Judiciary Committee - Senate

strive for it, so it's good to be back on the judiciary. Good to have Central Clark back in the chair and look forward to serving. Thank you. Center Ds, would you like to add anything else? Uh, Senator Tyler Deeds from Silent Springs, Arkansas, and family of 3 kids and, and was a joy to have our family here for the swearing in to remind us a little bit back about home and why we're serving and the good people we get to represent so an honor to get to represent Northwest Arkansas on this committee in honor to get to serve next to you, Senator Clark, as your chair this group, so excited to serve with all of y'all. Senator Alan Clark, I'm from the suburbs of the big city of Lonsdale, uh, which means I live out in the woods, and that's approximately halfway between Benton and Hot Springs, just so you'll know where it is. I represent Eastern Garland County South and West Slane County, northern Grant County, and almost all of Hot Spring County. The and I'll look forward to working with this committee. I think Senator Dees is about the only new one to the committee. Look forward to working with him, and as we have demonstrated in the past we will be dedicated to getting the people's work done, and I say that because one of my biggest frustrations coming to the judiciary when I was not on it years ago, uh, was not being able to get my bills run before the end of the end of the session and trying to sign them out at the end. with no testimony and trying to get them passed at the very end and so we will work diligently to see that that doesn't happen, that we get everything wrong. The, uh, Maybe everybody wants to know who their centers are, but maybe more important, uh, other people don't realize it if they don't work with them, but without our staff we wouldn't get anything done. They, if we, if we look competent, it's because of them. If we don't look confident, it's in spite of the fact that they tried to make us look so, but our staff is committee analyst Colby Little. It's my first time to work with him, uh. Committee Assistant Emily Jamison First time to work with Emily too, I think, uh, and so y'all are in for an experience, uh, and a Caitlyn Bennett, committee attorney. Is she here today? Oh, OK. Uh, and so next on the agenda is to review and adopt the Senate committee rules. You all should have a copy of them. Uh, the only thing that I know of that is different here. Normally we have to change it, but this time number 3, it's written in. I say written in, it's already there for us. It says all amendments to bills must be in writing, verbal amendments are not permitted, which is where it stops in most committees. Our says minor technical verbal amendments are allowed, and that has worked very well for us. Is there any changes or would somebody like to make a motion to approve the rules. Motion 2nd from Senator McKee, any discussion? All for the motion signified by saying aye, all opposed? Motion carried. We have our rules. I hope, again, none of y'all are freshmen, so I hope you had had time to review them and didn't have anything you wanted to discuss. Uh The staff wants me to tell you, please leave your folders in the room after each meeting. I think we all know that, but they a good reminder. Uh We are scheduled to meet on Wednesdays at 10 a.m. in room 171, uh, and we will do that unless we get behind. If we get behind Monday's after. Of Upon adjournment of the Senate if there's not other conflicts, would be the the other they've got a schedule for Friday and I'm assuming y'all prefer Mondays after Senate adjourns to Friday's. I, I see some nodding, OK, so, so Mondays will be good. Um, and Thanks for your, your clarity there, Senator Johnson, uh. So we may want to go ahead and get that set up for Monday just so it's, uh, everybody's used to it being there, and otherwise somebody that doesn't agree with a vote will be crying surprise, uh. We have not all, not everybody, I think that That will be with us throughout the, uh, session, but we have a number of folks here today, uh, that represent various agencies, organizations, and associations would some of you or all of you briefly like the come to the table and introduce yourselves, so we're familiar in the other folks are familiar. I'll start with the prosecutors association because I know they're always ready. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm, I'm Bob McMahon, the prosecutor coordinator, represent both my office, which is the prosecutor coordinator's office. We're a state agency and also represent the Arkansas prosecuting attorneys Association, so you'll see me or a member of my staff or various elected prosecuting attorneys will be here just about every day. My name's Daniel Sho. I'm the elected prosecuting attorney for Sebastian County, the 12th Judicial District. I have served as legislative chairman for the past 5 legislative sessions. I'm also president of the Arkansas prosecuting Attorneys Association this year and look forward to working with the committee in any fashion that you'd like. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I'm Will Jones. I'm the prosecuting attorney for the 6th Judicial District, which is Pulaski and Perry County. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I'm Laurie Camuris. I'm the deputy prosecutor coordinator. I will always be here long. We have a couple other staff attorneys we may bring with us depending on what the issue is, but if, if you can't find Bob and you need some questions answered, I should one of the two of us will always be around. All right, thank you. Thank you for being here. It seems like the next logical place to go is the public defender's office, Greg, you want to introduce yourself. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Greg Parrish with the Arkansas Public Defender Commission. I will be here fortunately, unfortunately you will also know many of you know Jeff Rosensweig. He just had to walk out, but he'll be here also. He had a court appearance in Hot Springs he had to go to. I will have other people here with me as well, Tina Lee, David Rap, or Charlotte Bogan, possibly Brent Gasper as well, who departed BLR, and I was fortunate enough to catch him. Thank you. We pull fast one so has anybody got any questions for Greg? Thank you for being here. Who would like introduce themselves next. Or the group. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members, I'm Scott Bradley, I'm the director of the Arkansas Sheriff's Association. Uh, I think I've worked with most of you already, uh, I'm available. I hope you have my, my cell number. If not, I got my cards in my pocket. I make myself available to you if you have something you want the sheriffs to see or know, I'll be glad to disperse that to them. Thank you for letting us be here. Morning, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I'm Mark Whitmore. I'm with the Association of Arkansas Counties. I've got with me here today, Taylor Hanford. Nearly me an attorney that's joined the association. We've got other people that assist that liaison, of course we handle all the different county officials. Uh, we assist with the sheriffs, the county judges, the justice of the peace, the circuit clerks, the county clerks, the assessors, collectors, treasurers, and corners and so many of you know Josh Curtis handles the collectors, uh, Lindsay Bailey handles the assessors. They tag team a lot, Josh does the circuit clerks, Lindsay does the county clerks, uh, but if you can just get a hold of any of us, we'll make sure we have the right person. and of course I want to make an observation. Uh, lots of views senators get questions from your constituents or other things about county government and almost all of y'all have contacted us about something to do with county government, how it operates, of course, ask us anything, we'll get back with you and help you on that constituent questions as well. That's about it. All right, thank y'all. Right. See if I can get the door. Uh, Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting us to be here. My name is Jerry Cox. Um, I'm director of family counsel, and we've enjoyed working with all of you and many others. With me today is Luke McCoy, and most of you know Luke quite well. The rest of our team is Aaron Hogan and Shari Dean, and you may see them out here later on today. In fact, they are in some other committees, but again, we've always enjoyed working with your committee and uh look forward to doing the same this. Look Good Morning. Welcome to be here. Let me know if I can help you in any way. Thank you all for being here. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. My name's Joseph Luebke. I'm an assistant attorney general in the criminal division of the Attorney General's office. I'm on the legislative team for our office. I will be in the committee along with my colleague. Hi, I'm Brooke Asaway. I'm also in the criminal division, and either myself or Joe or maybe Alex Benton will be here at every committee meeting. Thank you, thank you, uh, Attorney General's office for being here. members Richard Richard, your mic's not on. I'm sorry, Richard Bearden, good morning, representing the Arkansas Judicial Council. I was looking around. I don't see the staff from the administrative office of the court must be a quiet day over there today. So, uh, we'll be here representing the judges. Look forward to working with you, uh, and we've got a new staff member. We've got one to introduce himself as well. Thank you. Sanders also helping with Richard and the judicial council. So nice to meet you guys. Happy to be here. And your name again? Noah Sanders. Thank you all right, thank y'all. Yeah, talk to AOC out in the hallway. Huh OK. Good morning. I'm Trent Minner with the government relations firm GC Advisors, and we'll be representing the bar association in this session. Very good. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members. My name's Josh Stewart. I represent the governor's office. You'll be with me all session, so I look forward to it. Good to have you here, Josh. Have we missed anyone? You'll know me. I'm Paul Calvert. I'm kind of wear two hats down here. I'm part of the Dave Ellswick show, and he'll be broadcasting live and then I also will probably be in this committee quite a bit watching and advocating for a few things. And I've got my wife Sarah with me here this year to tag along and keep me alive. Thank you, Paul. Thank you. Hi, I'm Jodi Ered. I'm the executive vice president of the Arkansas Hospital Association. I also am an attorney, so you'll see me in this committee when things impact hospitals and the healthcare delivery system when you need me. So glad to have you. Thank you. Thank you, Jodi. Hi, good morning. My name is Melissa Weatherton. Um, I am over a portion of Medicaid for DHS. I'm a lawyer. So, um, they asked me to stop by. We're going to have a 4 person DHS team in the committee, we'll be tagging in and out that are all lawyers in case anything comes up or any question regarding DHS that you need answered, so I'm happy to be here and look forward to a session with you guys. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. I'm Ben Beaumont with the University of Arkansas System, and I'll be in the committee some and dealing with issues involving higher education and look forward to getting to know each of you. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Good morning, Mr. Chair and committee members Kristen Harper. I'm the policy director with Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. We may not be here as soon as some of the others in the room, but either myself, our executive director Kesa Smith Brantly, our governmental affairs director of Valhara will be here from time to time, and I look forward to working with everyone. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Is that everyone? Let me tell all of you, and I know I speak for each member of the committee how much we appreciate the time you spend with us, the longer you're here, the more you appreciate that and your expert testimony, even when it's horribly wrong. That's when you testify adversely against my bill but we really do appreciate you and the information and sometimes when we horribly disagree with you, we learn a lot. We discuss that sometimes in back rooms. How much how valuable it was that even though we take different sides, what you had to say was very informative and even though it may not have seemed to affect our vote, it caused us to consider our vote a great deal, so So again, thank you all for being here and uh and thank you for introducing yourselves. We've got one more order of business unless I have missed something, Colby. Uh, and, and we will need to determine. They asked me and I said, I'm going to ask them. We need to determine when our committee photograph will be taken by the Secretary of State. Photographer, I'm gonna Say that next Wednesday probably would be. Good time. It's like hopefully we'll uh tell the missing members and y'all try to remember because I'll probably remember when I get here, so. Uh, is that good then? Uh, 10 o'clock we'll be meeting at 10, I assume 10 o'clock a week from today. Any other business? See none. Thank you for serving, and we are adjourned.