DBH Legislative Update

The 90^th General Assembly is officially in recess until sine die on or before May 8.  The session came in like a lion with the Governor pushing hard for his tax cut legislation and went out like a lion with our legislature making national news on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. We dodged camera crews, reporters and protestors all week! We won’t go into all the details surrounding this piece of legislation, but the end result was a new bill, SB975, that Governor Hutchinson immediately signed into law.  This new legislation is a compromise between all parties and mimics Federal law.

The legislature approved three proposed constitutional amendments that will be referred to the voters in the 2016 election.  You will find these listed below with links to the content of the resolutions:

HJR1027 - An Amendment to the Arkansas Constitution Concerning the Terms, Election and Eligibility of Elected Officials

SJR 3 – An Amendment to the Arkansas Constitution to allow the Governor to Retain His or Her Powers and Duties When Absent from the State

SJR 16 – An Amendment to the Arkansas Constitution to Encourage Job Creation, Job Expansion and Economic Development

Overall we had a good session and we have really enjoyed working with you on your issues.  This session was very different for us because of Amendment 3 – the ethics amendment – passed in the 2014 General Election.  This new law drastically changed the way we have traditionally done business and it took a bit of time for us, as well as legislators, to adapt to this new model.  Without being able to take legislators out for dinners it proved very difficult to get to know the 38 new members of the General Assembly.  Finding the time to visit with new and returning members regarding your legislative issues was tricky at best!  New legislation adopted this session will make it even more difficult when they come back next session as we will only be able to host one event, like a committee dinner, every seven days.  But, we are persevering and adapting and we continue to develop new strategies on working with members.  One thing we know for sure, we will be working more than ever during the interim to continue to build and nurture relationships and meet with members to discuss issues as they work in their interim committees.

Congratulations on a successful session!  You jumped right in and did an awesome  job on your first session! We have enjoyed getting to know you and we enjoyed working with you on those issues that were of concern to the homebuilders. Please keep in touch during the interim to keep us updated on your meetings and travels throughout the state on behalf of the Arkansas Homebuilders Association.