know, if you can't uh well, the point is
we want the most voters participating in that decision as possible. There's a smaller percentage of people who participate in elections on primary day, there's a much larger percentage who participate on general election day, and we want to increase voter participation and empowerment as much as possible and and that's, that's really it. That's the presentation. Happy to take a question from my friend Senator Dodson. Senator Dodson, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
1:50:08
As I'm looking through this and listening to your explanation, are you trying to reverse the so the primary would be the open general election and then the general election day would be basically the primary with two Republicans on the ballot. I wouldn't phrase it
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
1:50:24
that way. I would say that you can vote for whoever you want on the general election day, and that's when you are narrowing it to two candidates. Everyone still have partisan affiliation, so there's no fear of anyone hiding behind any anything, um,
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
1:50:42
What's the purpose of a primary then? Why don't we just have a general
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
1:50:49
election? Well, the point is to narrow it to 2, and that and the voters have two candidates to choose from. Well,
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
1:50:56
I mean, I would, I would think that maybe we do a runoff election or something like that, that would be, uh, if you just have a general election with all the candidates on the ballot and then the top two vote getters if no one gets over 50%. That's how they do. That's how they do it in Louisiana. Hm
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
1:51:13
They, they'll have the runoff in December that they don't have a primary. They just have everyone on the ballot in November. If no one gets 50 + 1, then they're in a runoff, so to speak, in December, but I want, I want in Louisiana though. That's why I set this up differently because I want the most people to participate in the final decision. I haven't studied it in great detail, Senator, so I can't speak. From an educated perspective, but my guess is the voter turnout in Louisiana in December is much lower than it is in
November. And I want to, I want the main decision to be made when the most number of voters are engaging in the process. That's in November. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Dawson. Any
questions from the committee? All right, see you no more questions. Don't have anybody sign up to speak for or against this. Senator Tucker, I appreciate you bringing this forward. Does anybody else have anything to bring before the committee? Alright, see none.
Agenda
CALL TO ORDER - Scott Flippo
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS
SJR2 B. King A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS APPORTIONMENT COMMISSION TO APPORTION DISTRICTS FOR THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, THE SENATE, AND THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
SJR3 B. King A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE STATE HIGHWAY COMMISSION.
SJR5 B. King AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO REPEAL THE OFFICE OF LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR.
SJR6 B. King A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO PROVIDE THAT CERTAIN PROCEEDS FROM THE SALE OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA AND CASINO GAMING SHALL BE USED FOR CRIME REDUCTION AND PREVENTION PROGRAMS AND ASSISTANCE FOR POST-RELEASE SUPERVISION SERVICES.
SJR9 B. King A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PERMITTING THE STATE OF ARKANSAS TO BE SUED AS A DEFENDANT IN STATE COURT TO ENFORCE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OR AS OTHERWISE PROVIDED BY LAW.
SJR11 J. Payton A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO AMEND ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, ARTICLE 2, § 5, TO PROTECT THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS.
SJR12 C. Tucker AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION REQUIRING THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY TO ESTABLISH BY LAW A REVISED ELECTION PROCESS
SJR13 J. Dotson A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO ALLOW A CANDIDATE FOR SUPREME COURT JUSTICE, COURT OF APPEALS JUDGE, CIRCUIT JUDGE, OR DISTRICT JUDGE TO DECLARE HIS OR HER PARTY AFFILIATION OR INDEPENDENT STATUS WHEN RUNNING FOR JUDICIAL OFFICE.
SJR14 J. Dotson A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING THE DETERMINATION OF THE TRUE VALUE IN MONEY OF REAL PROPERTY FOR ASSESSMENT PURPOSES.
SJR15 J. Dismang 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.
SJR17 J. Dotson AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO CREATE THE "ARKANSAS TAXPAYER BILL OF RIGHTS".
SJR18 J. Payton THE CITIZENS ONLY VOTING AMENDMENT.
SJR19 M. Johnson AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO EXEMPT FOOD AND FOOD INGREDIENTS FROM THE EXCISE TAX LEVIED UNDER ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 75.
SJR22 G. Leding A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING THE QUALIFICATIONS TO VOTE IN AN ELECTION.
SJR23 M. Johnson A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO PROVIDE THAT PROCEEDS GENERATED UNDER ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 91, MAY BE APPLIED TO MULTILANE HIGHWAY IMPROVEMENTS.
SJR24 M. Johnson AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION CONCERNING BALLOT TITLES FOR INITIATED MEASURES
ADJOURNMENT
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — STATE AGENCIES & GOVT'L AFFAIRS-SENATE, Mar 12, 2025 | Agenda | 2 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Senator Scott Flippo Chair
Unverified
Speaker 10
Senator John Payton
Unverified
Representative Robin Lundstrum
Unverified
Speaker 6
Speaker 2
Speaker 26
Speaker 31
Josh Silverstein
Unverified
Speaker 43
Senator Clarke Tucker
Unverified
Speaker 48
Speaker 57
Speaker 59
Senator Alan Clark
Unverified
Speaker 75
Chair
Unverified
Senator Jim Dotson
Unverified
Speaker 89
Speaker 93
Speaker 61
Speaker 86
Speaker 111
Speaker 74
Speaker 123
Speaker 119
Speaker 131
Speaker 142
Senator Dan Sullivan
Unverified
Senator Bryan King
Unverified
Speaker 66
Speaker 153
Senator Mark Johnson
Unverified
Speaker 176
Speaker 178
Representative Justin Gonzales
Unverified
Senator Greg Leding
Unverified
Speaker 203
Speaker 205
Speaker 207
Speaker 210
Senator Jonathan Dismang
Unverified
Senator Kim Hammer
Unverified
Speaker 226
Speaker 19
Speaker 162
Speaker 238
Speaker 239
Speaker 241
Speaker 225
Speaker 97
Speaker 270
Speaker 235
Speaker 271
Speaker 290
Speaker 257
Speaker 299