State Agencies & Govt'l Affairs- House
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Transcript
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Bills discussed (72)
| Bill | Title | Sponsor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
|
HB1604
Act 943
· 6 mentions in chapter, transcript, agenda
Matched: “HB1604 McAlindon TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PROHIBITED CONTRACTS…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PROHIBITED CONTRACTS BY STATE AGENCIES; AND TO PROHIBIT THE USE … | McAlindon | Notification that HB1604 is now Act 943 |
|
HB1574
Act 453
· 5 mentions in chapter, transcript, agenda
Matched: “HB1574 Vaught TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PAID CANVASSERS; AND TO…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PAID CANVASSERS; AND TO REQUIRE DOMICILE IN ARKANSAS. | Vaught | Notification that HB1574 is now Act 453 |
|
HB1069
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1069 S. Meeks TO OBSERVE STANDARD TIME YEAR ROUND IN ARKANSAS; A…”
|
TO OBSERVE STANDARD TIME YEAR ROUND IN ARKANSAS; AND TO ELIMINATE DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME IN … | S. Meeks | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1243
Act 994
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1243 Underwood TO INCREASE TRANSPARENCY REGARDING CAMPAIGN CONTR…”
|
TO INCREASE TRANSPARENCY REGARDING CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS AND EXPENDITURES; TO AMEND CAMPAIGN FINANCE REPORTING AND PROTECT … | Underwood | Notification that HB1243 is now Act 994 |
|
HB1281
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1281 McAlindon TO AMEND REPORTING FOR A CANDIDATE FOR CERTAIN MU…”
|
TO AMEND REPORTING FOR A CANDIDATE FOR CERTAIN MUNICIPAL OFFICES AND FOR COUNTY OFFICE; AND … | McAlindon | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1352
Act 937
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1352 Beaty Jr. TO AMEND VARIOUS LAWS CONCERNING ACTIONS RELATED…”
|
TO AMEND VARIOUS LAWS CONCERNING ACTIONS RELATED TO CERTAIN FOREIGN ENTITIES. | Beaty Jr. | Notification that HB1352 is now Act 937 |
|
HB1415
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1415 L. Johnson TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE DUTIES OF THE ST…”
|
TO REQUIRE LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT TO RESPOND TO A REQUEST FOR A FIRE INQUIRY. | L. Johnson | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1422
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1422 Long TO CREATE THE ONLY CITIZENS VOTE ACT; TO AMEND THE LAW…”
|
TO CREATE THE ONLY CITIZENS VOTE ACT; TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE DRIVER'S LICENSES … | Long | Died on House Calendar at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1459
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1459 L. Johnson CONCERNING RECURRING REPORTS SUBMITTED TO THE GE…”
|
CONCERNING RECURRING REPORTS SUBMITTED TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY. | L. Johnson | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1461
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1461 L. Johnson TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE EVALUATION OF NE…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE EVALUATION OF NECESSITY OF VARIOUS COMMISSIONS AND BOARDS. | L. Johnson | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1470
Act 582
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1470 Beaty Jr. TO REPEAL THE LAW CONCERNING THE REVIEW OF INFORM…”
|
TO REPEAL THE LAW CONCERNING THE REVIEW OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PLANS. | Beaty Jr. | Notification that HB1470 is now Act 582 |
|
HB1494
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1494 Hawk TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS GUIDANCE OUT OF THE DARKNESS AC…”
|
TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS GUIDANCE OUT OF THE DARKNESS ACT; AND TO REQUIRE STATE AGENCIES … | Hawk | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1549
Act 489
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…D TO AMEND ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 51, SECTION 13. HB1549 R. Scott TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS CYBERSECURITY ACT OF 2025.…”
|
TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS CYBERSECURITY ACT OF 2025. | R. Scott Richardson | Notification that HB1549 is now Act 489 |
|
HB1621
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1621 Wardlaw TO AMEND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967; AN…”
|
TO AMEND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967; AND TO EXEMPT PERSONAL INFORMATION OF … | Wardlaw | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1631
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1631 Wardlaw TO ADDRESS THE ISSUANCE OF HUNTING AND FISHING LICE…”
|
TO ADDRESS THE ISSUANCE OF HUNTING AND FISHING LICENSES TO FOREIGN EXCHANGE STUDENTS. | Wardlaw | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1632
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1632 Wardlaw TO REQUIRE REIMBURSEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS STATE GAME…”
|
TO REQUIRE REIMBURSEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS STATE GAME AND FISH COMMISSION FOR FREE OR DISCOUNTED … | Wardlaw | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1637
Act 457
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1637 Ray CONCERNING THE DEVELOPMENT AND PRESENTATION OF FISCAL I…”
|
CONCERNING THE DEVELOPMENT AND PRESENTATION OF FISCAL IMPACT STATEMENTS CONCERNING THE FISCAL IMPACT OF STATEWIDE … | Ray | Notification that HB1637 is now Act 457 |
|
HB1667
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1667 Bentley TO AMEND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967; AN…”
|
TO AMEND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING … | Bentley | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1683
Act 924
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1683 McAlindon TO PROHIBIT THE PROCUREMENT BY A GOVERNMENTAL ENT…”
|
TO PROHIBIT THE PROCUREMENT BY A GOVERNMENTAL ENTITY OF AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE OR A COMPONENT … | McAlindon | Notification that HB1683 is now Act 924 |
|
HB1690
Act 583
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1690 Pilkington TO TRANSFER THE NUCLEAR PLANNING AND RESPONSE PR…”
|
TO TRANSFER THE NUCLEAR PLANNING AND RESPONSE PROGRAM FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH TO THE … | Pilkington | Notification that HB1690 is now Act 583 |
|
HB1693
Act 458
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1693 Hawk TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING DAMAGED OR DEFECTIVE BALLO…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING DAMAGED OR DEFECTIVE BALLOTS; AND TO ALLOW THE STATE BOARD … | Hawk | Notification that HB1693 is now Act 458 |
|
HB1694
Act 996
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1694 Hawk TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ALTERNATIVES TO ELECTRONIC…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ALTERNATIVES TO ELECTRONIC FILING FOR CAMPAIGN FINANCE REPORTS. | Hawk | Notification that HB1694 is now Act 996 |
|
HB1706
Act 829
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1706 McCollum TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ELECTIONS; AND TO PROH…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ELECTIONS; AND TO PROHIBIT RANKED CHOICE VOTING. | McCollum | Notification that HB1706 is now Act 829 |
|
HB1707
Act 524
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1707 Hawk TO REQUIRE CERTAIN CANDIDATES TO FILE REPORTS WITH THE…”
|
TO REQUIRE CERTAIN CANDIDATES TO FILE REPORTS WITH THE SECRETARY OF STATE; TO AMEND PORTIONS … | Hawk | Notification that HB1707 is now Act 524 |
|
HB1713
Act 602
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1713 Rose TO REQUIRE BALLOT TITLES FOR INITIATED MEASURES TO BE…”
|
TO REQUIRE BALLOT TITLES FOR INITIATED MEASURES TO BE AT OR UNDER A CERTAIN READING … | Rose | Notification that HB1713 is now Act 602 |
|
HB1714
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HB1714 Rose TO AMEND THE DEFINITION OF PAID CANVASSER.”
|
TO AMEND THE DEFINITION OF PAID CANVASSER. | Rose | Died in Senate Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1720
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…NCY. HB1714 Rose TO AMEND THE DEFINITION OF PAID CANVASSER. HB1720 Vaught TO CREATE THE BABIES AT WORK ACT; TO ALLOW STATE AGE…”
|
TO CREATE THE BABIES AT WORK ACT; TO ALLOW STATE AGENCIES TO PERMIT PUBLIC EMPLOYEES … | Vaught | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1001
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HJR1001 A. Collins A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO CREATE THE CITIZEN…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO CREATE THE CITIZENS' REDISTRICTING COMMISSION AND TO REPEAL THE BOARD OF … | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1002
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HJR1002 J. Richardson AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO…”
|
AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO REPEAL THE EXCEPTION TO THE PROHIBITION OF SLAVERY … | J. Richardson | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1003
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HJR1003 A. Collins THE ARKANSAS GOVERNMENT DISCLOSURE AMENDMENT.”
|
THE ARKANSAS GOVERNMENT DISCLOSURE AMENDMENT. | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1004
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HJR1004 Ladyman APPLYING TO THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS FOR AN ARTIC…”
|
APPLYING TO THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS FOR AN ARTICLE V CONVENTION OF THE STATES FOR … | Ladyman | Died on House Calendar at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1005
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HJR1005 Long AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO CREATE TH…”
|
AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS TAXPAYER BILL OF RIGHTS. | Long | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1006
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HJR1006 B. McKenzie AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION PROVI…”
|
AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION PROVIDING THAT A GOVERNMENTAL BODY SHALL NOT USE STATE … | B. McKenzie | WITHDRAWN BY AUTHOR |
|
HJR1007
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HJR1007 Cavenaugh A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO CREATE A PROCEDURE…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO CREATE A PROCEDURE FOR THE RECALL OF CERTAIN ELECTED OFFICIALS. | Cavenaugh | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1008
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…TE A PROCEDURE FOR THE RECALL OF CERTAIN ELECTED OFFICIALS. HJR1008 S. Meeks AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION CONCERNI…”
|
AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION CONCERNING THE TAXATION OF PERSONAL PROPERTY AND REAL PROPERTY … | S. Meeks | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1009
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…RSONAL PROPERTY AND REAL PROPERTY IN THE STATE OF ARKANSAS. HJR1009 K. Brown AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO BE KN…”
|
AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO BE KNOWN AS THE ARKANSAS VICTIMS' BILL OF … | K. Brown | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1010
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…NCLUDING VICTIMS IN THE ADULT AND JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEMS. HJR1010 Unger A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO PROVIDE THAT BY A TWO-T…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO PROVIDE THAT BY A TWO-THIRDS VOTE, THE SENATE MAY REMOVE MEMBERS … | Unger | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1011
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HJR1011 S. Meeks A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING THE CONSIDER…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING THE CONSIDERATION OF BILLS OTHER THAN APPROPRIATION BILLS DURING A FISCAL … | S. Meeks | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1012
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HJR1012 R. Scott Richardson AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTI…”
|
AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO REPEAL PROVISIONS CONCERNING THE REAPPRAISAL AND REASSESSMENT OF … | R. Scott Richardson | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1013
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HJR1013 Pilkington A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO PROVIDE THAT CERTA…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO PROVIDE THAT CERTAIN VACANCIES SHALL BE FILLED BY APPOINTMENT BY THE … | Pilkington | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1014
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…N VACANCIES SHALL BE FILLED BY APPOINTMENT BY THE GOVERNOR. HJR1014 Beaty Jr. A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING ECONOMIC DE…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE STATE OF ARKANSAS; AND AUTHORIZING THE GENERAL … | Beaty Jr. | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1015
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HJR1015 Lundstrum A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO ENSURE TRANSPARENCY…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO ENSURE TRANSPARENCY BY REQUIRING A JUDICIAL CANDIDATE TO DECLARE HIS OR … | Lundstrum | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1016
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HJR1016 Ray A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO REPEAL THE PROVISION OF A…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO REPEAL THE PROVISION OF ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, ARTICLE 5, § 1, ALLOWING … | Ray | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1017
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HJR1017 Ray A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROVIDING THAT A PROPOSED ST…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROVIDING THAT A PROPOSED STATE-WIDE INITIATED ACT OR CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT SHALL BECOME … | Ray | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1018
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HJR1018 Ray THE CITIZENS ONLY VOTING AMENDMENT.”
|
THE CITIZENS ONLY VOTING AMENDMENT. | Ray | Approved by the Governor |
|
HJR1019
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HJR1019 S. Meeks AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO REMOV…”
|
AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO REMOVE REFERENCES TO GREYHOUND RACING FROM ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, … | S. Meeks | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HJR1020
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “HJR1020 K. Brown A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO BE KNOWN AS THE VICT…”
|
A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO BE KNOWN AS THE VICTIM’S BILL OF RIGHTS; AND TO PROVIDE … | K. Brown | WITHDRAWN BY AUTHOR |
|
SB184
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB184 D. Sullivan TO TRANSFER THE POWERS AND DUTIES OF THE ARKANS…”
|
TO TRANSFER THE POWERS AND DUTIES OF THE ARKANSAS EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION COMMISSION AND THE STATE … | D. Sullivan | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
SB293
Act 487
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB293 K. Hammer TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE REQUIRED POSTINGS…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE REQUIRED POSTINGS AT A POLLING SITE; AND TO AMEND … | K. Hammer | Notification that SB293 is now Act 487 |
|
SB299
Act 403
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB299 K. Hammer TO REQUIRE A STAFF MEMBER TO WITNESS AN ADMINISTR…”
|
TO REQUIRE A STAFF MEMBER TO WITNESS AN ADMINISTRATOR ASSISTING A RESIDENT OF A LONG-TERM … | K. Hammer | Notification that SB299 is now Act 403 |
|
SB304
Act 372
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB304 M. McKee TO ALLOW A CLASS OF REGISTERED VOTERS THAT HAVE CH…”
|
TO ALLOW A CLASS OF REGISTERED VOTERS THAT HAVE CHANGED THEIR COUNTY OF RESIDENCE TO … | M. McKee | Notification that SB304 is now Act 372 |
|
SB343
Act 734
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB343 Irvin TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING STATE-OWNED MOTOR VEHICLE…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING STATE-OWNED MOTOR VEHICLES; TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PUBLIC PROPERTY; … | Irvin | Notification that SB343 is now Act 734 |
|
SB344
Act 444
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB344 Irvin TO TRANSFER THE HEALTHY EMPLOYEE LIFESTYLE PROGRAM FR…”
|
TO TRANSFER THE HEALTHY EMPLOYEE LIFESTYLE PROGRAM FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH TO THE DEPARTMENT … | Irvin | Notification that SB344 is now Act 444 |
|
SB351
Act 592
· 2 mentions in agenda, chapter
Matched: “…TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE HEALTHY LIFESTYLE PROGRAM. SB351 J. Dismang TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ETHICS AND CAMPAIGN…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ETHICS AND CAMPAIGN FINANCE; TO AMEND PORTIONS OF INITIATED ACT … | J. Dismang | Notification that SB351 is now Act 592 |
|
SB370
Act 462
· 2 mentions in chapter, agenda
Matched: “SB370 Irvin TO TRANSFER THE ARKANSAS WINE PRODUCERS COUNCIL FROM…”
|
TO TRANSFER THE ARKANSAS WINE PRODUCERS COUNCIL FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE TO THE DEPARTMENT … | Irvin | Notification that SB370 is now Act 462 |
|
HB1024
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…CRIMINAL OFFENSES. DEFERRED BILLS Number Sponsor Subtitle HB1024 A. Collins TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PUBLIC EMPLOYEES; AN…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PUBLIC EMPLOYEES; AND TO REPEAL THE LAW PROHIBITING COLLECTIVE BARGAINING. | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1028
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…S; AND TO REPEAL THE LAW PROHIBITING COLLECTIVE BARGAINING. HB1028 A. Collins TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF THE LAW CONCERNING OBSCEN…”
|
TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF THE LAW CONCERNING OBSCENITY AND THE PROCESS FOR CHALLENGING MATERIALS INCLUDED … | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1035
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…PROHIBITING BOOK BANNING IN ORDER TO RECEIVE STATE FUNDING. HB1035 A. Collins TO CREATE THE ONLINE VOTER REGISTRATION ACT OF 2…”
|
TO CREATE THE ONLINE VOTER REGISTRATION ACT OF 2025; TO ALLOW ONLINE VOTER REGISTRATION; TO … | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1036
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…MENT 51; AND TO AMEND THE DUTIES OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE. HB1036 A. Collins TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING VOTER REGISTRATION;…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING VOTER REGISTRATION; TO ALLOW VOTER REGISTRATION DURING EARLY VOTING AND … | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1037
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 51. HB1037 A. Collins TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING PERSONS WHO MAY…”
|
AN ACT TO CREATE THE PREREGISTRATION TO VOTE ACT; AND TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF ARKANSAS … | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1038
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…ORITY GRANTED BY ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 51, § 19. HB1038 A. Collins TO CREATE THE NO-EXCUSE ABSENTEE VOTING ACT OF 2…”
|
TO CREATE THE NO-EXCUSE ABSENTEE VOTING ACT OF 2025; TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ABSENTEE … | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1039
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…NG; AND TO REPEAL VOTER QUALIFICATIONS FOR ABSENTEE VOTING. HB1039 A. Collins TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING ABSENTEE BALLOT…”
|
TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING ABSENTEE BALLOTS; AND TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING ELECTIONS. | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1040
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…EE BALLOTS; AND TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING ELECTIONS. HB1040 A. Collins TO CREATE THE WATER IN LINE ACT OF 2025; AND TO…”
|
TO CREATE THE WATER IN LINE ACT OF 2025; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING … | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1041
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…RNING PENALTIES FOR MISDEMEANOR OFFENSES RELATED TO VOTING. HB1041 A. Collins TO PROHIBIT DECEPTIVE AND FRAUDULENT DEEPFAKES I…”
|
TO PROHIBIT DECEPTIVE AND FRAUDULENT DEEPFAKES IN ELECTION COMMUNICATIONS. | R. Scott Richardson | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1042
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…EPTIVE AND FRAUDULENT DEEPFAKES IN ELECTION COMMUNICATIONS. HB1042 A. Collins TO CREATE THE DIRECT DEMOCRACY ACT OF 2025; TO R…”
|
TO CREATE THE DIRECT DEMOCRACY ACT OF 2025; TO REPEAL THE ENSURING ACCESS FOR ALL … | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1043
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…NG OF A BALLOT INITIATIVE PETITION AND REFERENDUM PETITION. HB1043 A. Collins TO REQUIRE DISCLOSURE AND REPORTING OF NONCANDID…”
|
TO REQUIRE DISCLOSURE AND REPORTING OF NONCANDIDATE EXPENDITURES PERTAINING TO APPELLATE JUDICIAL ELECTIONS; AND TO … | A. Collins | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1058
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…ield TO ESTABLISH GOOD FRIDAY AS AN OFFICIAL STATE HOLIDAY. HB1058 Unger TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ETHICS AND CONFLICTS OF I…”
|
TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ETHICS AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST FOR PUBLIC OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES; … | Unger | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1059
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…GIVING ADVANCE NOTICE TO ENTITIES OF REQUIRED INSPECTIONS. HB1059 Unger TO PROVIDE THE OPTION FOR A FREE LIFETIME HUNTING AND…”
|
TO PROVIDE THE OPTION FOR A FREE LIFETIME HUNTING AND FISHING LICENSE TO A COMMERCIAL … | Unger | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1078
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…ICENSURE BY ENDORSEMENT FOR MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPISTS. HB1078 Long TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING RUNOFF ELECTIONS; AND…”
|
TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING RUNOFF ELECTIONS; AND TO PROVIDE FOR A RUNOFF ELECTION FOR … | Long | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1162
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…TO ADOPT NEW LAWS CONCERNING APPELLATE JUDICIAL CAMPAIGNS. HB1162 Duffield TO ESTABLISH GOOD FRIDAY AS AN OFFICIAL STATE HOLI…”
|
TO ESTABLISH GOOD FRIDAY AS AN OFFICIAL STATE HOLIDAY. | Duffield | Died in House Committee at Sine Die adjournment. |
|
HB1187
Act 858
· 1 mention in agenda
Matched: “…PROVIDES CERTAIN INFORMATION RELATED TO HUMAN TRAFFICKING. HB1187 Vaught TO AUTHORIZE A LICENSURE BY ENDORSEMENT FOR MARRIAGE…”
|
TO AUTHORIZE A LICENSURE BY ENDORSEMENT FOR MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPISTS. | Vaught | Notification that HB1187 is now Act 858 |
|
HB13
· 1 mention in transcript
Matched: “…ave it. Congratulations, you passed your bill. Next we have House Bill 13 1637 Representative Ray. My understanding is there's an ame…”
|
Pre-2017 bill |
Machine transcript
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- October 2, 2026
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
0:20
Representative Pilkington. Thank you Chair. Thank you committee, uh. Representative Aaron Pilkington, District 45, Pope in Johnson County. Uh, I have the unique, uh, pleasure of being the only representative with a nuclear plant in their site, Arkansas Nuclear One or ANO, um, and part of that is, uh, obviously dealing with a lot of nuclear issues, but this one's an easy bill that came from Arkansas Department of Emergency Management. It's an act to transfer nuclear planning and response programs for the Department of Health to the
Division of Emergency Management, and the reasons being when ANL was first originally built. Back in the day we did not have an Arkansas Department of Emergency Management. Now we do, and in 28 other states have nuclear power plants. This uh planning and response program is under those departments of emergency management, so we're just putting ourselves in line with everything else. There's no opposition. All the county judges support of it. OurL Department of Emergency Management supports it, and with that I asked for a good vote. Representative Pilkington has
explained his bill or any questions by the committee.
no questions about the committee. I don't believe we have anyone signed up to speak for or against the bill. Representative Pilkington, you're recognized to close for your bill. I'm closed for my bill. Piling it's closed for his bill were the wishes of the committee. See a motion to pass Representative Clowney. Is there any discussion on the motion? So no discussion, all those in favor say aye. All those opposed. Abbott, congratulations, Representative Pilkington, you
passed your bill. Thank you. Thank you, committee. Appreciate it. OK, picking back up. We have House Bill 1574 Representative Vogt. I'll see Representative Vaugh here. She talked with me earlier. I do think she'll be here. We'll move to the next bill, House Bill 1604 Representative McAlinden. Yeah. To my understanding that there's an amendment on this bill. Staff is going to be passing that out.
Representative McAllen, if you'd like to identify yourself. The record, yes,
Representative Mindy McAlindon
Unverified
2:36
Representative Mindy McAlinden, House District 10. As soon
as they get your amendment passed out. You will be recognized to present the amendment. Thank you.
Representative Mindy McAlindon
Unverified
3:24
OK, ladies and gentlemen, the um amendment you have before you adds Co-sponsors to the bill and it also clarifies the term promotional items. It is consistent with what we discussed, uh, promotional items to be, we just thought we would go ahead and codify that so there were no additional questions or confusions on that. Representative McAlinden has explained
the amendment. Is there a motion to adopt the amendment, the motion Representative Collins.
Any discussion on that motion, seeing that all those in favor, say I. All those opposed, been adopted Representative Macklin, you're recognized to
Representative Mindy McAlindon
Unverified
4:04
present your bill as amended. Thank you. All right, hoping 3rd time's a charm. Um, I'm bringing you once again House Bill 1604. It's straightforward common sense measure that prohibits state agencies from purchasing promotional items that are made in China. This bill aligns perfectly with the strong stance that Governor Sanders has already taken. Against the Chinese Communist Party. We have enacted policies to prevent Chinese
government-linked companies from buying our farmland. We've also prohibited state agencies from purchasing drones made in China. So now it's time to take the next step. And ensure that our public dollars are not funding a regime that opposes our values. But I want to be perfectly clear. This bill is not anti-free market. I am a strong free market conservative. I fully believe in that power of the free market. Competition drives innovation. It strengthens businesses, it lifts communities, and it can be self-regulating. Um, private
businesses, I'm sorry, private citizens and businesses will still be free to purchase products from anywhere this they choose. This bill does not infringe on anyone's rights, but when it comes to taxpayer dollars, we have a responsibility to protect our Kansans. Public funds should serve our interest, not the interest of foreign adversaries. The Chinese media has called America a paper tiger, a nation that is rotting from within. Every dollar that we send to China strengthens their future, not ours. I don't believe that
that's a wise use of Arkansas taxpayer money. Some have asked about the fiscal impact of this bill. There is no fiscal impact. The fiscal impact statement came back as unknown and BLR clarifies that to me and it is unknown because they don't know how many products are currently being purchased, uh, at China, so they don't know what that impact would be, but there is not a fiscal impact, and I have the secretary Hudson here. If you'd like to hear from him about what that is in fact is zero. the state agencies are free to
purchase products from many other places like Taiwan. Vietnam, Indonesia, Mexico that all have equally inexpensive products to buy their promotional items, so it should not be a burden on state agencies either. House Bill 1604 is very simple. State agencies should not purchase uh promotional items made in China using public funds, our tax dollars should be spent wisely, strengthening our state and our country and not funding those who stand against us. And with that, I asked for a good vote. All right, Representative
McAlinden has explained her bill. Are there any questions by the committee? Seeing their questions about the committee, Representative. Seeing no questions by the committee, we have no one signed up to speak for or against the bill, Representative McAlinden, you're recognized to close for your bill. I am closed on my bill. Thank you. McAlin in his clothes for his bill. What are the wishes of the committee? I saw a motion to pass. Representative Crawford. Is there any discussion on the motion? She made the motion to pass as amended, I should say. Thank
you. Thank you, Steph, uh, so is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing no discussion on the motion. We have a motion do pass as amended on House Bill 1604. All those in favor say aye. All those opposed. Yaz Abbott, congratulations, you passed your bill as amended. Thank you. Moving on, I believe I saw Representative Vogt come in the room. I bought You
are recognized on House Bill 1574. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
7:36
Thank you. Um, this is the bill that I presented the other day. Got good feedback about taking out county. Pa canvassers, so it no longer has county paid canvassers in there, um, and this is just about the paid state. Uh, and the domicile, and then someone wanted, I did a do not codify part that talks about the domicile and what we call domicile here in Arkansas, and it's off of a court case.
Speaker 31
8:09
It's engrossed. It should be engrossed. Yes you can hear
me, sir, very good. And, do you have anything else in terms of your presentation on
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
8:22
the bill didn't want to take up more of your time because I've already presented.
I was just gonna let you know what I'd changed I understand. I knew there was an amendment. I just wasn't sure if you had brought that to committee or been engrossed, so. Very good. Glad to hear that it was engrossed. Representative Vau has explained her bill. Are there any questions by the committee? Seeing no questions by the
Speaker 35
8:41
committee, we don't hang on, we do have someone signed
to speak against the bill. OK, Mr. Kwame Abdulbay had signed up to speak against the bill. However, he talked with me after the morning. Uh, meeting and told me that he would not be able to be here this afternoon, but that he had emailed the committee his, his comments, so you may want to take a look at those. Speaking against the bill, we also have JP Tribble.
Mr. Tribble, if you'd identify yourself and the organization you may be here representing and you're recognized
Jp Tribble
Unverified
9:17
for speaking against the bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is JP Tribble. I'm an attorney here in Little Rock. Uh, I'm speaking in my own private capacity. Uh, the bill is mended certainly is better than the original. however, there are a few issues remaining with it, number one, Section 4, which uh states do
not codify sites to the Supreme Court of Arkansas case letters versus Womack, uh, in giving a definition of domicile, um. The facts that the definition of domicile is not codified for these purposes leaves the interpretation of domicile as ambiguous because there's an entire subchapter in the Arkansas code that governs domicile, which has a different series of requirements as uh
leathers versus Womack, uh, my fear is that if the bill as proposed would become law, then uh. courts would interpret that differently because it's not defined here. Uh, that could lead to an onerous burden on uh any canvasser who this may apply to. Moreover, uh, one of the reasons I opposed the bill is that Uh, canvassers for ballot
initiatives under this bill are given standards that are very incongruous as compared to uh comparable canvassers who are collecting signatures for candidates for office, irrespective whether the office were uh political or nonpartisan, uh. Arkansas code 710103. Uh, which is the statute that governs uh petitions for
nonpartisan candidates, for example, uh, judicial candidates has no requirements whatsoever for a canvasser, the requirements are all based on the petitioner, which is the registered voter who signs the requirements are that the Petitioner divulged their name, their signature, their address, county of residence and the date they've signed. And when you look at the threshold requirements, that
makes perfect sense that you want to make sure that person signing are legitimate voters in the state. However, it is unreasonable that when uh petitions are, uh, signatures are solicited from petitioners for a candidate for office, there's no requirement for a canvasser, yet when the people of Arkansas bring uh a popular initiative forward, there are
all these onerous requirements that the incongruity there really makes no sense whatsoever. For those reasons, I opposed, I opposed this bill as amended. And I'm open to any questions. All right, thank you, Mr. Tribwell, for those remarks or any questions by the
committee. Seeing no questions by the committee, thank you very much. Thank you. There is no one else signed up to speak for or against the bill with that Representative, you're recognized to close for your bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
12:47
Again, JPR did a lot of hearings on this issue and it was brought to our attention that we needed to Close a hole that we had on the domicile residency and that's what I'm trying to do as far as something that the people bring, it's been I Representative Ray Ma can correct me. I wanna say it's been over 20 years since we've had a grassroots effort brought in the state of Arkansas. They have been stuff from out of uh state that's come
and been on our ballots, but we've not had a true grassroots initiative from the state of Arkansas for 20 years or longer. Um, so this. This really Won't be affecting that because we've not had that. I would love for us to have that. I would love for us to have more grassroots, uh, type initiatives on our ballot, but it's just not what's happening right now. Um, again, I think that the committee has helped me make a better bill than what I had whenever I came and I would appreciate a good vote.
Representative Vaut has closed for her bill.
What are the wishes of the committee? motion do pass. Representative Ray has made a motion to pass. Is there any discussion on the motion Representative Collins,
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
14:00
you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to say thank you to Representative Vaughn. I mean, these amendments definitely do
exactly what she said to make the bill consistent with what she presented it to intend, so thank you. um, I'm still against it just because I
don't see the um the need to make a paid canvasser be domiciled in the state, and I do think it'll contribute along with other things to make the petition process more difficult, but, uh, mostly I just wanted to. acknowledge representative Watt's amendment, which did exactly as she said. Thanks. Representative Ray, you're recognized well,
Representative David Ray
Unverified
14:37
and I, I just wanna add my two cents, you know, representative uh Vaugh alluded to the JPR meetings that we had over the summer and there, you know, I think we generally came out of those meetings thinking that
When it comes to the initiative process that Arkansans ought to decide the future of Arkansas, not people that came here from Arizona, not people that came here from California or Texas or anywhere else to circulate the petitions in this process, and so I think this is a very good common sense measure. This is a uniquely Arkansas process that
we have and this this bill will help keep it that way. Any other discussion on the motion. Seeing
no further discussion on the motion, we do have a motion
to pass on House Bill 1574. All those in favor say aye. All those opposed, the eyes have it. Congratulations, you passed your bill. Next we have House Bill 13 1637 Representative Ray. My understanding is there's an amendment. staff will pass that out.
All right, everyone should have had an opportunity to review the amendment, Representative Ray, you're recognized to present
Representative David Ray
Unverified
16:39
the amendment. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The amendment's very simple. It deletes section 1 of the bill, and then it deletes the
words or local on both page 3 and
page 5. Representative Ray has explained the amendment. Are there any questions about the amendment? Seeing no questions
by the committee, Representative Ray, are you closed for your
amendment? I'm closed for the amendment and I move for adoption of the amendment. Representative Ray has moved for the adoption of the amendment. Is there any discussion on the motion for the adoption of the amendment, seeing not all those in favor say aye.
Representative David Ray
Unverified
17:20
All those opposed the amendment's been adopted Representative Ray, you're recognized to present your bill as amended. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, colleagues, I know there's been a lot of bills on the initiative process this session, some of them more controversial than others. My hope is that this is a bill that everyone can get
behind and support. I'm excited to bring this bill to you because I've been working on it, um, off and on for the better part of a year. It's probably the most provoter and pro-taxpayer piece of legislation that I'll have the chance to present this session and I think it will be a huge improvement to our initiative system if it passes. Um, I wanna start by thanking Representative Meeks for his help with this. Uh, he and I were working on the same idea independently of one another and then we sort of accidentally discovered we had the same bill draft going and uh
decided to just combine our efforts. So I want to thank him for his help in this process. What this bill would do is it would require a short concise fiscal impact statement of any statewide measure put on the ballot. It would apply both to citizen initiated measures and to legislatively referred amendments. So what is the problem that exists today? When voters go into the voting booth for a general election, they are often asked to make decisions on a host of ballot measures. But even for the most diligent of voters, the ones
that do their research prior to voting. They almost certainly do not have all of the information that they need to cast a truly informed ballot, and that's because some of the most important information that someone needs when making up their mind on one of these issues is missing, and that is the cost of the proposal. What we would commonly refer to as the fiscal impact. So whether it was the half cent sales tax that was on the ballot in 2020. The proposal in 2024 to eliminate the sales tax on feminine hygiene products or any
sort of measure that that that has a cost or impacts of spending, revenues, things of that nature, um, the voters deserve to understand or at least have the opportunity to understand, uh, those issues when they cast their vote. So the reason I, I thought of this was because In 2024 when the educational Rights Amendment was being circulated. I read that proposal and I realized pretty quickly that if it had passed, if it, if it passed, it was gonna put an
enormous um it was gonna have an enormous cost to the state. And, but I didn't know how much, so I took that proposal to BLR and I asked them to put it in the form of a bill and put my name on it and generate a fiscal impact and the number that came back to me was in the billions with a B and my first thought was the voters need to have this information. They shouldn't they, it is, it is unfair to the voter to ask them to go into the
ballot box and cast a vote that consequential that could increase our spending by You know, 20 or 30% on a single measure and not even know the cost. Um, so I began researching what other states do in this regard, and as it turns out, I, I was not the first person to have this thought. There are 26 states that have an initiative process and in 17 of those 26 states, they require some form of fiscal analysis to be worked up on ballot issues. I drafted
this bill using the framework of uh from Montana, Wyoming, Utah, and Oregon. Um, so let me describe briefly what the bill would do. It would, it would fix this problem by placing a short succinct fiscal impact statement on the ballot of any statewide measure. Section 4 of the bill lays out the process for citizen initiated measures, Section 5 lays out the process for legislatively referred measures. They are
Virtually identical the citizen one is a little bit different because that process originates over at the AG office, but in terms of how the statement will be developed, they're identical. Um, the, the, the, the definition for what will trigger a fiscal impact analysis is if the measure either increases or decreases state revenues, costs, expenditures, or indebtedness, or if the measure establishes, repeals, or modifies one or more taxes, so the Department of
Finance Administration will be responsible for preparing a short succinct fiscal note that will be included on the on the ballot. Uh, the estimate must be an unbiased good faith statement of the fiscal impact, not to exceed 100 words and limit or up to 200 words if the initiative creates a new source of revenue or raises or lowers in existing tax. I think that this will drastically improve the initiative process by adding transparency and accountability,
you know, everyone at this table is a policymaker, and when someone brings you an idea for a bill, you know, oftentimes the first thing we'll say is, hey, great idea you got there. How much is this going to cost, um, that question is really in my mind essential to evaluating policy questions because a lot of times these are tradeoffs about costs and benefits. That is so important that it's protected in our rules, um, any, any member of this body can request a fiscal impact on a bill at any time.
And um that's protected in our rules, but the voters don't get that benefit, you know, when they go into the voting booth to vote on this, they can't call witnesses to the table. They can't ask questions of the of the people presenting the measure and unfortunately they currently can't see the cost, but with this bill they'll be able to. And this bill would bring us in line with a lot of other states that have a similar requirement, as I mentioned, there are 17 states that have some form of this. There are 7 of those that
require it to be put on the ballot. There's other states that require it to be put on the petition. Um, I chose, I opted not to put it on the petition for reasons that I could explain if I, if y'all would like, but um other than that, um, I'll just mention the states that have a similar measure to what I'm presenting today are uh Wyoming, California, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, Oregon, and Utah. So as you can see, it's a mix of states that are both conservative and liberal.
And um I think this would be a very um big improvement to
our initiative process, so we'd be happy to take questions. Representative Ray has explained the bill. Are there any questions about
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
24:05
the committee, Representative Clowney, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair Representative Ray, I'm sorry if you answered this in your presentation, but uh when we
are arriving at the fiscal impact, I guess my question is kind of twofold. One, is there an opportunity for sponsors to weigh in and provide their own data and calculating the fiscal impact, at least for DFNA to
take into consideration, and then the second half of that question is, is there any sort of appeal process if the sponsor disagrees
Representative David Ray
Unverified
24:29
with where DFNA lands. So to answer your first question, the answer is yes at the bottom of page 3, it, you'll see the language they're starting on line 32, so the sponsor of the proposed measure may provide information to the department that he or she believes would assist the department in preparing the unbiased good faith fiscal impact statement. Um, and then what was the, what was your second question? I'm sorry. If there, if there's
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
24:53
disagreement kind of on the back end, is there any opportunity for appeal, um, to the fiscal impact that
Representative David Ray
Unverified
24:59
DFNA lands on. Well, they, I'm sure they would. I'm sure they would be able to bring a lawsuit, but um. Thank you, you know,
yeah. but Representative Collins, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So what is the
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
25:14
timing of the delivery of the fiscal impact. OK. Thank you for that question.
Representative David Ray
Unverified
25:24
It's gonna take me a second to find it in the bill. OK, so the first reference to timing is at the top of page 3. So let's just say with the citizen initiated it uh measure, for example. That process originates with the ballot title review over at the AG's office, um, once the AG approves a ballot title, they're required
to send that over to the Department of Finance and Administration within 3 days. And then at that
point. Um, the department will have Quite a while. Develop this Hold on just a second.
Speaker 79
26:33
Oh, right, I got it here, yeah, uh, page 4. Yeah,
Representative David Ray
Unverified
26:38
so it'll have to be provided to the Secretary of State's office by the seventy-sixth day before the general election. OK, and that's, that's that's consistent with other statutes when that has to be um provided to the counties and so forth in that
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
26:53
in that end deadline is, is really fine. I mean, as far as what I'm
trying to ask about, so it starts pretty early, I guess,
in the process and what I'm, I'm a little concerned about is that it might get stale. So for example, they start the process ofmitting the ballot title and everything to the AG. They get this fiscal impact statement a year out, so, and then we go into a special session and then say, say it's something to lower the income tax rate to 0, so there we go into special session in between that fiscal impact in the election and we lowered the income tax rate to 1%. That dramatically would impact the
fiscal impact statement. So is it just, is that stale fiscal impact going to be on
Representative David Ray
Unverified
27:40
the ballot, or does that get updated or what happens? No, there's nothing that would prevent the department
from reworking their fiscal impact if circumstances change. I set the bill up to provide them the maximum amount of time and flexibility to develop the fiscal impact statement, um, if we had a special session or something like that that um changed the circumstances involved in calculating that, then there's nothing in this bill that would prevent them
from going back and changing that. They just have to
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
28:08
provide it by the seventy-sixth day. OK, well, that raises a little bit of concern for me because if this is a moving target and the fiscal impact can be updated continually. There's a whole campaign season leading up to the election, so people are gonna be getting information about what's on the ballot. They're going to be getting this information they're going to be looking at various third party resources. This may be published under your bill with Clark Tucker. I don't know, but
anyway, if all of this is out there and then it changes dramatically. Are we are we confusing the process? Are we risking confusion to voters by providing information that ends up changing in a way that is not, there's
Representative David Ray
Unverified
28:47
not like a, no, I don't
think so because what you're describing is really sort of an outlier scenario, um, where, you know, we, we might be called into a special session to change the tax rates and then that impacts the fiscal, the fiscal note, you know, in, in most instances like this,
there's nothing that really changes during the petition. Um, but because some of these questions um might be complex in terms of, you know, gathering information necessary to develop the fiscal analysis. I thought
it would be prudent to give the department as much time as possible, and I don't think providing more time hurts, it could only help. Well, respectfully, I mean, I
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
29:28
would say that it's not just a special session, we could have the economy could crater as we all remembered in 2008, things
changed dramatically in that election season, and that could impact fiscal impact depending on what the measure was, so I, I, I mean, I think it goes beyond just a pure abstraction and an
unlikely scenario, I think it's a possible scenario, especially if this is going to be with all potential uh amendments in perpetuity, um, I know that we're very careful in here when we have
these fiscal impact statements to attach them to a bill and a date and you know, that's always very clearly presented when we have the
fiscal impact statements. So that stillness is just a bit of a concern for me. Appreciate the answers though. I
Representative David Ray
Unverified
30:14
would just point out that, you know, the maximum amount of duration that's gonna pass between when one of these proposals gets approved and when it goes on the ballot is You know, it would
be somewhere around 12 months. That would be the maximum amount of time because You know, the petition season is just not that long. Um, I mean, we're going to refer
out, I'm guessing we're going to refer out some sort of amendment um at the end of this session and so, uh, assuming that this bill would pass, you know, the department would then have um the time between April and 76 days before the next general election to develop
that. So this is not a process that's gonna drag on for years and years. All right, in terms of, I
have a question in terms of time frame,
I know you said there are other states
that require this. Does this operate along you may have said this, does
this operate along a similar time frame to the other states? Yes. I appreciate that. Um All right, seeing no further
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
31:30
question, Representative Collins, you're recognized. Yeah, just one more, um. So
You talked about the fact that we have committee hearings as
legislators and the benefit of getting a lot of different information about the implications of the bill and we wanted to extend this piece of information to voters, which I, I think is fine if they have other pieces of information to balance it out with. I, I, I just, I guess I feel a little bit concerned because this doesn't say the, the benefits and the other implications of the proposed measure, it really
just says one, which is a cost. or uh a financial benefit and so
I, I think in a lot of these, it's not just about the money, it's about how it's going to impact families and how it's gonna impact communities and how it's
gonna impact the state's competitiveness. None of that information gets to be presented on the ballot. All we're going to get is a dollar figure, and it seems to me like it's really gonna skew people's voting toward things that save the state money. It's just, that's just how it reads to me.
Representative David Ray
Unverified
32:35
almost all of these campaigns there is a for
and against, and so the reasons, the policy reasons that voters might support or oppose any particular ballot measure are going to be fleshed out in those campaigns in the mailers, in the TV ads, in the radio spots, and the text messages and emails and all those things that they get. This is just um a fiscal analysis. It's intended to be an unbiased good faith nonpartisan analysis. And I don't see that as trying to tip the scales more than say a fiscal, you know, I'm
presenting a a bill in revenue and tax tomorrow that has a fiscal impact on it. I don't view that as the department attempting to derail my bill. I view that as the department providing additional information to the members of the committee so that they can determine that they can look at my bill and say, hm, we like that idea, but I'm, I'm not sure it costs. I'm not I'm. Um, I think the cost may be too much or they can look at my bill and say, OK, the cost seems
reasonable, then I like the policy we should adopt it, so I think it's
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
33:46
just giving the voters more information, but it will be on the ballot, right? Yes, it will,
and so that will be different from the other arguments pro and con, which can be made in, you know, advertisements and in media and and all that, only this piece of information will actually be
there for voters to see in the voting booth,
Representative David Ray
Unverified
34:04
yeah, and I, I think that's critical actually, because, you know, there, as I was researching the other states that do this, there are a few
states that require their budget office or or whoever to develop the statement and then they just stick it on a website somewhere and. And I don't think that really helps much of anybody unless you know which website to go to and where to look and, and you're really, really doing your due diligence to find that. So I think putting it on the ballot is actually that that is a feature, not, not a bug that's a critical component of this, so the voters have all the information.
Don't you think in these and I'll get
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
34:41
out of the queue after this in these
campaigns, which can be very expensive, don't you think that could be used by either a pro side or a con side if it weren't on the If it were just on a website somewhere, I mean, they could still have that information. I'm not really against producing the information. I just think if we put it on
Representative David Ray
Unverified
35:00
the ballot, that's putting a thumb on the scale. It's a pretty heavy thumb. Well, certainly costs could be used as an argument against something. Costs could also be used as an argument for something, um, this is, uh, there's a key difference though, because this is going to
be prepared by an official. State government entity and it's gonna be an unbiased good faith estimate of the cost of something. The, the information that often gets presented in campaigns for or against the measure, as I'm sure you're aware, are often intentionally designed to skew people toward, you know, siding
one way or another, so that's a critical difference in my opinion. OK. Any other questions by the
committee? Seeing no further questions by the committee, we do have one individual set to speak against the bill, Dr. Gail
Choate. Doctor Cho, good to see you. I think
Gail Choate
Unverified
36:04
you know how this process works. I certainly do. Thank you very much. Thank you. So I'm
Doctor Gail Choate. I am with Arkansas Civic Action Network. We do um community-based and school-based civic education.
Uh, when I had signed up to the bill, uh, to, to speak against the bill this afternoon. It was primarily about um the first section of the bill under Section 1. However, after having spoken to. Representative Ray and his presenting of the amendment striking section 1, I have no comments um against the bill at this time. Thank you. Thank
OK, we overlooked that. I thank you for pointing that out. Thank you, Doctor Choate. Uh, appreciate that. Also speaking against the bill,
Jp Tribble
Unverified
37:00
Mr. JP Tribble. Mr. Tribble, you're recognized. Thank you, JP Tribble. I'm an attorney here in uh Little Rock, um, the issues that I see primarily about this bill are number one, the requirement that 100 word statement be made on the fiscal
impact, uh, is, I believe, I believe that requirement. was set forth on page 3 and section 4, There are 6 subdivisions under subsection C that set forth the requirement for 100 words. The number of words there exceeds 100. I don't see from a practical standpoint, how you have all these legal requirements that you can meet in such a short amount of
verbiage and secondly, the main issue I have is if I'm understanding the bill correctly, the deadline for the fiscal impact statement would be 76 days prior to the election at which time ballots would begin to be printed and so on. And if I understood, uh, Representative Ray correctly that the only remedy if sponsor disagrees with the fiscal impact statement would be to um to the uh,
Provider the physical impact statement in court, uh, if the sponsor can only do that after it's due 76 days prior to the uh election and they prevail in the lawsuit, then the information that they prevailed against goes out on the ballot, and that would be misleading to voters and from a practical standpoint, it seems to me like when we go to the polls and vote as citizens, the whether it's a. Candidate or an issue, the
thought process really takes place before we're going to the polls, we're deciding, listening to debates between candidates listening to their speeches and so on. We're making that decision based on information we collect before election day, not on election day. So to me it makes more sense to follow the lead of other states who do this and include the information on a website, for example, the Secretary of State. Website
Where that information could be kept more accurate in the event the sponsor would prevail in a lawsuit or in the event it would need to be changed in any way before the election, it would be as available as the text of the actual amendment. So to me, that would make a lot more sense than locking it into a ballot. Which doesn't really seem to be an appropriate place to put it,
and you have no recourse to change it should circumstances change. With that, uh, I'm willing to answer any questions. All right, thank you, Mr.
Tribble. Are there any questions by the committee? Seeing no
questions by the committee, thank you very much for your remarks. Seeing no one else signed up to speak for or against the bill, Representative Ray, you're recognized
Representative David Ray
Unverified
40:25
a close for your bill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you committee for your attention this afternoon, um, to
address, uh, some of those concerns, you know, on the, on the 100 word comment. I know that this can be done for a fact because it's done in other states, as I mentioned, I borrowed heavily for this bill from the requirements in Montana, Utah, Oregon, and Idaho. Um there are several states that do this, you know, in terms of challenging the information that's contained in a fiscal. back. This is not like the ballot title process where they're we're going back and
forth on words. These are just, this is just factual information that's being conveyed. I think this is information that the voters deserve to have when they make a we're asking them to weigh in on matters that change our constitution that set the law for 3.3 million people in the state and it is almost impossible to make a, a, a, a good determination. on policy weighing the costs and benefits if you don't even know the cost, so this is a common
sense measure designed to bring transparency and accountability to the process and with that I'm closed for the bill.
I would appreciate a good vote and make a
motion to pass. Representative Ray has closed for his bill and he's made a motion to pass. Is there any discussion on the motion,
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
41:48
Representative Meeks, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and, uh, I thought to my colleague at the end of the table, I think he meant
Representative David Ray
Unverified
41:56
to pass as amended. Thank you, sir. Du pass
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
41:59
as amended. Alright, thank you. Um, so, uh, colleagues, I, I appreciate Representative Ray
taking the, uh, the, the lead on this very important topic, as he stated this last election cycle, we had that uh education uh bill on there and it had a billion dollars price tag on it. And if you just do some simple math, $1 billion divided by 3 million people. That's an average of $300 per citizen. So for a family of 4, the potential tax implication of that was $1200 a year. And if the citizens didn't realize just what a the tax burden they were gonna be putting on
themselves, uh, you know, I think that's almost, I'm gonna say it's criminal, but, uh, you know, if you know you've got a $1200 tax bill coming up to that might change your your vote and rightfully so on some of these things. But by the same token a few years ago, we sent out something to the voters asking them to increase the uh tax for for roads, and uh and they approved it. Even knowing that it did have a cost to it. So, um, I, I, I, I think by having that cost right there in front of them when they're getting ready to vote on something just helps them to
make a better choice and lets them know, hey, my decision here is gonna have a potential impact on, you know, me and my family, if my budget's already tight. If I pass this, then. Yeah, you know, my budget might get tighter if I vote the other way, then. Yeah, you know, and I'm willing to take that hit, uh, so, so anyways, I think this is just important gives the voters more information and allows them to make more informed choices,
and for that I'm a yes and would respectfully request my colleagues to do the same. Is there any any other
discussion on the motion Representative Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and you
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
43:42
know, I think what Representative Meeks just said is, is kind of exactly why I'm opposed to this. Yes, you would see that on the ballot you'd see a high price tag and you might be dissuaded from voting for it. It would definitely put a thumb on the scale against something that was expensive. On the other hand, what they don't see on the ballot are all the benefits of, you know, universal pre-K before and after school programs, how that changes communities, how it
makes a safer community, how that makes economic growth. to the state, there's so many benefits, there's so many implications to some of the things we're putting on here and I just think if they don't have the full scope of the benefits, why should we have the full scope of the price tag on the same place in the ballot. I just think that's, that's uneven. I think having the information out there is great. Let the different pros and cons, argue about it as we did, as you guys have both cited the figure, so the, the information is out
there about the cost. It's not like it. can't be ascertained or, you know, determined by someone, you guys are able to determine it. Let that conversation play out in public, but I would just not want that to be on the ballot to then really probably skew the outcomes in a certain direction, so I'm gonna no thanks. Is there any other discussion
on the motion? Seeing no further discussion on the motion, we have a motion to pass as amended.
On House Bill 1637, all those in favor say aye. All those opposed. The eyes have it. Congratulations, Representative Ray, you've passed your bill as amended. Next we have. House Bill 1352, Representative Beatty.
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
46:03
Representative Beatty, you're recognized. Thank Mr. Chair. Representative Howard Beatty, District 95, uh, committee. I'm, I'm here to present House Bill 1352, uh,
1352, uh, is basically to amend laws concerning actions related to certain foreign entities. Uh, this was basically the bill uh from the press release and, and part of the governor's anti-China package that uh that we met on earlier, um, in the month and and had that meeting. So the states right now are an increasing pressures from foreign actors, some of which are acting on behalf of hostile foreign governments to enact policies that serve the interests of those governments.
Or that seek to sow division among Americans. This bill takes steps to combat the influence of China and other hostile foreign adversaries, especially in the area of limiting their manipulation on our state institutions. Looking at the bill section one prevents Chinese Communist Party influence on Arkansas's higher education system. The FBI reports that the Chinese government's engaged in an ongoing platform pattern of stealing intellectual property from US universities and companies. engaged in spying on Chinese
students, students studying here and funding campus programs such as Confucius Institutes. Chinese students and scholars associations and similar organizations designed to spread Chinese Marcus philosophy on our campuses. These organizations also serve China's ongoing efforts to suppress dissent among Chinese students studying abroad. Section 1 of the bill requires state supported institutions of higher education to ensure no
such organizations are recognized by campus officials and that any such organizations be disbanded. Failure to do so will result in withholding of the state of that institutions state funding. Uh, the remainder of section one addresses investments in Chinese companies by higher education institutions. Looking at section 2, it limits Chinese and other hostile foreign influence on Arkansas municipal governments. While having a sister city
agreement with the municipality and the foreign land may seem as an innocent fun arrangement. This section of the bill recognizes that such agreements when entered into with governments of hostile foreign nations can be used by that foreign government as cover for its human rights abuses and as a way to gain a foothold, um, to influence local officials. And an example would be the dangers that were recently
identified in New York, uh, New York's governor, um, governor's office, uh, Linda's son was accused by federal prosecutors are being paid by Chinese authorities to push their agenda over the interest of the state. So section 3 of the bill, divesting from Chinese companies deemed a threat to state security. Despite warnings from the FBI as well as other advisors to the largest US federal retirement fund, the majority of US public pensions remain invested in China and
Hong Kong. Federal intelligence and law enforcement officials have warned that an aggressive Chinese communist government is engaged in widespread efforts to undermine the United States and the West to engage in. intellectual property theft and industrial espionage and corrupt US institutions. Each dollar that we are investing in China supports an authoritarian regime that actively oppresses and jails dissenters, locks ethnic minorities and concentration camps and uses its growing
economic power to clamp down on free speech around the world. A number of other state pensions have already divested from China are in the process of doing so, including the states of Missouri, uh, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Section 3 of the bill also requires that public investment in entities. Uh, such as our public pension and investment funds at the state, county municipal level other than self-directed plans refrained from investing in Chinese companies and investment vehicles in China that are known
to be controlled by the Chinese government. Each public investment entity must identify and report on existing investments. And the best of those such holdings reasonably unless they constitute a de minimis investment, uh, other provisions under Section 3, protect the investment fund managers from immunity when they act in good faith. Those are the basic areas that are covered under the bill without that'll entertain any questions.
Representative Beatty has explained his bill. Are there any questions about the committee, Representative Meeks,
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
51:17
you're recognized. Thank you, thank you, Mr. Chairman and Representative. I, I, I definitely appreciate uh what we're trying to do with the, the bill. I just want to make sure we're not shooting ourselves in the, in the foot here, uh, as you know, agriculture is our chief industry and uh our farmers do uh you know, as I understand, saw quite a bit into the Chinese market. Uh, I just want to make sure that we're not doing anything that's going to hurt our people trying to sell into their market. um
rice and, you know, many other things that we sell to them, uh, that we're not
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
51:55
going to hurt that through this effort. Meeks. I think that's, that's something to be concerned about but I think the language within this bill directly deals with investments, um, primarily from our, our pension funds, retirement funds, um, as well as the um the impact on higher ed with the Confucius Institute and an organizations and then the
investment of, of those higher ed funds in the
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
52:21
Chinese companies, which I totally support and I think that's definitely something we need to need to make sure that gets taken care of and
I appreciate you. Thank you, sir. All
right. Are there any other questions by the committee? Representative Collins, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr.
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
52:40
Chair. I, so I'm seeing this section on Sister cities uh being terminated, you know, that it's not, it's not just a fun, uh, you know, thing
that these cities do, it's a form of uh building relationships and whatever has happened on the national level, you know, the people can still make connections and foster understanding and um I, I guess I just want you to talk more about why you feel like it's important that we terminate these um for person to person interaction in a way that can benefit. Our people, as well as the other side of things. Well, that, that's a good concern and a good
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
53:20
point. I think I would, I would point to the fact that a lot of the sister city programs with uh with a nation such as China, uh, that the People's Republic of China, they, they use that as an opportunity to exploit city to city partnerships between the United States and China, uh, they're managed, um, they're managed by an organization and, and they often refer to it as. The the sister relationship, sister, um, uh, Sister City program. Um, but, but they use that uh to
build maybe nefarious partnerships, um, that somehow they, they try to purport uh that their benefits to US US communities, um, but basically and, and to promote friendship but primarily they're the PRC's attempt to exploit uh those packs and, and, and partnerships uh to press forward its agenda, um. So a lot of times they use, use that for, to have uh US localities participate in those
agreements, um, to, um, to maybe sever ties with with cities and uh then they have the agreement, um. Where they push their issues and pressure folks to agree to mandates, uh, that favor, uh, the PRC and their agenda, um, in, and against uh against the US policy. So a lot of times it's, it's just smoke and mirrors under the guise of a sister city, uh, I don't, you know, I've heard the argument that it was for cultural
exchange and to learn more about their culture and, and the whole point, they're here, they're looking for a way to find a way in to infiltrate. our way of life and, and find a way to attack our, our culture in our country. So I, I, I don't, I don't buy any of that stuff that's just goodwill
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
55:10
and good friendships. Well, I mean, I think people who participated in
the sister city programs over the years, and I guess I'm a little surprised you haven't given your economic development background, but I mean, I think that they, they have found that they really do have a positive impact. So I
think that the positive impact is there and I guess maybe my follow up question would
be, why not just make the infiltration illegal and the situation you gave in New York with that person up there, I mean, root that out, but why
throw the entire program out uh because of bad. actors. Why not focus on the bad actors and the bad actions. Well,
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
55:46
I, I think along the lines it's hard to to dictate exactly all the bad actors are. It's not an attack on, on the Chinese citizens that are here, but it
is an attack on the PRC's program and agenda to infiltrate and, and get in entrenched into our, our way of life and our society to press their agenda and, and their points with, with our citizenry and our local and state municipalities. So I, I, I I just don't think in the long run that there's any benefit to those programs. That day has come and gone. Representative Ray,
Representative David Ray
Unverified
56:21
you recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Representative Beatty, would it,
would it be fair to say that the PRC has um taken otherwise, um, otherwise innocuous arrangements such as um you know, having foreign exchange students and things like that to In essence, spy or steal intellectual technology from institutions within our state, um, are you aware of those instances in which they have done that. Represent Ray,
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
56:58
there've been several incidents. I, I think one of the just a few years back we had one here at one of our local universities, uh, where we had some issues and charges there with the professor that was at the university, uh, that was shown to be at the time spying and, and, and maybe, you know, remember the exact specifics of that case, but it involved um spying on the US and and maybe they have of intellectual property. So I think it happens.
All right. Any other questions by the committee? Seeing no further questions by the committee, we do have someone signed up to speak on the bill. Mr. Mark White. I'll ask Mr. Chairman. All right. Wide is going to pass. Seeing no one else signed up to speak. war against the bill, Representative Beatty, you're recognized a close for your bill.
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
58:01
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, members of the committee again, as I said in the opening, I, I give credit to the governor for this legislation. I want to also give a shout out to uh Mr. Joe Gibbia uh with State Shield, uh, in, in reviewing the bill and, and giving some insights and I basically just want to say the main aim of this bill is simply to regulate and restrict the actions and financial investments related to entities associated with the people's. Republic of China in the state
of Arkansas, and with that I'm closed and I would offer a motion
to pass. Representative Beatty has made a motion to pass. Is there any discussion on the motion, seeing no discussion on the motion. All those in favor say aye. Aye, all those opposed. The eyes have it. Congratulations, you passed your bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you committee. Next we have House Bill 1713 Representative Rose.
It appears we have an amendment on this bill. Staff will be passing that out. And it rose after everyone's had an opportunity to review the amendment. You'll be recognized to present the amendment.
Alright, it appears everyone has the amendment and has had an opportunity to review it. Representative Rose, you're
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
1:00:13
recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Representative Ryan Rose, District 48, Van Buren Fort Smith, uh. With regards to this amendment, I want to share a little bit of context, uh, just to, uh, clarify some things that we'll be discussing uh throughout the rest of the bill. On page 2,
you'll see lines 27 through 29. Uh After discussing with the, this
with the Attorney General's office, they felt that this was uh sufficient the way it read. However, there was a more specific way uh to convey the readability tests that we're gonna be utilizing with this legislation.
And the way the language read initially was uh that the proposed ballot titles would have a reading uh level above 8th grade is determined by the flesh Kincaid readability test. Uh, which is perfectly
sufficient. However, there are two different tests, and there is one that is specifically geared towards grade level reading, and that is what this amendment now. Uh, states, the readability test is removed and we're gonna
say the grade level formula and I would like to read briefly about the flesh Kincaid readability test, which was developed in 1975
by Peter Kincaid. It was used by the US Navy to assess
readability uh for uh something like uh repair manuals and has been used for the past 50 years, uh, at both federal and state government agencies. across our nation and it was designed to help determine US school grade level uh required to understand a given text, making it easier to assess the readability of technical manuals and other materials. Uh, the current use of the flesh Kincaid grade level test
is now widely used by educators, writers, and other
professionals. And so that'll be the readability test that will be uh should we pass this amendment that will be in the substance of this bill that we'll be using moving forward and so with that information, I'd appreciate a good vote and make a motion to adopt the
amendment. Representative Rose has explained his amendment. And has made a motion to adopt the amendment are there? Was there any discussion on the motion? Seeing no discussion on the motion. All those in favor say aye. All those opposed the amendment's been adopted. Representative Rose, you recognized to present your bill
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
1:02:40
as amended. Thank you, Mr. Chair. House Bill 1713 at the heart of this, I believe that every Arkansan deserves the ability to make Informed
decisions when asked to sign a petition without confusion, without legalese, without any deceptive wording, and that is what this bill is about, and I believe that it ensures that when citizens are asked to support a ballot measure that they can clearly
understand what it proposes before they put their name on it. And again, should that measure gather enough support to make it onto the ballot, voters should be able to read and grasp what
it says just as easily when they step into the voting. I believe and and many others do
as well that for far too long that ballot measures drafted with complex language have made it
harder, not easier for for people to engage in the democratic process. Many petitions and ballot titles are
written at or above college reading level, packed with technical jargon and legal phrasing that Arkansans don't regularly encounter in their daily lives. This bill ensures that ballot titles and summaries are written at. or below an 8th grade reading level, making them even more accessible and digestible for Arkansas voters. Furthermore, this is not a radical idea. More than 20 states already have similar laws that ensure ballot clarity and
accessibility. And with those laws, not one of them is currently been struck down. No readability requirement like this has been struck down in court, and it's because it protects the voters' right to make an informed choice. Arkansas, I believe now has the opportunity to join these states in strengthening our election integrity, ensuring that every voter has a fair chance to understand what they're being. asked to sign and later what they may be deciding to vote on. Most recently in 2024 and 2023, states like Rhode Island and New
York passed very similar legislation unanimously in their legislatures in Rhode Island where they only have 9 Republicans and then in New York, where 2/3 of or 2/3 plus of their house, uh, is a uh made up of Democrats with less than a third made up of Republicans. This committee is full of dedicated members of the legislature and very brilliant legal minds. And so when drafting and composing this bill, we made sure to consult the examples of many different states across the
country and we worked with legal experts in our agencies here to bring you what I believe is the best version of this bill, and I look
forward to addressing your specific questions. Representative Rose has explained his bill as amended. Are there any questions
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
1:05:35
by the committee, Representative Enna, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. How does the bill ensure that simplifying ballot titles won't strip away essential information needed for voters to make informed decisions.
I'm sorry, I caught the first half of that question, I missed the second half. How does the How does the Is it OK. How does the bill ensure that simplifying the ballot titles won't strip away essential information needed for voters to make informed decisions. Representative Bennett,
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
1:06:09
thank you for the question. Uh, I, I believe that it not only would it not strip away, uh,
any of the meaning or any of the language, it makes it even more
digestible, so the flesh Kincaid, uh, grade level readability formula that would be used is not subjective. It is content neutral. It doesn't have a political or a party bias, it it is something that literally computes a formula, and I'm gonna give it to you. The grade level score formula. is 0.39 times in brackets here total words divided by total sentences, plus 11.8 times in parentheses total syllables
divided by total words minus 15.59. It is a mathematical formula that's been used for 50 plus years to make language more digestible, and it shall not strip away uh policy and will
only make it easier to digest for the voters. Representative Clowney, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
1:07:21
Representative Rose, I, I appreciate in theory, um, What You're saying in terms of the formula, but there is a syllable bias based into it and I baked into it and I just want to give an example and kind of ask you and I don't, I really don't mean to put you on the spot, but I'm just wondering if you have an answer to this. So, um, this is an example of a ballot title, an amendment to the Arkansas Constitution to provide that lottery proceeds may be used to fund or provide scholarships and
grants to Arkansas citizens enrolled in vocational technical schools and technical institutes. That's what was on the ballot last, um last election that passed under this test that gets a grade of 19.3 reading level or a college graduate. How would we say that in a way that would pass muster under your test. I'm just really concerned about just kind of to follow up on representative and it's question, how can we, if there is a syllable bias, how can we explain a title like that without big words.
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
1:08:23
Thanks for asking and it, it's, it's not
my test, um, it's, it's a test that's been used by our government for for 50 years, um, and many other states and agencies as well, and I appreciate the the complexity of how do we navigate uh Ballot measures that have complex words and multi, multiple syllables in those types of things. Uh, my response is that there are easier ways for us to say things that do not
have to be at the college grade or college graduate or postgraduate reading level. For example, I just want to uh to touch on. The uh FK grade level for some of the recent ballot measures, the casino amendment of 2018 was at the grade level of 23. The casino amendment of 2024 was at grade level 14.5. The marijuana amendment of 2024 was grade level 21.7. So those are postgrad, college, college, and
postgrad. It is not essential. Or it shouldn't be essential. For Arkansas voters to have
to have a college degree, uh, or a law degree or be brushed up on policy language in order to digest a ballot measure and
what this does is it allows the language. To be drafted in a way that is readable at the 8th grade level, which is the average reading
level across our country. And that is the intent of this bill, and that is what the Flesh Kincaid readability test does and I agree with you
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
1:10:04
that you should not have to have you absolutely
should not have to have a college degree to read and understand a ballot title. Absolutely. I guess my question is just, there are certain the word vocational has four syllables. The word constitution has four syllables, um. Is it your contention? My, my issue isn't with making these things readable. My issue is with the tests that we're using.
So like I said, under the test that you want to use, the ballot title that I just read, um, the, the test claims you would need to be a college graduate to comprehend that ballot title. Is that your contention that you would need to be a college graduate to understand an amendment to the Arkansas Constitution to provide that lottery proceeds may be used to fund or provide scholarships and grants to Arkansas citizens enrolled in. vocational technical schools and technical institutes. Thanks for the question. I don't know that you need to be a college
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
1:10:56
graduate to understand it, but I believe based on this test that stood for over 50 years that the grade level of reading required. would be at the college grad level. I would like to read uh a statement with regards to ballot question readability. That says it's often very easy for public officials and not so public officials to couch legislative matters and bureaucrats and long-winded ways that
can obfuscate as much as enlighten. Voters going to the
polls to vote on important ballot issues should not have to wade through a lot of jargon to appreciate and understand what they're being asked to vote on. This was from the ACLU in Rhode Island in support of their 8th
grade readability uh bill that passed unanimously in their house. Do they? use the same test, I believe that Rhode Island does use the flesh Kincade, grade level readability test.
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
1:11:50
OK, how would you just, I'm just really curious if you can't say the word vocational because it's going to penalize and up the
reading level so high. How do you reward that? I mean, if you're a sponsor of the bill, if you're, you know, representative Lundstrom, who ran it last session, um, how do you reword it? Without losing something. What, I mean, how do you reword that ballot title in a way that you think would meet the criteria that you're setting forth in
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
1:12:17
this bill. That's a great question, not something that I thought to have had a reword vocational. I'm sure that I would do something with working at a job or something along those lines, but that readability test would help you draft language that would suit
that and there's a number of ways to do that, but the more that we begin to work towards utilizing language that's more digestible, I think it'd be more natural uh to to come up with answers to that question. I appreciate it. You said you want to put me on the spot. I recognize that you got me a little bit. I, I'm not sure how to how to to say that, but I, I believe that there are simpler ways to do it and 20 plus states are doing it in the United States, and I really didn't mean to get you. I
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
1:12:54
just think that if we're really going to put this into action, we have to look at the exact test that we're using and what it would say about
things that um we have as a legislature voted on
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
1:13:05
to put on the ballot. Sure, yeah, and my answer would just be there be a more easy to digest
way toward that. All right. I want to follow up
on some of uh Representative Clowney's questions and I'm not really taking a position for or against, uh, but it does raise some interesting points, I think. Number one, I think to Representative Clowney's point, it can be difficult to convey complex ideas.
or concepts with small words, and there's just kind of no two ways around that and at some point, you know, see spot run only conveys so much information. And I worry to some degree that if we put in, if we're trying to convey complex concepts or ask voters to make decisions about complex concepts and we only allow smaller words to be used to convey those concepts that
that might become misleading to some degree. And so what would be your
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
1:14:17
response to that? I didn't catch the uh the last thing you said before, what would my response be, but I think it was something along the lines of, uh, would this reduce the language to being so simplistic that then it's evasive or something along those lines, essentially, yeah, that's right, um, I, I think that it, it is standard practice that we
can utilize uh thesaurus to use a different word, um, for one word, and I think that we're able to say the same thing with Simpler words than more complex than more complex words and it is my belief that readability is about overall comprehension. This is not an arbitrary ban on multiple syllabic words. I, I believe that uh we can say things more simply, uh, anybody who has a junior
high student in their home, uh, they can say a lot of things to you and they don't necessarily have college grad and postgraduate words, but simply Using this test, which is one the federal government has used for the military. I think if they have been able to do this for 50 plus years and other states have done this, um. 22, I believe now is the most recent tally, uh, that we can
do it as well here in Arkansas. All right, Representative Collins, you're recognized.
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:15:40
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I generally really uh support plain language, um, laws or rules or whatever uh kind of way we want to do it. I think it's generally a great thing for people. I do think though that this particular bill has some issues, and I want to first ask you about that Rhode Island, uh example you referenced. So Rhode Island, you may know, doesn't have a public initiative process. There are only, the only way they do it is by referral from the legislature.
So that makes it a bit of a different thing because you have an attorney general going back and forth in Arkansas in a way you wouldn't in Rhode Island and Rhode Island, it's only going to be referred out by the legislature, so that obligation is on the politicians and not on the petitioners, but I think the bigger issue is that in Rhode Island, what it actually says is that it shall require that the question shall be stated in plain language reasonably calculated to be understood by persons with an 8th grade reading level. It doesn't use the flesh Kincaid. test. Yeah, I believe that in
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
1:16:42
their rulemaking, they have utilized the Flesh Kincaid grade level reading test, but I would also contend that that's what makes this bill better here in Arkansas. Their language is much more subjective. There's not a very specific filter for how you decide what 8th grade reading level is, whereas our bill removes all subjectivity. It's completely content neutral. It allows regardless of who the Attorney general is, regardless of what party affiliation that he or she has. regardless of what uh party
affiliation, uh, the folks who are running any ballot measures may have the test. doesn't take any of that into account. It's simply calculates numbers and words and comes up with a grade level, uh, and the, the one that we're using is the 8th grade reading level, which is the average across our country, which of course down the line should that rise or fall, this legislature, and
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:17:34
it's infinite wisdom could change that. As you may know, reasonably calculated is
actually an objective standard. It's an objective reasonable person standard, not a
subjective standard, but this one, without being tied to a specific. test does um allow for again, I, I would say more reasonable interpretations, whereas the flesh Kincaid can allow for unreasonable ones. Um, the other thing is I just wanted to ask you, you know, I looked at an amendment to the Arkansas Constitution. Just those words to see what that would be, that's college graduate level. So how would you say an amendment to the Arkansas
Constitution in an 8th grade reading level way. How
can you simplify that? Well, I'm not, I'm not sure which one you're referencing. Also that those words, those words I typed in those words and it's 12.7, which is college graduate level.
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
1:18:29
Right, so again I would I
I'm certainly not presenting a bill to suggest that I'm an expert at crafting language for ballot measures, but what this bill does do is uh Protect the integrity of the ballot measure readability so
that voters can more easily digest it, and I'd like to address, uh, something you said at the the beginning of your question, uh, referencing in Rhode Island and their readability tests and how um You, you believe that it would be more reasonable the way Rhode Island is doing it, which allows subjectivity, whereas this bill, um, I believe what you stated would be more unreasonable actually has objectivity to where this is not up to any partisan bias or any belief of an individual, but a formula
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
1:19:17
again I go back to that's been in existence for 50 plus years. Just to correct, I, I didn't say that the Rhode Island Standard was subjective. I said it was objective because when you refer to a reasonable person that's an
object of standard, but thank you. Thank you. So I have another question I haven't heard this issue raised yet, but since we're talking about initiated measures, of course these would be measures that would come from the people. And they would have to pass of course all of the Um, measures that we've
passed so far this session in order to even have access but assuming that they had access. What about the First Amendment implications of someone engaging in political speech, if you will, to put a measure on the ballot to have the public vote on whatever they want to vote on. Are there not some First Amendment implications here?
Representative Ryan A. Rose
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1:20:08
Uh, I don't, I don't believe that there are any First Amendment implications. This isn't infringing somebody's right to say something. We're just saying that it should be readable at the 8th grade level
if it's going to be on the ballot or if it's going to be a petition that has to be signed, so I would say that it's protecting the
freedom of speech and the ability for it to be digested
uh by our voters. All right. And then I, I will just make a comment. I guess I'd like to hear some of your thoughts on this. I have some concern that. When we begin to engage in this idea that about reading levels and, and the voters reading
levels, uh, as it relates to their, their voting. Right now there's no requirement that a person even be able to read in order to go cast a ballot, so. It concerns me a bit with that when we start saying that for a measure to be on the ballot, it must be uh around a certain reading level. Now I understand that it's meant, this is meant to help people vote the way I understand it, um. But I just have some concern about even engaging in an
analysis about what reading level voters read out when there is no requirement that a voter even be able to read in order to vote. So I'd just
Representative Ryan A. Rose
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1:21:33
like to hear your thoughts on that. Sure. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. I believe that Uh, making ballot measures easier to read and understand serves all Arkansans. Something I'd also like to clearly articulate is that uh somebody's reading comprehension or or level of readability is not directly tied to their
intelligence either. Many individuals challenged with reading, have learning disability, diver diversified learning needs and so many, many more intelligent people than I may struggle. to read at different levels and what this does is brings us within the average across the board in our state and I think that that serves Arkansans uh as best as possible, and I think ballot measures being readable and, and understood by the
voter, protects integrity, encourages transparency, and I think is good for Arkansas across
the board. All right, Representative Cloudy,
Representative Nicole Clowney
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1:22:33
you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a question for clarification. Does this apply to legislatively referred
Representative Ryan A. Rose
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1:22:39
amendments as well. This does not apply to legislatively referred amendments. The Attorney General does not have authority over the, uh,
to my understanding, does not have authority over the amendments that we refer out, so it would have to do with the separation
of powers, but if someone were to run something along those lines, I'd certainly be willing to sit and listen to
it. OK, thank you. All right, seeing no further questions by the committee, do we have anyone sign up to speak for or against the bill. It appears that
we do, Mr. JP Tribble. You are recognized to speak against the bill.
Jp Tribble
Unverified
1:23:25
Thank you, Mr. Chair. JP Tribble, I'm an attorney here in Little Rock, uh, I feel really challenged by this. I saw a lot of faces glazing over earlier, um, I'll try to keep it simple, um. I agree with a lot of the debate that was going on that when you're dealing with uh difficult issues that voters have to decide on. It is very, very hard to get that down to an 8th grade reading level. Um.
Moreover, I find it very. I don't know an alternative word for this, but I find it very disingenuous that this applies to ballot initiatives. This here is a lawmaking body that statement has absolutely nothing to do with the separation of powers because I can easily write you a law that says the Attorney general has to approve something at the 8th grade level or the BLR has to approve something at the 8th grade
level. I'm a little bit confused. as to how me as a voter, I may not be able to understand something that's brought about by the people above an 8th grade level. But I can understand hard issue brought by the legislature at any reading level. That makes no sense to me. Again, is discriminatory and it just seems to show that. We're trying to curtail the rights of the people of Arkansas
here. And uh benefit the legislature, um, I really don't have a whole lot more to say, uh, but I Don't know how you can get. A complex issue boiled down to the level that a grade schooler can understand, particularly when I believe it was representative Cullen said the mere words constitutional amendment is at like a 12th
grade reading level or college reading level. Uh, this is a virtually impossible task. So, If there are any questions, I'm happy to answer them. I oppose this bill because it, it Seems to be borderline ridiculous that we're arguing that There are 2 different standards that apply to voters depending on who wants something passed. I'm open to any questions. All right, thank you, Mr.
Tribble. Are there any questions by the committee? Seeing no questions from the committee, thank you for your comments. Next
we have. Jerry Cox signed up to speak for the bill. Thank you,
Speaker 187
1:26:27
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. My name is Jerry Cox and I'm the
Jerry Cox
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1:26:34
executive director of Family council here in
Speaker 189
1:26:38
Little Rock. So I'm here on behalf of this bill because I believe every one of
Jerry Cox
Unverified
1:26:45
us has walked into the voting booth and see all the fine print for a ballot measure and it was hard to read and understand. And I believe if you were to ask any of your constituents, they would echo the very same thing
Speaker 189
1:27:05
this bill seeks to solve that problem. I think it's important to point out, if you will look. Page 2 Line 27. It says the Attorney General shall not certify a proposed ballot title. I think maybe we all know
Jerry Cox
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1:27:28
that ballot measures are really in 3 parts. You have the popular name. Which is
The Arkansas lottery amendment or whatever it might be. Then you have the ballot title, which is actually a summary. Of the text of the measure. And I'll give you an example. Several years ago, the Arkansas marijuana amendment. was 10,000 words long. The measure itself was highly technical. The summary of that measure was
about 300 words long, and that summary is called a
Speaker 189
1:28:12
ballot title. So this law only applies to the summary. Of the measure. It only applies to the ballot title. And that's what the voter sees when they walk into the voting booth and they look at their ballot and they see that long
Jerry Cox
Unverified
1:28:33
skinny line of print. It's the ballot title. It's not the entire measure.
So I would submit to you. That the measure itself, the text of the measure could be technical. It could use the big words. But this summary is designed to inform the average voter about what is in this. Long measure. That may be 2 or 3 or 10,000 words long, whatever it might be.
And so all this requires is the sponsor of the measure. Has to be good at wordsmithing and be able to boil down what's in their measure in a manner that a person reading at an 8th grade level can understand. That's what it requires. It doesn't require the text of the entire measure to be at an 8th grade level. It says plainly here, it only applies to the ballot title.
So, uh, with that, Mr. Chair, um, I, you know, I'm available to answer any other questions, but um I just wanted to point that out. It doesn't apply to the entire text
of the measure. All right, thank you, Mr. Cox. Representative Clowney, you're recognized. Thank
Representative Nicole Clowney
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1:29:58
you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate that clarification actually, but um I am just really worried about the test that we're using. So Mr. Cox, if you wouldn't mind, I just looked this up while you were talking and um on our ballots in Arkansas, the following phrase introduces the
ballot. If you make a mistake on your ballot, return it to an election official for a replacement ballot. That scores at a 10th grade reading level using this test, um, I, I simply do not see what amount of wordsmith. could get you to an 8th grade level, um, and And so while it is true that this only applies to titles, um,
do you see how maybe this particular test could be problematic. I don't think so because let
Jerry Cox
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1:30:42
me tell you what I did just.
And not that this is any official um result. But I took some of our ballot titles that we have had on the ballot, and I sat down with AI and I fed that ballot title into artificial intelligence, and I said, write this on an 8th grade level. And it did a pretty good job. It actually did a pretty good job. Now I'm not saying it was,
you know, without that it didn't need some work done on it, but I, I would ask this question. If a measure is so complicated. That you can't write about it at an 8th grade level. Maybe the measure itself needs some work. Maybe, maybe we're, we're asking the voter to do something that it's virtually out of their capacity to do. And I know you all deal with incredibly
complicated issues out here. Things like school funding and Judicial issues and all that, then it would be very difficult to put all of that on a ballot and that's why we have a legislature is to be able to do that. But when it comes to these measures that are put out there to the people. I believe it's a disservice to them to give them measures that are so complicated that they, they, they can't understand it. I, I even had
members of the General Assembly asked me to explain issue 2 last year. Because they were having trouble wrapping their heads around what it was all about and so we need to do a better job, I think, of helping the voter be able to understand these issues, and that's what this, this does. Thank you. And I mean, I, I truly do agree with y'all on
Representative Nicole Clowney
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1:32:41
that. I think that um it has gotten out of control. I know people from all political stripes approach me when it's around election season and say help, I have no idea what any of
this means. So I really could not agree with you more on that. It's just I can't get over. If you make a mistake on your ballot, return it to an election official for a replacement ballot, um. Do you believe that it is an accurate assessment, one that we should codify into Arkansas law that that is at a 10.3 grade level. Maybe there's a better
Speaker 187
1:33:12
way to write what you just read. OK, thank you.
Representative Stephen Meeks
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1:33:20
Uh-huh, thank you. Representative Meeks should recognized. Thank you, uh, thank
you, Mr. Chairman. So, uh, uh, Mr. Cox, appreciate you being here and I fully support the, the intent of the, of the bill and you know, we were talking about the lottery scholarship and so I kind of interesting you mentioned AI so I've been sitting down here with AI having it try to rework that to get it down to an 8th grade level and what it came up with is an amendment to the Arkansas Constitution to use lottery money for scholarships and grants. students in job training schools. I think that's pretty simple, basic to understand, but
that actually scored at a 10th or 11th grade level and I was not able to actually get it to get anything reasonable below that grade level. And so I, I guess my question is, as, as a society, we kind of make uh high school graduation sort of a benchmark on where we, you know, expect or where we want to get all of our citizens to in order to be. successful in life. And so I'm wondering if, if you or the bill sponsor would maybe be interested in amending this and
this is kind of where I'm having a challenge with because I support it, but I'm, I'm thinking maybe we've got a little 2 too restrictive. Would you be OK and maybe this bill sponsor can maybe address this when he gets down here, bumping this up to a 12th grade level because that's kind of, you know, that, that's kind of the, the minimum that we're asking all of our citizens to get to and that I think would give us a little. more flexibility on some of these wordings while still making it accessible to the to the average voter. Just interested in your, in your thoughts and if that's something
Jerry Cox
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1:34:58
that you'd be open to. Thank you, Representative Meeks for that question. Obviously, I can't answer for the sponsor, but I will respond by telling you that. As we looked at this, we talked about what grade level would be appropriate. And where, where we came down is what is the average reading level of an Arkansan. And its 8th grade. I wish it was higher.
But that's just where it is and in fact I did a little bit more research. 30, I think it's 38% of Arkansans read at or below a 6th grade level. Now I know there's, there are limits on how low you can go and still be able to communicate. But that's the reality of what we are dealing with and I hate to see those people disenfranchised, and I know you
all do too. We don't want people that lack formal education or just don't read well. We don't want them to be disenfranchised. We want everybody to be able to participate, feel like they understand what's going on and I think we would all raise our hands and say what we've been doing is not serving the need. of people that are reading at an 8th grade level, and that's what this is attempting to do. Alright, thank you. Thank you.
All right, Mr. Cox, I do have one or a couple of questions.
One, I think, you know, somewhat in response to what you just said, the average reading level of the average Arkansan maybe 8th grade, but we know that not a lot of Arkansans vote. We have some of the lowest voter participation in the country. I would venture to guess that many of the people who don't vote are on the lower end of the educational spectrum, do we, is there any Uh, data out there, I would guess that there's not, but I'll just ask anyway. Any data out
there about what the uh average reading level of the registered average
Speaker 189
1:37:06
registered voter is, that is a very good question that I would like to know the answer to myself, but I'm not aware of any data like that that's out there, but I think we are all aware that we're just not where
Jerry Cox
Unverified
1:37:21
we need to be as far as people being able to, to read, um. magazines, newspapers, they're all written anywhere between 5th and 8th grade level is what I'm
told. So, uh, but I don't know the answer to to your question and then I, I brought this point up earlier with Representative Rose. I'd like to hear your response to it about First Amendment concerns. I know you've been involved in ballot initiative efforts in the past, and when you formulated those ballot initiatives, you wanted them to say, and you wanted the titles to read a certain way to convey what you were. trying to get across to the voter, and and it's political speech that
you were engaging in and trying to get on the ballot. Uh, and imagine you having very specific wording that you, you had worked on for your ballot initiative to convey the idea. Uh, whether that related to marriage or abortion or marijuana or whatever it may be, your, your particular interest in an issue, you wanted to convey that a very specific way to get your meaning across to then be told that it doesn't comport with an 8th grade reading level and it's gonna have to say something different.
I mean, does that, does that give you any cause for concern in terms
Jerry Cox
Unverified
1:38:40
of First Amendment speech. It doesn't because I actually took some of the amendments in ballot measures we worked on and ran those through artificial intelligence and kind of played around with that. Let me say first of all, the um the amendments that I've been involved with were short enough. That I could write them on the palm of my hand.
It it's amendments like marriage will be the union of a man and a woman. Now that's not complicated. And I believe if you Ask an 8th grader what that means they would know. The Amendment 68, no public funds will be used to pay for abortion. That's what it said. And so It's incumbent on the sponsors of these measures to write them
in a way that the public can grasp it. And that's what this motivates them to do and in fact, If I were proposing a measure right now. I would know I have to write the summary of the measure in a way that an 8th grader could comprehend it and bear in mind again, you were talking about political free speech. We're not talking about the text of the measure. The text can be technical, and you can say whatever you feel like you need
to say in the text. It's just that what you present to the average citizen needs to be written in a way that they understand, oh, I know what's in that measure because of. of the summary that appeared on the ballot. So I think I could do it.
I really believe I could. All right. Fair
enough. Thank you very much. Representative Collins, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Cox, so I, I just, uh, been talking about the different
Representative Andrew Collins
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1:40:37
reading levels and AI and and the difficulty of getting this down to 8th grade. I actually went and got your bio from your website just to see what that would be, uh, that came out to an 11.2, which is college level, um, and so I put it in through AI and asked it to give me an 8th grade reading level and then I put that into the, the flesh Kincaid reading test, and that brought it all the way down from 11.2 to a. 107, still at college level. And so I, I again, I, I think I agree with many other people on the committee. I, I have no
issue with plain language. Um, I don't happen to think your bio is particularly difficult to read, but then again, I, you know, that that could just be a personal opinion, but I think that this, this flesh Kincaid grade level is really the issue because it requires such simplification of syllables and words and what I might consider to be a pretty simple plain text. Document like your bio, this thing is saying is only to be only readable by college uh
students. So I, I guess, do you have any thoughts on that? Did you intentionally write your bio to be
Speaker 189
1:41:47
indiscernible to anyone but college graduate. Well, fortunately my bio will not be on the ballot. Uh, I, I, I don't believe it's gonna be there, but
Jerry Cox
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1:41:56
I understand your point and it, but here's The point All of us in this room sort of make our living by reading. Most people don't. Most people don't. A lot of people don't read much more than
road signs, and that's, uh, that's not our fault, but it's just people, a lot of people don't spend a lot of time reading and that's their choice. But I believe there's a reason that magazines and newspapers are written somewhere between the 5th and 8th grade level. And that's because that's the level that people read at. So I would submit. That if an entire newspaper can be written at an 8th grade level, which I believe that's about
where they are, then surely we can find a way to write a summary of a ballot measure at an 8th grade level. Surely there's a way to do that. If an entire newspaper or magazine can be written at that level.
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
1:43:01
Representative Mayberry, you're recognized. Mr. Cox, you know that I, I, I want to support what you're doing here, you know I do, um, but my background in journalism,
yes, journalism 10 1 tells you that you're supposed to write in an 8th grade level, but never once in anything I ever wrote in journalism was I put through that test and when when I'm hearing that even the words amendment to the Constitution, I would write that in a newspaper without a doubt. I would say that in a news broad. cast amendment to the Constitution, but when I'm hearing that that is not at the 8th grade 8th grade level in this test, I'm, I'm really
struggling and I, and I looked back at, at the marriage amendment um that was there. I mean, we've got some, some big words in there, even something like um consist only of the union of one man and one woman. I'm not even sure if if an eighth grader would understand what that means and so, you know, I, I think what representative Meeks has suggested and seeing if there's another in order to even vote you have to be 18 years old, um, we're not saying you have to be a high school
graduate to vote, but you have to be at least 18 and the assumption would be that you've made it through um that stage of life and maybe upping this and, and I don't know, I, I mean in this short amount of time, it's kind of hard to put all y'all are much quicker than I am with putting stuff through AI and putting up through this test and, and all that. I can't, I can't do all that at the same time and listen to the testimony, but you know, maybe if we had just a little bit more time to to figure out what what really
I like the idea of a test that is not um. A uh, you know, someone's opinion, um, I, I do like that because then it's, it's, it's not biased, um, but this 8th grade level, I think it's really extreme. I don't think I could have ever written articles. And, and I mean, I, I'd be interested to hear from journalists. I don't, I don't think there's any of them here, but you know, that, that they
could write something that would pass that test.
Jerry Cox
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1:45:18
I'm struggling. Well, and let me point out that when you read a title that says an amendment to do whatever it is, that is the popular name. The Attorney general, according to this law, it's only the ballot summary, the body of that that has to pass the 8th grade. test. So that may or may not make a lot of difference and you know, certainly with respect to the
sponsor of the bill, it's not my place to agree or disagree on, you know, what grade level we ought to have. I'm here to speak on the bill as it is
Speaker 189
1:45:54
and um and I appreciate your questions. I really do. I mean, this is good dialogue. Thank you. All right,
seeing no further questions, thank you, Mr. Cox, for your testimony. Thank you,
Jerry Cox
Unverified
1:46:09
Mr. Chair and thank you members of the committee. Those were very good questions and uh thank you for listening to me. Thank
you. Next we have Dr. Gail Choate to
Gail Choate
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1:46:26
speak against the bill. So good afternoon. I'm Doctor Gail Choate.
I am a long time educator and uh I have a number of concerns about this bill. The first of which um does deal with this idea of the, the reading level, which you all have been discussing it at quite a bit of length, um, I did something a
little bit different. I took the title of the bill itself, um, for an act to be entitled An Act to amend, etc. etc. and I ran that through. um, the Flo Kincaid score and came up that just the title of this specific bill is a postgraduate level. So I think that it points to this idea that it's, it is very difficult to get things to the 8th grade level. As an educator, I'm concerned that we are attempting to solve
A problem With a tool that really isn't addressing the root cause of the underlying issue. I too am really concerned about people being able to understand. I teach civics, um, I teach people how to voice their make their their voice heard, um how to participate in our system of government and so I'm very concerned about people understanding what it is that's being put in front of them. What
I'm concerned with uh with this bill is it does nothing to address. civic education. It does nothing to address the ability of people to understand even what a ballot initiative is or how it works. It goes after an excuse the, the terminology, but it dumbs down the process. It lowers the standard under which we're presenting information under the guise that people aren't able to
understand, so we have to make it super, super simple. I would argue that we should be talking about how to improve civic education and to make the process more understandable to our Kansans so that they can better participate. Number 2, I'm very concerned about this bill because of the test, the specific test that's being listed, the flesh Kincaid standard. One of the downfalls to that standard is that it does not consider context. It only looks at the words, the
syllables, and the sentence length. It provides no um no nuances for the context in which it's being presented. That's what makes it so difficult to get to that 8th grade level. The other thing is that we have tools that are available to us to help educate the Arkansans going to the poll. For an example, in section 79114, which is the section that we talked about earlier when Representative Ray, um, put it
back into the bill that he was presenting that section of uh uh creates a abstract that is generated by the state and that is given to. the counties to be part of the electoral process and also to be posted in all of the polling places. An abstract by definition is simple, clear, concise language that provides a
summary of the bill and is as brief as possible. When I defended my my my dissertation for my PhD, my dissertation itself was 274 pages long with 30 pages worth of references, but my abstract was limited to 200 words. The abstract is designed to do what you're looking to have happen here and so I question whether or not this bill actually puts
the um the the educational process and the ability and the understandability in the right place. Finally, I have um a grave concern again as someone who is active in our community, talking to people about civic education. I have a great deal of concern that this law, if it's good for the goose, should be good for the gander. And if it is something that is being placed on the ballot initiative process, it should be equally placed on legislative um ballot initiatives that are put
forward. When people complain that they don't understand what's on the ballot. They don't say I don't understand. understand the ones that are on the ballot, but only those that were presented by We the People. They don't understand any of them. So, therefore, I think that this bill falls short in that it only puts this reading level on one segment of our democratic process and it should be applied to what the legislature puts out as constitutional amendments as well as those of the people
present. So with that, um, I'm open to any questions
and I thank you for your time. All right, thank you, Doctor Cho. We do have Piers, one question, Representative
Representative Stephen Meeks
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1:51:33
Meeks, you're recognized. Thank you and thank you for being here. Uh, since you, since you are, are engaged in this field, um, if you were to put out a grade level on this, uh, what, what would it be? On what grade level. So right now the bill's proposing 8th grade, so 8th grade, so if we were to pass something like this, would you prefer it be at
8th grade, uh, high school, college, what would you, what would you put that limit at if you had to pick one in order to try to
make it as accessible to voters as possible, but still allowing the flexibility to
Gail Choate
Unverified
1:52:11
communicate what we're trying to achieve. I hesitate to put a grade level on it at all, to be honest with you, because I think that um again that and I and I apologize because I don't remember exactly um what Representative Collins
um was using when the Rhode Island, but when he was talking about the Rhode Island definition of readability that. Intuitively felt more appropriate to me in that it applies as kind of prudent person idea, um, and so I would tend to go in that direction. Um, I don't necessarily subscribe to this as a binary kind of a thing. And again, I would urge you to be spending some money on civic education because I think that we can bring everybody up to the point where they could fully
participate then that would be wonderful. Thank you. All right, seeing no further questions, thank you, Doctor Cho for, for those remarks. And that concludes the persons that we have signed up to speak for and against the bill. Representative Rose, you recognized a close for your bill. Thank
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
1:53:24
you Mr. Chair. Thank you committee. Lots of great
discussion, uh, plenty of lively debate. I enjoyed most of it, not all of it. I wanted to address uh a few of the
things that were said, I'm looking for some notes that I have here.
Uh, I want to start with, um. Start with discussing the flesh Kincaid readability test again, uh, just wanna recap something that Um, it has been used, uh, since the 50s and it primarily started
with the United States military and specifically with questions regarding technical language that it was used for technical manuals and uh my belief is if it was good enough for the US military, and it was good also for different agencies in the United States government, uh, that it is certainly capable of doing what we needed to do. Um, I also want to state that setting readability does not equate dumbing down. I want to
reiterate again that an individual's ability to read and what grade level they're at does not equate to their intelligence, um, the flesh Kincaid uh readability, uh, the grade level formula. I want to reiterate again it's content neutral
and is entirely objective. This takes out subjectivity, it takes partisanship and uh it would go back to as it was set in January 1 of this year. So if it were to change down the line, it doesn't
change what we're doing unless the legislature decided they wanted to, should this pass. Uh Past ballot titles have not been clear and concise nor easily digestible. For Arkansas voters and
I wanted to again look at a couple or uh read off to you a couple of the grade levels for uh For some of these, the casino
amendment of 2018, the grade level was at 23, which is postgraduate. And to To state that we should expect. For all voters to have the ability or to demand to be an educated uh petition signer or voter that they have to understand this language is prejudicial. I heard that that doing this 8th grade readability uh test was prejudicial, but that's not the case. It's
prejudicial to individuals who just don't have that reading level capability. And then again, the marijuana amendment of 2024, uh, was grade level 21.7, which is postgraduate as well
and uh when, when we look at the why behind this, I come back to making things more easily digestible
for the voter, uh, Representative Mayberry mentioned uh her background in broadcasting. I don't know if if
your degree was in broadcasting. I know you were in broadcasting, uh. It's the same degree I got. I had a degree in communications broadcast journalism, and when I was in college, and this is dating me here, but we were, we were told that, you know, this needs to be to a 3rd to 5th grade level. And that
wasn't all that long ago and when we look at the other states and what they're doing and whether this is possible or if it's impossible, different states like Rhode Island, like New York, like
North Dakota, like Alabama. Like Texas, like Oklahoma, like Louisiana. Uh,
they are doing this. Different states are using some different variations of readability standards. Several of them have stated in 8th grade reading level and so to Representative Meek's point about consideration of whether we should look at a 12th grade reading level or what reading level is acceptable, and when asked, I know a witness at the end of the table wouldn't really give a reading level that's acceptable.
And that's why I think we have to take subjectivity out of it and make it fair to the voters. One of the most important reasons that were settled on 8th grade is because that's the average reading level of Americans, but it's also one that has been defended in court. It is one that has been defended in New York multiple times as well as other states to uh the chairman's question
with regards to constitutionality in Buckley versus American Constitutional Law Foundation in 1999.
Uh, SCOTUS stated that states have considerable leeway to protect the integrity and reliability of the initial initiative
process as long as the regulations do not significantly inhibit communications with voters about proposed political uh changes and again I go back to that these have been defended um in state courts. Most recently in New York and Rhode Island. It was also said. um, There was some discussion about complaints from the voters at
the polls, and I believe that if we go around the table, and I know I've talked to some of you on both sides of the political aisle that you have heard
this common complaint that these things are impossible to know. Am I supposed to vote for this or am I against this, is voting for me I'm against it. It's a common complaint and misunderstanding
by the voter, uh, and we need to do what we can, and I believe that that's what this flesh fleshincaid and what this legislation does to protect the integrity of the
ballot measure process, uh, to defend the voters right to understand what's in front of them when they're signing a petition
and also uh when they are in the ballot box. So my belief is that by passing this bill,
Arkansas will be joining a very long line of states that have taken a stand for clearer and more transparent ballot processes. I think it's a very common sense step towards ensuring that every voter, no
matter what their background is, no matter what their age, no matter what their education level, uh, that they can make their voice heard or have the best chance at that without confusion, without manipulation and without barriers to under. understanding and it
is my belief and I think the majority of us in this room believe that voters deserve clear language that voters deserve language that has been objectively determined to
be clear and this bill brings transparency and it brings clarity, which I believe
is the opposite of suppression. So my hope is that this committee and our legislature continue to protect Arkansas voters and ensure that our ballots are fair, that they're honest, and that they're understandable for all. and I respectfully ask for your support for this bill, and I make a motion to pass as amid. Representative Rose has closed for his bill.
He's made a motion do pass as amended. Is there any discussion, Representative Collins, you're recognized. Thank you. I'll keep it brief.
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
2:00:45
We talked about this a fair amount. I did, I did want
to point out in the journalism conversation, uh, the most recent Democratic Gazette article about the RJ's bill with the lottery and all that, that was at a College, uh, 13th grade reading level, so I mean, I, I'm sure they do try to get it down to 8th grade, but often that's very difficult
as we've seen with many of these examples. I think there's a good idea here. It's just not in this bill. Uh, I look at all the ways that
different states have done it. They say things like, um, the language and meaning of a constitutional amendment shall be clear and it shall be neither misleading nor deceptive. I see one that says the summary must be clearly written using words that have a common everyday meaning to. the general public. I see one that says plain easily understood language that should be the standard we should strive for that would take care of the issue in large part. It would be interpretable. It is an objective standard, but it's interpretable interpretable in
context and not a fixed and unreasonable standard if we wanted to go to a 12th grade or even possibly an 8th grade level, that might be possibly acceptable, but I think the flesh Kincaid reading test is really the big issue here for me. Um, that is just unyielding and it, it, it's just not gonna be workable, and I don't see in all of the states that have some sort of a plain language requirement. I don't see any single one that uses flush Kincaid. So, um, I'm, I know on
this I would be open to a version, and I think that there is a seed of a good idea, but I would
urge you to vote no. Thanks. All right, seeing no further discussion. On the motion we have a motion to pass as amended. All those in favor say aye, aye, all those opposed? No. The eyes have it. see two hands, call the roll.
Speaker 232
2:02:51
Representative Meeks. Representative Meek's present. Representative Wardha. Representative Wardlaw. Representative Barry Representative Barry. Representative Mayberry, Representative Mayberry, no. Representative Crawford. Representative Crawford. Representative Clowney. Representative Clowney, no. Representative Collins,
Representative Collins, no. Representative Evans. Representative Evans. Representative in it. Representative in it? No. Representative Mcroy Representative McIlroy, yes. Representative Ray Representative Ray, yes, Representative Beatty. Representative Beatty, yes. Representative Carr, Representative Carr, yes. Representative Underwood
Representative Underwood, yes. Representative Long Representative Long, yes. Representative Hawk. Representative Hark, yes. Representative Rose. Representative Rose, yes. Representative Wooldridge. Representative Wooldridge. Representative Beck Representative Beck, yes.
Speaker 246
2:04:31
Congratulations, your bill is passed. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you committee. Would you like me to stay at the end of the table? Yes, we're gonna pick up with House Bill 1714. Give me a second, I'm catching my breath.
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
2:05:02
Representative Ryan Rose, District 48, Van Buren, Fort Smith, uh, presenting House Bill 1714. This bill clarifies the definition of paid canvasser and
current law says that anyone who receives anything of value in return for soliciting signatures on a petition is
a paid canvassers and paid canvassers are subject to certain laws that do not apply to volunteer canvassers. This bill further
clarifies that receiving anything of value includes receiving payment for items like food, lodging, travel bonuses. fees, gift cards, and
other associated uh benefits or payments uh associated with obtaining signatures on a petition in 2013, Arkansas passed
Act 1413 requiring paid canvassers to be registered with the state. Current Arkansas law says paid canvasser means a person who is paid or with whom
there is an agreement to pay money or anything of value before or after a signature on a local option election. petition. It's solicited in exchange for soliciting or obtaining a signature on a petition. House Bill 1714 clarifies current law, and I'm open to any questions. Representative Meeks you're recognized for a question. Alright. Thank
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
2:06:24
you, thank you, uh, uh, I, I, I think I know the answer to this, but just wanted
to verify on here it has payment for food. So if I've got a, a volunteer organization and they spring for pizza for everybody.
That's not gonna be that payment for food is not gonna
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
2:06:45
qualify that, correct? So if you go to um
you can look at page one or page 2, line 23 on page 1 or line 16 on page 2 and what Current
law says is paid or with whom there's an agreement to pay money or anything of value, so
nothing is changing that part of the law. Uh, I don't want to get into how that necessarily would be interpreted, uh, but what I am what I'm hoping that we're clarifying with this is that should you spring for pizza in advance and you had said, hey, every time we do this, we're going to provide you with pizza along with soda, along with a place to stay or reimbursement for your mileage, you agree to this in advance in exchange for petition gathering that would be
what This is talking about. We are just clarifying some of the things, uh, because Some folks would say, well, hey, it's not listed, so how do we know that this is included? There hasn't been any convictions in this. I don't want there to be people who are doing these things in good faith. I want to make sure that the law is clear and concise and so that they can continue to operate under it, uh, so this is just Carefully
listing maybe some standard things that that could
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
2:08:06
be used as a form of payment compensation, right, no,
no, I guess my, my question was, and I and I get, I get all that, and I, I appreciate it. I just wanna make sure that if I'm a volunteer and the sponsor organization, you know, provides dinner or snacks or something like that, and I, I take a slice of pizza in my example, but I'm not suddenly going to become a paid canvasser under this. My interpretation would be
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
2:08:29
As long as you're not doing those things in an agreement before going forth and doing something like, hey, we're gonna do this for you if you do these
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
2:08:37
things. OK, all right, I just want to make sure that we're, we're not inadvertently doing something we're not intending to do.
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
2:08:47
Thank you. Thank you, Representative. Representative Clowney, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, can you just Representative Rose. You have all of these enumerated, um, so, you know, starting on page one, line 29, all of those enumerated, basically what I think, I think what you're trying to do there is just use synonyms for money, right, that's being exchanged. So all of the terms that you could use to refer to some sort
of payment, but my question is about awards, Jay, um. Does that, do you mean monetary award specifically? I mean, it's just sort of a strange word that jumped out of me looking at the rest of the
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
2:09:20
list. Sure, that's a, no, that's a great question. It's very fair. Uh, some of this, I, I think you could look at uh rules on gifts from the Arkansas Ethics Commission, you know, things that we can accept, I believe in award as not to exceed 150 or 100 $100 or something along those lines. And again, I go back to look, if somebody wants to award somebody for meritorious service, that's
great. But as long as it's not something that they're doing in advance. some kind of form of payment in exchange for
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
2:09:48
petition collection. OK, I, I appreciate that. I'm curious about the language online 27, um, it does say before or after. Yes, but if, if
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
2:09:57
you were to go up to A that is above that is paid or with whom there's
an agreement to pay. And that's what I'm basing this language on. But, but
that agreement or just above that as well, that's
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
2:10:12
already in the already in the law as well. I know. I'm just trying to clarify that. I, I don't think we're only talking about things that are exchanged before a signature is gathered. I think it's, it's before or after and
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
2:10:25
with no endpoint, so just to follow up on that question, as a form of compensation and it line 23,
which is already existing language, says is paid or with whom there's an agreement to pay money or anything of value before or after. a signature on local options. So that language is already there. This is simply mirroring that
and then listing specifically, uh, a number of items, but not
limited to what would count as compensation. Yeah, thank you,
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
2:10:57
Representative. Representative Mayberry, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, I I guess
your response to Representative Meeks, I, I, I just don't know if I interpret what's written here the same way as one who is organized volunteers for many different things, um.
You know, a way to just thank people for coming out and cleaning a park on a really hot day. Um, you know, you give them water, um, you give them a hot dog, you give them lemonade just to say thank you and, and I'm not really clear on that to me is. Payment for food that is providing some food and I don't think it's really clear from what you're telling me your intention is that that what representative Meeks mentioned
would be allowed. So if that's your intention, can we clear that up a little bit and make, make sure that that truly is allowed, that someone's not breaking the law or would be considered a paid campuser because, you know, they were getting ready to pass out and someone gave them some water or, you know, they were needing a cookie to say thanks or something. like that. I think Is there a way we can really make sure that that's very clear in there.
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
2:12:12
So what I want to say is going back to uh Act 14:13
that Arkansas passed in 2013, stated that If someone is paid. Or with whom there's an agreement to pay money or anything of value before or after a signature on a local option election. That's already in law. So I'm not attempting to interpret. What
necessarily the law has already stated in that regard, other than listing for very
careful consideration, things that could be listed as a form of
payment or form of compensation. Um, as I said, nobody's been, to my knowledge, arrested and certainly nobody's been convicted under this, and I can't speak to prosecutorial discretion, um, but I think the spirit of this law would certainly not preclude somebody who's having heat stroke, receiving a cold bottle of water. And, and I, and the other thing that I would say is that we are
clarifying what is a form of compensation, but we're not instituting new language that says these people can't be compensated. The law already says what would Uh, cause somebody to become a paid canvasser, so I'm not changing that we're just outlying things
that are, are clear forms of compensation. And, and, and I do understand
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
2:13:38
that that may have been what the law, you know, has been and, and all that, but now we're adding very specific language and so while we're in there.
adding specific language if we could just clarify that something like that is OK. I just, uh. Again, as someone who's organized lots of people to do volunteer things. I, I don't think giving them a hot dog or a cookie or water or lemonade. Rises to the level of being a paid canvasser. Firstly, what I like to say is I
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
2:14:10
want to show up to your events since we provide food and beverage. Um, and secondly to have more help cleaning up a park. Are you
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
2:14:21
kidding? You're, you're gonna be on my list to call. We usually every, every time in May, I'll, I'll be calling you and
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
2:14:27
let you know call me, I'll be there, um, what I will say it's not my intent to unwrite what's been in
law since 2013. We're just clarifying and uh I'd be open to discuss this more after the fact, if you want to see some changes after the fact, it's going to go over to the Senate and we could talk about that should it pass, it would go over to the Senate end, uh, but again. This is just clarifying what forms of compensation are standard forms of compensation
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
2:14:52
and to to make sure that there's no misunderstanding on those things. OK, I guess my point is, while we're in that section of the law, clarifying would just make me feel better about the whole thing. I understand all the other things, the lodging, the travel expenses, the bonuses, the gift cards, absolutely.
So thank you. Thank you. Representative Collins, you're recognized. Thank you. Um, this may have been
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
2:15:17
answered, but maybe I'll just ask it in a slightly different way. You can clarify
it for me. So in existing A in 3A, sorry, could you repeat? I couldn't hear in the existing language in 3A, it says that if someone's paid anything of value that is makes them a paid canvasser, but then in your new language and be little eye, it says that if they receive an item of value, then that is makes them a big canvasser. Don't those mean the same thing? Are we just
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
2:15:50
saying this twice? You're talking about the language in Section BI, correct?
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
2:15:55
BI compared to what's already in a where it says anything of value. So in anything of value is already there and so now we're saying item of value or do they mean something different or do they
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
2:16:06
mean the same thing? I believe that we're listing. Things that mean the same, but it's, it's being very specific and I think if the language wasn't there to say the same thing, the question might be, I'm not saying from you, sir, but that the question might be, is this saying something different and so we're just uh clarifying. Well, I understand
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
2:16:27
that's what little too does II down there that's, that's the whole list. I get that, but why couldn't that just be a definition of anything of value instead of the new term item of value because I really think that we've now created Something where you can't pay money, you can't pay anything of value, and you can't pay an item of value, and it's just a strange, I mean, I don't know if you're planning on making Representative Marry's amendment. This doesn't sound like it, but if you were, that might be something to
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
2:16:52
clarify. Sure, well, thank you, Representative Collins. I would think that an item of value
since we're listing individual items is in reference to anything of value, and again I go back to prosecutorial discretion, you know, some of these things uh are listed very specifically, but you'll. see that it also says not limited to uh to leave room um for those things to be interpreted. OK, thank you.
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
2:17:24
Representative Beck Yes, and I, I, I'd seriously
liked and the intent of this, but, and maybe I'm just, maybe it's where it's at in there, so maybe some of the legal minds can help me with this, but it says receive an item of value before or after a signature on a local option election petition has been solicited. So. It's Right, I mean, it's not just before, it's after.
Yes, sir. So there's no one we I thought earlier we said
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
2:18:04
it was, it would be before. No, and I know there was quite a bit of back and forth there so it could have been, and that's OK. And if you will look at the existing language, uh, it's both on page one, line 23 and also again on page 2, line 16. The existing language from 2013. And listen, the only reason I'm able to reference this so quickly is because I've been looking at it, right? I'm sure we're not all brushed up on 2 13 language, but it already
exists that says is paid or whom with there's an agreement to pay money or anything of value before or after, a local option election and then in on page two it says bo before or after a signature on an initiative or referendum petition. So that language is already existing and in law representative Beck. All right. I appreciate
Chair
Unverified
2:18:52
the question. Representative Mayberry, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
2:19:01
tell you one other thing that's often done when people volunteer because you want to be able to identify them as being with your organization or something like that, um, t-shirts are often something that, you know, uh, is given, um, and I can imagine that that might be something that someone would give to a volunteer because that represents their organization would that be, it's not specifically written here, but that is an item of value, so would they not
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
2:19:31
be allowed to get a t-shirt. That's a great question, and, and I appreciate, however, you, you are also referencing uh established law that's already there, it says payment, uh, to pay money or anything of value. Now,
as I said, we haven't seen this prosecuted. Shirts aren't listed here. Again, I would leave that up to the interpretation of, uh, you know, prosecutorial discretion, but that's not something that I'm addressing, so specifically,
but the, but the language specifically states to pay
money or anything of value. I would say based on established law, if I was doing this, I would be careful of that, but that's based
on established law that's already uh been around
for 12 years now. I would also say that um a lot of these questions, and I know it's, it's kind of like it's fresh because we're bringing this back, but a lot of these questions reference uh law that's already been there and so we're not changing, repealing or adding, we're simply clarifying.
All right, seeing no further questions by the committee. We do have one person signed up to speak against the bill. Actually, we have 2 people signed up to speak against the bill, JP Tribble. Who I don't see in the room anymore and then Doctor Gail choked. Doctor Cho, you're recognized. Thank
Gail Choate
Unverified
2:21:04
you very much. So I'm Doctor Gail Choate and I'm uh here, first of all to say thank
you for attempting to clarify um some of the conditions that uh differentiate a paid canvasser from a volunteer canvasser, because we've seen other things kind of come through the session, um, this, this term that um imposes different standards and so I think that uh providing some definitional distinguishing factors is really important. However, I completely as a longtime organizer of volunteers. Some of the things that um are just common way that
we both engage people, reward them, and recognize their humanity may put a canvasser in a difficult situation under this law. Water. Food, right? Being able to in the in the hot Arkansas summers, um, put out a cooler of water for volunteers to be able to take one, to be able to bring a box of doughnuts or a bunch of pizza to a site to let people eat because there is a lot of
work to do and people are very passionate, um, t-shirts to identify them, um, which is something, by the way that Arkansans appreciate because that they know who someone is, they know it's a legitimate. officer to be unclear about how that would impact someone's status as a volunteer canvasser, I think is a very significant issue with this bill. We have in other bills and I know I'm only to speak to this one, but I, I,
I, I have to say that in other bills that have gone through this committee, this session, um, there have been additional burdens placed on paid canvassers. There have been additional concerns about paid canvassers and we have tried to represent the thousands of volunteers who work in this capacity throughout the petition process, and I think it's very important to recognize that this isn't just a little thing if they slide from being a volunteer to a paid, it has a significant impact on their
responsibilities, the paperwork, the um things that have to be filed with the state all change, so I would urge you to vote, do not pass or to vote no. On you pass on this bill until the terms food, um, etc. uh food specifically food and travel expenses, um, be revised or clarified in order to take into account the unique ways that we recognize and appreciate our
volunteers. Thank you. With that, I'll take any questions you might have. Thank
you, Doctor Choate. Are there any questions by the committee? All right,
seeing no questions by the committee, thank you for those remarks. Seeing no one else to speak for or against the bill, Representative Rose, you recognize, oh, I'm sorry, we do have someone signing to speak for the bill, Jerry Cox.
Speaker 187
2:24:19
Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the committee, I'm Jerry Cox, executive
Jerry Cox
Unverified
2:24:24
director of Family council, and I'll be very brief. The, um, if you look at line, um, 21 of this bill. The operative term there is this, it's in exchange for soliciting or obtaining a signature on a petition. And then you get down to
Speaker 189
2:24:43
line 24. The key term there is anything of value.
Jerry Cox
Unverified
2:24:51
So there has to be an exchange going on here. If you have a pizza party for your volunteers and just say we love, we love our volunteers. There's no exchange going on here. But if you say, hey, I'll give you a pizza if you bring me 100 signatures, then there's an exchange there it's very simple. We're not, this is not changing current law. Current law says if there's anything of value exchanged either before you get
the signatures or after you bring them in, then you're
Speaker 189
2:25:27
paid canvasser. That's it And so this clarifies current law and it keeps people from inadvertently breaking the law that they, well, I'm not giving anybody,
Jerry Cox
Unverified
2:25:37
I'm not paying them money, so I can give them a tank of gas and put them up in a hotel, give them mileage, whatever, in exchange for
Speaker 189
2:25:45
getting signatures, that would be a violation of the law. It would be a violation of current
law. This makes it more clear that it's a violation of the law, and it just helps everybody know what the rules are. Mr. Chair, thank you. I'll take questions, but I don't want to prolong things. All right, any questions by the committee?
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
2:26:09
Representative Clowney, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Cox, can you just help me understand because I saw the same language you did in exchange for, and that made me temporarily feel better, but I guess, can you just explain to me why this scenario that Representative Mayberry
described giving water to a canvasser. Um. who had helped right as a thank you for helping you. Why is that not exchanging something of value, however small value in exchange for a vote. Why is that philosophically or ideologically different from a tank of gas,
Speaker 189
2:26:40
I think because there's no agreement there if I say I want you to go to Hope, Arkansas and stand in front of the library and get signatures, and I'll pay your gas and I'll buy your food.
Jerry Cox
Unverified
2:26:55
That's an exchange. If all I do is say, hey, all of our volunteers get a t-shirt. Then you're not trading that for signatures, you're just saying I like you, I like you because you're one of my volunteers and I'm gonna let you wear, wear this, have this t-shirt. And so I, I think there is a clear difference there, and it's the question is, is there some kind of exchange going
Speaker 189
2:27:18
on because look, it says over and over again, what does it say? It
says payment on line 31 payment on line 32, payment reimbursement, bonuses, it's all about what's being exchanged there. And I understand what, I
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
2:27:36
understand exactly what what you want those words to mean I guess I'm just looking at the black and white words on the page and there's nothing in here that requires that the that the agreement be explicit or right, I mean, I think it is, it is very clearly in exchange for signatures that you give your petitioners a t-shirt. It, I mean, it's not that they're receiving them as dependent on
it, but it is an exchange for somebody who has been out working hard that you give them a bottle of water to say thank you. I mean, I just don't see where the language is. In the
Jerry Cox
Unverified
2:28:09
bill that accomplishes what it is that you're saying. Let me call you if I may, and thank you for your question if I may, let
Speaker 189
2:28:16
me call your attention to line 23 is paid. with whom there is an agreement to pay money or anything of value. To me That's, that's where this,
that's the operative line or one of the operative lines in this is that there is some. kind of agreement going on here that is a.
Jerry Cox
Unverified
2:28:38
If you do this, I'll do, I'll, I'll give you the, I'll give you food. I'll give you something because you did this, that's the
Speaker 189
2:28:46
agreement, but If there's not an agreement, I don't, then this, it, it's just. You appreciating your volunteers and believe me, I understand what's what what we're talking
about with volunteers. Listen, I've gathered. Hundreds of thousands of petition signatures with volunteers and so I've certainly been down that road and um. And so I think this is very navigable. I think it makes it more clear what the law really means. I have a
question. So can you have a pizza party for your volunteers or not, and if you can, how do you
Jerry Cox
Unverified
2:29:24
do it? So if you say let's all have an agreement here if you gather
signatures, you can have a pizza. Then you're getting paid. You're paid canvasser because there's an exchange going on there. If after The petitions are all turned in and everybody's happy and you throw a big party and you say, come on out, we're gonna have a party. Then it's, there's no exchange going on there and in fact, you probably wouldn't know how many signatures the people gathered. They're just your friendly volunteers.
So it sounds like it's gonna be a very fact-specific inquiry. And, and, um. Well, let me
Speaker 189
2:30:13
say, if I may, Mr. Chair, the law is this makes the law more specific than it currently is. It actually improves the law. And I, I would completely
agree with you about, you know, tightening it up in some way, but uh the problem when we do these things, my concern is
that we catch conduct that we don't intend to catch and then you have, you know, some really
zealous prosecutor or really zealous investigator that has everybody charged from the family counsel who threw a pizza party after having people gather signatures for something. And they say, oh, you gave that pizza in exchange for them out there gathering signatures. We know what you were doing and you say, oh no, that wasn't the deal
at all, and they say, yeah, sure, Mr. Cox, come on, come
Jerry Cox
Unverified
2:30:57
on with me and if I may. That, that danger is even higher the way the law is now. Because
Speaker 189
2:31:10
At least this spells it out more than it's currently spelled out. So the danger is much higher for the pizza party, much higher for the t-shirts, much higher for all of these things. under current law. So this makes it better. Fair enough. All
right, thank you very much for that, Representative Crawford, you're recognized.
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
2:31:33
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I've spent my whole life with volunteers.
Um And it's hard. I don't want to use that word. It's hard to get people. Whom are volunteering even over volunteers to follow everything to the letter of the law. So if I had volunteers who are campaigning for me. And then they later came. And I fed them.
Speaker 189
2:32:13
Am I in violation of the law? What did
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
2:32:23
the volunteers, what, what did the volunteers do? They were asking for votes for me. So does that not coincide with the same as petitioning, it's
Speaker 295
2:32:33
different, I guess. Well, if you, if you
Speaker 187
2:32:35
get paid Uh, to gather signatures, you're a paid canvasser and then you're
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
2:32:44
subject to a wide range of laws. Let me change it. OK, so if I have canvassers going out and they're canvassing for a pro-life bill that I have. And that evening when they come in or every evening when they come in. I am feeding them pizza and, and supplying drinks. Is that OK? Under current
Jerry Cox
Unverified
2:33:08
law, it says if they receive anything of
value in exchange for soliciting signatures either
Speaker 189
2:33:17
before they solicit or after they've solicited them, then they are a paid canvasser. That's current law. That, that's so. I, I wanna make that really clear that is current law. How you interpret that. Representative Crawford could be subject to a number of things. This bill seeks to make it at least more clear. What we're talking about. Now, it,
if it doesn't make it clear enough, then that's, that's another discussion, but it improves the
Jerry Cox
Unverified
2:33:55
current law. Because the current law says if you receive anything of value. In exchange for gathering signatures, OK,
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
2:34:02
follow up. So I can throw the party. At the end, because you said we could, we could throw a pizza party. So, but the only time I could actually throw a pizza party was after
All signatures were collected. And all were turned in to where we're no longer
soliciting signatures. Is that when I can throw a party. I think that
Speaker 189
2:34:31
may all be above my pay grade, Representative Crawford, because then you're getting into all kinds of legal interpretations of the law, but please understand that the scenario
Jerry Cox
Unverified
2:34:42
you're talking about exists right now under current law. It exists right now. OK,
thank you. I understand it, but I'm not trying to avoid the question. It's just that when you get
Speaker 189
2:34:56
into the, to the weeds that much, um, then those are those are legal questions that the court. might have to have to deal with, but that That scenario exists right now under current law. I want to point
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
2:35:10
that out. OK, I'm confused because of the way that you answered, uh, Representative Galzaway. Because you told him there would
Jerry Cox
Unverified
2:35:21
be a time when we could throw a pizza party. Yes, if, if it's not in exchange for gathering signatures.
Speaker 189
2:35:29
And I realized that I'm not, uh, I'm not making it as clear as, as it probably needs to be, and my apologies for that.
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
2:35:36
OK. Thank you. Maybe, uh. Representative Rose can help. Thanks. Yes, I'm sure he can. Representative Ray, you're recognized.
Representative David Ray
Unverified
2:35:52
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, Mr. Foxx, I think we're making this more complicated than it needs to
be, so I, I'm gonna try to phrase this in a way that just seeks to clarify. Um, by
the way, I feel like I'm getting hungry for pizza now. Um, you know what this bill you, there is nothing illegal about hiring paid canvassers if you want to hire canvassers, you can
do that. That is correct. There but there are separate rules for that paid canvassers must follow and And, and that volunteers must adhere to, correct? Yes, absolutely. And so this is just bringing, as I understand it, this is just bringing clarity to who falls in this camp and who falls in this other camp? Am I missing something here? You're exactly
Speaker 189
2:36:46
right, and you've said it very well and I appreciate uh that clarification. You're exactly right.
Mr. Chair, thank you for the time. Um, I appreciate the
questions. We have more questions, so not, not so quick. OK, I'll, I'll stay, but
Speaker 189
2:37:09
I, I don't wanna, I don't wanna prolong everybody's uh time here more than necessary just, just a couple more, if you'll be so kind as to order pizza, then we'll, we'll stay see what I
can do. Uh, Representative Collins, you're recognized. All right, thank you, Mr. Chair.
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
2:37:30
I guess I'll do sort of what Representative Ray did, and, and
you may or may not agree with this, but um to me the sort of simple distillation of this is that any time you
have your, your canvassers there at a pizza party. It's in exchange for their work canvassing for you. So there's, there's no agreement that's needed. There's agreement's not required in the new language being added here. It's just that if you're here for the pizza party because you're a canvasser, that's part of your, what you're receiving. In exchange for soliciting or
obtaining a Toronto petition and to me with this and I was puzzling over it for a while and I even asked Representative Rose about it. Why, why add this new language of item of value receives an item of value, and I think that maybe the way it makes sense and the reason it's in here this way is maybe you can't pay someone in a t-shirt or in a piece of pizza, but you can have them receive an item of value and have that be a t-shirt or pizza. So to me that that.
clarifies, I suppose, and also expands that it's not just things you pay, but things
you give to a canvasser that takes them from volunteer to paid canvasser. Um, would you agree? Yes,
Speaker 189
2:38:45
I believe that is correct. If you look at a gift card or um A stipend or some, you know, the I think um it's easy for people to play around with the words and say, well, I really didn't pay them. I just gave them a gift card.
And then it, but that's an item of value, I think we would all agree. And so the attempt here is to try to capture that with, with the words that we have
on the page here. Seems like it does.
Thank you. OK, and thank you, Mr. Cox, and I will say I think after this exchange, I, I'm pretty clear that we're just, this is a definitions bill essentially. We're defining further defining what a paid canvasser is.
Jerry Cox
Unverified
2:39:33
That is correct. It's not just
it's not just money because it sounded as if we were discussing some criminal statute that was going to impose criminal liability on someone, but I don't think that's what this does. Now there may be certain criminal statutes that apply specifically to paid canvassers, but we're not, we're not dealing with those
Chair
Unverified
2:39:56
today. This just redefines what is a. This bill does not get into any of that. Fair enough. That's correct, Mr. Chair. So Representative
Hawke, you're recognized. OK. All right. Representative
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
2:40:08
Representative Clowney, you're recognized. I'm sorry, this is not exactly a question to Mr. Cox. I just want to follow up on, on what you just said because I think that you may be
misheard her um misunderstood what Representative Collins was saying, and you jump in if I'm wrong, but you're saying that this does actually add something new which is item of value. That is not in the current law, so we are adding pizza and water bottles and t-shirts and things and
that's not the current law. So that's, I just want to say but to clarify, it's adding that to.
What constitutes a paid canvasser to further define who
is a paid canvasser, and Mr. Chair, if I may, not to impose liability per se because you receive those things, it just means if you receive
Speaker 189
2:40:48
them, you are a paid canvasser now. And that
Jerry Cox
Unverified
2:40:51
fair Mr. Chair, if I may, maybe I misunderstood it says on line 24, anything of value, so that could be an item, it could be money, it could be. And anything of value is pretty broad. I think we
Speaker 189
2:41:03
would all agree. And so current law already. covers that.
Jerry Cox
Unverified
2:41:11
We're just naming what might be. An item of value, anything of value. All right, thank you very much.
Speaker 189
2:41:19
Seeing no further questions, thank you, thank you, Mr. Chair and thank you all for your questions. I appreciate it. We have no one else to speak for or against the bill. Representative Rose, you're recognized to close for your
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
2:41:38
bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you committee. I appreciate the
questions. I'd I'd have been happy to discuss some of those things too along the way. Uh, I just wanted to address a couple of those things, um. I want to reiterate on both page 1 and page 2 on page 1. It is line 24 on page 2 is line 17, established law that's been there for 12 years already, says anything of value, that's in addition to where it says to pay money or anything of value. This
is not changing that standard whatsoever. This is also not repealing that standard whatsoever. I understand based on some of the discussion, there's some folks who maybe would like to repeal that law, and that's an entirely different conversation. This is simply adding clarification and I would go so far as to say that if you genuinely want to protect uh canvassers from allowing them to be volunteers instead of being paid canvassers that this bill
literally clarifies items that could constitute a violation of what a volunteer canvasser is. or what would then dictate somebody becoming a paid canvasser, so, uh Representative Gassway, Mr. Chair, I believe that this, uh, I think you eloquently put is that it is clarifying what is a paid canvasser and to Representative Crawford and May Barry with their pizza parties, um, I, I appreciate the, the questions about that.
And I think if if an organization who happened to have collected signatures, decides they want to have an organizational party. People are bringing friends and family and all those things, celebrating something, that's fine. It's an organization or it's an individual throwing a party, not in exchange for a service. And I'll, I'll simply go back to, I believe that this is uh protecting volunteer canvassers and that it is outlining and clarifying what constitutes
anything of value. There's not been, um, to my knowledge, any, any type of uh court cases or or anybody uh being convicted of anything along those lines at all, and this just goes to a more specific line uh listing items so that everybody who is involved in this process has a clear understanding, um, and with that, I'm closed and I would appreciate a
good vote and Mr. Chair, I make a motion to
pass and I appreciate the latitude. Thank you, Representative Rose is closed for his bill. He's made a motion to pass. Is there any discussion on the motion? Representative Hawk,
you're recognized. I've learned a lot today, colleagues.
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
2:44:31
In fact, so much, I, I, but the, the, the two lines we were talking about, I ran the Fly Kincaid grade level score and it was a 12, 12th grade, uh, so, uh, I mean, look, it's a definition. I'll be voting yes on this. Thanks. All right, any other discussion? Seeing
no further discussion, there is a motion to pass. All
those in favor say aye, aye. All those opposed. The eyes have it. Congratulations, you passed your bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you committee. Alright, next I
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
2:45:09
see Representative Vaugh in attendance. House Bill 1720. Hello, Mr. Chair. Representative District 87. I'm bringing House Bill 1720, um, the governor's office and
DHS have been doing a little pilot, um, and it's worked out really well in there, so we thought we might try it for Allstate agencies, uh, it's permissive that they could bring a baby up to work up to the age of 6 months, um, doesn't mean they have to, it has to go to a director. The director has to decide if it's permissible or not, uh. This should help maybe get more moms that um You know, that's had a baby and, and a state agency, maybe they could come back to work a little bit sooner than what they were
coming, um, they get 12 weeks, I think for uh their Uh paid baby leave. But um this would actually be able to help, uh, maybe recruit and retain some of our state agency workers, um, Again, it's permissive. It is not. I shall, it is definitely a Maybe, uh, depending on the director. All right, Representative Watts explained
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
2:46:23
our bill, are there any questions? Representative Meeks? Uh, thank you, Representative Volt, uh, definitely understand the importance of that early interaction between the, the child and the mother. I, I guess my, my one and only concern would be as you said this has been a pilot and has been been tried um, I, I, I'm wondering, um how having the child there affects the, the mother's worker productivity, um, by her having to attend to the child on a, you
know, regular basis. distractions from the child and then also kind of expanding upon that, uh, you know, if there's a crying baby in the building, then that make it may make it difficult for the workers to, to concentrate on their work as well. So just wondering if you could
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
2:47:10
give us any feedback on that's why it is Morgan with the governor's office has had, they've had great success with it down there. She's up there, she's enjoyed having her baby with her, um, she was gonna testify with me because uh she
wanted to, but we didn't realize it was gonna be this. quick for me to uh turn around and present to y'all, but she was gonna come and testify and explain to y'all how it's been working for her. Of course, again, it's still up to a director if it's, you know, the baby's sick, of course, I'm sure the director would say they would rather not have the baby there. But if most babies don't even really start to get very active until about 56 months. So, uh, you can carry them pretty much in a little pouch like moms do all the time, um, and they're pretty quiet, so.
But I do think that it does teach uh young girls, um, that you can have a job and have a family and you can do both. And I think it is important that the mom and the baby have that interaction, um, at a young age and if they're not, um, you know, at a babysitter so early and was that the pilot program, just that one person in
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
2:48:15
the governor's office. She's the only one for right now, yes.
OK, so it's a very limited pilot program, and I don't know about DHS. I don't know how many.
they have. OK, last question, would this would this force or do we put ourselves
into a position in the future that the agency is going to have to start making um concessions may not be the right word, but putting in, you know, diaper changing stations, uh, things like that that, you know, to accommodate the child that they've not had to
do before. No, sir. The way it's written,
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
2:48:49
but the cost is all up to the mom. Everything is up to the mom or the dad, and I will say this does adoptive
children and foster children. So I, and I did it, husband, wife. I didn't try to do it, uh, for it was limited to just one parent or just biological biological children. Representative Ray, you're recognized.
Representative David Ray
Unverified
2:49:17
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you, Representative, um, for bringing this bill. Uh, I guess my question is just, is. Do
we need a statute for this? I guess my question is, um,
If did we have a statute to allow for the pilot program. We did? OK, so it, I guess, is there anything that would prevent an agency
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
2:49:43
from doing this without the statute? I'm not really sure, uh, because we did do the pilot, it kind of left it
to me to think that we had to put it kind of
Representative David Ray
Unverified
2:49:52
in statute that they could do it. OK, I guess my, my only concern with this is because I could see, I could certainly envision instances where this would work
well. I guess my only concern is that there may be some workplace settings that are not conducive to having a baby in the in the workplace where especially in sort of like a customer service type role where um somebody's having to answer the phone and talk to constituents and there's a crying baby in the background the the only thing that gives me pause on this is, are we creating some sort of an expectation. I know it's up to the manager, but if one let's
say one agency allows for it and then a supervisor in a different agency decides against it. Is that going to create
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
2:50:40
some sort of big fuss. I don't see it creating a fuss
at all. Um I mean that's the world we live in. Some directors like us better than other directors and put more work on us than other directors might would do. I mean, that's just part of life in general to me. Um, I just think it gives them a, an avenue
in which they can, um, maybe work with a mom and allow her to bring her child, and it may not be that, like you said, there'll be times when they're working in a certain spot that it's not conducive to bring a child. And that's why I was trying
to leave it up to that director or that manager. as you say, um, at that agency of that portion of an
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
2:51:29
agency. OK. Thank you. Representative Beatty, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Rep vault,
great bill. I, I see a lot of potential, um, I mean We want state employees at work. Especially good employees at work, uh, they're learning, uh, to deal with the child at that time, uh, most, most kids are babies of that age. They do a couple of things. Uh, they sleep and they eat. And um if that keeps that employee engaged and continues to work. Uh, I think that's very valuable. Daycare, childcare is
an important thing, um, what, what potential problems do you see that this could
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
2:52:11
cause? I don't see any, but you brought up a great point that I did want to bring up and I forgot. Most daycares will not take children under the age of 6 months. So it does keep a lot of our employees from coming back sooner because of the fact that there's not very many people who will take a child that is younger than 6 months. Thank you for reminding me of that, sir.
Representative Meeks, you're recognized. Alright, round 2. Um So
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
2:52:40
I'm kinda, kinda was thinking on what Representative Ray was asking, you know, why, why do we need this if it could already kind of be, be done, and I think I may have an answer for you in the question that I'm about to ask. By allowing this to take place, what liability does the manager and that agency take on by having that, that infant there. So if uh, you know, if a mother, you know, brings a child in
then, you know, God forbid something happens to that child while she's there, does the, the, the, is there anything that says that Mom, you're accepting full responsibility for that child being here and if something happens, you know, you're not going to sue the state, you're not going to sue your
boss Uh, you know, any of that kind of thing we can put that in rule if you'd like that in rule. I
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
2:53:28
can put that. I can make sure that goes to rule, but I think it's the rule in which they stand on right now in the pilot.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
2:53:36
OK, I, I just wanna make sure that rule
or it's in here, it's it's in here somewhere that that that's understood because that while I fully support it, I don't want our managers to feel that if I do this, I'm not going to be responsible if something happens to that child. It'd be just like you taking your child
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
2:53:52
to the grocery. store. You're the one responsible for the child at the grocery store. Representative Mayberry, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
2:54:10
I'm sorry, Representative Von. I just, I, I can't support this and I, I, I guess I just would rather you have something that would allow someone to work from home, um, with their child. I just really feel like the best place for the child is to be home because now you're making that child wake up and get dressed, making the mom get up and get dressed and, and come here already getting up and getting dressed. Well, but allowing the mom. To work remotely during that
time period, I think is um a, a better option and, and I just, I don't think bringing the child to the work at that age is what's best for the baby, and so if there was a remote option in here that would allow maybe even both options, um, if, if, if we could say um that they could bring the child to work or they could work remotely from home, that would give the option
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
2:55:13
that I think personally would be a better option and Would you be willing to allow a remote option. I mean, I don't mind the remote option, not all jobs at state agencies can be done remote. So that would still be up to the manager whether that could be done or not, just so you know, um, because there are jobs within DHS that cannot be done at home. They need to be in the office, um, and I would think that it would be better for that baby to be with the mom in the
office rather than at a babysitters. Um, again, you cannot get somebody to watch a child 6 months and younger. It's just impossible. Uh, to, to make that happen. I don't have a problem with the remote. Again, though, it is still gonna be It's gonna be optional. I mean, there's nothing that I can do that would say you have to do remote. Um, I would think even within the constraints of this, they could do that. Um, but I can, I can for, I mean.
I don't mind putting it in there.
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
2:56:17
OK, I, but I was telling you better of giving the option that that would allow the mom to keep the baby at home with her because you're bringing the child up here. I, I had screaming babies. I had very colicky babies and um that's a disturbance to the other people who are trying to work. And that's
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
2:56:35
why I said it's up to the discretion of the director or the manager of that department, whether it could actually happen or not.
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
2:56:45
No. Anyway, just my thought. Thank you. I know, I know what you're trying to address and, and it is a big one and we, we want to allow our moms to work and, and, and do all that. I just So anyway, I understand. Representative Beck, you're recognized. Of course, the,
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
2:57:06
the words no one likes to hear down there. I love the intent of this and, and, and I really do, I do recognize that that the value of it and all that, but
What's bothering me is like you have a director and this director has a bit of a magic wand here. You get to bring your baby. But Representative Mayberry doesn't. For a good reason. All right. Our Are what you are what the director thinks is a good reason, and now you, you're in court. Because, because Mayberry says, you know, there's no reason I can't bring my child. They let the other person and and without
rules around all of this that you know. and maybe there, maybe there are some of these rules out there somewhere. I mean that this is OK, this is how you select, you know, if the child, you know, and I'm just, I'm just, if the child is disruptive, you know, it's, you know, there's lots of things you could do, but all of those things you, you're just laying, you're throwing that right on that director and that. That could be a problem for them,
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
2:58:16
I think. Well, there are rules around it, um, I have the DHL can reject the DHS rules
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
2:58:23
right here and, and how they go about doing it as the director has guidelines as to how they
can prove it or not approve it, then
I'm all right. Yeah, and to echo Representative Beck's comments and concerns. I mean, you can feel free to address this, and again, I'm not taking the position necessarily one way or the other, but Sets directors up in a pretty bad spot where
If the director in one division allows it and director in another division doesn't allow it, then it's, you know, I have the worst director in the world. They need to be fired. We need somebody else, uh, all because that director. You know, doesn't want to allow this policy that gives me some concern. I can, I can definitely see
this causing an issue, but uh I'd be happy to hear
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
2:59:16
your response. I just, it hasn't caused an issue yet and it's already in a pilot and it We passed it last time, the pilot part of this, so I
couldn't foresee any issues. Because of that, and they're already doing this, they're already participating in this and two of the agencies. So, but now I can if it the committee wants me to, I can pull it down. We can work on it and try to figure out something different. It's just up to y'all. I don't have a really good sense
of what the committee wants other than to leave so I know I was trying to be fast. I was
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
2:59:58
trying. I was trying, you heard me say I was trying to be fast. I knew the pizza was on
everybody's mind, so I was trying to go fast. But with regard to this bill, when we do have at least 1 or 2 more waiting. We've, we've gone this long, we might as well see it through. Uh, so Representative Vaugh, I'm gonna leave it to you as to, you know, if you'd like to pull it down and talk with some members, you're certainly welcome to bring it back. If you'd like to have a vote today, then we'll do that. It makes no difference to me. I want to do what y'all want me
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
3:00:30
to do. So I'm, that's why I'm asking Representative Crawford, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think you can make a good deal better. OK, um, and I really like what. Representative Mayberry has said about the remote. I know it can't work in every state agency, but uh I didn't even think about a colicky baby and all of that and how then
listening to what uh Representative Beck said about, well, you can't bring that colicky baby, but you can bring this nice baby because that baby's quiet and you know how moms
Speaker 326
3:01:10
get? Well, I would think most moms. would understand. So I had a very colicky child and two very quiet children. So I, I totally get that point you know everybody's not the same,
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
3:01:22
right, but uh, I, you know, the rules too would help to see what's going on there. I, I would suggest to pull it and bring it
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
3:01:35
Mr. Chair, with your permission, I'll ask to pull it down and then bring it back. Thank
you. Thank you committee no objection. The bill's been pulled down. All right, next. We're going to move to without objection, Senate bill. 293, Senator Hammer, Representative Brown. Alyssa Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
3:02:04
Committee, I will be very short, um, SB 293 is simply just moving current law about requirements for postings at voting locations to all be in one section of code just to make it easier for election officials uh to make sure they are in compliance with all requirements. So that's all. There's no new language, there's no opposition,
uh, it has full support of the board of Election commissioners. And with that, I'll take any questions.
Speaker 340
3:02:37
Be careful with no opposition in this.
Speaking of that, Representative Collins, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, and now
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
3:02:46
I'm not opposed, but I, I am just trying to catch up on it, um, so you're saying that all of the language is just being moved, moved around. There's no new language in the bill. Is that what you said? So it
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
3:03:01
was amended on the Senate side of one posting and as of right now,
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
3:03:07
from what I see there's no new language. OK, so like on page 3 in the engrossed bill. That whole Area there. Is it where is that being taken from if that's not new, because it is new and that it is. Newly Here, but is it, I mean, where is it coming? Are you saying it's coming from somewhere else in the bill? Can you say it again? You
Speaker 342
3:03:31
said page 3, but I didn't hear after that. 3 lines
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
3:03:38
3 through 27 is all new language, and I guess if you're saying it's
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
3:03:44
from somewhere else, where is that from? We can look at So they quoted the sections of code earlier. Copies under subs. It's a good question, Representative Collins, um, so we have it, we have it, thank you. OK, thank you, Chris, which on page 4, it is, we're striking it
Speaker 343
3:04:09
out on page 4, there's line 2, that's some of the language that we're moving, um, but
if Chris could join me at the table and speak to that. OK. Mr.
Chris Madison
Unverified
3:04:21
Madison, if you introduce yourself, and I know the rules now. My name is Chris Madison. I'm the director for the State Board of Election commissioners, and this is an agency bill. Ask your question, uh, representative. That section there is the current code section that addresses postings in the poll, and if you look back through
where we're striking out language, we're moving it back over there. It may be rewritten in BLR speak, but it's the same things. We're just putting all of the postings that are required in a poll in one statutory structure or one statutory location rather than have it look 3 or 4 or
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
3:04:55
5 or different places. And that sounds good, but I mean, so like if I search this document for electioneering, it has a notice on electioneering. I don't see that anywhere else here in the new language, so if you
Chris Madison
Unverified
3:05:11
electioneering is the concept, it's actually a criminal violation. It's under 71103 18, I think is what it is, and it says, uh, oh sorry, electioneering. I was thinking about crossover voting.lectioneering is defined in that 71. 103 as the, you know, passing out, soliciting, campaigning within the 100 ft or within the polling location. And so the requirement of a notice on electioneering is one of the things that's been out that we have to post, um, in the poll anyway.
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
3:05:42
required to be posted inside the polling site in the exact same way as as what you're saying in this new language. That's correct. And same with crossover voting is a crime in all caps that hold notice there
that's not a new notice, that's an existing notice required
Chris Madison
Unverified
3:05:55
by law. So the crossover voting is a crime, is a is a notice that is prepared and crossover voting is the term that the term of art for it. It's actually defined in the 7110318, what I was thinking of, where it talks about if you vote in the Republican primary for the Pential primary, you can't then
vote in the Democrat in the runoff and so this is just explaining those postings that have to be the poll and what this comes from is from our audit our monitors going out and we've been talking with local officials about putting poster boards up that have the postings on them so they can just set them up and that way it's all right there together. It's trying to streamline this to make it easier for local officials and local poll workers to
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
3:06:34
set up the poll, but that notice in L in subdivision L, that is all, is that already required or not currently required? required. It's already in law
Chris Madison
Unverified
3:06:44
it's through law and through our rule, the, the crossover voting is posted. Through law
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
3:06:47
and through but it is in law. OK. Thanks. Representative Rose,
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
3:07:01
you're recognized. Yes, Mr. Masson, I was just curious if this would impact our abilities to have pizza parties or not. I have no position on pizza parties.
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
3:07:14
Representative Meeks should recognized. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chairman. So I, I just kind of following up on Representative Collins' line of questioning. So, um, we're adding this new language about the crossover voting here, but as I look through the bill, I don't see that we're striking it out from anywhere else, so your testimony was just a few moments ago that this notice is already a requirement in law and so if it's in law somewhere else and we're not striking it.
By passing this, are we going
to have Two places in law that state the same thing.
Chris Madison
Unverified
3:07:50
No, so what I said was is that the crossover voting is a crime as it's defined in 71103, which is the criminal penalties or criminal provisions of election law. What the crossover not notice, the notice is, is done through our rule through the state court. And so this is just saying, hey, if you do this, it's a crime and it's putting it all in one location so we can,
and the plan is, is we, the state board will prepare the packet of materials for uh local officials to basically download the things they need other than their sample ballots and their list of
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
3:08:25
voters locally. OK, so. Synopsis crossover voting this notice, and I don't have a problem with that, so just make sure. So that is actually not current law. It's a rule we are putting it into law. Is that correct? We're taking it from rule, from your rules as you stated, and we're putting it into law. So we're creating new law here. I'm not against that.
I just want to make sure that that's what we're doing or we don't have duplicate statutes that are
Chris Madison
Unverified
3:08:50
competing. I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you the lawyer answer and say sort of. As I said a while ago, the act of crossover voting is a crime, and I get
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
3:08:59
that that the crime is there, but the the posting of that is through our rule, through the rule, so, so
by we're we're moving that out of rule and putting it into law, not the not not the definition or that it is, but that the posting, we're moving that into law. I, I believe that is
Chris Madison
Unverified
3:09:17
correct. I, I haven't looked at this one that closely in a while. It's these are. the intent behind this was to take all the postings that are currently required and put them in one place in a statue. OK, that's what we're doing here, right.
Speaker 365
3:10:45
Mr. Mr. Madison stay up here with me, please? No, of course. OK, colleagues, I know we're tired. I'm gonna try to go really quick, provide that Representative Collins didn't want to ask me a
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
3:10:59
bunch of questions. Uh, no, I only kid, um, House Bill 1693 concerning defective ballots. So, uh, this was brought to me by the state Board of Election commissioners and uh during a recent audit that they do. Uh, they realized that uh they
need to make some rules on how these uh remaking of damaged or defective ballots occurred, and you may ask yourself what is a damaged or defective ballot, right? So we're talking about coffee stains or water stains, smudge, uh, perimeter track marks, uh, on tabulators, folding or creasing absentee ballots, uh, Mr. Madison go into more of those here in just a moment, but uh currently law allows remaking of damaged and defective ballots the law requires. The original ballot and it's duplicate ballot to be
serialized so they are matched up and um that is currently in law now. What we're wanting to do with this bill, uh, is first by allowing a county to announce a number of outstanding remakes as part of the election night reporting to help define for that audit, um, and I'll let Mr. Madison go into more of that here in just a moment. And then number 2, we want the state board to be able to promulgate rules, right? So we, since they're the ones doing auditing and dealing with our elections, we want them to
promulgate those rules and so I'll let Mr. Madison take it
Chris Madison
Unverified
3:12:22
away from here. Madison, Yes, this is a new bill. My name is Chris Madison. I'm the director of
the state Board of Election commissioners is this is a state board sponsored uh this is it actually partnership with the Secretary of State's office and uh I have not specifically spoken with the state board about this, but from an administrative standpoint, we are supportive of this, and here's why, as you know, we do post-election audits while while doing the audits, we have
discovered some remake ballots that are remade improperly and While I'm, I have a board meeting next week where we'll be discussing this specifically. We wanted to go ahead and get in while we have a legislative session going to address these issues, and I spoke with Secretary Jester and he was kind enough to promote running this bill and Representative Hawk took the lead on it. What we discovered is, is some ballots have to be remade. The law requires that they be remade, and that's so that you can run them through the tabulator and
have them as part of your uh results for the tabular results. What's happening is, is you have people doing this on election day or election night because you don't know how many of these you're gonna have until you have them. And so you don't know how to staff up to be able to do 2 or 200 depending on what may happen. So what this is looking to do is to take the current law that requires them to be remade and to be duplicated and serialized that you can identify them. But then allow instead of trying to do it on election day or election night in the hustle
bustle of closing down the polls and everything else, you report to the Secretary of State's office the number that you have, 2 or 200, whatever it is, and then we set a time. place where this is the only thing we're doing. And then we through our rules say these are the specific steps you take to do this and what that does is it provides greater transparency and clarity on the remake of the ballots. It allows poll watchers and candidates to observe the
process. So you would have your reader out, the person who's making the marking, and then you have another set of people that would review that and then you have the opportunity for poll watchers or candidates to review the remade ballot before it's, it's counted. And the whole point of that is to give time and space to do this and do it correctly. These are lawful ballots that are to be counted. These are properly cast ballots and they need to be remade. And this is just creating the time and space to do that, and we have discovered this through our audit process, and this has actually occurred in some of our good counties like the counties that really
know what they're doing. It's not large, it's not many, but one is too many, and so this is trying to create a system by which we can ensure there's time and
space and. Plenty of public notice and opportunity review. And with that, I'm happy to answer
any questions. All right, Representative Hawke has explained the bill. Are there any questions by
the committee? Representative Collins, you are recognized. Sorry, but you know it's important stuff. It would be
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
3:15:21
this committee without a question from, we, we need to take our time with all this stuff, even though it's like, um, OK, so under current law, if it's if it's uh reformed, I don't know what the word
is, duplicated, um. Then it would be a regular vote, not a provisional vote. That's correct. But under this, if it's done at a later time and place, would it be a provisional vote? No, it's
Chris Madison
Unverified
3:15:43
still a regular vote. It's just what we're doing is on election day, we get in your absentee ballots and your canvassing and, and for example,
one of the counties that we audited, they had 200 Yuakaba ballots, and those are sent electronically. Well, those have to be remade so that they can run through a tabulator. That's the way it kind of works out, unfortunately. So they had to remake those on election day, election night, right? And it, you're in all the hustle bustle. So what this does is it allows the county to report the number of remakes they have to do. They have to report it on election night like your provisionals, like your outstanding Yaaas.
Yuakaba is a good ballot. It just has an extra 10 days to come in. So what comes in a canvas get counted. So it's not a provisional, it's just another bucket of that we report on election night and then we set a space the next day or the day after that where we say everybody meet at the courthouse at 10 o'clock, we're gonna remake ballots and you as a candidate or your poll watcher can come up and observe that process to ensure that the ballot is duplicated correctly and that's what this is trying to do. So it's not a provisional ballot. It is a lawful ballot.
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
3:16:53
It is to be counted. OK. Well, so I mean just so I understand, say it's uh David Ray's district and a ballot comes in for him that night, but it's defective, OK? Um. Would that be in the precinct total with that extra ballot be there for David or would it not be? It would not be
Chris Madison
Unverified
3:17:09
that night because it hasn't been run through a tabulator to get the count. So you would have you see how to describe this, you know, in early voting you go and you put it and you get the tabulator, you put your ballot
in the tabulator. Well, election night they run the report off that. Same thing with your election day votes, they run the report off that. You run your absentees. You run it and then you print your results tape on election night. This is a category of ballots that are to be counted, we don't know who they voted for yet because we haven't run them through a tabulator and we need to duplicate them so that we can run them through a tabulator so that we can add them to our totals results and have the accuracy of the equipment, the efficiency of the equipment while having the duplication
process set aside so that it is. Very transparent. So if
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
3:17:56
there are 200 say and we don't, and it's a close race, we might not know some of these until the next day or whenever these are counted. That's a
Chris Madison
Unverified
3:18:04
possibility. Same thing if you have a provisional ballot. I mean if if you have a 2, you know, 2 vote race and you've got 4 provisional ballots, you don't know until you've resolved the provisional
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
3:18:17
ballots. OK, OK, thanks. Representative Meeks, you're recognized. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. So I'm just, can, can you go over what
creates these situations, so I mean, is it like, OK, I've gone to the machine, I've got my ballot, and I'm walking to the tabulator and I accidentally spilled coffee on it. Is that what we're talking about here? Or how do these things come
Chris Madison
Unverified
3:18:36
about? So, so, you've got your in-person voting, which is what you're discussing and can you have a remade ballot from in-person
voting? Yes, it is exceedingly rare because the voters there when they try to run it in the tabulator and it spits it back out. out and said there's something wrong with it, at which point the poll workers say, hey, we'll spoil this ballot. You go fill out another one. OK, so the
voter gets to handle it. This is generally in everything we found in our audits is related to absentees and that's because you're folding them up, you're mailing them out, they're going, God knows where they come back in whatever shape they're in, that may be overmarked or undermarked or have, you know, smiling faces on them. And so this creates the space for them to be able to duplicate that and get the voters, uh, marks
Speaker 372
3:19:18
down. OK, all right, that makes perfect
sense. Thank you. Sure. All right. Any other questions
by the committee? So I have one. In what instance do we have damaged
ballots in this uh in this day and age like what does that look like in practice
Chris Madison
Unverified
3:19:39
every election there's damaged ballots. So, so when you take it, well, let me just
stop you, so you know, do we still have uh hanging chads and pregnant chads. I don't think that we,
I don't think we have those anymore. I can say clearly
Speaker 346
3:19:54
there are no chads. So what, so what
is, what is the issue where we get into damaged ballots, so. A
Chris Madison
Unverified
3:20:03
17-inch absentee ballot has to be folded at some places to be mailed out. Depending on where those fold lines are, or whether it got rained on. Have you ever had your luggage sitting out on the tarmac in the rain. You can have the stuff just gets wet. The post office drops it in the mud hole. It can have the voter themselves can have someone do crayons all over it that causes it to be damaged so that it will not run through the tabulator.
Fair enough. OK, and at the voting centers, this isn't going to be an issue. It's most likely 99% of the time gonna be. Uh, absentee, someone who's like that that
Chris Madison
Unverified
3:20:40
is absolutely correct and, and the ones we've discovered with in my bigger counties are related to the Yuakaba ones where they're sent electronically and they have to be remade
Speaker 346
3:20:49
because they're not on the ballot format because Yava allows it to be transmitted electronically keep using this term, you. What is that? I'm
Chris Madison
Unverified
3:20:56
sorry, it's the uniformed Citizens Overseas Absentee Voting Act.
It's military and citizens living abroad. OK, and they send
Chris Madison
Unverified
3:21:04
theirs electronically. They have the ability to send theirs
electronically, yes. I didn't think we did any electronic voting anymore. It's not electronic voting. They receive their ballot electronically. It's federal law. It's for military person
that's deployed out of the county or out of the country. It's a citizen who's living out of the territorial lands of the country. It's federal law that allows it and it's run through the Secretary of State's office. I learned something new all the time. Thank you very much.
All right, any other questions by the committee? Seeing none. We have no one sign to speak for against the bill, Representative Hawke, you recognized a
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
3:21:39
close for your bill. Committee members, this is a security and transparency bill for our elections, and with that, I would say uh I make a motion to pass. Representative Hawks
made a motion to pass. Is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing no discussion on the motion, all those in favor say aye. All those opposed.
I have it. Congratulations, you passed your bill. Representative Hawk, you have House Bill
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
3:22:05
1694. It's not me. Thank you, Mr. Chair. RJ Hawk, District 81. If I, Mr. Chair, if you don't mind, if I could have Secretary of State's office
Speaker 310
3:22:15
join me at the table. Of course. Just for any questions that might arise. Always good
Speaker 376
3:22:25
to see Ms. Bellamy. I put up with. Especially
Speaker 378
3:22:32
I'm sure y'all are sick of me by the end of this session. I'm Leslie Bellamy, director of elections
for the Arkansas Secretary of State's office, you recognized. Thank you,
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
3:22:42
Mr. Chair. Colleagues, this is a I hope I would think a very simple bill. Um, so right now, um, we all file our, our election reports, uh, you can go online to the disclosure page, the portal on the Secretary of State's website. There are currently 5 legislators in all of state government.
And really 5 state officials that don't file electronically, they file with paper. After this cycle, there will only be 3 that are left of those 31 of them is a freshman who didn't know he could file on online, so we will have 2 that file via paper. Uh, I've spoken with both of these gentlemen, and they are fine with this bill. Um, that being said, what this bill's doing is it's basically not allowing for paper anymore. at our Secretary of State's office. At the end of the day,
paper gets piled up over on the side. We've got people that are running these papers, uh, it's just not a necessity. We live in the 21st century and everything is done digitally now, and there's no sense in this now if let's say we get a new legislator that rolls in and wants to go back to filing paper. He or she then can Write it on a piece of paper and there's kiosks set up in the election offices downstairs that they can go over there and they can take their paper and scan it
into the device without having to use staff that's paid for by the state, uh,
to be able to do that. And so with that I will take any
questions. All right, Representative Hawkes explained the bill. Are there any questions? Representative Collins, you're recognized. Thank you, Mr.
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
3:24:22
Chair. So obviously this doesn't just apply to state representatives um who does it apply to? Is it all
Speaker 157
3:24:28
candidates, districts, state, county, city, right now it's just state officials because that's who files with
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
3:24:33
the Secretary of State. Now, I will have potentially a bill
coming that would involve everybody in the state, but for right now, what this is doing, this applies to um anybody that in state office holders, uh, in district,
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
3:24:47
right? Is that district, yes sir, yes. OK, thank you. Any other questions by the committee? Seeing no further
questions by the committee, we have no one sign to speak for against the bill. Representative Hawke, you're a close for your bill. I am closed. I make a motion to pass. Hawke is closed for his bill. Is there any discussion on the motion? Representative Ray,
Representative David Ray
Unverified
3:25:09
you recognized. I think this is a good bill. I just want to state that I'm disappointed that Representative Hawk
Speaker 136
3:25:19
didn't out those people that are still filing
papers. Ah I, I'm closed for a bill. Representative Hawke has closed for his bill, made a motion to pass, uh,
yes sir, yeah, and any more discussion on the motion, seeing none, all those in favor say aye aye, all those opposed.
Yeah, I have it. Congratulations, you passed your bill. Thank you committee. Last bill we have Senate Bill 304, that's Senator McKee, Representative Beatty.
Representative David Ray
Unverified
3:26:19
Point of information for the chair. Let's hear your point of information. So I'm just curious, the, the bills that we've been hearing, are these gonna be on the floor tomorrow or is there some
sort of cut off that My, my recollection is, is that there's a cutoff if it passes after, and I don't remember what the time is 5 p.m. or something like that. That uh they're not heard the next day on the floor. Now that's my recollection. I could be wrong. OK, I was just curious we'll double check. Right. you know
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
3:27:00
All right, uh, Representative Beatty. Representative Howard Beatty District 95 appear to present Senate Bill 304 and basically it's built to allow a class of registered voters to have changed their county of residence to cast a valid ballot and to amend provisions of the Arkansas Constitutional Amendment 51, uh, basically what Senate Bill 304 will do with,
with advancements in technology, now our county clerks no longer need a deadline of 4 days before the polls close in order to verify. ify a voter's change of address. This bill says that the county clerk receives the updated voter information before the polls close, the voter can cast their ballot. This would include verification that the voter has not previously voted in the same election, uh, county clerks, secretary of state have all reviewed the field and are
supportive. There's no known opposition to the bill, and, and I've had several members at the last election, not several members. Several constituents during the last um uh election that had changed, um, uh, changed their, their residence and then they show up for, for voting, they couldn't vote and those were issues. This will expedite, clear up the process and allow
our folks to vote. So with that, I'll entertain any questions. Representative Beatty's
explained this bill. Are there any questions
by the committee? So I have a question. Uh, it says, um, updated registration information is actually received in the office of the county clerk. The voters' new county. Before the polls close for a scheduled election. So we're only dealing with the situations where we're talking about someone's move to a new county, not the, not just a new residence, correct, correct. OK,
because I am aware, you know, people move precincts,
yeah, their voter registration is not updated. They're standing in line. The polls have closed. I don't know exactly when, how you define when the polls close, but the polls have closed, they're standing in line. They've got something that's not been their address has not been changed
yet. And then they find out that they can't vote. How, how does that? Work with your bill.
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
3:29:19
This bill I think does not affect that at all. This only would deal with uh folks that
move counties and would allow them to vote in the new county wants that information's been verified that they haven't previously voted
in the election. So it would prohibit someone from voting if they moved to a new county
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
3:29:41
and haven't updated that before the polls close. Without this, without this, um, Bill becoming law and they move counties,
they would not be allowed to vote and I, I think in either county they probably would be turned away at the former county where they had registered, uh, registration
because they're no longer a resident of the county. They have effectively moved and haven't changed that, so they're, they're not allowed to vote at all. So this, this solves that problem. Probably be easy enough to also run a bill that would change and address the issue that you just brought
up, uh, folks in, in county with the technology we have. that would be a good and much needed bill as well. All right,
very good. Any other questions by the committee? Seeing no further questions by the committee, we have no one sign to speak for or against the bill. Representative Beatty, you recognized a close for your
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
3:30:27
bill. Well, I've got about a 3-page closing down here, uh, but
we, we've been in here all day and I appreciate the patience of the committee, uh, I would offer a motion do pass and would appreciate a good
vote. Representative Beatty's move to pass. Is there any discussion on the motion? No discussion on the motion. All those in favor say aye, aye. All those opposed, yeah have it, congratulations, Representative Beatty, you've passed your bill, and with that we have concluded our agenda for the day. Thank you all very much for sticking around. Great job.
Unknown speaker
3:30:59
See you next time this meeting's adjourned.
Agenda
REGULAR AGENDA
HB1574 Vaught TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PAID CANVASSERS; AND TO REQUIRE DOMICILE IN ARKANSAS.
HB1604 McAlindon TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PROHIBITED CONTRACTS BY STATE AGENCIES; AND TO PROHIBIT THE USE OF PUBLIC FUNDS BY STATE AGENCIES TO PURCHASE PROMOTIONAL ITEMS MADE IN CHINA.
HB1621 Wardlaw TO AMEND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967; AND TO EXEMPT PERSONAL INFORMATION OF ELECTED CONSTITUTIONAL OFFICERS, JUDICIAL OFFICIALS, ELECTED COUNTY OFFICIALS, AND THEIR IMMEDIATE FAMILY.
HB1631 Wardlaw TO ADDRESS THE ISSUANCE OF HUNTING AND FISHING LICENSES TO FOREIGN EXCHANGE STUDENTS.
HB1632 Wardlaw TO REQUIRE REIMBURSEMENT TO THE ARKANSAS STATE GAME AND FISH COMMISSION FOR FREE OR DISCOUNTED HUNTING AND FISHING LICENSES.
HB1637 Ray CONCERNING THE DEVELOPMENT AND PRESENTATION OF FISCAL IMPACT STATEMENTS CONCERNING THE FISCAL IMPACT OF STATEWIDE INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM MEASURES AND LEGISLATIVELY REFERRED CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS.
HB1690 Pilkington TO TRANSFER THE NUCLEAR PLANNING AND RESPONSE PROGRAM FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH TO THE DIVISION OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY.
HB1693 Hawk TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING DAMAGED OR DEFECTIVE BALLOTS; AND TO ALLOW THE STATE BOARD OF ELECTION COMMISSIONERS TO PROMULGATE RULES REGARDING THE DUPLICATION OF DAMAGED OR DEFECTIVE BALLOTS.
HB1694 Hawk TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ALTERNATIVES TO ELECTRONIC FILING FOR CAMPAIGN FINANCE REPORTS.
HB1706 McCollum TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ELECTIONS; AND TO PROHIBIT RANKED CHOICE VOTING.
HB1707 Hawk TO REQUIRE CERTAIN CANDIDATES TO FILE REPORTS WITH THE SECRETARY OF STATE; TO AMEND PORTIONS OF INITIATED ACT 1 OF 1996; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY.
HB1422 Long TO CREATE THE ONLY CITIZENS VOTE ACT; TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE DRIVER'S LICENSES AND IDENTIFICATION CARDS OF CERTAIN NONCITIZENS; AND TO AMEND ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 51, SECTION 13.
HB1549 R. Scott Richardson TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS CYBERSECURITY ACT OF 2025.
HB1352 Beaty Jr. TO AMEND VARIOUS LAWS CONCERNING ACTIONS RELATED TO CERTAIN FOREIGN ENTITIES.
HB1713 Rose TO REQUIRE BALLOT TITLES FOR INITIATED MEASURES TO BE AT OR UNDER A CERTAIN READING LEVEL; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY
HB1714 Rose TO AMEND THE DEFINITION OF PAID CANVASSER.
HB1720 Vaught TO CREATE THE BABIES AT WORK ACT; TO ALLOW STATE AGENCIES TO PERMIT PUBLIC EMPLOYEES WHO ARE PARENTS OR LEGAL GUARDIANS TO BRING THEIR INFANTS SIX MONTHS OR YOUNGER TO WORK.
HB1069 S. Meeks TO OBSERVE STANDARD TIME YEAR ROUND IN ARKANSAS; AND TO ELIMINATE DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME IN ARKANSAS.
SENATE BILLS
SB304 M. McKee TO ALLOW A CLASS OF REGISTERED VOTERS THAT HAVE CHANGED THEIR COUNTY OF RESIDENCE TO CAST A VALID BALLOT; AND TO AMEND PROVISIONS OF ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 51.,khkh, khkjhk
SB293 K. Hammer TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE REQUIRED POSTINGS AT A POLLING SITE; AND TO AMEND THE LIST CONCERNING REQUIRED POSTING OF NOTICES, INFORMATION, AND MATERIAL AT A POLLING SITE ON ELECTION DAY.
SB344 Irvin TO TRANSFER THE HEALTHY EMPLOYEE LIFESTYLE PROGRAM FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH TO THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSFORMATION AND SHARED SERVICES; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE HEALTHY LIFESTYLE PROGRAM.
SB351 J. Dismang TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ETHICS AND CAMPAIGN FINANCE; TO AMEND PORTIONS OF INITIATED ACT 1 OF 1990; AND TO AMEND PORTIONS OF INITIATED ACT 1 OF 1996.
SB370 Irvin TO TRANSFER THE ARKANSAS WINE PRODUCERS COUNCIL FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE TO THE DEPARTMENT OF PARKS, HERITAGE, AND TOURISM; AND TO DECLARE AN EMERGENCY.
SB299 K. Hammer TO REQUIRE A STAFF MEMBER TO WITNESS AN ADMINISTRATOR ASSISTING A RESIDENT OF A LONG-TERM RESIDENTIAL CARE FACILITY WITH ABSENTEE VOTING.
SB343 Irvin TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING STATE-OWNED MOTOR VEHICLES; TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PUBLIC PROPERTY; AND TO AMEND THE AUTOMOBILE AND PICKUP TRUCK ACQUISITION ACT FOR THE STATE OF ARKANSAS.
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS
HJR1001 A. Collins A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO CREATE THE CITIZENS' REDISTRICTING COMMISSION AND TO REPEAL THE BOARD OF APPORTIONMENT.
HJR1002 J. Richardson AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO REPEAL THE EXCEPTION TO THE PROHIBITION OF SLAVERY AND INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE.
HJR1003 A. Collins THE ARKANSAS GOVERNMENT DISCLOSURE AMENDMENT.
HJR1005 Long AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS TAXPAYER BILL OF RIGHTS.
HJR1006 B. McKenzie AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION PROVIDING THAT A GOVERNMENTAL BODY SHALL NOT USE STATE OR LOCAL FUNDS TO ENTER INTO A CONTRACT WITH A LOBBYIST FOR LOBBYING PURPOSES.
HJR1007 Cavenaugh A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO CREATE A PROCEDURE FOR THE RECALL OF CERTAIN ELECTED OFFICIALS.
HJR1008 S. Meeks AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION CONCERNING THE TAXATION OF PERSONAL PROPERTY AND REAL PROPERTY IN THE STATE OF ARKANSAS.
HJR1009 K. Brown AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO BE KNOWN AS THE ARKANSAS VICTIMS' BILL OF RIGHTS; AND TO PROVIDE RIGHTS FOR VICTIMS OF MISDEMEANOR AND FELONY OFFENSES, INCLUDING VICTIMS IN THE ADULT AND JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEMS.
HJR1010 Unger A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO PROVIDE THAT BY A TWO-THIRDS VOTE, THE SENATE MAY REMOVE MEMBERS OF CERTAIN BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS FOR CAUSE ONLY, AFTER NOTICE AND HEARING.
HJR1011 S. Meeks A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING THE CONSIDERATION OF BILLS OTHER THAN APPROPRIATION BILLS DURING A FISCAL SESSION OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.
HJR1012 R. Scott Richardson AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO REPEAL PROVISIONS CONCERNING THE REAPPRAISAL AND REASSESSMENT OF REAL PROPERTY; AND TO AMEND ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 79, CONCERNING REAL PROPERTY TAXES.
HJR1013 Pilkington A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO PROVIDE THAT CERTAIN VACANCIES SHALL BE FILLED BY APPOINTMENT BY THE GOVERNOR.
HJR1014 Beaty Jr. A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT CONCERNING ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE STATE OF ARKANSAS; AND AUTHORIZING THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY TO PROVIDE FOR THE CREATION OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DISTRICTS TO PROMOTE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.
HJR1015 Lundstrum A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO ENSURE TRANSPARENCY BY REQUIRING A JUDICIAL CANDIDATE TO DECLARE HIS OR HER POLITICAL PARTY AFFILIATION OR INDEPENDENT STATUS WHEN RUNNING FOR OFFICE.
HJR1016 Ray A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO REPEAL THE PROVISION OF ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, ARTICLE 5, § 1, ALLOWING THE SPONSOR OF AN INITIATIVE OR REFERENDUM PETITION TO CORRECT OR AMEND A PETITION.
HJR1017 Ray A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROVIDING THAT A PROPOSED STATE-WIDE INITIATED ACT OR CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT SHALL BECOME A LAW WHEN APPROVED BY A MAJORITY OF THE VOTES CAST IN THE ELECTION AND A MAJORITY OF THE COUNTIES OF THE STATE.
HJR1018 Ray THE CITIZENS ONLY VOTING AMENDMENT.
HJR1019 S. Meeks AN AMENDMENT TO THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO REMOVE REFERENCES TO GREYHOUND RACING FROM ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION, AMENDMENT 100.
HJR1020 K. Brown A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT TO BE KNOWN AS THE VICTIM’S BILL OF RIGHTS; AND TO PROVIDE RIGHTS FOR VICTIMS OF VIOLENT AND SEXUAL CRIMINAL OFFENSES.
HJR1004 Ladyman APPLYING TO THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS FOR AN ARTICLE V CONVENTION OF THE STATES FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION TO IMPOSE TERM LIMITS OF MEMBERS FOR THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS.
HB1243 Underwood TO INCREASE TRANSPARENCY REGARDING CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS AND EXPENDITURES; TO AMEND CAMPAIGN FINANCE REPORTING AND PROTECT ELECTION INTEGRITY; AND TO AMEND PORTIONS OF INITIATED ACT 1 OF 1996.
HB1281 McAlindon TO AMEND REPORTING FOR A CANDIDATE FOR CERTAIN MUNICIPAL OFFICES AND FOR COUNTY OFFICE; AND TO AMEND PORTIONS OF THE ARKANSAS CODE THAT RESULTED FROM INITIATED ACT 1 OF 1996.
HB1415 L. Johnson TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE DUTIES OF THE STATE FIRE MARSHAL; AND TO ALLOW THE STATE FIRE MARSHAL TO REQUEST AN INQUIRY BY THE DIVISION OF ARKANSAS STATE POLICE FOR ARSON.
HB1494 Hawk TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS GUIDANCE OUT OF THE DARKNESS ACT; AND TO REQUIRE STATE AGENCIES TO PUBLISH FEDERAL GUIDANCE DOCUMENTS ONLINE.
HB1459 L. Johnson CONCERNING RECURRING REPORTS SUBMITTED TO THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.
HB1461 L. Johnson TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE EVALUATION OF NECESSITY OF VARIOUS COMMISSIONS AND BOARDS.
HB1470 Beaty Jr. TO REPEAL THE LAW CONCERNING THE REVIEW OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PLANS.
SB184 D. Sullivan TO TRANSFER THE POWERS AND DUTIES OF THE ARKANSAS EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION COMMISSION AND THE STATE LIBRARY BOARD TO THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION.
HB1683 McAlindon TO PROHIBIT THE PROCUREMENT BY A GOVERNMENTAL ENTITY OF AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE OR A COMPONENT OF AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE THAT WAS MANUFACTURED IN WHOLE OR IN PART USING FORCED LABOR.
HB1667 Bentley TO AMEND THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING PUBLIC MEETINGS UNDER THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT OF 1967.
Documents
| Title | Type | Pages | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agenda — STATE AGENCIES & GOVT'L AFFAIRS- HOUSE, Mar 12, 2025 | Agenda | 5 | Official source ↗ |
Speakers
Representative Aaron Pilkington
Unverified
Representative Jimmy Gazaway Chair
Unverified
Representative Mindy McAlindon
Unverified
Representative DeAnn Vaught
Unverified
Speaker 31
Speaker 35
Jp Tribble
Unverified
Representative Andrew Collins
Unverified
Representative David Ray
Unverified
Representative Nicole Clowney
Unverified
Speaker 79
Speaker 58
Gail Choate
Unverified
Speaker 108
Representative Stephen Meeks
Unverified
Representative Howard M. Beaty, Jr.
Unverified
Representative Ryan A. Rose
Unverified
Representative Denise Jones Ennett
Unverified
Speaker 187
Jerry Cox
Unverified
Speaker 189
Representative Julie Mayberry
Unverified
Speaker 232
Speaker 246
Representative Rick Beck
Unverified
Chair
Unverified
Representative Cindy Crawford
Unverified
Speaker 295
Representative RJ Hawk
Unverified
Speaker 326
Speaker 320
Speaker 340
Speaker 342
Speaker 343
Chris Madison
Unverified
Speaker 351
Speaker 365
Speaker 372
Speaker 346
Speaker 310
Speaker 376
Speaker 378
Speaker 157
Speaker 136
Speaker 385