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Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Arkansas lawmakers grant most of governor's wishes in 2025 session
Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, speaks against Senate Bill 354, the $750 million Franklin County prison appropriation, on the Senate floor on Monday, April 7, 2025. (Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate) With one major exception, Arkansas lawmakers gave Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders almost everything she asked for in the 95th General Assembly, and even then it wasn't a total loss. The Legislature's Republican supermajority passed bills addressing Sanders' priorities: maternal health, a higher-education overhaul, concerns about the effects of social media platforms on children and restrictions on the influence of China in Arkansas. The big exception: funding for a planned 3,000-bed prison in rural Franklin County on the western side of the state. Senate Minority Leader Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville, told the Advocate Wednesday that he's experienced longer and more challenging sessions since being elected to the state Legislature in 2010, but the 2025 session saw 'quite a lot of conflict.' Much of the controversy arose over efforts by one legislator to dissolve the State Library and its board and another lawmaker's efforts to police the use of public restrooms. Then there was a conflict about funding a new state prison. 'The biggest story is probably the defeat of the appropriation for the prison in Franklin County, especially considering that was one of the governor's top priorities,' Leding said. A $750 million appropriation bill to support the prison's construction died after five failed votes in the Senate this month. Sanders has pushed for the new penitentiary to alleviate overcrowding in county jails. State officials and residents have fought against the project, citing concerns about transparency, infrastructure and staffing. State lawmakers this week also challenged a separate bill that would have added $250 million to a correctional facilities set-aside fund into which the Legislature placed $330 million during the 2023 legislative session. An additional $75 million appropriated in 2022 for prison expansion has already been allocated to the Arkansas Department of Corrections, which can use the funding to move the project forward. Senate President Pro Tempore Bart Hester, R-Cave Springs, said Wednesday that money will support the hiring of architects and engineers who can help officials get a better understanding of the project's overall cost. Initial estimates set the prison's price tag at $825 million. The state Board of Corrections has already sought proposals from architects and general contractors. 'I would have liked to have funded the entire prison, but the members saw fit to just fund a portion of it, and that's great,' Hester said. 'We're moving in the direction we want to go, just not as fast as we wanted to go.' Putting a more positive spin on the rejection of the $750 million appropriation bill, its primary sponsor, Searcy Republican Sen. Jonathan Dismang, told the Joint Budget Committee Monday that the corrections department isn't likely to use all $75 million allocated to the agency before next year's fiscal session — when lawmakers can again explore options for funding prison expansion in April. If officials need more money before then, they can request lawmakers' approval for a temporary appropriation increase, he said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Sanders' effort to address the state's poor maternal health outcomes found bipartisan support this session and culminated with her signing Act 124 into law just two weeks after announcing the policy. The Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies Act changes the state's Medicaid program by establishing presumptive Medicaid eligibility for pregnant Arkansans, offering reimbursements for doulas and community health workers and establishing pregnancy-related Medicaid coverage for specific treatments. Arkansas has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the nation, and the third-highest infant mortality rate, according to the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement. Sanders last year convened a Strategic Committee for Maternal Health to develop recommendations for addressing the state's maternal health crisis. Sanders' efforts have not included support for expanding Medicaid coverage for postpartum mothers from 60 days to 12 months after birth because she said it would be 'duplicative.' Arkansas is the only state that has not taken advantage of this federal option. Rep. Aaron Pilkington, R-Knoxville, and Sen. Breanne Davis, R-Russellville, presented legislation this session that would have provided the extended coverage to qualifying pregnant Arkansans. House Bill 1004 advanced through the House before failing in a Senate committee earlier this month. Arkansas' Medicaid expansion program, called ARHOME, covers people up to 138% of the federal poverty level. ARHOME covered 237,327 Arkansans as of the end of February, the latest figures available from the Department of Human Services. Regular Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program covered another 230,058 adults and 421,192 children, for a total 888,577 Medicaid beneficiaries. Since Jan. 1, 2023, Medicaid covers pregnant Arkansans with incomes of up to 214% of the federal poverty level, or about $45,200 for a family of two or $68,700 for a family of four. This coverage expires two months after birth, leaving many postpartum Arkansans to 'fall through the cracks,' Davis told the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee on April 9. 'We have got to address this holistically, and I think there's been a lot of really good work done, but it has not included this group of women,' who do not qualify for Medicaid expansion, she said. The proposal to expand coverage had supporters from both political parties. House Minority Leader Rep. Andrew Collins, D-Little Rock, proposed a similar bill that was never heard in committee. Sanders signed two bills Wednesday that she said in January's State of the State address she hoped would reach her desk during the session. The two bills cleared the Legislature on the last two days of business. One new law allows parents to file civil lawsuits against social media platforms if content on those platforms harms their children, and the other amends the state's blocked social media age verification law. The Social Media Safety Act of 2023 was the first of its kind in the nation and required social media platforms to verify the age of new account holders in Arkansas. Those under 18 could only access sites with parental permission. A federal judge temporarily blocked the law before it went into effect and permanently blocked it in March. The amendments to the Social Media Safety Act will go into effect in August. They more clearly define social media and apply the definition to more platforms, lower the age of minor users from under 18 to under 16 years old, prohibit social media algorithms from targeting minors, and add a penalty for noncompliance. The other bill Sanders signed would hold social media companies accountable for showing and promoting content to a child without that child's consent if viewing the content leads to 'significant bodily or cognitive harm.' Sanders has yet to take action on a third social media regulation bill on her desk, the Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act. That bill would ban technology companies from collecting data from Arkansas minors except under specific circumstances, such as for financial transactions. Companies would also be barred from retaining that data and disclosing it to third parties that use the information in advertising targeted to children, and they would be required to provide notice and obtain consent if they are collecting data under permissible circumstances. Sanders signed a slew of bills that place new restrictions on direct democracy, the process by which Arkansans can propose new laws or constitutional amendments and put them to a statewide vote. Many were sponsored by Sen. Kim Hammer, R-Benton, who in 2026 will run for Secretary of State, the office that oversees elections. Hammer and other Republican lawmakers said adding regulations to the process of soliciting and gathering signatures on petitions will protect the integrity of direct democracy and discourage fraudulent behavior. New requirements include but are not limited to: Signature gatherers, known as canvassers, must inform potential signers that petition fraud is a criminal offense Canvassers must request a photo ID from potential signers Potential signers must read a petition's ballot title or have it read to them Ballot titles must be at an eighth-grade reading level or lower Petition sponsors cannot submit more than one conflicting petition at the same time Democratic lawmakers and members of the public said the restrictions will have a chilling effect on the people's right to initiate new laws and constitutional amendments. In February, a committee rejected a proposed enforcement agency within the Secretary of State's office to investigate the validity of submitted ballot initiative documents. On Wednesday, the final day of the session, the House voted down a bill that would have given the Legislature the authority to overturn voter-approved constitutional amendments. The Legislature also took up multiple 'foreign adversary' bills. While the bills technically targeted several nations — such as Iran, Russia and North Korea — China has been repeatedly mentioned by lawmakers intent on rooting out the Communist country's perceived influence within Arkansas. Sanders promoted the legislation, saying in press conferences and on social media that Arkansas is the first state to 'kick China off of our farmland and out of our state.' The session's efforts built off of legislation passed in 2023 and 2024 that limited Chinese businesses from owning land in Arkansas and prohibited them from operating cryptocurrency mining facilities. Many of the bills passed in the last days of the session, such as House Bill 1680, which built on Act 636 of 2023's prohibition against land ownership by foreign adversary-controlled businesses. HB1680 added more prohibitions on such businesses, banning them from holding leases on land or having an interest in agricultural land within 10 miles of 'critical infrastructure' such as dams or power generation facilities. Other foreign adversary bills targeted higher education. Act 473 of 2025 requires extensive screening of individuals being considered for employment by a university or college if the person is from a covered foreign adversary such as China, depending on the role they are being considered for. It also creates a high bar for higher education institutions to enter into research agreements or cultural exchanges with groups from foreign adversary nations, requiring they be rejected unless a strong state interest is identified. Another bill, House Bill 1352, prohibits funding for institutions of higher education that have a Chinese cultural center or a Confucius Institute. A federal government report in October 2023 noted there are fewer than five Confucius Institutes left in the U.S. since Congress restricted federal funding to schools with institutes. Under House Bill 1604, government agencies would be prohibited from buying promotional items such as stickers and mugs from Chinese businesses, while House Bill 1683 would bar government agencies from buying electric vehicles or their components if the vendor could not certify that it was not made using forced labor. HB1683 took particular aim at alleged forced-labor practices in China — specifically mentioning alleged human rights abuses committed against the Uyghur people — although the importation of goods made with forced labor has been illegal in the U.S. since 1930 with the passage of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act of 2021 established that there is a presumption that all goods imported from China's Xinjiang region, where allegations of forced labor are concentrated, are produced using forced labor. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Multi-million dollar prison funding allocation fails in Arkansas Senate for fifth time
Video: April 8 at the Arkansas Capitol LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A bill to allocate funding for a new 3,000-bed prison in Arkansas has failed in the state Senate for the fifth time. Senate Bill 354 fell short of the required 27 votes needed for passage on Tuesday. The bill would allocate the $725 million needed to build the proposed prison, adding to the $75 million already allocated to the project in 2023. Multi-million funding allocation bill for Franklin County prison fails in Arkansas legislature for fourth time Because it is a funding allocation, the bill needs a three-fourths majority to pass, but it can be resubmitted immediately if it fails. The Tuesday vote was its fifth over the last five days the Senate was in session. The bill has received one more 'aye' vote over each of its last five sessions. Opponents of the bill have cited the lack of planning for the prison, including the infrastructure needed to support a prison of that size in a rural area, such as roads and waterworks. Bill heads to governor's desk to put 10 Commandments in Arkansas classrooms Those in favor of the project point to the county jail overcrowding leading to misdemeanor criminals being released early and possibly going on to commit more serious crimes. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Multi-million funding allocation bill for Franklin County prison fails in Arkansas legislature for fourth time
Video: Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signs 49 bills into law LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Legislation to allocate funding for a new prison in Franklin County failed in the Arkansas Senate on Monday afternoon. The Monday failure of Senate Bill 354 was its fourth try for adoption. The bill was for $750 million to construct a 3,000-bed prison and had previously failed Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in the Senate. Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signs 49 bills into law Because it is an allocation bill, it can be repeatedly resubmitted. An allocation bill requires a 75% 'yay' vote in the chamber to pass. Each vote has fallen well short of this. In 2023, the legislature allocated $75 million for the initial construction of the prison. The allocation bill in this session was for the remaining $750 million needed to complete the prison, estimated to cost $825 million. Opponents of the prison said it was poorly planned, and funding did not include the infrastructure needed to support a large prison in a rural area, such as roads and waterworks. Four takeaways from the 12th week of the 95th General Assembly Proponents of the project pointed to the need for prison beds in the state as county jails are forced to release misdemeanor offenders early due to space taken by state prisoners waiting for a bed to become available in the penitentiary system. They also pointed out that this bill was for the allocation of funding, not the actual withdrawal of the funds from the state's account. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Arkansas Senate rejects prison appropriation bill for second time
Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, asks a question during a Dec. 6, 2024 committee meeting about a prison planned for Franklin County. (Mary Hennigan/Arkansas Advocate) The Arkansas Senate on Wednesday rejected for the second day in a row a $750 appropriation bill to support construction of a new 3,000-bed prison in Franklin County. Opposition to Senate Bill 354 grew Wednesday with three more senators — Republicans Alan Clark, Steve Crowell and Dan Sullivan — joining ten colleagues who voted against the legislation Tuesday. Proponents of expanding prison capacity, including the governor, argue the new prison is necessary to address overcrowding in county jails. Officials last month set the preliminary cost estimate of the project at $825 million. Local officials and residents were caught off guard last October when Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced the state's $2.95 million purchase of 815 acres near Charleston for the project. Community members and elected officials have pushed back against the project for months. Prison appropriation bill stalls in Arkansas Senate Sen. Bryan King, a Green Forrest Republican who's been a vocal opponent from the start, on Wednesday referenced costly prison projects in states like Utah, and said building a 3,000-bed penitentiary in the rural western Arkansas county would be fiscally irresponsible. 'These mega prisons are still mega-financial disasters,' he said. 'The only winners are going to be the prison building companies out of state that's going to take millions of our dollars.' King also criticized the decision to not expand the state's Calico Rock prison. Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson proposed expanding the facility by roughly 500 beds using surplus funds, and state lawmakers approved $75 million in reserve funds for the project in December 2022. That was put on hold when Sanders threw her support behind the Protect Arkansas Act, a 2023 law that, among other things, removes the possibility of parole for the state's most serious offenders. Inmates serving more of their sentences means more prison space will be needed, which Sen. Justin Boyd, R-Fort Smith, said needs to be addressed. 'In this chamber we voted to create new penalties for Arkansans…so we all want to say we're tough on crime, but yet then we don't want to provide the space,' Boyd said. The Legislature set aside $330 million in 2023 to support the governor's prison expansion efforts, but disputes between the executive branch and the Board of Corrections, and among state lawmakers, have delayed the project. While the process may not have been perfect, state lawmakers need to find a way to fund this effort to protect constituents, Corning Republican Sen. Blake Johnson said. 'I appreciate everybody's differences, but please let's try to work together for the safety of Arkansas citizens,' he said. Johnson was one of 18 senators who voted in favor of the measure Wednesday, one fewer than Tuesday. Sen. Missy Irvin, R-Mountain View, voted for the measure Tuesday, but did not vote Wednesday. Sen. Ken Hammer, R-Benton, who did not vote Tuesday, cast an affirmative vote Wednesday. Sullivan supported the measure Tuesday, but voted against it Wednesday. SB 354 has twice failed in the Senate because appropriation bills require 27 votes to advance out of the upper chamber. There is no restriction on how many times lawmakers can vote on an appropriation bill, but they only have until the end of the session to advance legislation to the governor for final approval. The General Assembly is expected to finish considering bills by April 16. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Arkansas lawmakers advance $750 million appropriation bill for prison construction
(Getty Images) A legislative committee on Thursday approved a $750 million appropriation bill for the cost of constructing a new 3,000-bed prison in western Arkansas, three weeks after rejecting a request for approval to draft the bill. Funds for the project won't get disbursed until formal requests are approved by the Legislature, but that didn't stop members of the Joint Budget Committee Thursday morning from venting about the Sanders administration's decision to place a new prison in rural Franklin County in an effort to alleviate overcrowding in county jails. Searcy Republican Sen. Jonathan Dismang, committee co-chair and lead sponsor of Senate Bill 354, said he heard his colleagues' previous concerns about not having a total cost estimate for the project. Vanir Construction, the firm hired by the Department of Corrections as the project's construction manager, issued a letter with a preliminary cost estimate of $825 million on March 3, the same day Dismang filed a bill to appropriate $750 million for the project. Arkansas officials estimate new prison cost at $825M; bill appropriating $750M filed Lawmakers have had weeks to read the bill and ask questions, according to Dismang, who reminded his colleagues that approving SB 354 would not release any funds and was required to start a capital project. 'There are stopgaps and stopgaps and stopgaps in front of us as we discuss funding along the way and how we're going to do that,' he said. 'This is not that. This is the appropriation for a capital project to build a prison. Period. This is not the end of our responsibility. This is not the end of our discussion. This allows us to have the bigger conversation.' Several lawmakers who've been vocal critics of the project remained unsatisfied Thursday, arguing that local residents don't want the prison in their community and that costs will be higher than estimated due to a lack of needed infrastructure as well as rising costs of construction materials and the possible effect of steel tariffs. Lawmakers' questions were fielded by former Corrections Secretary Joe Profiri. After being fired by the Arkansas Board of Corrections last year, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders hired him as a senior aide. Sanders later appointed Lindsay Wallace his successor. The prison could be opened in phases, according to Profiri, who said the intent is to activate at least part of the facility in late 2026 or early 2027. The goal would be to have the project finished by 2029. Profiri also told lawmakers the ultimate cost of the project will be determined by engineers' findings, and he noted that adjustments can be made to stay within budget. Sen. Bart Hester, R-Cave Springs, said Profiri has worked on at least three prison facilities over the course of nearly 40 years in corrections and was able to keep them under budget, honoring the wishes of lawmakers who have the ultimate approval of how much is spent. 'I struggle to think, what if we don't build this prison, what is the cost to society?' Hester said. 'How do we answer to the people at home when there's no misdemeanor justice? What is the cost to not do this?' The need for more prison space is expected to increase as the state implements 2023's Protect Arkansas Act, which requires the most serious offenders to serve the majority of their sentences. County jails currently house roughly 10% of state inmates, costing the state nearly $30 million annually, according to a corrections department spokesperson. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Sen. Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana, said he supports a new prison and is willing to overlook some of his fiscal responsibility because he feels the prison is needed so badly. But the state could have done more on the front end to ensure the property it bought was suitable, including making sure there was sufficient access to utilities and no environmental concerns, he said. 'So to sit here and tell me that you've got this great experience in doing this and you have basically flubbed the purchase, it's just insulting to me,' he said. '…I did an amendment to try to make it so that we'd have the money because this might be a four- or five-year project, but we don't want to listen to that or try to do that to have the money in place. We just want to talk about how we're going to do this and we can't even get the first step right.' Hickey was referring to an amendment to SB 254 that failed in the JBC Special Language subcommittee about an hour before the Joint Budget Committee met Thursday morning. The proposal wasn't about spending money, but 'moving money and parking it in holding accounts,' he said. One proposed account would be the $750 million mentioned in the appropriation bill, an account Hickey said is already set aside with roughly $330 million in it. The other account for $250 million would be for prison construction or contingencies. Prison opponents voice concerns as Arkansas officials proceed with 3,000-bed project The Legislature set aside $75 million in 2022 and $330 million in 2023 for prison expansion. The amendment would also have allowed the interest being put into the Catastrophic Reserve Fund, which Hickey said had roughly $1.9 billion in it, to be released so it can also be used. 'What this will also do is make it so that we have enough money to park this billion dollars, and it also will free up about another hundred million dollars in funds to help with our cash flow,' Hickey said in the subcommittee. As a member of the committee, Hickey made a do-pass motion, but it failed for lack of a second. During the Joint Budget Committee meeting, Sen. John Payton, R-Wilburn, said the state 'had a lot of money burning a hole in our pocket.' The state's general revenue surplus was $698.4 million in fiscal year 2024, the fourth-largest surplus on record. The general revenue surplus exceeded $1 billion in the two previous years. Everyone agreed to build a prison, but Payton said he's not sure 'we made a wise business decision' about where to put it. 'But it did destroy a lot of confidence in the people making the decision, and when we're talking about what could be a billion dollar project, we need some confidence in how the decisions are going to be made,' he said. When the governor announced in late October the purchase of 815 acres near Charleston for $2.95 million, several Arkansas lawmakers, as well as local officials and residents, decried the decision for its lack of transparency and have continued to push back against the project. Even if the state increases prison capacity, Payton said, staffing will be an issue, as it has been for a number of years. 'That's what concerns me most, and that's why I think we need to slow down instead of running off half-cocked and pursuing what could be a major problem in the end,' he said. Sen. Gary Stubblefield, a Branch Republican whose family land is near the prison site, requested the committee's vote be divided by chambers. The bill advanced after garnering a 17-10 vote on the Senate side and a 16-10 vote on the House side. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
