Ninety-three days into the 95th Arkansas General Assembly, state lawmakers concluded their business and recessed with the prospect of returning on May 5 to officially sine die.
Legislators finished their formal business Wednesday, April 16, after weeks of passing legislation overhauling higher education funding, eliminating the final remnants of the grocery tax, passing a $6.5 billion balanced budget, and referring three proposed constitutional amendments to voters in the next general election.
Several other issues received attention in the session, including:
• Maternal health reforms, where lawmakers passed myriad bills to provide more funding for obstetricians and delivery doctors, while also providing more support services through doulas.
• Establishing the Arkansas Court of Appeals as the first court for filing constitutional issue challenges, effectively skipping circuit courts.
• Increased per student funding for public school children from $7,771 to $8,162 annually.
• Contributing $90 million more to Education Freedom Accounts, the governor’s school voucher program.
• Banning cell phones in schools and providing free school breakfasts.
• Passing a new state employee pay plan, where nearly two-thirds of all state employees will get raises.
• Numerous changes to the citizen ballot petition process.
• Approving a bill to allow the governor to fire members of the State Library Board and replace them with new members.
• Eliminating racial and gender quotas for state boards and commissions.
• Passing incentives to help develop the state’s budding lithium industry, outdoor recreation assets, and power generation companies.
“Arkansas’ conservative majority is delivering for the people of this state,” Gov. Sanders said at a late afternoon press conference. “I’m proud of a lot of the great wins we’ve had this session.”
She highlighted many of the aforementioned legislative results of this session.
Sanders also signed on Wednesday HB 1150, a bill to prohibit Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) from owning pharmacies. Sanders said she was proud of the legislature’s efforts to curtail the influence of “middlemen” in the pharmaceutical industry. The measure passed overwhelmingly in both chambers.
This session, lawmakers did deliver a setback to the governor. Despite large supermajorities, legislators defeated a proposal to provide $750 million in funding for a new state prison. After five attempts, the state Senate failed to receive 27 votes for the appropriation bill, which will push it to the next fiscal session in 2026. With money received last session, Sanders has $75 million to move forward on the Franklin County state prison site prep, research and land acquisition despite local opposition to the facility.
Senate President Bart Hester, R-Cave Springs, and House Speaker Brian Evans, R-Cabot, joined Sanders at the press conference on the final day of the session to tout the session’s accomplishments for the Republican supermajority.
“We delivered,” said Hester. Calling the session a “resounding success,” Evans said, “The people of Arkansas should be proud of the representatives they sent to the House and the Senate this year.”
Lawmakers referred three proposed constitutional amendments to voters for consideration in the 2026 general election. They are:
• A measure to prohibit non-citizens from voting in Arkansas elections;
• An amendment to protect the right to keep and bear arms; and
• An economic development proposal to create development districts aimed at stimulating more local, smaller job projects, including retail opportunities.
UPDATE:
Sanders issued a statement after signing HB 1150 into law on Wednesday.
“For far too long, drug middlemen called PBMs have taken advantage of lax regulations to abuse customers, inflate drug prices, and cut off access to critical medications. Not anymore. These massive corporations are attacking our state because we will be the first in the country to hold them accountable for their anticompetitive actions, but Arkansas has never been afraid to be a conservative leader for America,” she said.
Amy Thibault, Lead Director for External Communications for CVS Pharmacy, which is a PBM and owns 23 pharmacies in Arkansas issued a statement in response.
“CVS Health welcomes a good faith discussion with policy makers in Arkansas and across the country on ways to make medicine more affordable and accessible. Unfortunately, HB1150 is bad policy that accomplishes just the opposite: it will take away access to pharmacy care in local communities, hike prescription drug spending across the state by millions of dollars each year, and cost hundreds of Arkansans their jobs,” she said.
Democrats, who number six in the Senate and 18 in the House of Representatives, held a post-session press conference to tout their victories and express their frustrations on issues involving the GOP supermajorities in the legislature.
"This session will be remembered for out-of-control spending on misguided policies, power grabs away from the people of Arkansas and divisive national politics continuing to seep into our state. The message was clear from the very beginning of session, Republicans were going to bust the budget on no limit private school vouchers and a misguided billion dollar plus prison in Franklin County, and there wouldn’t be much left for anything else,” said Rep. Andrew Collins, D-Little Rock, the House Minority Leader.
“I think to a person we [House & Senate Democrats] filed bills to help families, women, help expand access to healthcare, to help reform criminal justice issues, to do more to help everyday Arkansans,” said Senate Minority Leader Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville.
“One of the biggest issues in the session, obviously, was the prison. Senate Democrats came together… to keep that issue from advancing. That was one of the governor’s signature issues. Regardless of what you might think about the need for prison, it’s clear that that plan in Franklin County was wrong. And, despite the fact that our governor won 76% of the vote in Franklin County, that didn’t matter.”
“Democrats showed up. We stood by those folks. We worked with them to help block that plan, and we will continue to do so. And so, to any Republicans out there who are frustrated with Republican leadership, I would just say, please look at the work that Democrats did this session. It doesn’t matter whether you voted for us, it doesn’t matter where you live,” Leding said.
