March 24, 2020
By Steve Brawner
© 2020 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.
Georgia legislators have been self-quarantining since a senator showed up at their Capitol feeling sick and then tested positive for the coronavirus. Arkansas legislators would like to avoid the same fate when they convene twice in the next few weeks.
To do so, they’ll creatively balance lawmaking and social distancing. For example, the House of Representatives will meet at a basketball arena rather than the Capitol.
Legislators will meet twice in the coming weeks. First, Gov. Asa Hutchinson will call them into special session, probably this week, because the coronavirus epidemic is creating a $353 million state budget hole by the end of this fiscal year June 30. As a result, the state general revenue budget now will be $5.38 billion.
The shortfall is caused by two factors. One is the loss of tax revenues caused by businesses closing and people losing their jobs. The other is the governor’s plan to push the individual income tax filing deadline from April 15 to July 15, which is after the fiscal year ends.
The state will survive this fiscal year by using surplus funds and through the mechanisms of the Revenue Stabilization Act, a state law renewed annually that helps ensure a balanced budget. Under the RSA, state expenditures are placed in three categories – A, B and C. Almost everything is in A, with C the first to be cut automatically if revenues are short and B to follow. All three will be cut automatically this year. The special session will allow lawmakers to pass a bill so the governor can use surplus funds to protect programs needed to combat the epidemic.
But then comes fiscal year 2021, and how do you plan for that? Will life soon be relatively back to normal, or at least a new normal? Or will we be in a prolonged public health crisis and an economic depression?
Lawmakers won’t know the answers when they meet a second time starting April 8 in the fiscal session, which under the Arkansas Constitution occurs in even-numbered years and focuses on the next year’s budget.
Senate President Pro Tempore Jim Hendren, R-Gravette, told me Monday those RSA categories will get additional consideration. Category C could be bigger than usual, and it will be recognized that some Category B areas might not get funded, either.
“We’re going to have to obviously prepare for the worst and hope for the best when we do the budget for next year,” he said.
Complicating everything is the fact that legislators like all Americans are being encouraged to avoid large groups and keep their distances. That’s where things will get creative.
For at least the special session, House members will meet not at the Capitol but at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Jack Stephens Center, a basketball arena 4.5 miles down the road. House members will be screened as they enter and apparently sit spread apart in the stands, one member said.
Senators will remain at the Capitol but adopt their own social distancing rules. Only 20 of the 35 senators will be on the floor while the rest will be stationed in the galleries above or in their Senate offices, or at home. Senators will participate electronically or vote “by proxy,” where they make their wishes known in writing and then another senator casts their vote for them.
Legislative sessions are crowded, touchy places. They begin with all the legislators along with Arkansas Supreme Court justices gathering in the House chamber for the governor’s “State of the State” address. For the duration of the session, there’s always a lot of handshaking, small group huddles and shoulder-to-shoulder conversations in crowded hallways and meeting rooms. The Capitol is packed with lawmakers, staff, lobbyists, media types, concerned citizens, schoolchildren and sightseers.
It won’t look like that this time. Instead, “You’ll see us do absolutely the minimal amount of congregating as groups that we can to do our business,” Hendren said.
In other words, they’ll be balancing lawmaking and social distancing. It’s out of the ordinary, but these are not ordinary days.
Steve Brawner is a syndicated columnist in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stevebrawner.