The bill was sponsored by Rep. Buddy Lovell, Democrat of Marked Tree, in an effort to save the Weiner district. The state forces consolidation of any district that has attendance of less than 350 for two consecutive years, but it only counts attendance during the first three quarters of the year. Rep. Lovell wants the fourth quarter counted as well; Weiner’s population increases during that period due to temporary agricultural employment, and including the fourth quarter might have stalled imminent consolidation of the district. Supporters testified that closing the district will turn Weiner into a ghost town.

Rep. Lovell fought hard for the bill, and even went so far as to hold up the statewide education budget for several days. But the Governor and the Attorney General remained staunchly opposed to tinkering with the attendance formula, which was established after a long court fight over school funding.

Homeschool advocates fared little better this morning, as the committee declined to approve the so-called Tim Tebow bill, Sen. Gilbert Baker’s effort to allow homeschooled children to participate in extracurricular activities and competitive sports teams run by their local districts.

The committee seemed open to Sen. Baker’s proposal, but it was introduced too late in the session for passage by the full legislature. A voice vote did not garner enough ayes. The bill was sent to interim study.

Some committee members wondered if the bill’s academic standards were too low. Public school students must maintain a certain GPA to participate in activites; homeschoolers would have to achieve above the 35th percentile on a standardized test.

Despite its name, the NSLA is used to pay for several specifically approved programs, including after-school activities, tutoring and salary increases for teachers. The NSLA fund is one of several so-called categorical education funds, which the state earmarks for express purposes.

There has been some dispute over whether NSLA funds should be spent on teacher salaries and bonuses. It was suggested today that districts were saving the funds to pay for bonuses at a later date.

Rep. David Rainey, who sponsored the bill in the House, said there needs to be greater Department of Education supervision of the amount districts carry over. The bill would require the Department to establish rules determining when a district could keep an excess of the money. Rep. Rainey said those rules should not let a district exceed the 20 percent limit unless it shows an improvement in student performance.

Rep. Rainey argued that the NSLA money was not being used properly. “From my perspective, it’s unacceptable for these districts to receive the money and not spend it on its intended purpose,” he told the committee.

According to Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, which testified for the bill, 15 districts carried over more than 60 percent of their NSLA funding in the 2007-2008 school year.

Ron Harder of the Arkansas School Boards Association spoke against the bill.  He argued that the amount of money being carried over has flattened in recent years. He also said that a district the Education Department found to be in breach of the 20-percent threshold would be put in a budget bind due to the likely timing of such a ruling.

The bill, which failed on a voice vote, suffered due to its breadth. Though misuse of NSLA funding was the main issue, the bill would require the 20 percent cap for all categorical funds, a provision to which Harder objected. Though the sponsors were willing to tighten the bill’s scope, there is not enough time left in the session for an amendment.

Here’s a breakdown of the bad breaks:

-An exemption for single-parents who have two or more dependents and make less than $17,200 a year. The best of the tax bills, the sponsors said it corrected an oversight from previous sessions. Sort of baffling this one didn’t get through considering how much support it had. Revenue loss was said to be $3.6 million.

-A credit for someone who sells a motor home to the person who is renting the motor home. Supporters of this one said it would encourage home ownership. We know what sort of trouble that attitude has gotten the country into recently. Besides which, living in a trailer isn’t exactly what I’d call the American Dream.

-A back-to-school sales-tax holiday. $1.6 million revenue loss was too much for DFA. This one inspired a lecture from Sen. Denny Altes on the Laffer Curve.

-A tax credit for the development of central business improvement districts. Rep. Tracy Pennartz, the sponsor, said the credit would pay off five-t0-one, though she did not say where her numbers came from. This bill was long in development and had a certain amount of support. But, though Rep. Pennartz offered a last-minute amendment that would eliminate the credit if funding couldn’t be found outside general revenues, DFA objected. It said the credit would create an expectation from business districts that the state might not be able to meet. Still, the bill got a sympathetic hearing and will go to interim study.

A capital-gains tax exemption. Sponsor Rep. Ed Garner and DFA sparred over how much the impact would be, but it looks to be huge. Garner said the break was necessary to enlarge the economy; DFA said it would help mainly individuals, not businesses, and take $42.8 million from the state in 2011. Seems to me that exempting people from stock and real estate profits isn’t the best economic catalyst.

Lawmakers rushed to pass bills through committee as the session approached its final week. A Senate committee rejected a bill that would restrict the sale of toy guns in Arkansas. The bill is named after a child who was shot by police in 2007 while reportedly carrying a toy gun. Lawyers for the child’s family have said the bill title hurts their case, since they are arguing that the child was not actually carrying a toy gun when he was shot. Another Senate committee oversaw a compromise between weapons groups and FOI advocates that will allow open access to the names and zip codes of concealed-carry holders. A House committee rejected two energy efficiency bills in the face of opposition from energy companies. Another House committee told acupuncturists they cannot call themselves doctors.

The Senate asked voters to decide, in 2010, whether the people of Arkansas should have a constitutional right to hunt and fish. The Senate said immigrant children who have had three years at an Arkansas high school cannot go to college at in-state rates if they do not have proper documentation. The House rejected a resolution informing the federal government that Arkansas has states’ rights.

The House passed a bill to ban lobbyists from giving lawmakers their credit cards to pay for stuff, but only after House Republicans used a procedural move to delay the measure. Members of the House Rules Committee were forced to rehear the bill on the spot after Rep. Ed Garner objected to a provision that would prevent lobbyists from being paid based on legislative action. Of his objection, Rep. Garner said, “I’ve opened up a whole can of Pandoras.”

Is some nefarious force on the verge of destroying the tools and tractors of Arkansas farmers? Has someone suggested that the countryside be totally evacuated?

Alas, nothing so exciting inspired Rep. Ragland’s bill. The bill is instead a reaction to a brewing squabble between small farmers and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Seems the federal government has been discussing plans that would make it mandatory for all farmers to tag their animals. Seems also that small farmers don’t want to be forced to do this, be it because of cost or limitation on their personal freedom. Rep. Ragland’s bill would allay their concerns by forbidding state agencies from making farmers register their animals in the federal system.

Opponents raised constitutional issues — if the federal government made tagging mandatory, farmers would have to comply regardless of state law — as well as the concern that the bill would hurt the marketability of Arkansas cattle. Thus died the Freedom to Farm for lack of a second.

Coming into the committee meeting, supporters had little hope for Rep. Joan Cash’s bill to make utilities submit energy efficiency plans to the Public Service Commission. Under the terms of the bill, electric utilities would have  to make a good faith effort to reduce their customers’ energy bills by one percent per year starting in 2013. The utilities would not have to meet the one percent threshold, and there would not be any penalties if they fail to do so.

Sensing that the bill did not have the committee’s support, Rep. Cash pulled it down for interim study before opponents could testify.

A second bill, sponsored by Rep. Kathy Webb, would require electric companies to purchase a certain amount of its electricity supply from renewable energy sources based in Arkansas. Under the bill, a utility would buy from a private producer of solar energy, for example.  The utility would be able to recoup its costs through higher rates on the consumer. Opponents appeared spooked by the possibility that utilities would charge higher rates, though supporters said there would be savings in the long run.

Eddy Moore, a supporter from the Arkansas Citizens First Congress, said opposition to Rep. Webb’s bill came from both large industrial consumers and energy companies. Large industries do not want to pay increased energy bills, he said, while utilities are afraid of future competition from alternative energy sources.

There are two very major problems with this amendment. One is that, since the legislature can only refer three amendments to voters, it bumps from consideration more serious proposals that might actually help the people of Arkansas. The second is that the idea of a right to hunt and fish is dubious on its face.

To deal with the first problem first. This is a bill that will not benefit regular Arkansans.  The sponsors’ argument for the amendment is that PETA is struggling to ban hunting across the U.S.  Yet the only actual ban they could cite was a Michigan prohibition on dove hunting. That dearth of evidence offers proof, as if any were needed, that the idea of a left-wing interest group getting hunting prohibited in Arkansas is ludicrous.

Like so much culturally charged legislation, the amendment changes absolutely nothing. It does, however, benefit lawmakers who could use the support of the NRA in their next campaign. The NRA is in full support of the amendment and testified in its favor.

Two legislators deserve particular opprobrium for their actions today. One is Sen. Gilbert Baker, who grandstanded his support for the amendment in the course of a condescending speech to Rep. Butch Wilkins, who had asked some very reasonable questions  about lawsuits that could result from the amendment. (“This is for the Baker boys!” the senator said in reference to his seven hunting sons.)

The worst performance, however, was that of Sen. Steve Faris, who as chair of the committee was able to push through the amendment — which he is the lead sponsor of — before the nine other proposals on the table were even considered. Those proposals included three finance amendments that would allow the state to attract investment to Arkansas — a more important priority, I would submit, than promising the state’s hunters that no one will take their sport away. As a chairman, Sen. Faris should know better than to ram through legislation that prioritizes himself and the interests of the NRA over the people of Arkansas. Shame on him.

Then there’s the second issue: should anyone really have a right to hunt and fish? A right? Rights should be a bit more exclusive than that. Free speech, free exercise of religion, due process — these are rights. But if you’re going to insert a ‘right’ for one special interest into the constitution you might as well crumple the document and wipe your bum with it.

Maybe if the legislature is running around giving out rights they’ll decide to pass the ERA, too. Anyone want to lay the odds?

PS. The committee did manage to pass one real amendment proposal — voters will have to decide whether to lower the requirements an economic development project must meet before Arkansas can issue bonds to support it.

That leaves the committee with one more amendment to refer next week. Talks are currently in the works to combine two amendments into one. The Frankenstein amendment would allow the state to issue bonds for energy conservation projects and would also allow the state to pay higher yields on bond issues.

In addition to the nativist element represented by groups such as Secure Arkansas, opposition came from lawmakers who believe that Sen. Elliott’s bill violates a federal statute and would involve the state in costly litigation. (For more on this argument, see my earlier post.) In comments he gave on the floor against the bill, Sen. Jerry Taylor said Gov. Beebe told him the bill was illegal.

Sen. Hank Wilkins, speaking for the bill, argued that it is the Senate’s job to make laws, not to predict whether a court will strike them down in the future.

To date, a California state court is the highest to rule that a law similar to Sen. Elliott’s violates federal statute. In 2007 a federal appeals court rejected an argument against a similar Kansas law because the plaintiffs failed to show proper standing.

The majority of the speakers for the bill this afternoon made a moral appeal to their fellow lawmakers. Sen. Elliot argued, as she did in committee, that the state cannot afford to deny its people an education. Sen. Jimmy Jeffress quoted Leviticus 19: 33-34 in giving the most emotional testimony of the afternoon. The Bible reference appeared to be enough to convince Sen. Randy Laverty, who favorably compared the bill to Jimmy Carter’s decision to return the Panama Canal to the Panamanians. He said he would vote for Sen. Elliott’s bill even though he would “catch hell at home” for it. He confessed that his yes vote was easier than it might be otherwise because he is currently term-limited.

Though the speeches for the bill may have convinced one or two senators to change how they voted, the bill failed with very few comments from those who voted no. Sen. Taylor and Sen. Denny Altes made brief statements in opposition.

After the bill failed, Sen. Elliott managed to secure a motion to expunge the vote. That means she can bring the bill up again later in the session if she so chooses.

A Senate committee declined to recommend two ethics bills. Sen. Bill Pritchard complained that one of the bills would make him wait too long to become a lobbyist if he quit the Senate early because of financial hardship. A separate Senate committee refused to approve a bill that would set the death-penalty procedure and make it easier for the state to kill people. Some senators were concerned about the bill’s total ban on making information about executions public. Yet another Senate committee rejected a measure that would allow children of illegal immigrants to attend Arkansas colleges at an in-state rate. The committee passed the exact same bill two days later. It has yet to come to what is sure to be a controversial floor vote.

A House committee approved a ban on toy guns that look like real guns. The same committee rejected Rep. Mark Martin’s bill allowing people to carry real guns in plain sight amidst concern about the bill’s lack of training requirements and machine-gun restrictions. Rep. Martin failed to pass a bill through a different committee that would allow the parents of developmentally disabled children to home-school their kids with the aid of state money.

Rep. Beverly Pyle’s bill to allow people to carry firearms in church failed for a second time in a Senate committee. Rep. Pyle was more successful in passing through committee a bill to ban masseurs from touching a client’s breasts, anus and genitals. Rep. Pyle said she wanted to clarify that prostitution is not OK in Arkansas. Later in the week, Rep. Pyle said she stopped going to parks in Eureka Springs after the city created a registry for domestic partnerships. “When you go through the parks there are people acting like animals lying around,” she said.

The bill would allow parents of affected children to educate their children at home if certain standards are met. A therapist or licensed teacher would have to provide most of the instruction, and the child would have to be deemed developmentally disabled by a doctor. Parents who are unhappy with their child’s education at public school would have to apply to the Department of Education to receive the funds.

The bill had the support of several parents of mentally disabled children, one of whom tearfully testified that she had been forced to move her child to multiple schools because of the public system’s inadequate attention.

But Kristen Gould, an attorney for the Arkansas School Boards Association, said the bill did not comply with federal law. She argued that the bill would create a system of entitlements parallel to the public schools and that the state money could be used by parents to send children to private schools.

The committee was not convinced by Rep. Martin’s ominous pre-vote threat that the state would face a “class-action lawsuit on a massive scale” if the bill failed. It voted against the measure 8-11.

Unsurprising was this morning’s approval of two amendments: one that would make it easier for the state to issue bonds to fund economic development, and another that would remove constitutionally required interest-rate caps on government bonds. Approval of a third amendment that would remove both the interest-rate caps and restrictions on consumer lending was somewhat less expected. Advocates for the interest-rate-only amendment had argued that consumer provisions would limit the potential for passage. Supporters of the more comprehensive amendment responded that small businesses such as furniture dealers must be allowed to charge higher rates to consumers for financing if they’re to survive.

Several strong proposals fell by the wayside this morning. Rep. Richard Carroll failed to convince members to remove constitutional language barring atheists from serving as witnesses and public officials. The committee also defeated, by an 8-11 vote, Rep. Robbie Wills’s amendment to allow the state to invest in private technology enterprises.

A joint committee could consider the three amendments as early as next week. Also on the table will be Senate amendments to extend the terms of certain local officials; to establish a constitutional right to hunt and fish; to makes the office of sheriff non-partisan; to authorize energy efficiency bonds; to repeal recently approved fiscal sessions; and to subject the Game and Fish Commission to the appropriation process.

Amendment proposals can be approved by the proper committee until the joint amendment committee meets. Sen. Bill Pritchard is expected to resubmit for consideration a previously failed amendment to allow legislators to serve for 14 years in either the House or the Senate.

The bill is a direct reaction to the Frank Williams case. Williams is a death-row inmate who has been fighting his execution in court. Though Gov. Beebe has signed a death warrant for Williams, the execution was stayed last September by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Tim Fox. Judge Fox ruled that the Department of Corrections could not kill Williams unless it subjected recently adopted execution protocols to public input. (States moved to change their lethal-injection protocols last year after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the issue.)

Rep. Pierce’s bill would clear that hurdle by exempting the execution protocols from the Arkansas Administrative Procedure Act. More controversial, however, were provisions of the bill that would put the new protocols in statute and forbid the public from learning about how inmates are put to death.

Jeff Rosenzweig of the Arkansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers argued that the bill was overly permissive in the types of lethal injection it allows. Though the Supreme Court approved a specific drug cocktail for executions last year, the language of Rep. Pierce’s bill would permit an irresponsible Corrections director to go beyond that cocktail and use a substance such as rat poison, Rosenzweig said.

Rosenzweig also said the bill would prevent the press and the general public from getting information about executions. Department of Corrections Director Larry Norris did not deny the charge. He said certain information about executions, such as the number of guards on duty, needs to be secure. He added that the inmate and his lawyer are always told how the execution will proceed and what drugs will be used.

Though some members of the committee approved of the FOI exemptions — “Why in the world would you care what drugs they use?” asked Sen. Ruth Whitaker — enough were concerned to force Rep. Pierce to pull the bill down.

(Read on for reaction from supporters and prospects for the bill’s future.)

Deputy Attorney General Justin Allen, who spoke in favor of the bill, said afterward that the legislation was necessary as long as the death penalty remains legal in Arkansas. If it is not passed, he said, the state will have a much harder time convincing Arkansas courts to allow executions to proceed.

Allen dismissed Rosenzweig’s rat-poison argument as “far-fetched.” He said the 8th Amendment protects inmates from such a method, and that any director using such an injection would be immediately prosecuted.

However, Allen said the bill writers might be willing to concede arguments about the FOI and amend the bill. He said it would remain up to Corrections Director Norris whether to allow the general public access to execution information. The bill writers may choose to explicitly provide the information only to inmates and their lawyers.

Whatever the amendment looks like, the bill will almost certainly come before committee again later in the session.

Yet another weapons bill hit committee this afternoon as the House Judiciary Committee considered Rep. Mark Martin’s legislation to allow people to carry firearms in plain sight. The bill’s lack of provisions for training and its apparent permissiveness toward the open-carry of machine guns was too much for the committee. Though Rep. Martin did not agree with these criticisms, he pulled the bill down for amendment to ensure that it would not be legal for children to wield a gun.

Several legislators suggested they might vote for the bill if it required some sort of permit or training for open carry, but Rep. Martin firmly resisted making a change. He argued that such a requirement would place a financial burden on impoverished people. The poor who couldn’t pay would be unable to exercise what Rep. Martin considers a constitutional right to bear arms in the open. In response to the comment that anyone who owns a gun can also afford a training course, Rep. Martin responded that a gun might be inherited or earned from some sort of program.

“[A fee] would have a chilling effect on people who were discriminated against before,” Rep. Martin said in reference to the 19^th century slave laws he cited to justify the necessity of open-carry legislation.

“At what point do what stop expecting a training program to teach people and start trusting them to act responsibly?” Rep. Martin inquired.

There was some questioning about the relationship of the proposed law to current concealed-carry requirements. It was discussed whether the bill would grant greater lenience toward concealed-carriers who violate certain provisions of their permits. For example, there would no longer be ramifications for a concealed-carry holder who commits “inadvertent revealing of the weapon,” as Rep. Martin phrased it, since the open-carry law would override concealed-carry.

Rep. Steve Harrelson said the bill appears to allow people to carry machine guns in public. Rep. Martin responded that current law is ridiculous and needs to be corrected; as it is now, kids could be prosecuted for carrying baseball bats, he said, or hunters could be arrested for carrying a gun to a duck camp.

Among the flaws committee members pointed out, Rep. Martin would only concede that the bill does not explicitly prevent children from availing themselves of open-carry privileges. He will likely offer the measure again after amendment.

The successful bill has been criticized by some — see Max Brantley in the Arkansas Times — for allowing legislators to lard their own coffers under the guise of ethics reform. The bill would allow incumbents to double the amount of money they can retain in their carryover campaign funds. Currently an incumbent can keep the equivalent of his salary and expenses.

Sen. Kim Hendren objected to this part of the measure and voted against the bill as a result. “That twice just ruins a very good bill,” he said.

Sen. Hendren added that challengers will face an unfair disadvantage if incumbents can keep so much money. Sen. Ed Wilkinson responded that incumbents have advantages besides money that the bill would do nothing to change.

The bill carried the day after committee members opined that Arkansas is relatively miserly in the amount it allows officials to keep in campaign funds.

More controversial was Sen. Gilbert Baker’s bill to make state officials take a timeout before becoming lobbyists. The bill would require a one-year waiting period for constitutional officers, agency heads, legislators and certain staff members of these officials.

Sens. Bill Pritchard and Randy Laverty both said the bill would put an undue burden on lawmakers who need to lobby to make money. Sen. Pritchard complained that a lawmaker who quits his term before it’s over would have to wait even longer than the one-year interim, since the bill begins the cooling-off period the day a lawmaker’s term is due to end.

Sen. Baker responded that legislators know the length of a term going in and that the very purpose of the bill is to ensure that lawmakers don’t neglect their public service for private gain.

His argument was not enough to convince the committee, which defeated the bill 3-3. Sen. Hendren joined Sens. Laverty and Pritchard in voting no. Sens. Steve Bryles and Steve Faris were present but did not vote.

Said argument is that giving tuition to undocumented immigrants would violate federal law. The law in question states:

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State (or a political subdivision) for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit (in no less an amount, duration, and scope) without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.

Arkansas Director of Higher Education Jim Purcell said Sen. Elliott’s bill violated this law. “We are against the bill mostly because we believe the rule of law should be followed,” he said. He added that the state could lose $38 million in out-of-state tuition revenue if out-of-state students argued they should be afforded the same in-state rates as undocumented immigrants. (N.B.: This was a hypothetical situation; it seems like a dubious one at that.) 

Sen. Elliott argued that her bill met the federal law’s standard that American citizens be afforded the same higher-education benefits as undocumented immigrants. The bill stipulates that any student who goes to an Arkansas high school for over three years and also graduates from an Arkansas high school would be eligible for in-state tuition. The allowance would apply equally to all students whether they were born in another state or another country. 

According to Sen. Elliot, the bill mimics provisions in 11 other states, including virulently anti-immigrant Oklahoma. She argued that if the measure is illegal, as some claim, then it surely would have been struck down by now. Texas has had a similar law since 2001. A similar California law is currently being litigated in state courts. 

Sen. Elliot pointed out that the bill would require undocumented students to declare their intention to become a United States citizen. She also made a broader appeal to lawmakers’ sense of justice. “It will be impossible to meet our goals if we don’t educate an entire segment of the population,” she said. “This is our Daisy Bates moment.” 

University of Arkansas Chancellor David Gearhart, speaking in a personal capacity, made a similar argument. “I personally believe that passage of this legislation is very, very important to the future of this state,” he said. He spoke favorably of the 19 undocumented students at the university who show promise of a bright future. 

(Read on for opposition and the vote.)

The Department of Higher Ed was joined in its opposition by several truly unhinged advocates for anti-immigrant causes. Jeannie Burlsworth, leader of the Secure Arkansas, made her expected plea. “The public doesn’t want to subsidize illegal immigrants from the cradle to the grave,” she said. Her testimony was complemented by two even crazier speakers: a leader from the heretofore-unknown-to-me Keep Arkansas Legal, who spouted Bible verses and rambled about the wave of poor Mexicans who would soon flood Arkansas if the bill were passed; and one Rusty Leewright, a spiteful man who could last be heard at the Capitol railing that doctors kill over 100,000 people a year and therefore should not be trusted to make recommendations about the utility of motorcycle helmets.  

A vote for approval of the measure was defeated after Sens. Kim Hendren and Shane Broadway voted no. (There were only six members of the committee present; five yeas were needed for passage.) Sen. Broadway cited Higher Ed’s argument that the bill would be against federal law in explaining his opposition. He said the bill would surely involve the state in a lawsuit it can ill afford.

The bill, which is sponsored by Rep. Lindsley Smith, would apply to mayors, city clerks and clerk-treasurers in cities with over 2,500 people. Currently cities are required by state law to pay these employees half their final salaries for the duration of their lives once they reach sixty if they served in their public role for over ten years. Rep. Smith’s bill would allow cities to decide whether that is appropriate compensation.

Rep. Smith said current law provides municipalities with an unfunded mandate. She said cities rather than the state should decide how to fund pensions for long-term mayors and clerks.

State law leaves it up to cities to decide whether to participate in the state pension plan.

Several speakers were skeptical about Rep. Smith’s bill. Camden mayor Chris Claybaker said it might allow a city board in a spat with its mayor to revoke his retirement. “I think [the bill] is a way of putting a mayor’s or city clerk’s pension into a political situation,” Claybaker said.

Sen. Jim Jeffress questioned whether the measure is specific to Fayetteville, Rep. Smith’s home city. She replied that it isn’t, though she added that the question of whether a mayor should receive the state-mandated pension was an issue during Fayetteville’s last mayoral race.

Sen. Jeffress was an audible no vote, which suggests that the bill may garner debate if it reaches the Senate floor.

UPDATE 24 MARCH: It didn’t even get that far. The bill met defeat on the House floor today by a vote of 33-45.

Bill supporters argued that the beverages should be restricted because they are often a teenager’s entryway into drinking. They also said the drinks are more akin to spirits than malt beverages. Though alcopops are brewed like beer, they said, the beer taste and fermented alcohol are removed and replaced with spirits-infused fruit flavors.

A senior at University of Arkansas urged passage of the bill so as to stem what she called “hundreds” of underage drinking arrests on campus. After the comely witness testified that she might like to one day run for the legislature herself — “Which one of us are you going to take out,” Rep. Rick Green unfortunately joked — she said alcopops were frequently consumed by underage girls who were fooled by the refreshing flavors. (The marketing image of these drinks is unquestionably feminine. See this excellent Slate piece on the recent demise of Zima, the original “malternative.”)

Committee members were apparently unsatisfied by Rep. Gene Shelby’s statement that his bill would raise $150,000 in annual revenue. They were more susceptible to the position of a gas station association, which argued that restricting the beverages would cut an important source of retailer revenue.

Other victories for vice in House Rules today included approval of a bill that will reduce the newly raised cigarette tax in the city of Marion and recommendation of a measure that will allow alcohol sales at horse tracks during all hours of business operation. Both bills are sponsored by Rep. Keith Ingram of West Memphis.

Those of fastidious morality make take some consolation in the committee’s approval of Rep. Barry Hyde’s bill to ban smoking on public college and university campuses.

The primary objector, at least to some provisions, was Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, who ran the campaign to create the lottery last year. Among improvements he called for at the Senate State Agencies meeting were to:

-Ensure that every possible dollar goes to new scholarships. The bill as written now allows lottery money to be used for administrative and other costs.

-Set an appropriate salary level for the executive director of the lottery. Currently the director’s minimum salary would be $141,000. The government-appointed lottery commission could also approve a bonus of up to $354,000. A similar situation would apply for the lottery inspector general, who is scheduled to make the same as the executive director, and the lottery chief operating officer.

“I think the public is outraged by the prospect of someone earning $500,000 to run the lottery,” Lt. Gov. Halter said. He said Georgia pays its executive director $286,000, the second-highest figure in the nation.

-Tighten rules for a trust fund account that will hold lottery earnings and say explicitly how the interest will be spent. As it is now, the lottery commission will decide how to spend the interest.

-Improve ethics regulations. Expand a ban on future lobbying to legislators and not just members of the lottery commission. All legislators should be barred from receiving gifts from lottery vendors, not just those legislators who serve on the Lottery Commission Legislative Oversight Committee.

-Simplify the eligibility requirements for scholarships. The current legislation lists at least seven different ways a student can receive a scholarship.

-Rethink how some scholarship money is to be used. Under current plans, there will be an excess of money set aside for nontraditional students, Lt. Gov. Halter said. That money can be used to pay for higher scholarship awards for traditional students.

A statement Lt. Gov. Halter presented to the committee this afternoon can be read here. Read below for further objections.

Jerry Cox of the Family Council asked lawmakers to require that odds be written on tickets and that the term “multisovereign game” be defined. “The Commission’s success is defined by how much money it pulls out of the pockets of the people,” said Cox, who opposed the lottery last fall.

Rep. Randy Laverty had reservations that the Lottery Commission Legislative Oversight Committee, which is to consist of twelve legislators, skirts typical administrative procedures. Sen. Terry Smith, who is the bill’s lead sponsor, said the new committee was needed in order to react to problems with speed.

“We’re trying to make sure that we don’t run this thing like the government runs,” Sen. Smith said.

Sen. Kim Hendren tried to pass a motion that would have delayed consideration of the lottery bill until tomorrow. He said he wanted more time to process objections presented today. However, his motion failed 3-3. A subsequent motion approving the bill passed 5-2.

Currently an employer can withhold a maximum of 30% of pay for company food, clothing and lodging. The new rule would eliminate the 30% threshold and have the state Department of Labor establish a fair value for employer-provided goods.

The provisions apply only to minimum-wage workers. According to Rep. Burris, the bill would align Arkansas with federal minimum-wage standards.

States are free to establish labor laws above federal standards, but they cannot drop below those standards. The 30% withholding limit, which is stricter than federal standards, is not observed by every state.

Department of Labor attorney Daniel Faulkner opposed the bill on the grounds that it could mean a pay reduction for already-struggling workers. “We are against what is effectively a pay cut in a bad economy,” Faulkner said.

Rep. Burris said he brought the bill on behalf of a small-business owner who ran afoul of the 30% law. Though the owner was giving his minimum-wage employees 50% discounts on food, Burris said, he sold the employees so much that more than 30% of their paychecks had to be withheld. He was later compelled to repay the workers cash for money withheld over 30% of wages.

Asked whether the owner may have simply been ignorant of Arkansas Law, Rep. Burris said he was following federal standards. Rep. Burris also testified that employees can choose whether to purchase owner-supplied goods. He added that the bill does not change the state Department of Labor’s ability to pursue wrongdoing.

The bill cleared the committee easily, though there was some opposition. On a voice vote, Rep. Mike Burris and Rep. Willie Hardy were audible nos.

UPDATE 18 MARCH: The House failed the bill 42-39. Rep. John Burris tried to spin his handiwork as good for employees whose employers offer them discounts on their goods. Those who voted against must have realized that employers can pay cash and offer discounts at the same time.

The funding proposal, sponsored by Sen. Bill Pritchard, would divert 15 percent of tobacco settlement money currently used to help people stop smoking. The money would go into a new fund that would pay for treatment programs directed by drug courts.  Sen. Pritchard estimated that the total transfer would be $2.2 million.

Sen. Pritchard previously met with Gov. Beebe and got his support for the general idea. The percentage of smoking cessation funds to be used was left up in the air, however. At today’s meeting, Gov. Beebe’s chief of staff Morril Harriman asked that the governor’s office have until tomorrow to review whether 15 percent is a feasible figure.

Drug courts run diversionary programs that allow some drug offenders to receive treatment rather than jail time. Last year, about $1.5 million was cut from the courts’ treatment programs during the budget process. Sen. Pritchard’s bill would resupply that money.

The bill does not include any funding for drug-court personnel or expansion. Sen. Pritchard said an earlier plan to expand drug courts was scotched when it became clear that there was not enough room in the budget.

The bill lists 24 co-sponsors in the Senate and 72 in the House, more than enough for passage if the governor approves the deal.

The bill, which is sponsored by Sen. Larry Teague, would make it illegal for an outside vendor to advertise a ticket for sale over the Internet before the concert venue does so. According to Deputy Attorney General Jim DePriest, who spoke in favor of the bill, profiteers began selling the Montana tickets — tickets they didn’t actually have – over eBay before Alltel offered them for general sale. This allowed them to gauge whether there was a market for the tickets at prices over Alltel’s face value, which was about $60. When they discovered that there was, they purchased many of the tickets through a sophisticated electronic scheme as soon as Alltel made them available. Many would-be concertgoers were unable to get a ticket at face value and had to pay the profiteers’ exorbitant prices in order to satisfy their children.

The bill does not make it illegal for vendors to evade online security devices meant to prevent mass ticket purchases. Such purchases could still create shortages that would lead to high prices. However, DePriest said the bill’s approach would theoretically discourage ticket speculation, since vendors cannot be sure of a profit if they are unable to use Internet auctions to test the market for higher-priced tickets.

DePriest added in a later interview that it would be difficult to prosecute someone for driving up ticket prices. Whether the crime is advertising tickets for sale or buying them in excess from the official venue, the culprit is someone who is technologically savvy and well-equipped to hide behind the mask of cyberspace.

The bill applies to all live entertainment except sporting events. Sports are explicitly exempted.

The better of the two bills would have reserved a spot on the ballot for a third party if it receives over three percent of the vote in races for president, governor, U.S. Senator, and certain state constitutional officers.  (For some reason the bill did not allow automatic access if a third party performs well in U.S. House races.) Currently a third party can only remain on the ballot if it gets three percent of the vote for president or governor. If it fails to do so, it must place its candidates on the ballot through a petition process.

ACLU staff attorney Holly Dickson argued that any party that gets over 200,000 votes in a U.S. Senate race, as Green Party nominee Rebekah Kennedy did against Mark Pryor in 2008, should be given an automatic ballot spot. The committee was unconvinced.

The vote was 8-10, with all but one of the ayes coming from Republicans. (Rep. Lindsley Smith, a Democrat, voted yes; Rep. Ed Garner was the only Republican to vote no.) Democrats likely made the political calculation that easier ballot access for Greens would drain votes from their party.

A second bill would have required debates funded with public money or conducted at public spaces to include third-party and independent candidates who are certified for the ballot. The bill proposal stems from the 2006 gubernatorial elections, when Green Party nominee Jim Lendall and independent candidate Rod Bryan found themselves excluded from a series of debates between Mike Beebe and Asa Hutchinson.

Rep. Steve Harrelson wondered whether the measure would cause debates to be moved to private locations. Rep. Ed Garner argued that it would prohibit private parties from holding debates at universities. Rep. Donna Hutchinson expressed concern that the bill would limit the state’s ability to contend for presidential debates.

The U.S. Supreme Court has previously found that the Constitution does not require that all candidates be included in a political debate, even if the debate is staged in a public space.

Both bills were sponsored by Rep. Richard Carroll, the only Green Party member in the legislature. Though Rep. Carroll said prior to the session that he is a Democrat in Green’s clothing, these proposals suggest he is fully behind the agenda of his current party.

Though committee members made a point to articulate their support for veterans, the possible $4.9 million cost of implementing the measure was deemed too much to pay.

The measure would apply to anyone who served in the U.S. armed forces from 1945 to 1991. According to Mike Munns, Assistant Commissioner of Revenue at DFA, 223,000 Arkansans could be eligible for the special plate and reduced rate that comes with it. Full participation would cost the state $4.9 million in highway department revenues.

The bill requires that veterans acquire a special certificate from the Department of Defense in order to be eligible. Sen. Key argued that, since not everyone will go to the trouble of getting the certificate, the actual cost of the special plates would be less than $4.9 million. But he acknowledged that the potential price tag is high before the voice vote.

A House vote went narrowly in favor of a bill that would penalize adults who serve teens alcohol on their property. In the Senate, a vote to require that a majority of Oil and Gas commissioners be experienced in the oil and gas industry sparked a fight. The disputed bill ultimately passed.

The House State Agencies Committee told participants in amateur combative sport that they have to be regulated by the State Athletic Commission. The same committee said it was not a good idea to tell the federal government to cease and desist from giving Arkansas unfunded mandates. The House Judiciary Committee told Sen. Denny Altes he cannot ban trial lawyers and chiropractors from using accident reports for solicitation purposes.

Rep. Steve Cole said revealing that someone suffers from a communicable disease is the same thing as outing a person with a concealed-weapon permit. Arguing against a new form of non-profit business structure, Rep. Jim Nickels said Arkansas should not be on the cutting edge. Rep. Monty Davenport made a joke about women drivers on the House floor.

Though Original Toughman promoters had fighting words for Harrelson when he first proposed banning the event in Arkansas, they agreed to Athletic Commission oversight. Toughman has been bloodied by total statewide bans over the past few years; several states, including Texas, would rather bar the event than regulate it.

Should Rep. Harrelson’s bill become law it will also affect amateur mixed martial arts fights, which have a following in Hot Springs.

The measure requires tougher safety precautions. Promoters will have to carry at least $5,000 in injury insurance for their fighters and another $5,000 in the case of a contestant’s death. The bill also gives the Athletic Commission authority to license referees for amateur fights. Rep. Harrelson said better ring umpiring will catch signs that a contestant is in danger.

The legislation would also ensure that fighters are matched fairly. Toughman rules establish broad weight categorizations; the State Athletic Commission’s stipulates narrower weight classes.

Promoters will pay the Athletic Commission 5% of gate receipts to fund the increased oversight.  Rep. Harrelson said he originally proposed taxing pay-per-view money, but that idea met opposition.

No one dissented in today’s vote. The bill goes on to the full House.

Read the sponsor’s take on the bill at Under the Dome.

It has also been well publicized that this was a non-issue until a few weeks ago, when the Arkansas Times, which supports this blog, pointed out that the names and addresses of concealed-carry holders are publicly available and linked to them. But what the Times deemed a public service others deemed a menace. The posting mobilized concealed-carry holders and inspired a number of truly disturbing death threats to Max Brantley, editor of the Times.

The virulence of that response has made it difficult for me to consider the merits of hiding information about concealed-carry holders. Surely there must be some; according to this AP article, 21 states don’t allow access to concealed-carry information.

But few of the arguments I heard today in favor of the bill made much sense to me. They included:

1. The very nature of a concealed permit is that no one knows about it.

2. Now the “bad guys” know where the “good guys” are. From now on it will be very easy for the bad guys to break into the good guys’ cars and steal their weapons.

3. Undercover agents who carry concealed weapons will be exposed, since the right to carry a concealed weapon would be inconsistent with their undercover roles. (Crooks can’t carry.) Parole officers will also be vulnerable to malicious types among their clientele.

4. Do we out people who hide communicable diseases? Then why do we out people who hide weapons? It’s the exact same thing.

(Click on the link below to read more.)

Number 4 can be dismissed out of hand. (Gun owners are a self-selecting bunch. AIDS sufferers can’t say the same. Not to mention that it takes a bit more effort for the AIDS sufferer to kill you.) Number 1 is true enough, but the supposed point of concealed carry is to provide protection from the common crook on the street. A permit holder’s name, address, phone number, bank PIN and social security number could be in a publicly accessible database and it wouldn’t matter to the common crook on the street. That’s not true for Number 2, someone who takes the time to track a concealed-permit carrier’s car, but I still find it a stretch that the information in question is used in this way.

That leaves Number 3. This, I think, is a fairly legitimate concern. But there are also ways around the problem that don’t entail revoking the entire concealed-carry database. For example, there could be a law saying that undercover agents and state employees who work with criminals should have their information redacted. These employees have presumably been double-vetted since they occupy positions of authority.

Here’s the meta-problem with the logic of those who would exempt concealed-carry information from FOI: they really believe in categorizing people as either “good guys” or “bad guys.” Moreover, it appears that they believe those categorizations to be fairly static. A good guy remains a good guy, and a bad guy remains a bad guy. Sure, there are rules to ensure that a person’s permit is renewed every five years. For the interim, however, the concealed weapon is assumed to be carried for the force of light.

This thinking is belied by the death threats to Max Brantley, which presumably — just going out on a limb here — came from concealed-carry holders.

The argument that Times publisher Alan Leveritt made to the committee today was dismissed as “a great piece of theater” by the concealed-carry representative who followed him. Personally I believe it was given out of genuine anger. In any case, it carried more reason that anything the opposite side had to offer. If an ex-lover is being stalked, Leveritt said, it’s probably in her interest to know whether her stalker is carrying a weapon. If a convicted felon is carrying, the public should know that. (But wait, said concealed-carry supporters — NO felons have permits in Arkansas…)

Of course, Leveritt’s logic doesn’t work if you believe in the good guy/bad guy dichotomy, if you think a rotten apple stays rotten and a good one never goes bad. A more realistic (and less paranoid) outlook, on the other hand, realizes that there’s more to the issue than a thug crouching in the shadows just waiting to break into your car and steal your gun.

Originally this was a really bad bill, as it unconstitutionally restricted access to accident reports to all but a few people. The newest version erased that part and made it a crime to use information obtained from an accident report to scrounge up clients. But the committee was still unconvinced that the new version provided an equitable application of the law. Rep. Steve Harrelson summed up this argument in a question to McCutchen: “Have you considered expanding this to all public documents?”

Sen. Altes briefly argued that people who have undergone accidents should not be harassed with phone calls and junk mail. But sympathy for the client was not much of an issue for McCutchen, whose support might seem odd considering that he’s a member of a group the bill targeted. Though he professed that the bill was an attempt to clean up trial lawyers’ image, McCutchen’s tirade against lawyers who pay runners to track down potential clients suggested that he may be upset about being undersold.

The proceeding did have some entertaining fireworks. Using a dramatic term very, very loosely, McCutchen said, “We have had George W. Bush in the White House for the past eight years and he has demonized trial lawyers. That’s a tragedy.”

It also emerged that McCutchen was once arrested for picketing a George W. Bush speech. This is likely the only time you’ll see the deep-red Altes team up with such a flaming Dem.

Supporters of the resolution said it was in defense of the 10th Amendment, which reserves certain powers not given to the federal government to the states. Yet the resolution did not indicate any specific violations; it opined only that certain mandates and proposals from the current administration may be in breach of the Constitution.

Rep. Steve Harrelson spoke most effectively against the bill. “I really don’t want my name going on a resolution to Mike Ross telling the federal government to cease and desist. If I want to tell him that I’ll call him on the phone and tell him myself. Can we tone down the cavalier language?”

Rep. Harrelson went on to object that the resolution’s hostile tone indicates that the state would take action if the federal government ignores it. “What exactly are we giving notice for?” he asked.

Rep. Debra Hobbs defended the resolution by saying other states were considering similar measures, including Oklahoma. Oklahoma passed its resolution last month, according to the always helpful John Birch Society website.

Jeannie Burlsworth, leader of the anti-immigrant outfit Secure Arkansas, also testified in favor of the resolution. She said she represented the people of all 75 counties of Arkansas, a fact previously unbeknownst to me, her constituent.

With the defeat of the resolution dies one more measure with no practical impact other than to make a lot of people real mad.

On its face, this is not an objectionable proposal. I’d really not paid it much mind until yesterday. You want people who know how the technology works on the commission, right? Besides, if earlier testimony on the House floor is to be trusted — not always a given, I’ve found — the Oil and Gas Commission has traditionally been controlled by a majority in the business. The current law says four members have to be experienced; the change just reflects that the commission has expanded from seven to nine in recent years.

Yet a review of the gas industry in Arkansas and look at the Oil and Gas Commission’s responsibilities brings second thoughts.

Let’s take the latter first. As stated by Arkansas Code 15-17-110, the Oil and Gas Commission is to require that wells be drilled, operated and plugged so as to “prevent the pollution of fresh water supplies and unnecessary damage to property, soil, animals, fish, or aquatic life by oil, gas, or salt water.” And witness the commission’s own mission statement:

The purpose of the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission is to serve the public regarding oil and gas matters, prevent waste, encourage conservation, and protect the correlative rights of ownership associated with the production of oil, natural gas and brine, while protecting the environment during the production process, through the regulation and enforcement of the laws of the State of Arkansas.

In short, the Oil and Gas Commission is charged with significant stewardship over the environment. But I think it’s safe to say that clean water is not the first thing on a gas driller’s mind when there’s a bonanza to be had.

Which brings us to the current state of the gas industry in Arkansas. The Fayetteville Shale has changed the game. A majority of energy people on the Oil and Gas Commission did not have the same impact a decade ago as does now, when drilling is exploding to unheard of proportions.

Sen. Joyce Elliott, who led a floor debate against the measure yesterday afternoon, brought up some of these concerns in a later interview.

(Click the link below for Sen. Elliott’s comments.)

“It’s bad public policy to guarantee that the interest being regulated is in the majority,” Sen. Elliott said. “The future consequences could be devastating for the state.” She was concerned that the bill will tie the hands of future governors. She added that members of the commission should be selected because they will serve the state’s interest, not because they represent a particular industry.

Sen. Elliott was also worried about the environmental consequences of the bill. “I’m just hoping ADEQ [Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality] will put them in check,” she said. ADEQ is currently facing a dearth of inspectors and is widely acknowledged to be short-handed in regulation of the Fayetteville Shale area.

The Senate vote went in favor of the bill 20-7. The bill will return to the House since it was amended in the Senate.

The fight over the Oil and Gas Commission brings another point into stark relief: there has been a severe lack of environmental legislation this session despite the increase of potentially harmful drilling.

As it turns out, I don’t oppose the Oil and Gas Commission bill on its face. The commission has to oversee complex drilling procedures, and it does make sense to employ people who knows how the technology works.

But there needs to be some environmental balance.  A stronger ADEQ, revamped regulations that take environmental oversight from the Oil and Gas Commission, a renewed focus on the pollution caused by gas drilling — something, anything, to ensure that the land and water of the state is cared for. As it is now, Arkansans will have to entrust that concern largely to a few oil and gas men.

The oldtime paternalistic camp found its voice in Sen. Bill Pritchard, who said women in his family urged him to vote against the bill. “I respect women,” he said. “But for me to be treating women equal to men, I wouldn’t be treating them as well as I do now.” His smile positively glowed as a later speaker opined about the importance of chivalry.

More malignant were a series of speakers who made legal claims that the ERA would cause women to be drafted into the army, force states to pay for abortions, and legalize gay marriage.

The claim about the army was easily shot down when someone pointed out that the United States no longer uses conscription. (Though some doubted that the country won’t bring it back. “Napoleon couldn’t predict Waterloo,” said Sen. Randy Laverty.)

ERA opponents vigorously pursued the arguments about abortion and gay marriage, however. Betsy Hagan, leader of the Arkansas Eagle Forum, called the ERA ‘a fraud’ and said it would put federal restrictions on all our laws. (Of course, reaction to the federal government is a wingnut cause that remains as strong as ever in Arkansas.)  She invoked the horror story of Title IX, which she said caused the elimination of 171 college wrestling programs. (This evoked a hearty laugh from Sen. Steve Bryles.)

But the most deranged performance belonged to Marianne Linane of the Diocese of Little Rock. She cited Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Sex Bias in the U.S. Code as proof that the ERA would lower the age of sexual consent to 12.* (The claim that Ginsburg supports pederasty has been carted out and refuted before, but Linane didn’t make the connection to the ERA clear. Apparently we were to conclude that since Ginsburg wrote Sex Bias and is also a noted ERA supporter, then the ERA will legalize a lower threshold for statutory rape.)

After the hearing, Bowen Law School Dean John DiPippa called Linane’s argument “intellectually dishonest.” He also said that fears about abortion and gay marriage were vastly overblown. One opponent testified that a Maryland court justified gay marriage using the ERA. Yet she neglected to mention, DiPippa pointed out after the hearing, that the ruling was later overturned by the state Supreme Court and that the law in question was a state version of the ERA stricter than the federal amendment.

(Read after the jump for more on the final vote.)

Indeed, there seemed to be a great amount of confusion about the provision under discussion. As DiPippa testified to the committee, two state versions of the ERA have been used to successfully argue that state government should pay for abortion procedures. (Similar arguments failed in three other states.) Yet opponents seemed to (willfully) misunderstand that the bill in front of today’s committee would do nothing whatever to change Arkansas law.

Much like the national popular vote bill that the same committee will take up later in the session, the federal ERA amendment would have no practical effect without the action of other states. It would also require action from Congress, since the original ERA deadline passed in 1982.

That point was mostly lost in the heat of blinkered argument. Even religion had its moment today. Sen. Kim Hendren said he was less concerned about inequality at home than discrimination in countries where women can’t drive cars or go to school. DiPippa countered that the ERA would strengthen the hand of the United States to argue to other nations for equality of the sexes. Sen. Hendren replied that the U.S. needs no such law to bolster us: “I believe it went back to a person named Jesus Christ.”

What appeared to do the measure in as much as much as anything was some senators’ belief that there is not any actual discrimination against women in Arkansas. “What problem are we trying to solve?” asked Sen. Pritchard.

Sen. Bobby Glover was also unconvinced. “They couldn’t show any proof that they’re being discriminated against,” he said. “Plus I got bombarded with calls over the weekend by my constituents against it. I usually do what my constituents tell me to do.”

The final vote saw Sens. Faris, Laverty, Wilkinson and Bryles in favor; Sens. Baker, Hendren, Glover and Pritchard were against. Sen Glover was the swing vote. Though Berta Seitz, who leads the ERA Arkansas Coalition, said Sen. Glover had agreed to vote for the bill last week, Sen. Glover denied that he had made any promises and said he was waiting to hear today’s testimony before deciding.

A House version of the ERA bill is now likely to remain on indefinite hold. Rep. Lindsley Smith, who is the House bill’s sponsor, said she lacks two votes in committee.

EVENING UPDATE: Blake Rutherford has linked a West Wing clip that contains, in just one painless minute, an argument against the ERA more convincing than anything remarked during this morning’s hour and a half of bloviating.

*CORRECTION: Originally this article said Linane accused Ginsburg of wanting to lower the age of marital consent. Rich as that would be considering last session’s fumble of marital-consent law, the argument against Ginsburg actually claims she wants to lower the age below which statutory rape applies. Here’s more on that, by the way, if you can’t get enough.

The bill lists several types of projects that would be eligible for the fund’s assistance. They include construction, land acquisition, assistance with down payments and foreclosure counseling.

It is currently unclear where the money will come from to pay for the proposed program. But Rep. David Rainey, who is one of two House members to sponsor the bill, said the source of funding is less important right now than setting up the trust fund’s structure. Money could come from a number of places, including state appropriation, private donation and federal assistance.

“This is something that should benefit people across the state,” Rep. Rainey said. He said he was unaware of anyone opposed to the bill. “I think there will be a groundswell of support.”

According to Housing Arkansas, a group lobbying for the bill’s passage, housing trust funds exist in 38 other states.

The House passed a bill that would require Arkansas to cast its electoral college ballots for the winner of the national popular vote. A similar measure died in a Senate committee in 2007. Sen. Steve Faris said there would be enough votes to kill the bill in his committee. In the face of opposition from civil libertarians who said it would increase racial profiling, a law making failure to wear a seat belt a primary offense went through the House. The governor will sign it. The House gave final approval to a reform of the state Martin Luther King Jr. Commission. The commission will shed half its members and the governor will gain the authority to hire its director. A gubernatorial spokesman said there are no plans to make a change the current director at this time. The House rejected a plan to make prosecutorial elections non-partisan.

After hearing testimony from two hostile motorcyclists, a Senate committee declined to approve a bill that would require bikers to either get health insurance or wear a helmet. The same committee refused a bill forcing gravel-carrying trucks to be covered with a tarp following commentary from hostile county judges. A separate Senate committee said people should not be allowed to bring concealed firearms into churches.

Rep. Otis Davis, a pastor, told the House that it would be a sin not to vote for the aforementioned seat belt law. 40 members sinned. Rose Jones, arguing to the House State Agencies Committee that it should not reform the Martin Luther King Jr. Commission, imagined aloud that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took over the Arkansas Capitol.  Rep. John Edwards said Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man” makes him think about the Freedom of Information Act.

Thus the great paradox of the lottery scholarships: They should be as inclusive as possible, but they serve little purpose if recipients fail to graduate.

Will the state be throwing 40 percent of the lottery money away? Should it not award higher grants to students who show greater potential to graduate? Under the current formula, recipients are required to have a GPA, 2.5, that is just on the threshold between a C+ and a B-. Should we not be demanding more than mediocrity from our students?

If only it were so easy to correct the problem by demanding a better GPA. To do so would undoubtedly leave out poor and minority students, whose meager resources make it difficult to achieve at the same level as the well-to-do.

What changes, then, could be made to the bill to optimize the use of state dollars?

One has to do with income cutoffs, anathema to this point: Take income into account, but don’t create an upper limit. Instead, establish a GPA scale pegged to wealth. If a student’s family is in the top 10 percent of earners, for example, then the student would have to maintain a 3.0 GPA to get a scholarship. The 2.5 threshold could continue to apply to students from poorer families. Exceptions could be made for those with learning and developmental disabilities. The numbers could be changed, of course, but the idea is to weed out underachievers among the group of students in a better economic position to succeed.

A second suggestion is political poison and would never be adopted, but I have to throw it out there anyway: give money to go to college out of state on the condition that recipients return for a certain period of employment after graduation. When the graduation rate at Arkansas universities is 61 percent even among the best high-school performers, it suggests to me that those universities are not doing what they should be doing. You could also take a hard look at improving education standards at Arkansas universities, but that’s another issue entirely.

At the Wednesday session, many agreed that the draft legislation, which is subject to revision, had done a good job of being inclusive. But in a bill this large, there are sure to be unhappy customers. And while no one has expressed strong opposition to the bill, not everyone is getting what they want.

Start with Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, the lottery creator. For the most part he has received the draft legislation warmly. But he raised some questions at the meeting yesterday. Halter’s prognostication for the lottery’s success has been exceedingly optimistic, as he has predicted revenues twice above those forecast by the Department of Finance and Administration. In keeping with that attitude — at least from a fiscal standpoint — he said yesterday that legislators would be making a mistake to assume that all people eligible for scholarships will take advantage. (Current projections assume 100% participation  among eligible students.) If the legislature over-predicts the number of participants, then money that could be going to higher awards will end up languishing in a trust fund.

Halter brought up other fiscal concerns. He did not like that some lottery money is to pay administrative costs. He also asked the legislature to increase the $20 million Academic Challenge Appropriation, which is currently funded at the same level every year; if expanding costs bring Academic Challenge expenditures beyond $20 million then the lottery scholarship money would fill the gap. That would violate the constitutional stipulation that the lottery supplement, not supplant, current scholarship dollars.

(Read on after the jump: some have problems with academic provisions, and one issue in particular could cause a battle.)

Halter brought up academic concerns as well. Currently the legislation contains a provision that impacts students attending high schools that exhibit grade inflation. If a student goes to such a school, she can only qualify by ACT, not by GPA. Halter told the working group that it cannot be assumed that these students will achieve the required test score. The grade inflation clause will most likely affect low-income schools whose students tend to perform lower on standardized tests, he said.

Of course, Halter has no vote on the measure. But others that do had some of the same academic concerns. Besides the grade inflation issue, some worried that a provision limiting state scholarship coverage to 130 credit hours would discourage students from entering programs that take five years to complete. Other disliked a requirement that scholarship recipients take the Smart Core curriculum, a set of courses that focuses on humanities, social sciences and math. Sen. Joyce Elliot said that if Smart Core is a prerequisite for a scholarship, then the legislature should explicitly require all students to take the curriculum in order to ensure that everyone is equally prepared for eligibility.

It should not be forgotten that yesterday’s meeting was informative; those with concerns were reacting to a document they had received only an hour before. But are there any provisions likely to cause an open fight over the bill?

One may be that students at two-year schools receive only half as much money as those at four-year schools. Sen. Larry Teague has been vocal about his opposition to that part of the bill. He argues that two-year students actually need more help to pay for college, considering that many support a family and work on the side. He explicitly told the working group yesterday that he will fight the disparity.

Sen. Teague later told me that he hopes his concerns will be addressed behind closed doors. But if they’re not, he said, he and several other rural legislators are prepared to raise their voices.

Rep. Kathy Webb, who led a press conference this afternoon to introduce the legislative package, filed a bill to establish energy-saving practices at state-owned and higher-education buildings. The current version, which is a shell bill, should gain more detail as information about Arkansas’s share of federal stimulus dollars emerges. Rep. Webb said her plan is based on a North Carolina conservation program, the Utility Savings Initiative.

Rep. Webb’s bill will work in conjunction with others filed today.

Rep. Joan Cash introduced a measure that will increase the Public Service Commission’s regulatory authority by requiring it to create efficiency standards for public utilities.

Sen. Shane Broadway offered a bill that calls for a $300 million bond issue to pay for retrofitting state agency buildings. If approved by the legislature, the bond issue would come before voters in 2010, barring an earlier special election. Voter approval would allow the state to borrow up to $60 million annually. The money would be repaid with saved energy costs.

A second wave of energy legislation is expected before the filing deadline in 10 days. One bill would change code in order to allow electric cars to be regulated as automobiles rather than motorcycles; another, which is to be sponsored by Rep. Allen Maxwell, will help homeowners install efficient energy systems.

The filing, of course, is the easy part: the package’s supporters are likely to face a stiff fight from energy producers.  Rep. Webb said she was meeting with energy representatives today and hopes to eventually gain their blessing. We shall see.

Other than the fanaticism that gun stories never fail to cause — even more fanatic when the gun story involves church — the bill raised a legitimate constitutional question. Does banning weapons in the sanctuary, as current law explicitly does, violate on the free exercise of religion? Is such a ban an infringement of the separation of church and state?

Personally I think not. Firearms have nothing to do with church doctrine, scripture, dogma or teaching. Gun control is a public-safety and therefore a public-policy issue.  Sen. Sue Madison made some of the same points in her arguments before the negative vote on the bill.

(I do think this bill has been a huge waste of time. As John Brummett writes, the circus could have been avoided if church language had never been put into law in the first place.)

But Rep. Beverly Pyle, the bill’s sponsor, disagreed. More importantly, she had the opinion of John DiPippa, dean of the Bowen School of Law, on her side. In an email Rep. Pyle read to the committee, DiPippa outlined how the current law banning guns in church could be challenged on constitutional and other grounds.

Rep. Pyle said after the committee meeting today that she would present the bill again later this session. Perhaps she thinks that DiPippa’s email, which I’ve reprinted after the jump, will help change some minds.

Representative Pyle,

You have asked me to elaborate on my statement reported by the Associated Press that the current Arkansas statute that bans the possession of concealed weapons in any church or place of worship is subject to challenge. I am happy to do so in this brief written statement.

The law as currently written raises significant legal questions under the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. (RLUIPA) (42 USC 2000cc et seq)

First, the law could be challenged by individuals as a violation of the Free Exercise Clause. To do so, challengers must show that a law that is not neutral toward religion substantially burdens a sincerely held religious belief.

The current law is neither neutral toward religion nor generally applicable. Rather, it singles out churches and places of worship. These laws must satisfy strict scrutiny, a very demanding standard. The law will survive only if the state can show a compelling purpose for the law and that it has chosen the means least restrictive on religious practice and belief.

Although public safety is a compelling governmental interest, a blanket ban on concealed weapons in churches seems to go too far. There are less restrictive ways to accomplish the government’s safety goal.

Second, religious organizations could challenge the current law as a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The Establishment Clause guarantees religious groups substantial autonomy in their practices, beliefs, and procedures. Like the Free Exercise clause, church practice gives way only in the face of compelling public necessity. This policy is so strong that religions are often given exemptions from the application of federal employment statutes.

The current law interferes with the teaching by some religious groups that individuals have an obligation to defend others. Religious organizations who believe this can reasonably conclude that this obligation extends even during religious services and may decide to organize themselves accordingly.

Third, the current law is subject to challenge under RLUIPA as a land use regulation that substantially burdens the religious exercise of a person or a religious assembly or institution. Such regulations must satisfy the strict scrutiny standard (i.e., compelling government purpose and least restrictive means). The law can also be challenged under RLUIPA because it does not treat religious institutions the same as other property owners.

These are issues of first impression under the religion clauses or RLUIPA. It is difficult to predict the outcome of a legal challenge. I believe, however, that these are non-frivolous positions and that courts would take them seriously.

This is not a gun question. Rather, it is a question of religious freedom. Many people, including myself and my faith community, the Roman Catholic Church, do not believe that concealed weapons belong in places of worship. But that is not the issue. Reasonable people of faith might reach different theological and moral conclusions. Religion can not be free if we protect only those people and groups with whom we agree. Rather, the test of freedom is whether we are willing to extend its protections to those with whom we disagree. I believe that the Constitution intended to keep government out of religion as much as possible. That is the soil in which vibrant religious faith and effective government action flourishes. Accordingly, I believe that each religious group should be free to decide whether or not it wants to ban the possession of concealed weapons on its property.

I should add that I also have First Amendment concerns if churches were required to post signs or notices announcing that they were banning concealed weapons from their premises. The government should not compel speech by religious groups. Religious groups should decide how they want to communicate their intentions concerning the presence of concealed weapons on their property. Neither the form nor the content should be mandated by the State.

Thank you for this opportunity to address this issue. Please let me know if you have any questions.

John M.A. DiPippa

Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy

University at Arkansas at Little Rock

William H. Bowen School of Law

If the bill gains approval in the House, as is likely, commission membership will be reduced from 26 to 13. In past years the commission has had difficulty achieving a quorum to conduct business.

The bill will also entitle the governor to select the commission’s executive director. He can dismiss the executive director at any time.

Several current commission members, who stand to lose their positions if the bill is enacted, testified against the change. They said they had not been consulted and took issue with the stipulation that the executive director serve at the pleasure of the governor. Judy Green, a onetime member, said it was a “slap in the face” when Gov. Beebe called the commission an embarrassment last year.

Commissioner Diana Charles said the commission has been unfairly portrayed in the media. “The true story of the King Commission has never come before the people of Arkansas,” she said. She did not elaborate.

None of these arguments swayed the committee, who approved the bill unanimously. Sen. Wilkins said it pained him personally to make the change — his father wrote the state MLK holiday and his mother wrote the law enacting the MLK Commission — but that reform is necessary.

Rep. Lindsley Smith sponsored today’s successful bill. Though a similar measure failed last session, the current version gained support by including a provision that allows the Arkansas Claims Commission to hear appeals. Unlike earlier FOI bills this session, this one had the backing of the Attorney General’s office.

Citizens whose FOI requests are rejected may appeal to a circuit court. However, previous rulings have found that the state does not have to pay attorney’s fees even in cases it loses. The new law will require the state to pay when plaintiffs “substantially prevail.”

There was some questioning in committee this morning about that language. Bowen Law School professor Rick Peltz said that, though there is currently no widespread consensus on the meaning of “substantially prevail,” the language is unlikely to cause a problem. “I’m confident that’s something we can leave to judicial evolution in the circuit courts,” he said.

Under state law, the Arkansas Claims Commission can pay a maximum of $10,000 in awards in most cases. Rep. Smith said she believes most appeals for attorney’s fees in FOI cases will be less than that amount. According to committee testimony, the money will come from a $1.5 million state fund for the payment of such claims.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Gilbert Baker, appears in part to be a reaction to the expansion of presidential discretionary scholarships at the University of Central Arkansas during President Lu Hardin’s administration. Those awards generally had vague criteria and were sometimes given on the basis of political favoritism.

The bill would reduce the percentage of money state schools can spend on scholarships relative to their total tuition collections. 30% of tuition is the current scholarship threshold, though there is no enforcement mechanism in the law. Sen. Baker’s measure would limit scholarship spending to 20% of tuition in 2013-2014. It would also impose fiscal penalties on schools exceeding that amount.

Sen. Baker said the bill is intended to limit what he called a “bidding war” for students among Arkansas universities. It is also meant to prepare for an increase in statewide scholarships via the lottery, he said.

According to numbers Sen. Baker provided, Arkansas Tech is the only state school to have recently overshot the legal limit, with its scholarship expenditures amounting to 31.1 percent of tuition collections. UCA spent 26.3 percent of tuition on scholarships over the same period.

Sen. Baker said the Department of Higher Education opposes the proposed caps, but no one challenged the bill in committee.

Though the bill clearly changes how state colleges and universities allocate scholarships, less obvious is what its practical effect will be should the governor eventually sign it. Unlike current law, Sen. Baker’s bill allows schools to subtract from their scholarship totals money given to students who are eligible for a maximum Pell Grant. The students need not be receiving the grant. At a school with a large number of low-income students, then, it is conceivable that the amount of money spent on scholarships will increase.

There was confusion in the Education Committee today as to whether the bill requires schools to report athletic scholarships in their scholarship totals. Sen. Baker first said it does, then changed his position when someone pointed out that athletic scholarships are not explicitly listed among money that must be counted. However, a separate section of the bill says all scholarships must be counted that do not get a specific exemption; athletic scholarships do not. The section in question — lines 27-30 on page two for those of you keeping score at home — seems intended to reduce the type of criteria-free scholarships that have been awarded at UCA in recent years. But it appears also to force reporting of athletic scholarships that is not currently required.

Sen. Hendren said the helmet requirement would cut down on injuries and thereby reduce public health costs. Rodney Roberts, a motorcyclist who testified against the bill, countered that there is contradictory evidence on the effectiveness of helmets in saving lives, and that in some cases helmets are responsible for deaths. (The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has found a positive correlation between helmet use and crash survival.)

Roberts further argued that the law would be ineffective and a hassle to bikers, who would have to acquire a decal to prove they had health insurance. He said the decal might mar the appearance of bikes. He also said it was unfair to make motorcyclists acquire health insurance but not the general population.

Members of the committee did not seem impressed with any of this reasoning. “People against a bill will use every argument they can,” Sen. Bobby Glover told Roberts.

In the end, however, the committee did not make a motion. The bill will remain on the active calendar. Sen. Hendren said he might give it another shot later in the session.

The helmet requirement is representative of a gradual approach Sen. Hendren has taken to traffic safety issues this session. Even if it passed, the bill would not make Arkansas one of the 21 states to have a universal motorcycle helmet requirement. Nor does the bill prescribe strict penalties for violators. A Sen. Hendren-sponsored bill requiring teen drivers to use hands-free cell phones also had weak enforcement provisions.

Sen. Hendren encountered another defeat this morning when the Transportation Committee declined to approve his bill that would require trucks carrying gravel to be covered with a tarp. A number of county judges who spoke against the measure called it an unfunded mandate. A 2001 law exempted trucks made after 2001 from using a tarp; Sen. Hendren said it is time to end that exception. He offered to set a firm deadline a few years in the future to end of the exemption, but the judges countered that they should not have to supply trucks with tarps until the economy is on steady ground.

The Senate sent a ban on partial-birth abortion to Governor Beebe’s desk. He has said he will sign the measure. The House voted to repeal the state tax on charitable bingo, though the bill may receive amendment in the Senate. Supporters of the repeal say the tax is an unfair burden on non-profits and that it limits their ability to fund worthy activities such as scholarships. Opponents argue that the tax cut will limit bingo oversight and allow commercial operators to move into the state. The Department of Finance and Administration has protested the loss of $1.2 million in revenue from the tax. The House also approved fee hikes for wine and spirits permits. The new fees, which have already made it through the Senate, will allow Alcoholic Beverage Control to ramp up enforcement and improve its technology. The measure stoked controversy when first debated in the Senate; some small wholesalers said the permit increases would put them out of business. It has since been revised to charge lower fees to wholesalers who distribute under a certain volume.

The House State Agencies Committee approved a measure to eliminate the partisan election of prosecutors. Opponents argued that the measure is itself partisan. The Senate Judiciary Committee recommended a bill making it a misdemeanor to transmit voyeuristically obtained images; in the face of opposition from defense lawyers, it deferred action on a bill to enhance penalties for domestic assault carried out in the presence of a child.

Former President Bill Clinton addressed a joint session of the legislature in front of two full galleries. He arrived forty minutes late and encouraged lawmakers to provide means for more efficient energy in buildings. A House committee declined to recommend that the blue catfish become the official fish of Arkansas. The ichthyological honor is currently unclaimed. Another House committee recommended a byzantine procedure to determine who rightfully controls the remains of dead people. The Senate told Turkey to stop harassing the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church.

As the close vote indicates, this is a fairly divisive issue. That’s mainly for political reasons. According to Mariah Hatta, Arkansas Democratic Party Executive Director, 24 of 26 elected prosecutors in Arkansas are Democrats. Making the elections non-partisan will rob the Democratic Party of the $7,500 filing fee each candidate must pay to run for prosecutor. (Last election cycle the party returned to candidates the maximum political contribution, said Hatta.) Presumably Republicans charge fees, too, but the high number of incumbent Democratic prosecutors ensures the Democratic Party of steady fee collections every four years.

Rep. Steve Harrelson, a Democrat who voted against the change this morning, stressed that the measure is motivated by partisan politics. (He had some of the same concerns when a similar bill came up in the 2007 session.) He added that making prosecutor elections non-partisan might lead to the same change for sheriff, county clerk and other offices.

Both the 2007 bill and this year’s bill were introduced by Republicans, which has furthered Democratic suspicion.

“Our concern is that there doesn’t appear to any need to change the election process,” Hatta said.

But Republicans contend they are working in the best interest of the judicial system. Rep. Andrea Lea, who introduced this year’s bill, brought a letter of support this morning from Thomas Deen, an independent prosecutor in Monticello. Rep. Dan Greenberg, a Republican House State Agencies Committee member who voted for the bill, has posted a brief essay on why he thinks politics should stay out of prosecutor elections.

Beyond the parochial concerns of Arkansas politics there has been a wider conversation about whether prosecutors should be politically aligned. Like Rep. Greenberg, some think prosecutors should be focused on justice, not elections. But another school of thought says prosecutorial priorities should not be divorced from the will of the electorate. In essence, it argues that justice is a dynamic rather than a static concept. If the public thinks fewer drug convictions are warranted, for example, they have the option of voting for a prosecutor from the Democratic Party, which tends to support such policies. (For a concise look at the pros and cons of elected prosecutors refer to this slightly dated essay.)

Three Democrats voted for the bill today, which suggests that some representatives see this as a non-political issue. It will be worth watching to see how closely the vote in the House follows party lines.

A second elections bill touching on the judiciary is still awaiting a hearing: Rep. Harrelson’s proposal to repeal sections of state law that ban judges from soliciting on behalf of a political candidate. Rep. Harrelson said he is still talking with members of the Arkansas Judicial Council about the bill, which is on the active calendar in the House Judiciary Committee. Even if the bill passes, it would have little practical impact without changes to portions of the Judicial Canons that bar judges from political activity.

UPDATE 24 FEBRUARY: I asked Howard Brill, a professor at Arkansas Law School and an expert on legal ethics, about Sen. Harrelson’s bill. He said it might come into conflict with Amendment 28 to the Arkansas constitution, which arguably gives the State Supreme Court sole authority to regulate judges and lawyers. “Legislative involvement in this issue would present interesting issues of state constitutional law concerning the separation of powers doctrine,” Professor Brill wrote in an email.

The bill is currently on the deferred calendar of the House Judiciary Committee.

A ‘no’ vote was a vote for reason. The ban is effectively meaningless, a political wedge issue to get people riled up. The procedure in question has never been performed in Arkansas, at least according to testimony in both the House and the Senate.

The way they talk about the procedure, some ban supporters would have us think there are jaundice-eyed abortionists out there slobbering at the chance to brutalize fetuses — a dubious prospect. In fact, partial-birth abortion is reserved for serious medical situations. And if one day an Arkansas woman does need the procedure for health reasons, the performing doctor will face jail time, fines, civil penalties and a loss of license. Though the ban contains an exception to prevent the death of a woman, it does not say anything about preserving the health of a woman — i.e., if a doctor is not 100 percent sure that a woman will die without a partial-birth abortion, then he can’t perform it without putting his own livelihood at risk. I’m guessing that’s a level of certainty few doctors would feel comfortable expressing.

In effect, the bill will either rob a well-meaning doctor of his discretion or put him at the mercy of courts and the Arkansas Medical Board.

Sen. Johnson expressed some of these concerns in explaining his ‘no’ vote. He said he didn’t like that there are no exceptions for a woman’s health. He hypothesized a situation where a doctor performs a partial-birth abortion to prevent a woman’s death and is subsequently brought before a court. If the prosecution finds just one doctor to testify that the procedure was unnecessary to save the woman’s life, then the doctor who performed the abortion could be ruined, he said. He also expressed concern at the civil penalties within the bill. (Those confusing terms, which allow a fetus’s father or grandparents to sue the abortionist in certain circumstances, are copied straight from a federal partial-birth abortion ban.)

But a loss for reason is a win for politics. Abortion is such a hot-button issue for its opponents that any legislator who votes ‘no’ could face a backlash from voters. That is particularly true for the partial-birth issue decided today, as it received almost no logical debate on the merits. And if the ban doesn’t really have a practical effect, why not vote for it rather than risk political penalty?

Gov. Beebe has already said he will approve the bill. I can’t totally blame him, though he is taking the expedient path.

What would I do? If I’m a politician, I sign it. If I’m a reasonable person, I veto it.

Several of the provisions have been in circulation already. The lottery will be implemented and administered by a nine-member commission appointed by the governor, speaker of the house and senate president pro tem.  The commission is essentially an independent state agency. In theory at least, neither legislators nor the governor will have any control over which companies get the big business of running the lottery beyond appointments to the commission.

Commissioners will be unpaid. The only paid employees of the commission are expected to be a director and a procurement official that advises female- and minority-owned firms about acquiring lottery business. The commission will appoint both employees.

Less expected were the tough ethics standards in the bill, which Speaker of the House Rep. Robbie Wills said will make the Arkansas lottery the most ethically stringent in the country.  Members or employees who leave the lottery commission will be banned from lobbying the commission on behalf of a lottery vendor or retailer for two years. Lottery vendors will not be able to give any gifts whatsoever to members of the lottery commission, and they will be prohibited from making political contributions to public officials. They will be barred from so much as buying a lottery ticket.

The bill explicitly opens the lottery to scrutiny under the Freedom of Information Act. It includes a exemption for certain information given to the U.S. Government or law enforcement agencies under special agreement.

Government oversight of the lottery is expected to be comprehensive as well. Besides an annual review by the Division of Legislative Audit, the bill establishes a special lottery oversight committee that will consist of five senators and five House members.

Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter, who ran the lottery amendment campaign last fall, said he was pleased to see that so many of his ethics recommendations made it into the draft legislation. In fact, he said legislators may have tried to make requirements too strict in one regard. A provision of the bill would ban any vendor from operating in the state if an elected official or constitutional officer owns even one share of the vendor’s stock. Halter envisioned a situation in which a legislator against a particular lottery company buys a share of its stock so as to eliminate it from state consideration.

The draft bill, which is fifty pages, does not yet contain information about how the lottery will fund college scholarships. That section of the legislation is not to be revealed until next week.

For now the bill has plenty of provisions for statehouse watchers to digest. Read after the jump for more details.

Games: The lottery commission will determine which kind of games will be played, though certain games are prohibited. Video lottery is banned, as is casino gambling. The bill allows the commission to establish participation in multi-state games such as Powerball.

Retailers: The commission will establish a network of stores that will sell lottery tickets. It is currently unclear what kind of stores will be allowed. (One legislator expressed concern that churches might be able to sell tickets.) Retailers must receive a fee of at least five percent of ticket sales, though the lottery board can give them more. Retailers will be represented to the lottery commission by a Lottery Retailer Advisory Board.

Prizes: The commission decides the amount of lottery proceeds to be given in prizes. There is no requirement that it provide a certain rate of return to the state. Currently the law states that no more that $200,000 in unclaimed prizes be used for treatment of gambling addiction, though Wills indicated that he might change the bill to require at least $200,000 be spent. Anyone who wins over $500 in the lottery and who also owes taxes, child support or fines will only receive his prize after those debts are paid.

Procurement contracts: The lottery commission is authorized to solicit bids for contracts of $75,000 or more. It is to accept a bid that it deems to be in the best interest of the lottery. It need not take the highest bid.

Legal: People under 18 cannot win lottery prizes. Anyone suing the lottery has to go through the Arkansas Claims Commission. Appeals of lottery commission decisions will be made to Pulaski County Circuit Court.

Clinton did his share of that, as he thanked many who had served during his administration. He took particular note of Sen. Bobby Glover, who Clinton said gave him his first $100 contribution for his 1976 Attorney General campaign. He also noted the increased diversity in the legislature and the state as a whole. “This is a more interesting country, and the state is a more interesting state, than it was 30 years ago,” he said.

But it wouldn’t be a Clinton speech without policy prescriptions, and he provided plenty. He applauded President Obama’s stimulus plan and expressed a belief that the economic downturn will continue somewhere from six to twenty-four months.

He encouraged Arkansas legislators in their work and commended them on lowering the grocery tax. But he reminded them that they had it fairly easy compared to lawmakers in states with multi-billion-dollar deficits. Of the lottery creation process he practically told legislators to buck up:  “The details are mind-numbing, but this is normal!”

The most interesting part of Clinton’s speech, however, was a policy suggestion specific to Arkansas: If the federal bank bailouts succeed, he said, then state government should work with banks to obtain loans for retrofitting buildings. Combined with a government match for bank contributions, the program could be used to install efficient lighting in homes and buildings across the state. Savings in utility bills would pay the cost, Clinton said.

In fact, some legislators have been discussing a program that will help homeowners do something similar to what Clinton proposed today, though it is unclear if banks would be involved.  Rep. Kathy Webb said she would present a package of environment and energy bills next week that could include the program.

In an apparent attempt to rival the presidential line of succession for complexity, the House Health Committee approved a bill to set the order of people who have the right to dispose of a dead person’s corpse. If the spouse can’t be found then the child gets the responsibility; if there’s no child, then the parent takes over; etc. Pets appear to have no rights under the statute.

The measure was brought at the behest of a group of funeral directors, who are apparently uncomfortable dealing with bodies when no one comes to claim them. The bill allows funeral directors to dispose of corpses without penalty if they make a good-faith effort to find relatives. It also establishes a system in which circuit courts settle family disputes over control of remains. Funeral directors would be able to collect fees from the family for preserving the corpse during the adjudication process.

Rep. Gene Shelby pointed out that the line of succession doesn’t include a live-in partner who was not married to the deceased. The objection was no obstacle to the bill’s passage.

The House Judiciary Committee also approved a dead-guy bill today. Actually, this one’s more about dead presidents than dead people. It extends the time during which a living person can level a claim against an estate to six months after the passing of the deceased.

In very tangentially related news, Rep. Steve Harrelson reports that a bill allowing guns in parking lots will not be attempted this session after all. Too bad for us journalists — even the New York Times got in on the latest action. I guess the guns in church bill really took the wind out of the sponsor’s sails.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Jim Jeffress, adds restrictions to drivers who are between 16 and 18 years of age. With exceptions for travel from school, work and church activities, those drivers would not be allowed on the road without adult supervision between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. They would also be banned from transporting more than one person under 21 who is not a member of their household.

The bill’s prospects didn’t look good early in the debate, as Sen. Larry Teague asked a barrage of questions. How will the new regulations affect the social lives of teens in small towns such as Nashville and Crossett? Will it cause undue hardship for kids who carpool to school?

Sen. Paul Bookout said he was worried that young hunters would be unable to go out early enough. Concerns were also expressed about the bill’s lack of enforcement provisions. It leaves it up to the Department of Finance and Administration to develop penalties.

However, a slew of testimony followed that appealed to the public health benefit of placing restrictions on teen drivers. Multiple speakers asked the committee to approve a bill that would save lives. That was enough to ensure its passage.

Sen. Teague absented himself for the voice vote. Sen Denny Altes, who is listed as a bill co-sponsor, didn’t register a vote either way.

The committee’s approval puts Arkansas on its way to implementing the tougher teen-driving standards prevalent across the nation. According to testimony given today, 45 states have a curfew for teen drivers, while 39 place restrictions on the number of passengers.

Sen. Jeffress said afterwards that he thought the opposition was “just posturing.” But resistance may be stiffer in the House, where a similar measure received just 27 votes last session. Sen. Jeffress said he thinks he has made the bill more palatable by adding exceptions.

Also in the Transportation Committee today, members approved bills to make it a primary offense not to wear a seatbelt and to prevent lawyers and chiropracters from accessing accident reports.

Without debate, the House approved of outlawing a particular abortion method. The bill caused a stir in committee after its sponsor presented a last-minute rewrite that opponents were unable to review before their testimony. The House rejected a measure that would have allowed wider access to the criminal records of public officials. It passed a bill that will allow people to bring concealed weapons into churches. Speaking on the floor in favor of the bill, Rep. Donna Hutchinson said she felt forced to vote for it because it is unfair that poor churches are unable to afford private security teams.

The Senate Judiciary Committee put on hold a proposal to create the crime of strangulation. Opponents argued that strangulation is covered under other parts of the law, and that a new criminal category could wreak havoc in courts. A House committee said natural gas companies should be able to use the power of eminent domain in order to lay pipelines. A separate committee ruled that the Arkansas Contractors Licensing Board cannot fine contractors who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

Rep. Richard Carroll, a white legislator who comes from a majority-black district and whose wife is black, tried to join the Legislative Black Caucus. His request was denied. To join, said the caucus chairman, “You have to be an elected legislator and you have to be black.” Sen. Tracy Steele, the term-limited senator who is rumored to be considering a challenge for Carroll’s House seat in 2010, said he has not ruled out running for President of the United States. Backed only by a shoddy CD player, Charley Pride sang over half an hour of his country hits from the Senate lectern. A House committee recommended that the full body commend Bobby Hurley of Clarksville for making the Professional Rodeo Hall of Fame.

McDaniel won round one today when the House defeated Rep. Greenberg’s bill to allow greater access to the criminal records of elected officials, agency heads and candidates for office. At 33-56, the vote adhered largely to ideological lines, with a contingent of conservative-leaning representatives providing the yeas. 11 members sat this one out. (Rep. Greenberg has posted an account of the affair.) 

This is a rather confusing result. FOI need not be a partisan issue. Yet when it becomes one, Democrats are usually more supportive of greater sunshine. (There was a similar reversal of roles this week when a number of Democrats sided with energy companies on the issue of using eminent domain to lay gas pipelines.) 

An explanation for the partisan split might be found in the campaign McDaniel, a Democrat, waged against the FOI measure. Besides giving oppositional testimony in committee, McDaniel distributed a letter to legislators urging them to vote against the bill, Rep. Greenberg writes in his post. I’d speculate that McDaniel’s note had some influence with Democratic members. 

Another argument circulating in a House memo was that the bill got out of the House Judiciary Committee inadvertently. Rep. Greenberg disputed that on the floor today. I missed the committee debate early in the week, but Judiciary chairman Rep. Steve Harrelson told me the bill came up late in the meeting when some committee members were gone. 

Rep. Greenberg has acquired something of a reputation for grandstanding on the FOI issue, but I’m not so sure. I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt after seeing the changes he made in the most recent version of his criminal-record bill. The amended bill sought to meet administrators’ concerns by charging a fee for information. It also would have narrowed the time frame during which one could request criminal information about a political candidate. 

Ironically for a sunshine bill, this measure appeared to get cut down partially because legislators were sick of openly debating its provisions. (The full House refused to send it back to committee for amendment earlier this week.) It’s a frustrating situation for an observer, because one of the fascinating things about covering the session is weighing policy arguments that go into each law. But it’s also an instructive one, especially as the lottery gets hashed out behind closed doors. The crux of lawmaking often isn’t the methodical consideration of ideas — it’s having the right personality and the right friends to get your ideas heard.

Rep. Smith scrapped her original measure and presented an amended version (not yet online) to committee members at the beginning of the meeting. A late amendment posed no problem for Rep. Dawn Creekmore’s partial-birth abortion ban in front of the same committee on Tuesday, but questions today flustered Rep. Smith and caused the bill’s withdrawal for further consideration.

The aim of the bill, whatever changes it may undergo, is to keep doctors from referring patients to outside screening facilities in which they have a financial interest. Rep. Smith said she wants to prevent situations in which doctors unnecessarily prescribe MRIs and other expensive scans in order to make money from insurers. She detailed how some doctors arrange to send patients to an outside screening center in return for a part of the insurance payment. (The Wall Street Journal described this situation in a 2005 article.)

Rep. Smith said the measure would save $160 million in annual healthcare costs in Arkansas, though she did not elaborate on her figures. The savings would mostly benefit private insurers, as federal law already bans Medicaid and Medicare from paying for outside screening procedures where the referrer has a financial interest.

“This is to close loopholes in the federal law,” Rep. Smith said. She added that over 20 states have similar statutes on the books.

Rep. Billy Gaskill objected to the bill on its face. “You want to tell a doctor when he can do this procedure,” he said. “This is the type of meddling we don’t need to get into.”

Another committee member objected that the bill does not provide an exception for rural doctors. Rep. Smith said that issue should have been addressed in her amendment but was not.

Though the bill as currently written would prevent murky kickback schemes, it may still allow doctors to profit from MRI referrals in an overt way.

(Read on for further analysis.)

The bill explicitly allows a doctor to make MRI referrals to his own practice or to group practices of which he is a part. In theory, at least, that means a doctor could still benefit from prescribing an MRI — it would simply have to be given at his own facility.

In effect, the law may fail to prevent the overuse of medical screens. According to this 2004 New York Times article, for example, Syracuse saw an increase in MRIs that occurred partially because expanded screening gave doctors a new revenue source.

Indeed, Rep. Smith’s bill appears to be more about financial disclosure than reducing the frequency of medical screens. Besides allowing for apparently broad exceptions, the measure requires doctors to inform patients when they or their families have an financial interest in screening centers.

This morning’s vote was an anti-climatic finale. Senate galleries were packed, but the debate had none of the suspense of last week’s boisterous House vote. Those opposed to the tax seemed resigned to their defeat. While four senators made brief remarks supporting the tax, only Sen. Johnny Key spoke against it. He said he did not believe that this is the time to raise taxes.

The only surprise was a yes vote from Sen. Terry Smith, who made a motion in committee yesterday that would have jeopardized the bill by amending it and sending it back to the House. Rep. Robbie Wills said after the vote that he had constantly impressed upon Sen. Smith, a fellow Democrat, that his support was needed, though Rep. Wills was unsure whether Sen. Smith changed his mind due to the pressure.

The tax will go into effect on 1 March. Legislation is still to be passed to create a trauma system, which the tax will fund.

Voters amended the state constitution to require annual meetings of the legislature last fall.

The dates for the new session are now sealed barring further action of the Budget Committee and do not need approval by the Senate or House, said Rep. Bruce Maloch, Budget Committee co-chair.

Under the fresh rules, the legislature will automatically review budgets of six state agencies: Education, Higher Ed, Health, Human Services, Correction and Community Correction. These agencies account for about 90 percent of the budget.

Other agencies will have to make a specific request in order to have their budgets reexamined. Otherwise they will receive the appropriations agreed to in odd years. An agency can be included in the budget process if it gets permission from the Legislative Council before its November meeting;  requests made later than November will require the approval of the Legislative Council, the Governor, and the Budget Committee itself.

There was some concern from committee members today that this structure will establish an unfair standard. “Are we circumventing having to look at each agency?” Sen. Percy Malone asked. “There is going to be someone out there who has a difficult time getting heard.”

In the end, though, the committee found it more expedient to require a hearing for only the largest state agencies.

Rep. Maloch said there is still work to be done in order to clarify the process on regular bills. The recent constitutional amendment prevents the legislature from hearing non-fiscal matters during fiscal sessions unless there is 2/3 approval in both bodies. Rep. Maloch said the House and Senate will have to form joint rules on how to handle regular bill proposals during even-year sessions. Staff is going through the code to clean up language that refers to biennial meetings.

(Read on for Rep. Maloch’s thoughts.)

Rep. Maloch said it would be presumptuous to go against the voters’ will and try to reinstate biennial sessions, as some legislators have proposed. He has entertained the idea of switching fiscal sessions to odd years, but he took no clear position on the matter in an interview today.

“My initial thoughts were that it would make sense to have the fiscal session first, so freshmen could observe the budget process for a year,” he said. But he added that conducting regular sessions during election years would be a drawback.

Those absent skipped Ringo’s presentation on how the federal economic stimulus is expected to modernize the country’s energy infrastructure. The stimulus will bring spending on retrofitted buildings, research and development of alternative fuels, commuter rail and green jobs training, he said. He believes the U.S. can create 5 million green jobs within 10 years. He even added an interesting piece of insider news: the government is considering storing nuclear waste in abandoned salt domes.

But more important than all this information, absentees squandered an opportunity to pick an expert’s brain on how to bring Arkansas energy into the 21st century.

Ringo was surprisingly upbeat about the state’s progress. He said Arkansas has done a better job on alternative energy than some states whose law mandates the use of renewable energy. (Arkansas has no such requirement.) He was particularly impressed by ADEQ’s new LEED-certified headquarters. He also said Arkansas might find an economic opportunity in producing parts for Texas wind farms.

Legislators questioned Ringo about timber and lignite as fuel sources, retrofitting homes, and how Arkansas might secure a chunk of the federal stimulus. They also discussed potential legislation to help poor homeowners improve energy efficiency in their houses.

By and large, however, today was a missed opportunity to explore how the state might advance progressive energy policy. It’s enough to wonder whether the sparsely attended Energy Committee, which has been meeting at a rate of once every two weeks, has any real purpose.

In actual fact, it would be surprising if committee members even knew what they voted to pass. That’s because Rep. Creekmore presented an amendment to the committee at the beginning of her presentation that essentially rewrote the entire bill. (Here’s the original for comparison.) Committee members had no time to digest the new aspects of the measure, which add some form of civil liability for somebody (see below) and clarify that the procedure in question is not illegal if the woman’s health is in danger. All they had time to process of the bill, besides what came out in the very murky discussion, was its title, “An Act to Prohibit Partial-Birth Abortions.”

Rep. Creekmore also conspicuously misrepresented the bill during her presentation: she explicitly told committee members that it outlaws abortions that are performed after the first trimester. Yet the bill contains no such provision. Instead it proscribes a specific abortion method. (The name of the method itself is subject to a partisan language war: either ‘partial birth’ or ‘D & X’ abortion, depending on where you stand.)

The amended bill itself has some very sloppy wording, which suggests that it was hastily assembled for today’s sideshow. To wit, a new passage on civil liability. The updated bill says:

The father, if married to the mother at the time she receives a partial-birth abortion procedure, and if the mother has not attained the age of eighteen years at the time of the abortion, the maternal grandparents of the fetus, may obtain appropriate relief in a civil action, unless the pregnancy resulted from the plaintiff’s criminal conduct or the plaintiff consented to the abortion.

This clause makes somone liable to someone else when a prohibited abortion occurs; but it’s impossible to tell who’s liable to whom. The doctor and the woman don’t appear to be involved. Is this saying grandparents of the aborted child can sue the father if he forced his wife to get an abortion? Or is the plaintiff the father? If so, what would his criminal conduct be? I could go on. Here’s hoping somebody sees fit to clean this up before it gets much farther.

(Read on for more lunacy.)

Though supporters of the bill put in a shameful performance — well, they put in a good performance but a bad show of how to make a law — opponents didn’t fare much better. Two speakers, Holly Dickson of the ACLU and Bonnie Robertson of Planned Parenthood, both became irate to the point that they were frequently difficult to comprehend. Granted, they were thrown for a loop by the last-minute amendment. But they didn’t serve their cause very well by practically cursing the bill’s supporters.

Despite all this, there were a few moments of clarity during the proceeding. Rep. Fred Allen asked Rep. Creekmore why there was an emergency clause attached to the bill, particularly as there are few documented instances of the procedure being performed in Arkansas. Sensible enough. Rep. Creekmore’s terse response was not so much: “That would be a matter of opinion. To me there is an emergency.”

Perhaps the most cogent point of the entire hearing was Robertson’s, though it was lost on most committee members: Rep. Creekmore’s bill would strip a medical judgement from doctors and give it to legislators and judges. Any doctor who felt a woman’s health required the banned procedure would have to perform it in the knowledge that he would have to explain himself before the Arkansas Medical Board and the law.

But this hearing was clearly not about common sense or good legislation. It was about putting on a political spectacle by needlessly stoking a hot-button issue.

Bonus: Notable quote of the hearing was from the generally hilarious and heretofore sensible Rep. Billy Gaskill, in response to Robertson’s insistence that the committee owed opponents a fuller reading of Rep. Creekmore’s fresh amendment: “We owe her nothing when it comes to the baby murder.”

Bonus 2: Rep. Pam Adcock, to the regional director of Planned Parenthood: “How do you know so much about abortion?”

Halter made his comments during a press conference to present new public opinion polling on lottery-funded scholarships.

The press conference follows the general release yesterday of a memo summarizing the forthcoming lottery bill. Among the initial lottery proposals, which are subject to change, is a provision for a new state grant called the Opportunity Scholarship. The scholarship would be available to any high-school student who maintains a 2.5 GPA or scores a 19 on the ACT. It would provide a minimum of $1,500 per year at a four-year college and $750 annually at a two-year school.

Rep. Steve Harrelson has provided a breakdown of other provisions in the memo.

“Many parts of the proposal I’m gratified by,” Halter said. He added that he was happy that the summary of the legislation shared provisions, such as a self-supporting lottery commission, that he recommended in a statement of general principles for lottery implementation several months ago.

Halter was more specific, however, when describing what he saw as shortcomings in the lottery-legislation summary. He encouraged the legislature to create scholarships of $5,000 annually at four-year schools and $2,500 annually at two year schools. He also expressed dismay that proposed ethics rules are not stricter. He said he would like to see a total ban on lobbying by lottery vendors, and he recommended that state lottery commissioners be barred from lobbying on lottery issues for two years after they leave the commission.

Halter also stressed that there is plenty of time to secure changes to the current proposal. “The folks who put the summary out stated very clearly that it’s a draft for comment,” he said.

(Read on for more Halter commentary and results from his poll.)

Asked if he would push for an initiated act should the legislature not implement the lottery in a way he sees fit, Halter said he would not rule it out.

Halter also addressed the possibility that the lottery does not raise $100 million annually, as his office has predicted it will. He said in that case the state may need to take money from existing scholarship programs to fund the new scholarships. Otherwise existing scholarship programs would not be affected, he said.

At today’s press conference, Halter presented new poll data he commissioned through HOPE for Arkansas, the organization he created to convince voters to approve the lottery. The poll found that 74 percent of Arkansas voters believe lack of scholarship funds is a big problem; 81 percent think the scholarship process is currently too complex; 72 percent want to award scholarships based on achievement, not family income; 81 percent support scholarships for adults who return to school; 60 percent oppose giving scholarships only to families that make less than $75,000; and 98 percent think it’s important for Arkansans to be able to go to college.

Opinion Research, a Little Rock firm, conducted the poll. It has a sample size of 400 and a 5 percent margin of error.

The working document is SB125, sponsored by Sen. Kim Hendren. The bill would establish an insurance database at the Department of Finance and Administration (DFA). Officials would check the database  on a monthly basis; any car owner discovered to be uninsured for a period at least three months would be subject to a $50 fine and a loss of car registration.

However, legislation the committee eventually recommends will likely have substantial differences from Hendren’s bill. Several members of the committee said they want to put more teeth into the measure.

“Maybe their drivers license should be suspended” if they don’t have insurance, said Sen. Bobby Glover, a committee member.

Current law requires drivers to be insured in order to register a vehicle, but proof of insurance is rarely checked until registration is renewed. Chuck Lange, executive director of the Arkansas Sheriff’s Association, said law enforcement generally does not run random tag checks for proof of insurance.

Mike Munns, Assistant Commissioner of Revenue at DFA, said the rate of uninsured drivers in Arkansas has steadily declined since the late 1980s, when a quarter of motorists were uninsured. The uninsured rate is currently between 12 and 15 percent. A recent study by the Insurance Research Council found 15 percent, but Munns said DFA’s data found 12-13.

(Read on for other stats on uninsured drivers.)

Munns also speculated that New York State has a a low rate of uninsured drivers — five percent — because more people take public transportation there. However, New York has over 10 million registered vehicles, whereas Arkansas has 3.4 million. A better explanation for New York’s lower rate may lie with its tougher penalties, including drivers license suspension after a car is uninsured for 90 days.

Citing economic concerns for poor families,  Sen. Larry Teague was the only member of the committee who expressed skepticism of increased car insurance oversight. “There are some people who don’t have any money,” he said. “I want them to feed their kids.”

Rep. Martin failed to persuade the Senate Health Committee that it should allow the sale of small quantities of unpasteurized cow’s milk. His proposed bill failed on an extremely close voice vote. No member of the committee asked for a roll call vote. The House Judiciary Committee heard over an hour of debate on whether holders of a concealed-carry permit should be allowed to bring guns into churches. It eventually said yes. The same committee debated whether the criminal records of public officials should be made generally available, but it did not take action. The House passed a bill allowing independent candidates for office an extra 30 days to collect enough signatures to be allowed on the ballot. The Senate approved a one-cent cut of the state grocery tax.

The Senate passed Sen. Kim Hendren’s resolution commemorating Ronald Reagan. Sen. Hendren said he would support a similar measure honoring Jimmy Carter. The House State Agencies committee approved a resolution congratulating Barack Obama after rejecting a similar one that called the United States a nation founded by slave owners. The new resolution refers instead to “a country whose history includes the shame of slavery.” Cliff Lee received a ceremonial award and declared Derek Jeter a difficult batsman to retire. Rep. Buddy Lovell told the House of Representatives that a bill he sponsored doesn’t really do anything. The bill, HB1345, passed.

House Speaker Robbie Wills, one of the bill’s most vocal supporters, had repeated over the course of this week that there would be enough votes for passage. But this afternoon it emerged that the House leadership only became certain of success last night, when Rep. Garry Smith decided to switch his vote in favor of the bill.

After the vote, Rep. Smith said that he made up his mind yesterday evening while driving to Fayetteville for an Arkansas Razorbacks basketball game. By 7 p.m., he had come to his decision.

“It was not just District 7 I voted for,” said Smith in reference to his Camden-area district. “It was 2.9 million people in the state of Arkansas.”

Leadership of opposition to the bill professed surprise at Smith’s vote. “I thought all along he was a hard no,” said Rep. Bryan King, who held a press conference against the measure on Tuesday.

For those not privy to the inside baseball beforehand, the vote had more than a whiff of drama. Two packed galleries watched the proceeding, which was gaveled to order at one point when opponents tried to shout down a speaker at the podium.

Rep. Greg Reep, lead sponsor of the bill in the house, gave a speech on the floor emphasizing the health benefits the tax increase would provide, including a trauma system, services for the elderly, community health centers and an expansion of ARKids coverage to 8,000 new children.

Rep. Reep drew laughs from some members when he said he was a fiscal conservative. When he argued that the state had balanced the budget, a representative opposing the tax increase yelled, “It’s the law!” in reference to the balanced-budget mandate in the Arkansas Constitution. Rep. Wills called for quite and chastised the shouter.

(Read on for more on the vote.)

Speeches against the bill followed by Rep. King and Rep. Frank Glidewell. Rep. Wills and Rep. Billy Gaskill spoke in favor.

Rep. Glidewell said the tax would be unfair to those smokers who “have tried to quit this evil and filthy addiction to no avail.”

Rep. Gaskill, a noted smoker, retorted in his speech that smokers should “just quit.” He said Arkansans cannot go to the Memphis, TN, trauma center forever, and that it’s time for Arkansas to have its own system.

In a restrained and dispassionate speech, Rep. Wills also invoked the Memphis center. He mentioned that Dr. Trent Pierce, who was the victim of a car bomb in West Memphis yesterday, is currently being treated there. He asked what would have happened had the incident occurred in a different part of Arkansas. He also emphasized the health provisions the tax increase would pay for.

Rep. King sustained his anti-tax calls of earlier this week. “One thing I don’t agree with is raising taxes in this environment,” he said. He also expressed skepticism that the tax hike will bring in as much money as supporters say it will.

Six Republicans and one Green Party member joined 68 Democrats in voting for the bill. The only Democrats not to vote for the bill were Rep. Pam Adcock, Rep. Stephanie Flowers, and Rep. J.R. Rogers.

During debate on the floor, Rep. Flowers asked why the bill sent money to general revenue instead of earmarking it for specific healthcare purposes.

Rep. King had similar complaints after the vote. Repeating accusations he made earlier this week that the bill’s supporters were making ‘backroom deals,’ Rep. King said, “If we’re going to spend all this money, let’s put it in special revenue.”

Rep. Reep denied that was a feasible option and said there should be some flexibility in spending. “Apparently they don’t understand the budget process,” he said. “If you put it in special revenue, it’s locked up there.”

The bill now goes to the Senate, where the scuffling will start anew.

Department of Health rules ban the sale of non-pasteurized cow milk. Non-pasteurized goat milk is allowed by statute. Martin’s bill would have authorized the sale of non-pasteurized cow milk in quantities of less than 100 gallons a month.

Though part of the committee’s questioning revolved around health risks non-pasteurized milk poses, it became apparent as discussion progressed that the real struggle was over regulation.

Rep. Martin told the committee that he wants to legalize non-pasteurized milk so its sale could be regulated. He argued that regulation would improve public health.

But Deputy State Health Officer Joe Bates said the Health Department, which would be responsible for supervising non-pasteurized milk sales, could not shoulder the burden of regulation. “We could monitor production, but not sales,” he said. He added that he felt the bill would decrease food safety in Arkansas.

A second representative from the Department of Health echoed Bates’s worries about oversight. “We would not be able to regulate small producers,” he told the committee.

Speakers in favor of the bill argued that the pasteurization process robs milk of essential health benefits. They said they should be able to make decisions about dairy consumption themselves, as do citizens of the 27 states that allow sales of non-pasteurized cow milk.

Though the tone of debate was often impassioned, it remained uncertain whether the bill’s defeat will have any practical impact on the state’s small milk producers.

(Read on for further analysis and for Rep. Martin’s commentary.)

Any sales of unpasteurized milk will continue to occur on an illegal market. Yet there is little indication that the Department of Health will be able to prevent the local sale of unpasteurized milk, particularly in light of the Department’s claim that it cannot regulate small producers.

In fact, the Health Department has not penalized a single producer for selling unpasteurized milk in the past year. Department spokesman Ed Barham said, “We inspect dairy farms and don’t see that happening. We would only know about it if there was a complaint made, and we haven’t had any of those in the past year.”

Rep. Martin was exercised by the outcome of the hearing and lay blame on the Health Department for what he considered unnecessary activism against the bill. He stated to reporters that Arkansas will miss out on a new segment of the economy by not allowing local, organic production. He also dismissed the notion that the Department of Health would be unable to regulate unpasteurized milk.

“This decision is detrimental from the standpoint of not letting free people make free choices,” Rep. Martin said. “This is a time to get angry.”

On the contrary, some observers in the audience were quite lighthearted about the proceeding. Claims could be heard that the committee was milking the issue and that some people were crying over spilled milk.

The only person to speak against the measure was a cigarette wholesaler, who complained that the tax increase will place an unfair burden on his business. He said he would have to take out a large loan to pay for cigarette stamps, which distributors must purchase before they sell their stock.

But legislators disputed claims of undue hardship. They pointed to recent additions to the bill that would increase a state discount to distributors, and they argued that credit could be extended for the purchase of stamps.

“The bill has a 270% increase in allowance for wholesalers,” House Speaker Robbie Wills told the committee in his argument for the bill.

Rep. Wills also repeated earlier assertions that he has the votes needed to pass the measure through the house.

The current version of the bill has several changes from the original filing. Besides the wholesaler allowance, the new version alters the way chewing tobacco is taxed. The original allowed for a tax based either on manufacturer’s price or on weight, whichever was higher. The current version includes a tax on price only. At 68%, that rate is slightly higher than the 64% originally proposed. Also, the current bill no longer distinguishes between ‘moist snuff’ and other non-cigarette tobacco products.

The measure met with stiff resistance in committee. Speakers against included Attorney General Dustin McDaniel and representatives from the state police and the Arkansas Crime Information Center (ACIC), which retains criminal information and distributes it to entitled parties.

“I am quite certain that no attorney general in Arkansas has ever spoken against any bill that has to do with guarding the FOI,” McDaniel said before registering his objections. He said that there could be thousands of requests under the new law. He also argued that political disclosure forms provide an adequate mechanism for vetting politicians’ criminal records. Lying on such a form is a Class D felony. “I would not oppose legislation that sent forms to ACIC for a single check,” McDaniel said.

“I believe that this bill is precisely the opposite of SB112,” McDaniel added in reference to a bill that would allow investigators from the attorney general’s office access to ACIC. SB112 passed the House Judiciary Committee today and awaits final approval in the House. The Senate has already approved it.

Representatives from the state police and ACIC were concerned about the volume of requests that might be made under the law. They argued that they do not have enough funding to fill requests from the general public.

Speaking on behalf of the Arkansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Jeff Rosenzweig said the bill appeared to apply retroactively to anyone who had ever run for political office.

The only person to speak for the bill was Rick Peltz, a professor at University of Arkansas Bowen School of Law.

(Read on for Rep. Greenberg’s reaction.)

Rep. Greenberg pulled the bill and was visibly upset with the outcome of the hearing. “I am sorry to have put ya’ll through this,” he told the committee. “It was my impression that we had met the concerns of several of the agencies that have spoken today.”

“Information about the criminal background of candidates is relevant,” Rep. Greenberg added. “Frankly, this reminds me of the debates over the original FOI bill that I’ve read about.”

The first FOI act in Arkansas was passed in 1967.

Rep. Greenberg has faced several tough hearings in front of the House Judiciary Committee. This is the second time the criminal records bill has been pulled down in the face of questioning, and last week he halted action on a bill that would change the burden of proof in criminal cases where the defendant offers a confession.

The criminal records bill is part of a package of FOI-related legislation that Rep. Greenberg is offering this session. Other bills include one that would bar public employers from retaliating against workers who make FOI requests and another that would require the state to establish a website disclosing how it spends money. Those bills await action in the House State Agencies Committee.

McDaniel has vocally opposed another of Rep. Greenberg’s bills, one that would allow anyone to appeal an FOI-request rejection to the attorney general. Rep. Greenberg said last week that he is still trying to iron out a compromise with McDaniel’s office on the measure.

In front of a largely unsympathetic crowd — one of many pro-tax signs said Dick, Stop Blowing Smoke — Armey repeated arguments against the tax that have been in wide circulation. He said that people would buy their cigarettes in other states, that the tax was regressive and unfair to smokers, and that the state should fund a trauma system through some other means. He offered support for HB1238, which proposes to fund the system through fines on drunk driving, domestic violence and other criminal offenses.

“Are we here in Arkansas a state that dislikes smokers more than it dislikes wife beaters?” Armey asked.

But Armey also went beyond commonplace arguments against the tax to pin supporters of the increase as big-government profligates. “If you want to fund a trauma system, you ought to scrub your budget and make room,” he said.

Armey went on to accuse Beebe and other tax supporters of larding their proposal with unnecessary measures and cutting backroom deals in order to attract votes. (Tobacco tax money not spent on a trauma system will be used on other healthcare provisions.) He declined to say which parts of the proposal he meant.

Asked after the rally about Armey’s claims, Rep. King also spoke in nonspecific terms. “It started with a trauma center, and now it’s a trauma system,” King said. “Rural health is a great cause, but people need to know that they won’t get the money that gets promised to them [from a tobacco tax increase].”

(Read on for more, including details on a debate between Armey and AR Surgeon General Joe Thompson, Rep. King’s proposal to close an Arkansas law school, and Gov. Beebe’s reaction to the rally.)

Armey told the crowd he was only interested in lower taxes and took special care to distance himself from the tobacco lobby. It has been widely assumed that FreedomWorks receives money from tobacco companies. Armey declined to answer a question about who funds FreedomWorks.

“I have not now, nor have I ever been, a lobbyist for tobacco companies,” he told the rally. “That’s just a fiction.”

Yesterday the Step-Up Coalition, a group in favor of the cigarette tax, proposed that Armey debate Arkansas Surgeon General Joe Thompson after the rally. Armey declined this morning, calling the debate a ‘gimmick’. He said he would gladly participate in a debate if allowed more time to fit it into his schedule.

Step-Up Coalition spokesman Robert McClarty disputed Armey’s assertion that the invitation was not given in good faith. He said Armey had not provided much advance notice of his trip. (The Arkansas GOP confirmed the visit to the media last Thursday.)

“He has time to raise money for politics,” McClarty said after the rally. “We’re in a room just sixty feet away.”

Armey gave his talked backed by about ten legislators, several of them first-term members. The most notable supporter, however, was Rep. King, leader of the minority GOP in the House. He, too, stated anti-tax and budget-cutting principles.

Those principles are so strong that he suggested a relatively novel idea: By closing down one of the two state law schools, Rep. King said, the taxpayers could save up to $6 million.

“I don’t think this state is well-served by two law schools,” Rep. King told the crowd.

While talking to reporters later in the day, Gov. Beebe had pointed words for the rally organizers.

The governor ridiculed accusations that he is a tax-and-spender who has loaded his healthcare proposal with pork. “No governor has cut more taxes than Mike Beebe,” Beebe said. “And there’s more to come.”

Told of Rep. King’s remarks about cutting a law school, Beebe said, “I’d don’t think he’d have an easy time doing that, but I’d have fun watching him try.”

“I think it’s a bit overly partisan, don’t you?” Beebe continued. “Overt partisanship is not in the interest of good public policy. I regret that [Rep. King] brought that up.”

Lee made himself available for comment after a ceremony with Gov. Beebe. He declined to say which hitter he feared most, listing Alex Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Kevin Youkillis, Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz and Vladimir Guerrero as tough outs.

And, no, he had no opinion on the cigarette tax hike.

Lee’s appearance set off chaos on the Senate floor, as legislators rushed to get their baseballs signed before completion of business.

A heated discussion on HB1098, which moves back the age cutoff for some kindergarten students, occupied the first hour of today’s Senate session. Though the bill passed with seven opposing votes — it now goes to the Governor’s desk — the length of the debate apparently caused the Lee ceremony to be moved up before the consideration of other bills.

The Senate’s praise for Lee was only slightly more pronounced than its praise for Wal-Mart this afternoon. Today was Wal-Mart day, and representatives of the company sitting in the gallery received commendations and an ovation from Senators on the floor. The Senators got cloth bags with that spiffy new logo on them.

Three bills made it to the Senate floor:  One outlaws texting while driving, and two similar measures place restrictions on cell-phone use by teen motorists. The Senate now must decide between a bill that bans cell phone use behind the wheel until the age of 18 and another, already passed in the House, that contains that provision as well as a requirement that drivers use only hands-free from 18-20.

The only no vote on the teen-talking bills came from Sen. Larry Teague.

Committee members appeared cool to Sen. Hendren’s hands-free proposal, which would have applied to all drivers. The bill failed to receive a motion, which means that it will remain on the committee schedule.  Sen. Hendren said he might reintroduce the measure later this session if other cell-phone restrictions become law.

If Arkansas were to pass a hands-free requirement, it would be only the sixth state to do so. According to the Governor’s Highway Safety Association, a non-profit group that tracks traffic-safety issues, California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Washington have a hands-free law.  Teen bans are more widespread: 17 states have restrictions on cell-phone use by young drivers.

The House passed a ban on text messaging while driving and voted to criminalize the dissemination of voyeuristic images.  A Senate committee endorsed lowering Arkansas flags to half-mast for three days when a soldier from the state dies in combat. Representatives introduced a bill that would  force recipients of benefits from the Department of Human Services to submit to random drug tests. Another drug-testing measure awaited a hearing in the Senate Health Committee. The Senate Judiciary Committee fought over whether Arkansas Court of Appeals decisions should always be binding precedent, but came to no conclusion. The House decided not to give the State Board of Registered Interior Designers the $10,635 it asked for. Legislators told Alcoholic Beverage Control that it cannot charge wine and liquor wholesalers $11,800 for an annual permit.

The House State Agencies Committee voted to not congratulate Barack Obama on becoming president. Some members of the committee said it was divisive to refer to the history of American slavery. Sen. Bobby Pritchard said Thomas Paine was less deserving of a commemorative day than Jefferson Davis. Rep. Tracy Pennartz publicly admitted that she had never seen a soybean.

I missed the changes, which came through an amendment last week. Now the bill bars only texting, emailing, and using the internet with a telephone while driving.

Prediction: this will be an ineffectual law, particularly without the talking ban. As one member pointed out on the house floor, it will be difficult for officers to detect texting below dashboard level. Rep. Ray Kidd, who sponsored the bill, acknowledged that concern, but said he expected people to honor the law because it’s the law. We shall see.

The bill still has to go to the Senate. If passed and signed by the Governor, it goes into effect in October.

Rep. Dan Greenberg, one of the legislators who voted against the resolution, writes at the Arkansas Project that he found it ‘historically inaccurate, divisive and perhaps a little insulting.’ He also told John Brummett today that he objected to its mention of specific demographic groups. (Including, presumably, white people, who the resolution notes voted for Obama in greater numbers than they did for John Kerry in 2004.)

The purely ceremonial resolution would not have been half as divisive, of course, if its opponents had swallowed their objections and passed it. It would have been quickly forgotten, as a similar measure in the Senate already has been. Instead, the House State Agencies committee gave the country further reason to believe the common Arkansas stereotype.

And if Rep. Greenberg feels insulted, perhaps he should ask black voters what they think about this whole affair.

Another twist to the plot: The Arkansas Project reports that parts of the resolution were copied verbatim from an L.A. Times article. That’s bad. Complex law is sometimes copied from other law, true. But it’s reasonable to expect that a resolution, which is not as rigorous as binding statute, will be the writer’s own words.

Still, plagiarism or not, the paramount issue is that the committee voted against a measure because it (accurately) referenced the country’s history of slavery.

Rep. Greenberg says there will be a new resolution congratulating Obama in short order. Too late. The damage has been done.

Lignite, a brown coal, may not ever have the impact on the state’s economy that some want it to. It may even prove to be an infeasible energy source. But in the Joint Energy Committee this afternoon, legislators and researchers described a potential gold rush in a swath of the state from Miller County to Ashley County. Ideas presented involved strip mining and the extraction of 8 million tons of the mineral annually. Proponents say that strip-mined territory can be totally restored to its previous appearance.

“We have an incomprehensible amount of lignite that can be mined,” said Corbet Lamkin, Chancellor of Southern Arkansas University, which has been conducting research on the issue for the state.

In a long presentation, Ed Ratchford of the Arkansas Geological Survey described how lignite can be used to produce natural gas and other fuels. He estimated that the lignite under Arkansas territory could be mined without depletion for 500 years.

Economic development officials and other interested parties are trying to find a way to fund further study of South Arkansas so as to have information about lignite ready to present to energy companies. Ratchford said he would ask the state for over $1 million to pay for research. A representative from the Arkansas Economic Development Commission said the agency has asked the governor’s office for $1.5 – $2 million for a study, including $1.25 million or so from the potential federal stimulus plan.

In 2007, the legislature created a program for the study of lignite. Periodic reports such as today’s are mandated in the act.

No formal legislation was presented to the committee. But the tenor of questioning suggested that members are entertaining the ideas discussed.

Rep. John Lowery of El Dorado commended the presenters for their foresight and said the state will be in a better position to profit from rising energy prices it it invests in lignite now.

Unfortunately I was squirreled away in another committee meeting this morning, so I missed the Obama backlash. The very fact of the rejection is head-scratching. But even more mystifying is the justification opponents gave for saying no, according to reports: they took issue with language saying that the U.S. was founded by slave owners.

Now, the role of slavery in this country’s past is an obvious and indisputable fact to anyone who is even remotely familiar with American history. I’ll assume that the resolution’s opponents are more than remotely familiar — which means there’s much more than the slavery issue at play here. As with the Thomas Paine showdown yesterday, it appears that some members are making dubious historical claims in order to fight a political battle.

Look, if I were a Republican legislator, I would be more than a little irked with the Obama resolution as drafted. I would probably even want to defeat it. Its triumphal language — it references Obama’s ‘smashing electoral college victory’ — seems deliberately geared to add insult to the GOP’s injury. But if you’re going to kill the thing, please, have the honesty to do so without the assistance of a specious historical argument.

The bill would raise the yearly permit price for a wine and spirits wholesaler from $300 to $11,800. Testifying for Custom Beverage, a wine distributor with about $400,000 in annual sales, Steve Lucchi and Bruce Cochran said that perhaps large businesses could sustain the increase, but that small businesses would be hurt.

Committee members gave Langley a tongue-lashing for the wholesaler-fee increase. Langley countered that the fee has not been raised since 1935 and that a fee that kept up with inflation would have amounted to about $28,000.

Langley estimated that the largest wholesaler in the state makes $15-$20 million annually.

Sen. Kim Hendren suggested that the law establish minimum wholesaler fees and then extract an extra tax based on volume of sales.

Other provisions of the bill were noncontroversial and received support from beer distributors and retailers.

The bill is an attempt to double ABC’s annual budget from its current $1.6 million to $3.1 million. The extra money would be used to up enforcement and improve technology at the agency office, Langley said. A number of fee increases are included in the bill, including one that would raise the cost of a private-club permit from $500 a year to $1500 a year.

The bill also includes a simplification of Sunday drinking laws. On-premise alcohol vendors would no longer have to follow special Sunday permitting procedures and regulations. Their permits would cover alcohol sales from 10 a.m. to midnight on Sundays. Liquor stores and other off-premise vendors could sell liquor during the same Sunday hours pending local referenda. Current rules restrict Sunday alcohol sales from noon to 10 p.m.

For the tangled details on what it takes to buy and sell hooch in the State of Arkansas, check out the 26-page bill here.

Sen. Steve Bryles motioned that the bill pass, but didn’t get a second. That means the bill will remain on the committee’s schedule and that Smith can attempt to pass it again later.

But Smith said afterwards that she may not do that in front of this cold crowd.

Committee member Sen. Jack Pritchard told the committee that Paine was not worthy to be honored among the likes of Douglas McArthur, Abraham Lincoln, and Jefferson Davis, all of whom have commemorative days. After the meeting, committee member Sen. Kim Hendren said the legislature should be careful not to increase commemorative days indiscriminately.

(Hendren will hope for a different outcome when he introduces a resolution honoring Ronald Reagan — albeit not a commemorative day — which he said he plans for next week.)

Other topics at the meeting included Paine’s religion and the question of whether he was an atheist. Apparently some legislators are wary of honoring a man with that reputation. John Brummett had more on the opposition over the weekend.

One other note of interest: Rep. Smith told the committee that her personal religious beliefs had been impugned as a result of her support for the bill. After the meeting, she declined to say whether any state legislators had been among the accusers.

Beebe’s emphasis on the totality of his proposal is an important step toward passing the legislation. Legislators opposed to raising the cigarette tax have suggested that a trauma center can be paid for by such means as raising fines for drunken driving. By presenting the tax package as a means to fund numerous programs, and not just a trauma center, the governor’s office may make it much more difficult for lawmakers to say no.

One such lawmaker is Senate President Pro Tem Bob Johnson, who professed his support for the increased tax at today’s rally. “I stand before you as someone who has never supported a tobacco tax,” he said. “I am full-bore for it this session.”

Beebe also tried to correct the perception circulating around the legislature that a trauma center would lard only a few Little Rock hospitals. People in rural areas would benefit from the system, he said. There will be no new hospitals, just increased resources at existing ones. And a trauma system will consist of more than a few hospitals. Though a main one will be in Little Rock, Arkansas Surgeon General Joe Thompson has said that he expects as many as 40 hospitals to participate.

(Read on for the bill’s prospects and its new provisions on smokeless tobacco.)

Beebe acknowledged that getting enough votes to pass the bill — 75 percent in both houses — will be a struggle. He did not have kind words for cigarette companies, whose lobbying strategies he derided. He encouraged the crowd to watch The Insider, a 1999 movie about the nationwide tobacco settlement, in order to get an idea of how the companies operate.

At present the bill lists 28 supporters in the house and two in the Senate. Its provisions — including the 56-cents-per-pack increase — are subject to revision in committee.

Worth watching is the bill’s hike on the smokeless tobacco tax. The current version distinguishes ‘moist snuff’ — dip that comes in a tin can — from other non-cigarette tobacco products. Dip would be taxed at either 83 cents per ounce or at 32 percent of the manufacturer’s price, whichever is higher. (This formula would seem to take advantage of an industry dispute, which I described earlier, that pits generic companies versus name brands such as Copenhagen.) The bill also contains a tax increase for tobacco products that are neither dip nor cigarettes.

Finally, a note on terminology: previously I’ve used the term chaw rather loosely to describe any tobacco product put in the mouth and spit out. The law is more specific than I am.

In other news, voters could get to decide on a new constitutional amendment in 2010. No, the issue is not dropping annual sessions. It’s abolishing the office of constable.

In reality, the issue is a bit more complicated. And much more ridiculous.

The bill is an amplification of current law that makes it an offense to photograph or videotape another person without his consent. The new proposal would make it Class A Misdemeanor — which carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $1,000 fine — to give such an image to someone else or post it on the internet.

The law would apply to all voyeurs, but Hutchinson has one particular group in mind:  high-schoolers. Apparently there has been a rash of teenage boys in Hutchinson’s district who sneak into the girls’ locker room with cell phone cameras and send the material to friends.

I’m all for quashing that kind of thing, but I somehow think we don’t need this bill if its primary target is teens.  School discipline and confiscation of cell phones might be a better measure than prosecution. (Remarkably, Hutchinson said principals and others she talked to wanted to make transmission of a secretly acquired image a felony. She added that she declined because she was uncomfortable making high schoolers felons.)

The committee didn’t seem to think much of the bill, which had several problems in drafting. Read on for details.

Hutchinson’s bill is far too narrow as written, several legislators said. The new provisions try to ensure that the only person prosecuted for sending prohibited material is the person who took them. Yet in doing so, the bill limits liable parties to ‘the defendant’; i.e., someone who is presently on trial under the current law for taking banned video or photos. If someone is found guilty of taking voyeuristic video, then sends the video after trial,  he would not be technically liable under the proposed statute.

Hutchinson said she would propose an amendment that broadens the language of the bill without making it so wide that anyone who inadvertently sends a banned video is liable.

The committee may end up passing the bill with amended language, but I wouldn’t mind if they scrapped it. Even the current law, which is already vague, doesn’t help people who don’t want to be videotaped as long as the offending camera is out in the open for all to see. And the new provisions appear to muddy things even more.

UPDATE 27 January: A clarifying amendment was enough to convince the House Judiciary Committee to approve the bill this morning. It moves on to the full house.

UPDATE 29 January: The bill passed the House today. It now goes to the Senate.

The bill would redirect the payments toward health benefits for public school employees.

Judging from committee commentary, however, Hendren’s measure will face numerous legal difficulties and will have a hard time proceeding.

Hendren’s main argument: the desegregation agreement wastes state money.  He said Arkansas has spent $800 million dollars on the settlement over the past twenty years. Citing an article in today’s Democrat-Gazette on high remedial rates in colleges across the state, he complained that the payments had not improved quality of education. (N.B.: The payments only go to three districts within Pulaski County.)

“If we don’t do something, we’re talking about trillions,” Hendren said.

Hendren also put lawyers and judges in his cross hairs. Lawyers in the case are living off money that should be going for education, he said. And federal judges have waited too long to issue rulings on whether schools are in fact desegregated.

“I support the judiciary, but they need to get off their duffs and get something done,” Hendren said.

Yet even Hendren acknowledged that the bill has a tough road ahead, particularly as it is sure to be unpopular  in Little Rock.

(Read on for the generally cool reception to the proposal.)

Sen. Tracy Steele argued that Hendren had failed to take into account the good the desegregation agreement has done for students. Legislators should be better educated about the agreement, he said. He suggested that the bill should be forwarded to the Education Committee, though no action was taken to that effect.

Sen. Joyce Elliott asked Hendren whether his proposal was an improvement for students. Hendren did not directly address the question during the meeting.

Others questioned the legality of the bill. Some were concerned that the state will be in breach of contract if it stops payments. The result would likely be a lawsuit from the school districts and another round in court.

The bill got a thumbs down from Scott Richardson, the lead lawyer from the attorney general’s office in the desegregation case. “It is my opinion that this bill could cost the state more than it saves,” he told the committee.

No action was taken on the bill. It has been sent to the special language subcommittee of the Joint Budget Committee.

Legislators have proposed two distinct timelines for the new sessions, which would consider only fiscal matters: one in which it begins in February of even-numbered years, and another that makes January the start date. The sessions would be preceded by background work at the budget committee and the legislative council.  (The juicy bureaucratic details can be found in this memo.)

Under the current proposal, the new sessions will review the budgets of only six state agencies: the Departments of Education, Higher Education, Health, Human Services, Correction, and Community Correction. (These agencies account for approximately 90 percent of the budget.) All other agencies and commissions will retain their two-year funding unless a request is made for reconsideration.

What appears to be the real question before the committee is whether the new sessions will be a time of substantial activity, or whether they will simply approve work done during the odd-year sessions.

(Read on for more on today’s meeting and Gov. Beebe’s opinion on the issue.)

Speaking in favor of the bill, Rep. Rick Saunders, who supported the amendment for annual sessions that voters approved last November, said, “My intent was that legislative oversight be increased.”

But most other committee members remained skeptical. Sen. Gilbert Baker, chairman of the committee, stressed that he wanted to take a narrow approach to implementation so budget officers are not reviewing the budget all year, every year.

Rep. Donna Hutchinson pointed out that sessions would be a working period only for those legislators with assignments to budget committees. The amendment authorizing the sessions says they can only consider non-fiscal matters with a two-thirds vote of both houses, a high bar to overcome.

Others suggested that agencies present their biennial budgets as usual and that the fiscal sessions be used only to make adjustments.

Though it remains unclear whether that path would be constitutionally acceptable, legislators who prefer to restrict business during even years have Governor Beebe on their side. At a meeting of the Political Animals Club this afternoon, Beebe reiterated that he voted against the constitutional amendment and said he hopes that the legislature will limit the new sessions.

“I feel very confident that this bill is on its way to the way to the governor’s desk,” McDaniel told the committee.

A provision of the bill requires those convicted of repeated animal-cruelty felonies to undergo psychological evaluation at their own expense. Local attorney Jeff Rosenzweig argued that the bill did not adequately account for how indigent offenders will meet this requirement. The committee voted for the bill as written, with one amendment, over those objections.

The bill’s supporters made sure to build consensus for the measure in order to limit opposition in the legislature. (Gerard Matthews writes about the effort to raise support in this week’s Arkansas Times.) This morning McDaniel alluded to one particular interest group he had to appease: Dog owners with pickup trucks. He tweaked the bill after hearing concerns that people could be prosecuted for transporting animals in truck beds.

“There is no chance that anyone is going to get charged with animal cruelty in Arkansas because they have their dog in the back of a pickup truck,” he said.

With the approval of the committee, the bill appears to be on a clear path to enactment. Today’s amendment included 13 new sponsors in the House, pushing the number to 51, just above a majority. 20 of 35 Senators have signed on.

Now Harrelson says Arkansas won’t been joining Texas and several other states in barring Toughman. He told me he has been unable to come up with enough support to pass the ban he wants.

However, Harrelson won’t be dropping the issue entirely. He said he would work to increase state oversight of the event.

Legislation in 2001 exempted Original Toughman from Arkansas Athletic Commission regulations. Supporters of the law have argued that it made Toughman safer than it was previously. But the exemption also ensured that Toughman is not required to meet certain safety standards. Toughman organizers do not have to have an ambulance on hand at matches, and they do not have to submit contestants’ fighting records to scrutiny in order to ensure fair matches.

Though specifics of a possible bill are unclear, Harrelson said he would be working with Senator Tracy Steele in an effort to pass new regulations.

Surgeon General Joe Thompson, who has been presenting the initiative at committee meetings, has now provided more detail on what the governor’s office wants.

Currently chaw is taxed at a 32 percent rate based on package price.** The governor’s office wants to change the formula, but it’s unclear whether they will do so by upping the package rate or by taxing based on the weight of the product.

There is currently an industry dispute over which tax is preferable. Brand-names such as Skoal and Copenhagen want the tax to be based on weight: that would ensure that a package of their chaw is taxed at the same rate as a comparably sized package of generic smokeless. Makers of generic tobacco, which sell their product at a lower price than the brand names, want a per package tax.

While Beebe’s office is currently allowing the smokeless industry time to come to an agreement, it expects to soon propose its own tax structure, whether or not the industry comes up with a formula.

“It would be incumbent on the industry to resolve the issue as soon as possible,” Thompson said.

In other cigarette tax news,  Thompson presented the governor’s proposal to the House Public Health committee today. He faced a set of questions that was less muddled and less hostile than those he received yesterday in front of the Senate Public Health committee.

Much of the questioning focused on the proposed trauma system to be paid for with revenue from the tax. Thompson said that hospitals would voluntarily enter the system after meeting a set of state requirements. Local health centers will have a good amount of leeway to decide how trauma money is spent, within certain parameters. There will be no new hospitals built.

Thompson said he expected 30-40 hospitals to volunteer participation. Three would be Level 1 trauma centers providing the highest level of care. Thompson said they would likely include Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, a hospital in Central Arkansas and a hospital in Memphis. Hospitals in Springfield, MO, and Shreveport, LA, are also equipped to serve as Level 1 centers.

* This story originally said that chaw (including smokeless tobacco) is currently taxed at a 32 percent rate based on package price. 32 percent is the new rate that the governor’s office has proposed.

*Correction to the correction: My original 32 percent figure turns out to have been right. I misread the statute. Also, there have been changes to the tax structure outlined above. The most recent proposal (4 February) taxes chewing tobacco solely on price at a 68% rate. There is no longer a distinction between ‘moist snuff’ and non-cigarette tobacco products.

The measure also mentions the recess for the Martin Luther King holiday. Apparently the bill writer didn’t get the memo from the Secretary of State’s office that Monday is also Robert E. Lee Day.

Bottom line: Beebe’s estimated tax revenue is higher than the $71 million figure he provided reporters at a press conference last week. If legislators give Beebe the cigarette tax and a reformed tax on smokeless tobacco, the state would reap $85.4 million in fiscal year 2010 and $85.8 million in FY 2011. $10 million of that money each year would come from the chaw tax, though details of how the levy would work remain fuzzy. Including matched funding, the state would have  $177.9 million available in 2010 and $175.3 in 2011 for healthcare.

But the if is a big one. Questions at today’s meeting indicated that some legislators are skeptical about the tax and how the revenues are to be spent. Along with reports that lawmakers are looking to fund a proposed trauma center through means other than the cigarette tax, reactions to Thompson’s presentation suggest that Beebe may have a fight ahead of him on the issue.

(Read on for details on proposed spending and committee members’ reactions to the cigarette-tax package.)

The largest chunk of money, about a quarter of the new funds,  is to be spent on a statewide trauma system. Other major expenditures would go to support Community Health Centers and expand the ARKids program. The governor also wants money budgeted for increased medicaid expenditures, technology improvement, autism treatment, and the Step-Up Coalition, a group that focuses on smoking cessation.

One general criticism of the governor’s plan is that it depends on a shrinking resource: if smokers continue to quit, then funds for the proposed trauma center will disappear. However, the governor has positioned the tax as a health remedy as well as a revenue source: decreased tobacco intake will ease the $620 million burden Beebe says the state spends on smoking-related illnesses every year.

More specific criticisms of the plan arose in the committee hearing today. A general worry, unsurprisingly, was that expansions to public healthcare will unfairly increase competition with private healthcare employers. Committee Chair Percy Malone expressed concern that some aspects of the plan might reduce the quality of care in Arkansas and discourage new businesses from locating here.  The Medicaid portion of the proposed expenditures were also scrutinized for the possibility that they would provide state funds to those who don’t really need them.

Thompson emphasized that the Medicaid expenditures would be used only for impoverished adults. The proposal would increase Medicaid support for dental care, cervical cancer, breast cancer, and substance abuse treatment for children and pregnant women. Thompson also tried to smooth over the general worries about the impact of the plan on private providers.

Yet the overall mood remained one of skepticism. As one committee member remarked toward the end of the two-hour session: “There’s extremely strong support for a trauma system, but it doesn’t take 56 cents a pack to do it.”

Still, with this proposal Beebe has cleverly framed the issue in order to get the money he wants. A no to a higher tax on a harmful product will mean a no to the health of Arkansans. Is that an answer lawmakers are willing to give? Time will tell.

Though Beebe said spending at most state agencies should remain level, he called for increased funds for K-12 education in order to better prepare students for college. His education plans would increase per-student spending by $234 over the next two years.  Beebe was emphatic that the new lottery and the college scholarships it will fund must be efficient and transparent. “When we promise scholarships, money must remain available if the student remains qualified,” he said. He also stressed that state colleges must must emphasize graduation rates, not enrollment. The relative importance of enrollment numbers has become an issue in the wake of an exploding student population at UCA.

Beebe said greater DCFS funds should be used to increase caregiving resources and reduce caseloads at the department. He also encouraged legislators to change state law in order to increase transparency at DCFS. The availability of DCFS information to the public became an issue last year when four children died in foster care. The department cited state law in refusing to release information about the deaths. Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said he was unsure of whether the governor’s proposal touches on that law. He said he did not know which specific laws the governor has in mind for revision.

Beebe was at his fieriest when asking for a one-cent cut to the grocery tax. Though some have questioned whether the state can afford the cut, Beebe insisted it is affordable and appealed to lawmakers to keep the widely circulated promise to eventually eliminate the tax.

Tax raises will also be in order, Beebe said, specifically a 56-cent-per-pack hike to the cigarette tax. The new funds will be used to fund a statewide trauma system. Beebe’s general proposal, if not the number, has received vocal support from House Speaker Robbie Wills and conflicting reviews from Senate President Pro Tem Bob Johnson. While Beebe acknowledged that revenue from a cigarette tax is bound to decline, he also stressed that smoking cessation must remain a priority in light of an estimated $620 million in annual smoking-related health-care costs.

Beebe briefly mentioned that the legislature may need to change the tax on smokeless tobacco in order to ensure that smokers don’t switch to a different poison. According to DeCample, the industry is having an internal debate over how it would prefer to be taxed. While the governor’s office is currently deferring to those discussions, it will propose a tax increase even if the industry doesn’t come to an agreement, DeCample said.

Other of Beebe’s health care proposals included raising a family’s income threshold from 200 percent to 250 percent of the federal poverty line in order to become eligible for ARKids First assistance. More vaguely, he said there should be an increased resources for community health centers and in-school mental services, new ways to care for autistic children, and continued funding for a UAMS residency program in Northwest Arkansas.

Beebe was also vague on energy. Though he said Arkansas must increase its production of alternative fuels, he gave no indication of how it might do so. Though decreasing natural gas prices mean the severance tax will bring in less money than expected this year, Beebe estimated that ‘tens of millions’ of severance tax revenue will help fund new inspectors for the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality. Environmental groups have been concerned that an increase in natural gas drilling is not being matched by adequate oversight.

And, of course, it wouldn’t be a Mike Beebe speech without some mention of economic development. Claiming $2.7 billion in new investment and 19,000 jobs for the state, Beebe asked legislators to replenish his quick action closing fund with another $50 million.

The full text of the speech is available here.

But there was also business of importance.

Robbie Wills was sworn in as speaker of the House of Representatives and spoke to the body of his hopes for the session. The local media has pinned Wills as dull, but he gave an effective speech touching on some issues that have not received much attention in the run-up to the session. Will health care, particularly AR Kids and community based health centers, receive additional funding? Will the state take measures to expand broadband to rural areas?

Wills also announced committee chairs. Their work will begin after Gov. Mike Beebe gives his State of the State address tomorrow at 10:30 am.

Like the commission that has been proposed to run the new state lottery, the Legislative Beat will be quasi-independent. It will receive support from the Arkansas Times, to which its author will occasionally contribute reporting.

The purpose of the Legislative Beat is twofold. It will report day-to-day from the General Assembly; i.e., it will provide news. It will also analyze policies and proposals debated in the session.

Readers will notice that the design of the Legislative Beat is sparse. That is so as to emphasize words. Video will not appear on the blog. Photos, if they appear, will be few.

Frequently articles will continue on another page, along with comments. The entirety of such articles, including this one, can be accessed by clicking the red button below.

It is my hope that this blog will have a participatory function for those with an interest in the business of the legislature. Though I do not want to encourage hasty rants and raves, and will censor comments I interpret as such, I invite feedback from those who wish to engage the issues I write about here.

Readers are also invited to send in tips and comments via email to john@arktimes.com.

Now let us delve into the world of colorful and sometimes corruptible characters whose ideas, aspirations, and persons make up the Arkansas Legislature.