Hello again, everyone, and thanks very much for joining us for Arkansas Week.

All things considered, it was a no surprises meeting.

The fiscal session of the Arkansas General Assembly just concluded a budget for the fiscal year that begins in July.

Includes everything the governor wanted, pretty much.

Or everything she requested.

There are some items that the next session will address starting Monday.

A look at both sessions now with Michael Wicklund, Capitol bureau chief of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Andrew Demello, editor in chief of the Arkansas Advocate and independent journalist Steve Brawner.

Well, gentlemen, there it is.

We've got one session ended, another about to begin, but there weren't really.

Andrew, we'll start with you.

No big surprises in this.

No, I didn't know if anyone was really expecting a suspense from this session.

They were going to be really disappointed.

Things went pretty much as expected, especially with Franklin County Prison essentially off the table, at least this this year that they had that debate.

You know, there were kind of smaller skirmishes that we saw.

You know, the one surprise was the incentives for the West Memphis super project that they're trying to lure.

And there was a little bit of pushback from some Republicans on that.

But even that went through that pretty easily.

And, yeah, I think the special session on tax cuts, I'm not expecting to see too much drama surrounding that or too much to make surprises out of that either.

Yeah, Steve.

Well, you know, right now, at this point, first of all, fiscal searches aren't supposed to be surprising, right?

They're supposed to be about a budget.

No one really wants to be there, and they don't want to argue about things too much except for a few.

So it was always guaranteed to be the, be a low volume affair.

Especially when the governor took the president off the table, in fact, expressly in the legislature and said, this money, we have $80 million going to prisons, but none of it's going to the to the, to the big prison.

So.

Well, that was off the table then.

There was nothing really to argue about.

A little bit about learns, from the usual opponents of Lawrence.

No groundswell of opposition to the learns yet.

Or if there ever will be.

So again, like, as Andrew said, no surprises.

Yeah, Michael, a budget that pretty much stuck with the administration from from the from her first day as governor.

Inflation and no more.

Yeah.

She's doing a couple things that legislative leaders say are a little different.

She meets with the key players before she proposes the budget.

So sometimes I want to ask Jonathan, dismaying about the budget.

I wonder if some of what she puts in her budget is his ideas.

And so he's defending himself, essentially.

I think that's helping her so that there just are you know, there's not a lot of people in the legislature anymore that really understand the budget.

There might be ten.

And so, I think that helps her.

I was struck by the difference between the budget that sailed through the Senate with one vote against and two vote against versus the House, where, you know, the kind of uprising amongst Republicans describing the incentives for West Memphis project, whatever that may be, is corporate welfare.

You had Democrats who were voting against the vouchers.

I talked to Fred Love this morning because I was surprised that he's running for governor and he voted for the budget, and he said he felt like that he couldn't vote against funding essential services.

I also kind of wondered if, you have some more veteran people in the Senate who might have been through the big River steel bond issue, and maybe there was more of a reluctance to vote against the, the, incentives for West Memphis because they had that experience.

Do we have an instance here?

Do we governors tend to lose muscle along the way?

And it's not quite fair to declare, I don't think declare Miss Sanders a lame duck just yet.

But as Michael has everybody here noted, they're starting to be a bit of pushback that you would not have seen in her first or second sessions.

Yeah.

You know, I think I think you're starting to see areas where, you know, she you know, that, as you pointed out, you know, she's in a comfortable position for reelection right now.

So, you know, if she wins, it wins reelection.

Areas of concern for next year.

Where I think you are, you will see some pushback, some areas where Republican legislators are feeling more comfortable about speaking out, even if they're unsuccessful in it.

The know one of the areas was the effort to eliminate Joe.

Precarious position.

The former corrections secretary, as an advisor to her, you know, that that that wasn't successful.

But still, even the fact that there was that effort, kind of shows you where is there, there is that pushback.

I think, you know, kind of like, with clients said on on the House, some of the pushback on incentives, showing that there's there's a divide among Republicans on some issues and on some populist issues, too, like that.

Sure.

Well, and one of them is out in the out in the state anyway, you're starting to pick up more and more American concern about the Learning Act and, the educational the FHA, educational freedom account, the voucher program.

And there's beginning to be even even more sub sub Rosa concern about it that's expressed privately.

Still, we added, you know, another several million dollars to it, 70 million actually 309 million for the voucher for the efforts themselves now to 70 million and the reserve funds, at this point, it sailed through, you know, you did have Brian King and Jim Wooten opposing it vocally.

And so I'm sure there was a few votes here and there, but there was no groundswell of opposition to it yet.

But we do have a budget that had a in the fiscal year 2022, had a 1.6 to $8 billion surplus, and now we're down to 310.2 million.

And that's before the tax cuts, which are substantial, in fact, almost 200 million.

So the surplus is getting is really shrinking.

And so you have to wonder if maybe there'll be some push back on some of this spending.

So far, there really hasn't been a lot cut from schools.

In fact, the legislature and the governor say they've spent more on schools, but at some point, as that surplus shrinks, there has to be some kind of opposition that will arise at least at least voicing concern beyond Brian King and Jim Wooten.

You know, thus far it's quiet.

But there have I've had some members expressed to me, Republican members, a little unease with the direction of state finance.

Yeah.

You know, I think when you look at the economy right now, there's going to be some, unease about that.

I don't think you're going to see that coming to the forefront of the of the special session.

You know, these are Republicans who run on tax cuts.

It's an election year.

They're going to want to be able to, you know, tout some kind of tax cuts, even though, you know, even if it's not as widespread of, of an effect as other tax cuts could be.

But I think, you know, just given the economy, given what we're seeing with gas prices, fertilizer prices, the impact from the war in Iran, that's going to be bubbling below the surface, at least.

But there's still just not that line to make them cross and talk publicly about it.

Yeah.

The size of the cuts, Michael, that, the administration is proposing in the special session come Monday.

Are those up for negotiation?

The governor has said repeatedly that she's having conversations with the legislature and wants to have discussions with the legislature.

I think there's a reason the tax cuts are in a special session, because she can pretty much decide what's going to be on the call.

And so, I mean she's got everybody all the Senate Republicans are in.

Senator just made this bill.

Virtually all the House Republicans are on less each bill.

There is one Democrat, Mark Perry, who is the sponsor, the co-sponsor of the bill.

So that's I mean, they might have just found it in what I mean, it's not you know, I think sometimes people forget.

I mean, they've got.

More than $3 billion in reserves.

Sometimes people forget that if there's an economic downturn, they have more than $2 billion obligated and obligated.

I think it'll be interesting.

I think there's been a little shift in the way they're financing state government.

We're starting to see.

And I'll use IFRS and I'll point to Medicaid this time around, this coming time around where, they'll use one time money and they'll say, well, if we're if we tap the one time money this fiscal year, we'll come back the next fiscal year and add it to, the Revenue Stabilization Act.

It's a little backwards from the way the states usually operated.

I mean, Jimmy Hickey was asking Jim Hudson, like, okay, you're say you're going to spend at least $100 million, a one time money on Medicaid and of these reserve fund, why isn't it just in the budget?

And he knows that they don't want to go over 3% increase.

And so that's why it's on the budget.

Yeah.

And the knowing eyes are on Washington Vis-A-Vis Medicaid.

It had one health care administrator tell me a couple of days ago, it is the among other.

It is the ticking time bomb in the in the finances of every state.

Yeah.

You know, I think you look at and you look at Medicaid and not just Medicaid, look at it, you know, any number of federal programs right now where Arkansas and other states are going to have to absorb the costs you got Medicaid, you've got snap.

You've got a lot of these cuts that were included in one big, beautiful bill.

Right.

And some of this wasn't really addressed in the, in the fiscal session.

And a lot of this is going to kind of, you know, trickle down into when they're back next year for, you know, the more, you know, wide ranging general session.

And Arkansas, like most states is a recipient state, which means that it gets more money from the federal government than it sends, which is easy to do when you run $2 trillion deficits.

So at some point, those numbers are going to add up to or fail to keep adding up.

And at that point, you know, how much more will this take?

Be able to keep counting on from the federal government.

And it was noted by, any number of people just the other day that now U.S GDP is equal to the debt or the debt is equal to GDP.

Go back to prisons for just a second as we know that we added, what about $70 million?

I think in point nine I think, yeah, close to $80 million, I think.

But with specific language saying, excuse me, West Arkansas, Franklin County specifically is off limits, at least for the time being.

Does the time being mean forever?

You know, the governor, you know, she she said she still thinks that Franklin County is the best site, but she's also said that she's open to hearing other, other ideas, so she's not explicitly giving up on it, but at least sent the message not right and not right now.

There are other options to look at.

Any one of those options poses different challenges, and different fights.

They could come up, you know, anything from expanding existing locations to private prisons.

So the question is which route do they want to try to go, go down?

And is there support for any of those other routes at this point?

And it's a multi-headed, hydra of a problem because you have work, work force issues.

You have logistical questions that surround, a project of that size.

You know, that's that's one of the things that corrections folks talk about is, you know, you're not we talked about 3000 bed prison.

We're not just talking about 3000 beds.

We're talking about the number of employees that would be needed, the infrastructure, just, any number of things.

So it's so much more than that.

And the and the costs, you know, keep, keep growing in terms of what it costs, not just to construct it, but just ongoing operations.

You got to run it.

Yeah.

The, you know, the Franklin County issue was just interesting because this was really the first time she had faced you serious legislative resistance to one of one of her proposals.

The the question is, you know, would any of the others generate that same level of resistance?

And how how do you get around that?

I don't really see how you get to get through the resistance that there is to Franklin County if she wants to continue trying that next year when they meet.

Yeah.

Michael mentioned a second ago that there were, seemingly fewer members with who are up to speed anyway, on on budget issues or concern.

Primarily this was the General Assembly.

That and you could see the trend over the last two or 3 or 4 sessions.

This was a general assembly that seemed, very assertive in terms of social issues.

University budgets were held up.

That's not necessarily a new thing, but the General Assembly essentially demanding changes in, in, in staffing, personnel decisions, course requirements, etc.. Yeah.

Go ahead, go ahead.

It just seems like, and I mean, to me, it's like it seemed like last session we started to see increasingly, voting down higher ed budgets, trying to, force policy decisions, culture wars.

And I just think it's probably going on nationally.

And, I mean, you had all those higher ed lobbyists were scrambling, some of I think some of, some of them were questioning if legislators were grandstanding.

But, I think it's, I think it's something we, we're, we're going to see more and more of this stuff.

I mean, the, the U of a, awarding decision for them to pause on that and back away.

I think it's just energized, social conservatives to, make objections to a variety of things.

You know, it's whether it be gender studies or student student fees or the perception that UVA is going to have a student fee for, for athletics.

Anyhow, I just think it's just, we're going to see more and more of that.

Like I said, some people see some of it as grandstanding.

We'll see.

But Andrew, you know, it used to be on amendment 33, the the amendment that protected independence of universities, used to be the red line that, you know, lawmakers wouldn't cross or kind of knew was there it seems like right now.

And going back to the, you know, the war and the withdrawal of the offer to, to her by UA, Fayetteville, all of this, is there a lot more willing to kind of test that line and kind of see how solid of line it is?

Yeah.

I think what we saw with the session this, this time around, this is a preview of what to expect, next year.

And it's not just going to be Fayetteville.

Know, I think it's going to be multiple schools that are really going to feel this pressure.

Yeah.

And one of those cultural issues has been PBS.

They were two they got an appropriation for overall, operations in Mo for Arkansas PBS or Arkansas TV, I think is calling it, but a similar bill or a bill that was designed to maintain the state's affiliation with PBS national continued to fail.

Couldn't get a $500,000.

Yeah.

In a budget that's, you know, say 6.7 billion.

So, that obviously has something to do with, just a distaste for, for PBS, nationally.

And then also just the, you know, you know, what they want to spend their money and what do they want to spend the money on?

And the different directions that Arkansas TV is may go or may not go.

It was an interesting, debate.

And it ended up with them voting down the, the 500,000 that would be used to match the challenge grant of 3 million.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think the the fact that you saw the House vote voted down multiple times in one day, including when you had former first Lady Barbara Pryor and Gay white there who are leading this campaign to keep PBS programs here watching on, and they're still willing to vote to vote it down, then kind of shows you where the attitude is right.

Know right now on it when it comes to those matching funds.

And I think that's going to be the challenge going forward.

Deal with the legislature.

If the effort to keep PBS programs in the state is is successful is kind of how do you get past the challenge of dealing with the legislature in the future?

If you do keep that affiliation.

Yeah, never about money, though.

No.

And I guess the I've always kind of wondered where the if you had a poll of the legislators on where they are on PBS.

I mean, I'll point out that minority defeated the spending authority appropriation.

So does, when it comes to PBS, does it stand?

Sullivan.

Does he represent 70, you know, 80% of the legislature, or is there I supposition is there's, a lot of more, opinions in between about PBS.

It's kind of like, everybody tries to make everything out so black and white.

There's a lot of gray in state government.

Yeah, we'll continue to follow it as we will.

Are preparing any way to look for something coming up in the next session?

Regular session of the General Assembly.

For a quarter century or longer, there have been, personality conflicts in the Senate, the Arkansas Senate.

And now that the GOP has a supermajority in both chambers, but particularly in the Senate, the Republicans, I guess you could fair to say they're starting to act like Democrats.

Andrew.

Yeah.

You know, I think, you know, you're seeing kind of the lines and this was really exacerbated or really highlighted by the fight over the Franklin County Prison.

But, the, you know, you're seeing kind of where the, where the lines are within the Senate and we're going to see a big test of it later on this year.

Brian Davis was elected, Senate president pro tem, the designee.

But she still is going to face the challenge for that from, from, Senator Caldwell.

Right?

Yeah.

And that and he, you know, he leaves a faction that has been a lot more willing to challenge the governor on on issues including the prison.

He survived an effort to oust him, against a candidate who is backed by the, by the governor.

So I think when, you know, when they come back after the election and have this vote, I think this is going to be kind of a test of the temperature of where the Senate is in terms of, you know, how big the faction is and how many senators are there willing to challenge, challenge the governor, challenge the administration, and challenge other Republicans on, on key issues?

Yeah.

At this time, Michael, it looks pretty close.

Yeah.

These it seems like in recent years, these, pro tem races come down to 1 or 2 votes, and then people say, well, this person voted this way, or I guess in Terry Rice's, case, some people always say in other cases that, you know, you have multiple people, promised their votes to two candidates.

And, you know, some of them go south.

So, anyhow, I think, a lot of these Senate elections are personality based, based on relationships.

I mean, this Senate caucus, at least at this point, is split on who should be the next pro tem.

I, I did some research.

It turns out there is actually not a rule in the Senate for the election of a Senate president pro tem.

When they started doing it, I don't know, 15 years ago, they decided not to put it in the rules.

The only thing that I found in the rule book talks about the election of a pro tem, in the regular session.

So there was a little bit of confusion because of that about, you know, I think Brian and her comment after she was elected pro tem, doesn't that talk kind of interchangeably used pro tem and pro tem designate.

So she's counter was kind of a kind of a talking point.

And then, you know, I think, Senator Caldwell had pointed out, which caused me to look in the rules, is there actually something in the rules that we have encountered in election of Senate President pro tem designate?

So, as Michael noted, see, you know, it's relationships matter in, in crafting legislation and getting it passed.

But there's ideological factor as well.

It's hard to define what some of these terms mean these days.

Conservative, populist.

It's all what kind of things have gotten turned over their head from the easy right, Reagan Democrat left, right.

Continuum.

But there's still ideology.

There's still there's always going to be a little bit of urban versus rural in Arkansas.

There's, there's different views on how much culture war issues versus fiscal responsibility type issues matter.

And of course, the ultimate relationships that matter are one of the big ones is the relationship with the governor.

And Senator Davis is and and she you're pretty tight.

And, Senator Caldwell, of course, as you mentioned, very forceful advocate for the learning Act of a Senator Davis was the primary senator, sponsor of the Lawrence Act.

And then Senator Caldwell voted against the prison and drew on his know opponent and Sanders's strong, support of that opponent.

And, of course, he won easily.

So that relationship matters in addition to the ideology.

Yeah.

Well, let's stay with the Senate.

One a little bit longer with a couple of minutes remaining in the broadcast, the governor did not have a very good election in terms of her Senate candidate.

She actually lost ground in any way, at least on, on a couple of key issues with with her choices, her endorsements.

And, Michael, we're going to have an entirely not an entirely new Senate.

Well, we've got one, two half dozen new members in the 35 member, body come January.

Yeah, I just think people are making a lot of assumptions in terms of the pro tem race on which the newcomers are going to be supporting.

And I just based on my conversations, I've just encouraged people not to make assumptions that, you know, it'll it'll be interesting, like I said.

Oh, I mean, I presume the race, the vote will be closer than what we got, I guess.

Hester said he didn't vote, so it was 2021 for for Senator Davis.

I presume the race is closer.

After the election, but, I don't know.

It'll be interesting to watch PAC reports.

And who's PAC is supporting who?

So expensive.

You know, you know, I think the, you know, the the primary results, one of the biggest effects for the governor out of it is just the attention that that she got out of it.

You know, she's at a point right now where clearly she's, you know, building up her national profile even more.

She's got a book coming out the week after the midterm election.

You don't do that.

Just, you know, for the sake of writing a book, you do that if you're looking at running for president.

And she got a lot of attention on races that New York Times, Wall Street Journal don't normally write about.

Arkansas State Senate races, but they did.

So that affected her on the national level.

I think, you know, this is going to have an impact in terms of political capital, you know, on her own agenda when it's, a wider range of issues next year, that's going to be the big question.

I think the pro tem race is going to be the test of that.

Yeah.

Got into there because we're simply out of time.

Bronner de Mello with Klein.

Now there's a trio.

Thanks for coming on, everybody.

As always, we thank you for watching and we'll see you next time.