Reflecting on the legislative session

With nothing left to gum up the works, I thought I'd post some thoughts on the 87th General Assembly this morning. I firmly believe that this session will be known as the session that helped advance Arkansas in the health care arena. We're languishing in the 40s in almost every statistical category ranking the states in public health, and we took bold steps this session to change that by coming up with a funding mechanism to create the nation's 48th statewide trauma system, the nation's last state to have a level one trauma center, and to fund several other health care initiatives to advance care and treatment in Arkansas. Several other bills complemented this theme by moving the state's seatbelt law to a primary offense, etc. Depending on what happens with the economy in future years, we'll either be praised or blistered for the continuation of tax cuts (grocery, manufacturers' cut on energy usage, self storage, sales tax on farmers' markets, bingo, etc) and for the increase in the tobacco tax to fund the aforementioned trauma system and health care initiatives.

Bill that required the most legwork: This no doubt goes to the legislation implementing the lottery that Arkansas voters approved in November. Lt. Governor Halter has to be commended for getting the measure approved by voters. Speaker Wills and several others were instrumental in building a consensus on a massive array of issues from the lottery's structure to the scholarships it will fund.

Biggest "piling-on" vote: Biggest dogpile of the session goes to HB1420, the bill that allowed members of the General Assembly and school districts to purchase goods produced by the Department of Correction. That one garnered 9 votes on the House floor, and I think some of those were sympathy votes paid in homage to the sponsor. It was eventually gutted of the language regarding members of the General Assembly and became Act 502. Last session in this category it was the 2007 Tire Safety Act, which prohibited the sale of blem ("blemished") tires. That one got 7 votes in support on the House floor, and that's including someone voting Thyer's machine "yes" while he was out of the chamber -- that's fewer votes than it got in committee. I remember getting an e-mail from the VP of global operations at Cooper Tire headquarters in Ohio (my district's largest employer) warning me not to let that bill pass. I enjoyed typing the response.

I can't cluck too much, because reflecting on my legislative career, I remember running a Senate bill on the House floor back in 2007 placing restrictions on drivers under 18 (yeah, the same bill that passed this session) that probably gets an honorable mention in this category with 27 "yea" votes. My roommate even piled on the clincher motion. Paid him back, though, with his alternative payday lender bill that session (27 votes for). I can remember several others over the last three sessions worthy of mention that include an enhanced jury bill (25 votes for), the marriage license increase for legal aid (27 votes for), and the simulataneous service bill to allow service in both county and municipal positions (14 votes for). There have been several others that have garnered no more than 16 or 17 votes, but the subject matter escapes me, probably for good reason.

Tightest vote: This, of course, goes to the inrease in the tax on cigarettes and other tobacco products to fund the trauma system and other health care initiatives. We needed 75 votes in the House and got it on the nose. The bill passed the House even with a maneuver to "sound the ballot" -- meaning that each of the 75 votes in favor of the bill remained in their seats when the roll was called, a must to maintain the validity of the vote. The vote in the Senate (and in both committees) was equally as tight. I'll never forget boarding the bus at the beginning of the session and heading over to Arkansas Children's Hospital to announce the tax proposal with a few other legislators and observers. It was a quiet and nervous ride until Insurance Commissioner Jay Bradford commented that this was the "bus of (insert term of male anatomy inferring boldness)."

Biggest disappointment in not getting legislation passed: For the second session in a row, I was unable to find funding to help retired teachers by seeking to increase the state contribution to their group health insurance premiums. We were able to enact a mechanism by which to equalize the health insurance premiums paid by participants in the Arkansas Retired Teachers Association with those of the participants in the Public Employees Retirement System, but no funding was attached. Retired teachers are currently spending close to half of their retirement benefits towards premiums, while members in the state employees' retirement system were paying a small fraction of their retirement benefit towards health insurance. Our retired teachers spent a lifetime of commitment to the children of Arkansas, and I'm hopeful that in the near future, we can at least show them a little appreciation by contributing the same amount to their health insurance premiums as we do other retired state employees.

Most controversial budget amendment: This has to go to the Higher Ed budget, which was amended to include a raise to the department's director. The bill needed 75 votes to pass the House, and it received 76 after lengthy debate. To many members, it came down to voting against the budget only to extend the session by a few days to spend more money than the increase calls for in order to fix it. Last session this went to the Department of Ed budget for the special language that revised restrictions for open enrollment virtual charter schools. I was a skeptic then, but after visiting with Sen. Steve Bryles and seeing similar alternatives over the interim, I'm convinced that alternatives in some areas can be good for traditional public schools in the long run.

Best e-mail campaign: Some groups are finding that the best way to get their message to legislators is through e-mail. Both the NRA and Jeannie Burlsworth's Secure Arkansas have an army of keyboardists who can inundate legislators' inboxes with talking points on politically charged issues at a moment's notice. The use of e-mail has become more active in this legislative session than those past. I've actually had trouble keeping up with replying to each e-mail this session and am a day behind now. I have 508 e-mails in my inbox right now that I'm going to try and whittle down by the end of the day.

Most clever appropriations: This has to go to the House for crafting the spending proposals that include funding for volunteer fire departments, senior citizen centers, and domestic violence shelters. This funding mechanism has (thus far) quelled any challenge pursuant to the Arkansas Supreme Court's ruling in Wilson v. Weiss regarding Amendment 14 of the state constitution, and all appropriations are routed through various state agencies. This mechanism was devised in 2007 after some appropriations were found to be in violation of the provisions in the constitution that prohibit special and local legislation.

Toughest committee: While last year's award probably would've gone to House Judiciary, I bet a fewer percentage of bills got through Senate Judiciary this session than any other. I watched several bills that had a full head of steam enter Rm. 171 only to be shot down one right after another. I'm also willing to admit that that committee stopped a few bills that my committee could not.

Most behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing: The debate on the final proposed constitutional amendment to be referred out of the Joint Committee on Constitutional Amendment -- HJR1004 -- was fun to watch. There were agreements, disagreements, bloc votes within the committee, and exchanges between legislators and the interest groups that included funrniture and car dealers (and who better to "wheel and deal" than those groups). HJR1004 finally came out of committee on its own then agreed to re-enter negotiations with the supporters of SJR6. After an agreement was struck on the night before the vote, the Attorney General entered with objections to the language. All groups were re-assembled, and two amendments were struck that all parties could at least live with for the next few hours. That's the most opportune time to take the vote. Now it'll be up to those groups to form a cohesive and well financed campaign to market the proposal to the voters.

On Arkansas Government as a whole: I think the session went extremely smooth. The governor, Speaker Wills, Senate Pro-Tem Johnson, and the membership on both ends of the Capitol made this a great session. We enacted virtually everything we wanted, and there were no major blowups -- or even rifts -- within the Capitol. Overall, I'm very pleased with the outcome of the session.