Ah, the good news out of Little Rock last week was that the 91st General Assembly has reached and surpassed the half-way mark.
There are now fewer days remaining in this 90-day session, and I predict that in the second half we will see mean-spirited, narrow-issue legislation. We are bound to see more and more of these types of bills as the session drags on. We will see many bills on social issues and bills resuming the on-going turf wars among the factions of the Arkansas Republican Party.
One would think, now that the GOP is in full power, there might be a cooling-off period once the governor's legislative agenda and the state budget obligations have been fulfilled.
Or perhaps a lax time for all the Red Party's delegates to stop and smell the sweet aroma of victory now that the deadline for appropriation bills (requests for taxpayer money) from the state treasury has passed.
But no, oh no.
Now, it seems, is the time to pull out all those mean-spirited bills -- those hidden items which have been being worked on quietly behind closed doors to make significant social change for everyone. Thes are bills that are unpopular and outrageous, yet their sponsors are so passionate about.
Like changing the name of the Little Rock Airport, for one.
Why is it a bill in the legislature? No one but state Sen. Jason Rapert knows.
These are always the bills, taxpayers are told, that won't cost them a dime.
But the impending lawsuits arising from these bills brought by the ACLU and others always seems to get paid via the state treasury. So they do cost taxpayers in the end.
Most of Gov. Hutchinson's major legislative priorities have passed: tax cuts, changes to the higher education funding formula, a tax break for retired military families and a variety of efficiency measures.
We will still have (at this writing) a Guns on Campus bill, that like a Frankenstein re-do, is bigger, uglier and more dangerous than ever before.
State Rep. Charlie Collins, R-Fayetteville, whether by intention or not, is about to turn what was once a bill allowing faculty and staff on a college campus with a concealed carry permit into an open-carry, Dodge City-circa-1850s-strap-on-a-sidearm-and-wear-it-anywhere-you-want bill -- except in the state House of Representatives chambers.
The legislature, also under the guise of protecting crime-scene video, information about public safety, is on the cusp of changing one of the nation's best Freedom of Information laws into one of the worst laws on the public's right to know anywhere on the face of the planet.
The gutting of the FOI, so soon after a quiet acknowledgment of its founding a half-century ago, should frighten the average citizen -- and it should outrage any newspaper editor, columnist and public official.
Here on the first and second weeks in March, the legislature is scheduled to recess April 7, with a return for formal adjournment May 5 to wrap up unfinished business.
So, Arkansans and their elected officials have less than a month to fend off a bathroom bill which is a tourist and economic-development killer.
Other such social-issue bills are flying out of the recesses of the dome every day.
Will the governor's compromise bill of splitting the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Confederate General Robert E. Lee Day observance pass?
It should.
Will the voting rights of Arkansans be convoluted by demanding the showing of a state-issued identification at the polls? How much will that cost? Who will pay for this? And is there voting fraud enough that these measures need to be done?
Will the tort reform measure get to the ballot for a vote of the people? And does the public really understand that issue?
The first half is over.
There's not much of a halftime show as we head into the second and contentious half of the 91st General Assembly.
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Maylon Rice is a former journalist who worked for several northwest Arkansas publications. He can be reached via email at [email protected]. The opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 03/08/2017