The Arkansas General Assembly is meeting Wednesday to close out the fiscal session that began in February.
Formal adjournment, known as sine die, will mark the close of a momentous fiscal session. The embattled private option barely scraped by, for another year at least, millions of dollars of surplus funding were allocated to prisons overcrowding after recent parole reforms, and battle lines for Republican primaries emerged.
Before session retrospectives begin in earnest there are still a few issues to settle at the Capitol including a veto and nominations for House Speaker. Governor Mike Beebe issued a line-item veto Monday on a provision granting the natural gas and oil industries a $5 million tax break.
Instead of proposing the sales tax break by bringing legislation up members of the Special Language subcommittee inserted language in an existing appropriations bill, classifying sands used in fracking as sales tax exempt equipment. Beebe argues such a substantive change requires a 60 percent vote to even entertain the notion during the rules of the fiscal session. Republican
Representative Andy Davis, representing parts of Pulaski and Saline Counties disagrees.
“I think that could be in line with other things that have been done in Special Language. I mean, special language can be used to clarify legislative intent of some appropriation, how money should be collected or spent, I think it's line.”
Davis says he expects the legislature will attempt to override the veto and thinks the votes are there.
The House will also choose between four candidates for Speaker, three Republican and one Democrat. Some candidates want the election pushed off until November when the make-up of the legislature will change. Currently the Republicans hold a narrow majority.
One question lingering over the process is whether Democrats will forgo their own candidates to throw their support behind a moderate Republican they think they can work with – perhaps someone like Speaker Davy Carter who pursued the passage of the private option.
Jacob Kauffman, KUAR News
