I don’t know when our legislative website is going dark, but it will happen. It’s Monday and I’m glad to be back home. So I figured I’d better post some last words. This session is important for three things. First, the “one-time money” taboo was broken. Reserves that had piled up were used to balance the [...]

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Went to the Department of Education’s seminar on stimulus spending today. They had a news conference. New construction of athletic facilities is specifically barred, director Ken James said. Money from the stimulus is also available for new construction, but the timeline is so tight that big new construction projects probably won’t be possible. There’s a total of [...]

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Federal stimulus money for schools can be spent on new construction after all, Gov. Beebe said Thursday. That’s what the governor’s been told verbally by the Obama administration. As usual, the state’s waiting for written confirmation — a policy that’s looking wiser every day. This stimulus money includes $80 million for higher education and about $370 million [...]

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Sen. Paul Bookout, D-Jonesboro, wins the Senate President Pro Tem race in the first round, with no runoff despite having two opponents. Sens. Mary Anne Salmon, D-North Little Rock, and Ruth Whitaker, R-Cedarville, were the challengers. Vote-counters didn’t release numbers but did say Bookout had a majority. Sen. Bob Johnson, D-Bigelow, will remain President Pro Tem until [...]

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The governor’s speaking to the Senate and the last bills that could become law are being voted upon. One of the bills that won’t be going to the governor’s desk is one that would prescribe an automatic review of death penalty cases. Sen. Bill Pritchard, R-Elkins, gave a strong speech against that one yesterday on the [...]

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Mike Malone, executive director of the Northwest Arkansas Council, was named to the state’s nine-member lottery commission moments ago by House Speaker Robbie Wills, D-Conway. Before coming back home to Fayetteville, Malone was deputy assistant to the president for management and administration and later director of White House Operations during President Clinton’s administration. Malone’s the son [...]

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A bill to release only the names of concealed weapon permit holders to the public was amended Thursday. The publicly available information would include zip codes under an amendment added by the Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee. Sen. Bill Pritchard, R-Elkins, voted against the amendment. Pritchard said that releasing the name and zip code [...]

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Up to $15 million will go to the state’s public school teachers’ health insurance fund. While that wouldn’t be enough to stave off expected rate increases, it would cut the increases by up to three-fourths. This is not simple. The money would come from the Uniform Rate of Tax, the 25 mills of local property tax that [...]

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The state General Improvement Fund is a pot of money that’s divided every year into capital improvement projects, such as new buildings for state colleges and universities. The final list of projects came out today. Handle with care, though. “Appropriation” bills mean little. They grant authority to spend. Funding those appropriations — actually handing some money [...]

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Sen. Blanche Lincoln “cannot support” the employee free choice act, or “card check” in its current form nor can she support debating this “divisive and distracting” issue while Congress has a worldwide economic crisis to face and a health care system to reform among other priorities, she told the Little Rock Political Animals Club on [...]

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