BILLS WE ARE WATCHING ON THE SENATE FLOOR, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 2023
| HB1067 | Rep. Andrews | HB1067 – TO MODIFY THE LAW CONCERNING RESIDENCY REQUIREMENTS FOR CERTAIN FIREFIGHTERS | SUPPORT | This bill would prohibit municipal fire departments who employ firefighters from having a residency requirement that may require a firefighter to live in a certain city limits or area to be employed. This should increase opportunity and access for the pool of firefighters that can be hired, increasing potential competition for positions, thus improving quality of service to consumers. Exceptions are included for those who have both paid and volunteer firefighters, or those required to respond within a certain time period if off duty. This is a good pro-freedom bill that can help hire more firefighters and keep more people and property safe. | |
| HB1189 | Rep. Clowney | HB1189 – TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS BEHAVIOR ANALYST LICENSURE ACT | OPPOSE | This bill would create a new government occupational license and government licensing procedure for behavior analysts. It also lists extensive conduct that a person would need permission from government to do, and a person cannot hold themselves as behavior analysts before being approved by the government. A college student, academics, and professors are exempt from holding themselves as behavior analysists. Blanket regulatory authority to add additional regulations is given to the Arkansas Psychology Board. | |
| HB1572 | Rep. Hawk | HB1572 – TO PROHIBIT CERTAIN TYPES OF LOCAL REGULATION OF UNDERGROUND GAS STORAGE FACILITIES, FUEL RETAILERS, AND RELATED TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE. | SUPPORT | This bill would prohibit a town, county, special district, or political subdivision from adopting laws or rules that would prohibit the siting, developing, or redeveloping of an underground gas storage facility, a fuel retailer, or related transportation infrastructure. It would also prohibit requiring a fuel retailer to invest in a particular kind of fueling infrastructure, such as electric charging stations. | |
| HB1575 | Rep. Burkes | HB1575 – TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS REEMPLOYMENT ACT | SUPPORT | This bill would require those receiving unemployment benefits to have at least five (5) work search contacts per business day for a week in which they submit a claim for unemployment benefits. These contacts would include submitting resumes, completing an interview, attending a job fair, or participating in job skill training. | |
| HB1595 | Rep. Ray | HB1595 – TO AMEND THE PROCEDURES FOR REGISTRATION OF POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEES; TO AMEND CAMPAIGN FINANCE LAW; AND TO AMEND PORTIONS OF INITIATED ACT 1 OF 1990 AND INITIATED ACT 1 OF 1996 | SUPPORT | This bill would remove the requirement for new registrations annually for a PAC and instead allow already registered PACs to remain registered and only new PACs required to register. This will avoid unnecessary regulations and confusing filing requirements for PACs to engage in the political process and express their free speech rights. | |
| HB1710 | Rep. McClure | HB1710 – TO ESTABLISH THE RURAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE | OPPOSE | This bill would once again try to get around the Arkansas constitutional prohibition against “special and local” legislation. Repeatedly the Arkansas courts have upheld this constitutional prohibition, most recently striking down the pork barrel spending program known as “General Improvement Funds (‘GIF’)” that directed taxpayer money to special projects in districts around the state. These GIF funds have resulted in multiple people, including former legislators, going to prison for kickback schemes to direct these economic development dollars to specific people. Marketed this time as help for rural areas, the function and outcome is the same where money is directed to economic development planning groups, who can then spend the money to staff people to administer the funds (and lobby for more.) All of this occurs after and on top of cities and counties already being allowed to issue an unlimited number of future tax increases in the way of bonds for economic development projects that this program says it will create. Another government program that spends money we do not have, violates the Arkansas constitution again, and will allow more corruption and misuse of taxpayer monies. This program will also allow private funds to funnel through the government that could be untraceable to their origins to influence local governments and interests as the strings attached to the funds. |
HOUSE FLOOR
| HB1821 | Rep. C. Fite | HB1821 – TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE RENTAL VEHICLE TAX; AND TO AMEND THE DISTRIBUTION AND USE OF REVENUES DERIVED FROM THE RENTAL VEHICLE TAX | OPPOSE | Just like HB1803, this bill would implement a bad tax policy scheme by tying specific tax revenue to a specific funding item, in this case government teachers’ salaries. This will make it nearly impossible to later alter or reduce this specific tax as it would then be spun (using the pain-point political strategy) as de-funding and attacking government teachers. Taxes should be applied evenly and fairly, and the revenue should be allocated through the legislative budgeting process and not tied to a specific funding item. | |
| SB353 | Sen. J. Dotson | SB353 – TO AMEND ARKANSAS LAW CONCERNING DRAFTING REQUESTS AND INFORMATION REQUESTS TO LEGISLATIVE EMPLOYEES | OPPOSE | This bill would provide an absolute privilege for current and former politicians to protect any communications in which they are involved in the furtherance of drafting, amending, and passing legislation. Any documents or other communications to government staff such as a drafting request, information request, and supporting documents related to such information would be prohibited from being disclosed, including in any legal proceeding. It would ban all such communications from disclosure under the freedom of information act. It would also create criminal charges for staff employees who do disclose any information that the politician does not want disclosed. During the public corruption trial of former state senator Jon Woods, the prosecutors relied heavily on the type of communications and information that this bill would prohibit. Prosecutors were able to show how Woods was using his elected position to draft, amend, communicate, and direct unknowing staff to assist him in furthering his corruption to enrich himself. Not only would this bill shield everything from being used in court, but it would also create criminal charges and penalties for any state staff who cooperate with prosecutors or investigators. This is a completely self-serving piece of legislation aimed to protect all current and former legislators from facing any consequences for wrongdoing as an elected official. | |
| SB235 | Sen. C. Tucker | SB235 – TO CREATE THE ARKANSAS ABSENTEE VOTER INTEGRITY ACT OF 2023; TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING COUNTING ABSENTEE BALLOTS; TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING ELECTIONS; AND TO AMEND THE LAW CONCERNING THE DUTIES OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE. | OPPOSE | SB235 is long, repetitive, and confusing. Essentially it is a way to set up a process to allow for cheating in the collecting and processing of absentee ballots. It removes verification of absentee ballots and instead moves the ballots forward if the ballot materials are all present, even if not correct. It also allows near blanket authority for the State Board of Election Commissioners to write new rules to control the absentee ballot process, recordkeeping, and compliance with the Freedom of Information Act. The power of counting the vote is given to bureaucrats to write the rules instead of the people’s elected representatives. With Sen. Tucker’s track record and recent string of filed bills and constitutional amendments which appear to promote cheating and fraud in elections, legislators would be wise to vote against any bill he presents which affect elections in Arkansas. Sen. Tucker is a member of a national party and those even within the national GOP who want to control those who procure and then count the votes rather than promoting free and accurate elections. | |
| SB549 | Sen. J. Dismang | SB549 – TO REDUCE THE INCOME TAX RATES APPLICABLE TO INDIVIDUALS, TRUSTS, ESTATES, AND CORPORATIONS | SUPPORT | This bill would provide an income tax cut for individuals, trusts, estates and corporations, saving taxpayers a total of around $124 million annually. The top individual income tax rate would drop to 4.7% (from 4.9% – $100 million tax cut) and the top corporate income tax rate would drop to 5.1% (from 5.3% – $24 million tax cut). While we support this bill, we encourage the legislators to apply a greater rate reduction in order to compete with those surrounding states which still have income taxes, as they too are dropping their top rates (soon to be lower than what would be our new reduced rate under this bill.) | |
| SB125 | Sen. J. Dotson | SB125 – CONCERNING FREE SPEECH RIGHTS AT STATE-SUPPORTED INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION. | SUPPORT | This bill would provide increase free speech protections on college campuses above and beyond what is protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It would require government colleges to ensure members of the campus community have the fullest degree of intellectual and academic freedom and free express. They could not restrict speech that someone may find controversial, non-collegial, disagreeable, or offensive. They could not mandate the use of specific words, including the use of pronouns. The bill opens the entire campus where people are legally present to allow for free expression. Reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions would still be allowed. A college cannot allow the shutting down or cancelling of speakers to campus because some may not like the speaker. |
