Latest news with #SenateCommitteeonStateAgenciesandGovernmentalAffairs
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Bill to abolish Arkansas State Library and its board advances despite librarians' opposition
Five Arkansans spoke against Senate Bill 536 before the Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs on Tuesday, April 1, 2025. From left: Misty Hawkins, regional director of the Arkansas River Valley Regional Library System; Allie Gosselink, director of the Calhoun County Library; Debbie Hall, grants manager for the Arkansas State Library; John McGraw,executive director of the Faulkner-Van Buren Regional Library; and Clare Graham, Mid-Arkansas Regional Library System director. (Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate) After more than two hours of debate, an Arkansas Senate committee advanced a proposal on Tuesday to abolish the Arkansas State Library and its board, which disburses state funding to local public libraries. Senate Bill 536 would transfer the agency's and board's powers, authorities, funds, contracts and employees to the Arkansas Department of Education. The State Library is already under the department's umbrella but operates independently. The bill would delete all mentions of the State Library from existing state statute and make 'prohibit[ing] access to age-inappropriate materials to a person who is sixteen (16) years old or younger' a condition for public libraries to receive state funds from the education department. 'My entire library, all 30,000 books, would fit inside this room,' Calhoun County Library Director Allie Gosselink said, speaking against SB 536 before the Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs in the Arkansas Capitol's Old Supreme Court room. 'I need a definition for 'access,' or I can't let anyone that's under 16… inside my door,' Gosselink continued. SB 536 defines 'age-inappropriate material' as 'books, media, or any other material accessible at a public library containing images or explicit and detailed descriptions' of sexual acts, sexual contact and human genitalia. The location and availability of books based on 'appropriateness' for minors was the thrust of Act 372 of 2023. The law would have given local elected officials the final say over whether to relocate challenged library materials some consider 'obscene' and made librarians legally liable for disseminating such materials. A federal judge temporarily and later permanently blocked portions of Act 372; Attorney General Tim Griffin appealed the ruling in January. New bill would dissolve Arkansas State Library and its board, set new library funding criteria Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Jonesboro, sponsored Act 372 and is the primary sponsor of SB 536. Protecting minors from 'age-inappropriate material' in libraries and detaching from the American Library Association were the two requests Sullivan said he gave the State Library Board last month as conditions of its survival. The board voted against two proposals with those stated goals from Republican ex-senator Jason Rapert, who has called for the board's abolition. Sullivan subsequently doubled down on his existing promise to dissolve the board. He introduced a bill in February to abolish both the State Library Board and the Arkansas Educational Television Commission, which oversees Arkansas PBS, but he said he reached an agreement with the latter in March that led him to decide not to dissolve the commission. On Tuesday, Sullivan told the State Agencies committee that his requests to the State Library Board should not have been difficult to fulfill and that SB 536 would ensure the state's 'oversight' of entities that receive public funds. 'When people say 'Book Ban Dan' is taking away their library or killing their library, they chose that path,' Sullivan said. SB 536 would require libraries to submit annual reports to the Department of Education that include 'an assurance of compliance with the applicable laws of the state, rules promulgated by the department, and the policies of the public library.' For example, Sullivan said, libraries should not espouse diversity, equity and inclusion policies or allow transgender people to use bathrooms that do not match their gender assigned at birth. Sullivan has sponsored or supported laws to these ends this year and in 2023. Four library directors, including Gosselink, and Arkansas State Library grants manager Debbie Hall spoke against SB 536. No members of the public spoke for the bill. If the education department determines a library no longer qualifies for state funding, the library would be allowed to appeal the decision as long as it can prove 'the determination was made in error' or 'the determination was correct but remedial actions have been taken by the public library to bring the public library into compliance,' according to SB 536. The appeal process would not be sufficient if the law goes into effect July 1 in accordance with its emergency clause, said Misty Hawkins, regional director of the Arkansas River Valley Regional Library System, which has seven branches in Franklin, Johnson, Logan and Yell counties. The library system would have to rewrite its interlocal agreements between the four counties to account for the new code and repealed code in SB 536, which is not possible to complete in only three months, Hawkins said. 'As a director, I am now doing more [to] ensure my libraries are in compliance in order to get the same amount of funding,' which is $188,000 from the state, Hawkins said. She also said SB 536 does not specify how librarians must determine whether a book is appropriate for a 16-year-old but not for a 15-year-old. All five people who spoke against the bill said libraries already organize books on shelves in an age-appropriate manner in accordance with existing standards, and State Library Board members have made similar statements. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX After rejecting the two proposals put forth by Sullivan and Rapert last month, the State Library Board passed a motion to create 'non-binding policies to protect children' while honoring First Amendment freedoms and libraries' material selection policies. Sullivan said this was not enough to deter him from dissolving the board, partly because the majority of members still opposed removing references to the American Library Association from board documents. On Tuesday, Sullivan repeated his criticism of a former ALA president for publicly calling herself a Marxist and the ALA's Library Bill of Rights for stating that access to libraries should not be restricted based on a person's age. The ALA presidency is 'a ceremonial job' that does not directly influence the policies of the nonprofit trade association that advocates for libraries and helps them secure grant funding, said John McGraw, executive director of the Faulkner-Van Buren Regional Library. Sen. Alan Clark, R-Lonsdale, said the ALA's Library Bill of Rights rubs him the wrong way because it asserts 'you can't protect a 3-year-old' from inappropriate content. Gosselink called Clark's statement 'semantics.' 'Not a single person sitting behind me will tell you that you do not need to protect a 3-year-old from certain things that are in our libraries,' she said. 'That is the parents' job. We can't make a whole library acceptable for a 3-year-old.' Local libraries are already governed by their local boards that know their communities best. This bill takes that away, replacing it with centralized oversight that doesn't understand the unique needs of each town and city. – Clare Graham, Mid-Arkansas Regional Library System director McGraw said, not for the first time, that his library system doesn't have a mechanism to lock away books that might be appropriate for adults but inappropriate for small children. A bill advanced later on Tuesday that would require Arkansas public school libraries serving K-5 students to segregate 'non-age-appropriate sexual content' in 'a locked compartment within a designated area.' House Bill 1646 passed the House with 75 votes for it and 14 against it, mostly along party lines, and will next go to the Senate Education Committee. SB 536 includes a limited exception to the proposed restrictions on 'age-inappropriate materials.' Sex education materials would be accessible to minors between 12 and 15 years old, and those under 12 would not be able to access such materials if their parents or guardians have forbidden their access in writing. Six of the eight Senate State Agencies committee members, including Sullivan, voted to pass SB 536. Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, voted against it. The committee's sole Democrat, Sen. Clarke Tucker of Little Rock, was absent during the vote. SB 536 would also require libraries to maintain a specific minimum hours of operation depending on the populations of the areas they serve. For example, a library in a community of less than 10,000 people would have to be open 1,480 hours per year in order to receive state funding, and a library that serves 10,000 to 19,000 people would have to be open 1,730 hours per year. The library directors who spoke against the bill said this would disproportionately threaten rural libraries' funding. McGraw called the provision an 'unfunded mandate' and said it would apply unevenly to the branches he supervises in Conway and in rural areas. CONTACT US Gosselink said the payroll and utility costs to meet the hours requirement at the Calhoun County Library's main branch in Hampton would cost more than the state funding she currently receives, which is $7,100 per year. 'It's my entire discretionary budget for programming, for books, for computers, for anything I might do that's above and beyond opening the doors and turning on the lights,' she said. Sullivan said county governments and taxpayers would be required to put in extra effort to make up for any library funding that might be lost, but he also said he doubted that libraries are at risk of losing funding in the first place. McGraw challenged this statement and mentioned that the entire staff of the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services was put on administrative leave for 90 days Monday. Earlier in March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to gut the federal agency that provides grant funding to libraries nationwide. The Arkansas State Library distributes IMLS funds to Arkansas libraries. These funds support summer reading programs, interlibrary loan programs, resources for blind and print-disabled library patrons and state document depositories, Arkansas Library Association president and Garland County Library director Adam Webb told the Advocate. McGraw called SB 536 'an unnecessary introduction of chaos' into the already uncertain landscape of library funding, and he said the bill does not include any metrics for measuring improvements within libraries that meet all of the bill's state funding requirements. The fourth library director to speak against the bill was Clare Graham, who oversees the five-county Mid-Arkansas Regional Library System. 'This bill imposes a one-size-fits-all approach that stifles creativity and flexibility,' Graham said. 'Local libraries are already governed by their local boards that know their communities best. This bill takes that away, replacing it with centralized oversight that doesn't understand the unique needs of each town and city.' The full Senate will consider SB 536 Wednesday. The bill's emergency clause requires two-thirds of the chamber's support, or 24 votes. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
28-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Arkansas panel again rejects investigative powers for Secretary of State over initiative petitions
Four Republican members of the Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs listen to discussion on Thursday, February 27, 2025. From left: committee chairman Sen. Scott Flippo of Bull Shoals, Sen. Kim Hammer of Benton, vice chairman Sen. John Payton of Wilburn and Sen. Alan Clark of Lonsdale. (Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate) An Arkansas Senate committee again rejected a proposal to create an enforcement agency within the secretary of state's office that could investigate the validity of submitted documents related to elections and ballot initiatives. Senate Bill 212 previously failed in the Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs on Feb. 11. Bill sponsor Sen. Kim Hammer, R-Benton, amended the bill and presented it to the committee again Thursday. Hammer announced in January that he will run next year for Secretary of State, the office that oversees elections. The proposed 'Document Validity Division' in SB 212 would have the power to 'investigate documents and activities related to the validity and truthfulness' of petitions signed by registered voters in support of proposed ballot measures. 'A document determined by the division to contain fraud or falsity by a preponderance of the evidence shall be declared null and void for any legal purpose overseen by the Secretary of State,' the bill states. The division would have subpoena power, and an amendment Hammer added to the bill this week would allow the agency to seek a court order to enforce a subpoena if the recipient fails to comply. Hammer told the committee that allowing the secretary of state's office to collect evidence and build a case against alleged petition fraud would relieve law enforcement officers and prosecuting attorneys of their investigatory responsibilities in these cases. '[Secretary of State employees] are the ones who are involved in the election integrity process,' Hammer said. '…We're not turning them loose. We're giving them the ability to investigate.' Arkansas Senate advances two stalled bills that would change citizen-led ballot initiative process Despite the use of the term 'law enforcement' in the bill, Secretary of State employees would not be certified law enforcement officers and therefore would not be required to adhere to the state's official law enforcement standards, said Nathan Lee, deputy secretary of state and the office's chief legal counsel. Hammer is sponsoring several other bills that would alter Arkansas' ballot initiative petition process and has said the legislation would deter fraudulent behavior. Opponents of the bills have called them a threat to the public's right to change laws and the state Constitution. Arkansas is one of 24 states that allows direct democracy, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. SB 212 again failed to garner five votes from the eight-member committee. Sen. Clarke Tucker of Little Rock, the committee's only Democrat, continued to oppose the bill, as did committee vice chair Sen. John Payton, R-Wilburn. 'I believe in a rigorous investigation of any wrongdoing when it comes to this petitioning process,' Payton said. 'I believe it should be prosecuted and it should be investigated, but I also believe that our [nation's] founders were very concerned with separation of powers… I believe that giving every agency police powers is a violation of the principle that we would have separation of powers.' Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Jonesboro, voted for SB 212 on Feb. 11 but joined Payton and Tucker in voting against it Thursday. Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, voted against the bill Feb. 11 and was absent Thursday. Hammer and the remaining three committee members voted for the bill, including Sen. Alan Clark, R-Lonsdale, who was absent Feb. 11. These kinds of obstructionist laws imply that some of you simply do not trust the people of Arkansas. – Davis Hendricks, one of six speakers against Senate Bill 212 Six members of the public spoke against SB 212, with several saying the bill lacked due process for petition signers whose signatures might be discarded by the Secretary of State. 'This particular bill increases barriers to voting, targets vulnerable populations, raises privacy and civil rights concerns and contradicts values that I represent as a social worker,' Kellie Fugere said. Fugere described herself as politically liberal. Other witnesses described themselves as conservative, including Lorri Justice, a constituent of Hammer's and a former Republican candidate for the Pulaski County Quorum Court. Justice said she opposed 'weaponizing state agencies' against the public and believed SB 212 would do this. 'We have President [Donald] Trump slashing our federal government, but we're building our government and making it bigger here in the state, and I don't like that,' Justice said, referring to recent firings of federal employees. Joey McCutchen and Jimmie Cavin, both conservative advocates for government transparency, also said they opposed expanding state government via SB 212. McCutchen called the proposal 'Orwellian' and 'authoritarian.' Cavin said he opposed giving the Secretary of State 'the sole discretion' of disqualifying petition signatures 'based on an opinion,' which the officeholder could use to 'force their will over the people.' 'I'm absolutely against abortion, but say somebody wants to get an abortion amendment on the ballot, and let's say the Secretary of State doesn't want that to happen,' Cavin said. 'It's really easy to use this as a political weapon, and the same is true in reverse [if we] have a liberal secretary of state.' A proposed constitutional amendment that would have created a limited right to abortion received more than 102,000 signatures last year, but it did not make the November ballot after the Secretary of State's office disqualified more than 14,000 signatures on a technicality. At the committee's Feb. 11 meeting, supporters of Hammer's package of bills alleged fraud and misconduct by canvassers collecting signatures for the abortion amendment. The other two speakers against SB 212 were Carol Egan, who spoke against another of Hammer's bills Tuesday, and Davis Hendricks, who said allegations of petition fraud are 'the exception and not the rule.' Several of Hammer's bills might be challenged in court if they become law, which would waste taxpayer money, Hendricks said. 'These kinds of obstructionist laws imply that some of you simply do not trust the people of Arkansas,' he said. No members of the public spoke for SB 212. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Senate committee advances bills regulating Arkansas' ballot initiative process
From left: Republican Sen. Kim Hammer of Benton, Deputy Secretary of State Nathan Lee and Secretary of State Director of Elections Leslie Bellamy answer questions about proposed laws that would alter the citizen-initiated ballot measure process before the Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs on Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. (Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate) A divided legislative panel advanced five of six bills that would alter Arkansas' citizen-led petition process after more than three hours of debate Tuesday. The Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs considered the legislation sponsored by Sen. Kim Hammer, R-Benton, who said his bills all had the goal of enhancing the integrity of Arkansas' ballot initiative process. 'Each of these bills have been prepared working with the secretary of state's office to assure that each bill safeguards the rights granted under the Constitution, while not infringing on the rights of citizens and their respective groups who want a safe, secure and integrity-driven process through which signatures can be gathered for an initiative.' Under Article 5 Section 1 of the state Constitution, Arkansans can propose laws and constitutional amendments or repeal state laws through the initiative and referendum process, which requires citizens to collect a certain number of signatures that must be certified by state officials before being placed on the ballot for a vote. Arkansas' elections are overseen by the secretary of state, a position Hammer is seeking in 2026. The five bills advancing out of committee Tuesday: Senate Bill 207 would require canvassers to disclose that petition fraud is a Class A misdemeanor, which is punishable by up to 1 year in prison. Senate Bill 208 would require canvassers to request a photo ID from potential signers. Senate Bill 209 would disqualify signatures collected by canvassers if the secretary of state finds 'by a preponderance of evidence' that they violated state law collecting the signatures. Senate Bill 210 would require potential signers to read the ballot title of a petition or have it read aloud to them in the presence of a canvasser. It would also make it a misdemeanor for a canvasser to accept a signature from people who have not read the ballot title or had it read aloud to them in the presence of a canvasser. Senate Bill 211 would require canvassers to file an affidavit with the secretary of state certifying they complied with the Arkansas Constitution and state laws related to canvassing, perjury, forgery and fraudulent practices in the procurement of petition signatures. Signatures submitted without the affidavit would not be counted. All five bills contain an emergency clause, and if approved by the Legislature, would go into effect immediately upon the governor's signature. While discussing the bills Tuesday, Sen. Clarke Tucker, D-Little Rock, said direct democracy is a balancing act. Hammer's concerns about guarding against misleading people about what they're signing or the submission of invalid signatures are 'on one side of the ledger,' Tucker said. 'On the other side of the ledger, there's another harm, which is the people of Arkansas not being able to get their proposed ballot measures on the ballot, and we have to balance those against each other,' he said. Comparing signature-gathering legislation to traffic laws, Tucker said laws are needed to protect against the inherent danger of driving. Stop signs could be placed at every intersection to make people safer, but the restrictions would eventually be so severe that it makes driving useless, he said. 'We've passed laws to make the signature-gathering process more difficult in every legislative session since 2013, and sometimes several times a session,' Tucker said. 'And if you look at any one of these individual measures by itself, maybe it's fine. But there comes a point where it's death by a thousand cuts and it becomes too stifling.' Hammer said he doesn't subscribe to allowing the process to be less than 100% accurate, especially when there's a way to ensure accuracy. 'I think that's the greater danger that we face is that we begin to recognize that there are problems, and we are either too afraid to address them or we are intimidated out of addressing them,' he said. Clarke has filed his own bill to address the ballot initiative process. Senate Bill 188 would require the posting of statewide initiative and referendum petitions on the secretary of state's website, a proposal that Hammer said Tuesday he would support. Senate Bill 212, the sole bill rejected by the Senate committee, would have created the Document Validity Division, a law enforcement agency within the secretary state's office that could investigate the validity of documents related to elections and ballot initiatives submitted to the office. Hammer can bring the bill back to the committee at a later date. The five bills approved by the committee will next be considered by the full Senate. Arkansas' petition-gathering process garnered much attention during the 2024 election cycle when groups gathered signatures for nearly a dozen ballot measures targeting the elimination of taxes on feminine hygiene products, expanded abortion access and increased government transparency. Nearly all the measures failed to qualify for the ballot due to paperwork issues, insufficient signatures and legal challenges. The only initiative to qualify for the ballot and have votes counted for it was a proposal to repeal a Pope County casino license. Voters approved the measure in November. More than a dozen supporters of direct-democracy efforts held signs and protested Hammer's bills outside the committee room at the state Capitol Tuesday morning. Participants argued that Hammer's bills would make it more difficult for Arkansans to participate in the petition process and make their voices heard. 'This is a horrible power grab, and we need to be able to follow the rule of law and also have our input in the law,' Richard Swafford of Little Rock said. Inside the committee room, Dawn Shell from Saline County spoke in favor of Hammer's efforts to keep voters from being misled. Shell, a pastor's wife, said she signed a petition in support of women's health without being shown a copy of the measure. It wasn't until she was alerted by a friend who viewed signatures for an abortion-rights initiative that were obtained through the state's Freedom of Information Act that Shell realized what she had signed. 'My name is now permanently attached to something that I do not believe in,' she said. '…Had I understood what I was signing, I would not have signed my name to allow it to be put on the ballot.' Jen Standerfer, who worked with and carried petitions for a group that pursued government transparency initiatives during the 2024 general election, spoke against Hammer's bills. The Bentonville attorney said she questioned the constitutionality of some provisions within the legislation. Standerfer argued that asking someone to sign a petition is like candidates asking someone to vote for them, forms of speech protected under the First Amendment. 'These are not the sorts of restrictions we would ever put on campaign speech when we think of campaigns in terms of candidates, but under the law, issue speech is also campaign speech,' she said. 'It has the same protections, and it should have the same protections.' Hammer said Arkansas' attorney general reviewed his proposed legislation, deemed it constitutional and stood ready to defend it if challenged in court. He asked Standerfer if she disagreed with his assessment. Standerfer said she did for three reasons — it's the attorney general's job to defend the state, 'the Supreme Court does not work for him, and sometimes he's wrong.' Though many people signed up to speak about the bills, public testimony was cut short by lawmakers who voted to end discussion and take a vote on the bills after more than three hours of discussion. Some members of the public who were unable to testify told the Advocate after the meeting they were disappointed by the committee's vote. Retired Presbyterian pastor Rev. Linda Whitworth-Reed said the bills were creating 'more roadblocks for free speech,' while Nell Matthews, treasurer for the League of Women Voters of Arkansas, said the proposals would 'take away direct democracy from the average citizen.' 'The whole business is just to slow people down and intimidate people and prevent them from signing,' Matthews said. 'The idea that a canvasser is going to be prosecuted if there's evidence that they didn't do the various steps — all that takes is two bad actors coming in and saying, 'She didn't look at my ID' [or] 'She didn't read the ballot title.'' Tess Vrbin and Mary Hennigan contributed to this story. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
30-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Arkansas lawmakers advance bill to create military committee
House Speaker Brian Evans and Lieutenant Gov. Leslie Rutledge preside over a joint session of the Arkansas House and Senate on Jan. 14, 2025. (Antoinette Grajeda/Arkansas Advocate) A bill to create the Joint Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs is headed to the Arkansas Senate for a final vote following approval by a legislative committee Thursday. House Bill 1056 is sponsored by House Speaker Brian Evans, who told his House colleagues earlier this month that now's the time 'to show those who serve us in uniform that we are going to take their work more seriously.' The Senate does not have a committee focused on military affairs, but the House has the Committee on Aging, Children and Youth, Legislative and Military Affairs. If HB 1056 is approved, Evans said a resolution would be needed to remove 'military affairs' from the committee's name. The Cabot Republican noted that his district is home to a large veteran population and cited several other military communities across the state, including central Arkansas' Little Rock Air Force Base and Camp Robinson, as well Fort Smith, home to Ebbing Air National Guard Base, which has been selected as as the new site of the Foreign Military Sales Program Pilot Training Center. 'As a body, [we] will do everything that we can possibly do with intent and with passion to make sure that we are providing those benefits that we can as a state and those opportunities and those protections for their families while they are out serving for us,' Evans said. The new Joint Committee to Military and Veterans Affairs would consist of 12 representatives and eight senators. The Speaker would designate a House co-chair and co-vice chair while the chair and co-chair of the Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs would fill those positions on the Senate side. The new joint committee could meet at any time at the call of the chairs. Bills or resolutions introduced during a legislative session pertaining to military or veterans affairs 'may be referred' to the joint committee, according to an amendment adopted Thursday. Bart Hester, Senate President Tempore and HB1056 co-sponsor, explained to the Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Thursday that changing the word 'shall' to 'may' would allow the parliamentarian to send a bill pertaining to veterans and military affairs to another committee when appropriate. Addressing concerns about the efficiency of creating a joint committee and challenges of scheduling a meeting during the legislative session, Hester said he'd 'be shocked' if the new group met more than twice during the current session. HB1056, which will likely be considered by the full Senate next week, contains an emergency clause and would be effective immediately upon the governor's signature. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
29-01-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Arkansas Senate panel passes bill to prohibit discrimination; citizens say it would do the opposite
Sen. Clarke Tucker (right), D-Little Rock, asks questions about Senate Bill 3 from bill sponsor Sen. Dan Sullivan (left), R-Jonesboro, during a Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs meeting on Tuesday, January 28, 2025. (Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate) After two and a half hours of debate, an Arkansas Senate panel approved a bill Tuesday that would 'prohibit discrimination or preferential treatment' by public entities. Senate Bill 3, similar to a bill that failed in 2023, would repeal requirements that state procurement proposals include language that encourages minority participation or to adopt an equal opportunity hiring program designed to increase the percentage of minority employees. The bill would also eliminate required minority recruitment and retention plans and reports from public school districts and higher education institutions, as well as amending a scholarship designed to attract qualified minority teachers to the Delta, a rural area with a significant Black population and a known teacher shortage. While the bill does not include the phrase 'diversity, equity and inclusion,' a phrase often abbreviated as DEI in the language of business and government, the bill would strike the three individual words from state law several times over. For example, the Equity Assistance Center in the state's Division of Elementary and Secondary Education would be called the Equality Assistance Center. Its purpose would be to assist the state's public school districts with 'desegregation and nondiscrimination' instead of 'affirmative action, program accessibility, human relations, awareness, and desegregation' as currently required. The bill would also strike the term 'civil rights' from state law three times and replace the phrase with 'desegregation and nondiscrimination.' Arkansas senator promises to kill DEI at state higher-ed institutions Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Jonesboro is sponsoring the bill and has been an outspoken critic of DEI initiatives, which have become a target for conservative lawmakers nationwide since the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down the use of affirmative action in college admissions. Senate Bill 3 would apply to the state's higher education institutions. Sullivan told the Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs that existing state policy encourages employers to prioritize traits such as race and ethnicity over job qualifications. 'We are focusing on merit, and we're going to hire on merit who's the best for that area,' Sullivan said. 'I think we've kind of lost our focus on what merit means.' SB 3 contains much of the same language as a bill Sullivan sponsored two years ago to end state-sponsored affirmative action, which he also described as ending discrimination. That bill, Senate Bill 71, narrowly passed the Senate in March 2023 but died on the House floor after several passionate speeches from members of both parties. Sen. Clarke Tucker, D-Little Rock, noted during Tuesday's committee meeting that all 18 senators — the minimum number for a bill to pass the chamber — who voted for SB71 in 2023 were white men. White men comprise most of the state Legislature, including all eight members of the State Agencies committee, and much of the executive branch, noted civil rights attorney Austin Porter Jr., who opposed the bill along with nine other speakers. They said they opposed the bill because it would remove opportunities for populations that have historically faced discrimination. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects people from employment discrimination on the basis of 'race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.' Senate Bill 3 has similar language but replaces 'religion' with 'ethnicity.' The text of the bill would allow anyone 'who believes his or her rights have been impacted under this section' to file a civil lawsuit, and a judge that sides with the plaintiff would issue an injunction and allow the plaintiff to recover court costs and attorneys' fees. The bill would give 'reparations' to 'white people who feel like they've been victimized by some preferential treatment that's nonexistent,' Porter said, adding that Black Americans have spent years advocating for reparations for the nation's history of enslavement. ''Merit,' in a lot of people's minds, means simply white,' Porter said. Lance LeVar, a former Arkansas Department of Education employee, disputed Sullivan's statement that unqualified minority job candidates have advantages over qualified candidates. 'What equity [does] is it looks at everybody and recognizes the merit that everybody's done, the work that they've taken… and it recognizes that others have to work harder,' LeVar said. Other opponents of the bill included representatives from Stand Up Arkansas and Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. Tucker asked Sullivan 'who is harmed' by minority teacher recruitment programs. Sullivan repeatedly said such programs are discriminatory. 'One could also ask who's being helped, and it's just a circular argument,' Sullivan said. Tucker, the committee's only Democrat, and Sen. Alan Clark, R-Lonsdale, voted against the bill. Clark said he supported the premise of the bill but was concerned it would hurt schools' ability to recruit Black male teachers. He said Black male students need to be able to see themselves in their teachers in order to improve their educational outcomes. 'What I'm looking at here is not a racial preference or discriminatory, but something we need,' Clark said. Sullivan said he understood Clark's point but also said the state should align its policies with the federal government. Senate Bill 3 differs from its 2023 predecessor with the addition of language explicitly stating that the legislation is not meant to affect preferences provided to veterans under law based on their status as veterans. Tucker asked why preferential treatment should be allowed for one group but outlawed for other groups. Sullivan repeated that the bill would align the state with federal policy. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX President Trump's executive order, signed within two days of his inauguration last week, declaring an end to all DEI 'mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities' in the federal government. Trump also put all federal DEI employees on paid leave and ordered agencies to cancel DEI training and contracts. When asked about the bill at a press conference Tuesday, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she hopes lawmakers consider 'anything that brings Arkansas further into compliance with where federal law and federal statute land.' However, executive orders do not change federal law in and of themselves, and states have the responsibility to check and balance the power of the federal government by ensuring that federal policies 'meet the unique needs of their citizens,' said Dr. Gail Choate of the nonpartisan Arkansas Civic Action Network. Choate added that passing Senate Bill 3 would be 'solving a problem that we don't know exists.' She said Walmart executives could not offer data to the Arkansas Legislative Black Caucus on Monday when asked to justify the company's rollback of its DEI policies. The Bentonville-based retailer is among several corporations that have done this in recent months. Another provision in SB 3 would eliminate the state's requirement for bids for certain public improvement contracts exceeding $75,000 to include statements encouraging the participation of minority- and women-owned businesses. Knowingly violating the bill would result in a Class A misdemeanor. Conway resident Jimmie Cavin said the bill needed more 'teeth' and that was why he opposed a policy he otherwise agreed with. The only supporter of the bill who spoke was Robert Steinbuch, a University of Arkansas at Little Rock law professor. 'Either you're an affirmative action employer or you're an equal opportunity employer,' he said. 'You can't be both.' Deputy Editor Antoinette Grajeda contributed to this article.
