{"id":34,"date":"2013-02-08T23:21:00","date_gmt":"2013-02-08T23:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/2013\/02\/08\/89th-general-assembly-week-3\/"},"modified":"2017-06-20T16:16:16","modified_gmt":"2017-06-20T16:16:16","slug":"89th-general-assembly-week-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/2013\/02\/08\/89th-general-assembly-week-3\/","title":{"rendered":"89th General Assembly – Week 3"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nThis is the first
\nfull week of the legislative session even though it was the third overall and it turned out to be quite busy in the
\nCapitol as Governor Beebe announced the largest economic development project in
\nthe state’s history – a proposed $1.1 billion steel plant in Northeast
\nArkansas.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nThe proposed
\nplant is projected to create 2,000 construction jobs for 20-months and 525
\npermanent, high-wage jobs at the plant, which will be located in Osceola.
\nRecruiting these types of major projects requires a substantial commitment from
\nthe state and local entities through incentives. The state will be considering
\nwhether to offer $125 million in Amendment 82 bonds to support the project.
\nAmendment 82 refers to the voter-approved addition in 2004 to the state’s
\nConstitution that authorizes the state to sell bonds in an amount up to 5% of
\ngeneral revenues to attract a designated “super-project.” <\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nThe
\n$125 million bond issue will be used to provide a low-interest $50 million loan
\nto the steel plant and pay for $75 million in site preparation and issuance
\ncosts. Over the next three weeks, the General Assembly will be reviewing the
\nproposal and will have to determine if the commitment of general revenue to
\nrepay the bonds is a good investment of scarce state resources. In approximate
\nterms, if the state issues a 20-year bond issue at current tax exempt rates of
\n3.5% this equates to a payment of $9 million per year. The private developer
\nwill be repaying $50 million so that would like reduce the commitment of general
\nrevenues to around $5.2 million per year. This is compared to almost $40
\nmillion in annual payroll produced by the plant.
\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nIt
\nseems likely that the General Assembly will agree to the bond issue as a means
\nof bringing high-wage jobs to a part of the state that has been struggling with
\ndouble-digit unemployment over the past few years.<\/div>\n

\nWith
\nthree weeks in the books, the General Assembly has slowly been filing bills. A
\ntypical session sees around 2,500 bills filed with a little more than half
\nactually enacted into law.<\/p>\n

\nSometimes you can see what is important in a legislative
\nsession by comparing how many bills are filed with each committee. The way the
\nstate legislature works is that non-budget bills are routed through one of about
\nten A or B committees. The committees review the bills and recommend passage or
\nissue a do not pass recommendation. Often, making it of committee with a “do
\npass” recommendation is enough to ensure its passage on the floor.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nSo what are the committees with the most bills after three
\nweeks?<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nPublic Health – 34 bills<\/div>\n

State Agencies – 31 bills
\nJudiciary – 21 bills
\nEducation – 17 bills
\nInsurance & Commerce – 7 bills
\nTransportation – 5 bills
\nCity, County, Local – 5 bills
\nAgri & Econ Development – 4 bills
\nRevenue & Tax – 4 bills
\nAging, Children & Youth – 3 bills<\/p>\n

\nPublic Health is an obvious choice with healthcare representing
\nsuch an important if not THE important issue of the 89th General Assembly. The
\ncommittee also reviews topics as diverse as abortion, unemployment insurance and
\nwage law.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nState Agencies has a number of bills pending that will change how
\na state agency like Natural Resources or Alcohol Beverage Control might operate
\nas well as a few voting laws. It is also the committee that can refer up to
\nthree constitutional amendments for inclusion on the 2014 general election
\nballot.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nJudiciary often
\nfocuses on crime and punishment in the state. There are a number of proposed
\nlaws pending that deal with criminal penalties and capital punishment.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nEducation deals
\nwith public and higher education issues and currently has a number of school
\nchoice and charter school related bills pending. The choice bills would address
\nthe ability of public school students to transfer to a school outside of their
\nhome district while the charter school legislation most often seeks methods to
\nincrease the number and viability of charter schools as an alternative to
\ntraditional public schools.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the first full week of the legislative session even though it was the third overall and it turned out to be quite busy in the Capitol as Governor Beebe announced the largest economic development project in the state’s history – a proposed $1.1 billion steel plant in Northeast Arkansas. The proposed plant is projected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[31,32,34,37],"class_list":["post-34","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chambernews","tag-89th-general-assembly","tag-arkansas-general-assembly","tag-big-river-steel","tag-state-legislature"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8RhO8-y","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139,"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions\/139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/impactpossible.com\/voice\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}