If the 89th regular meeting of the Arkansas General Assembly comes to an end, as expected, Tuesday, it will go down in history as the longest since the Great Depression.
Tuesday will mark the 100th day of the regular session, which opened on Jan. 15.
The session will be five days longer than the 2011session.
It will be three days longer than regular sessions held in 2001 and 2005, which both lasted 97 days, and four days longer than the 96 days of the 1997 session.
The 1953 regular meeting of the Legislature lasted exactly 60 days, the length of the gatherings set in the Arkansas Constitution back in 1874. Lawmakers can extend a session if two-thirds of the members of both the House and Senate agree.
Arkansas legislatures regularly met far longer in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The longest was the 38th meeting of the General Assembly in 1911. It lasted 125 days, or more than a third of the year.
The last legislative session to last at least 100 days was in 1931, amidst the Great Depression, when the 48th regular meeting of the General Assembly completed its work after 121 days.
This session marked the first time since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era in the 19th century that the Republican Party controlled both legislative chambers.
But lawmakers on both sides of the aisle said the length of the session had less to do with the party in control than it did with the issues it tackled, none more complex than Medicaid expansion.
Under legislation Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe is expected to sign into law Tuesday, more than 250,000 Arkansans who make about $15,000 a year or less will be able to purchase private health insurance using federal Medicaid money.
Lawmakers only reached agreement on the so-called private option on Thursday,settling the most contentious issue of the session. The private option was an alternative to adding those low-income Arkansans to the state’s traditional Medicaid program.
“The Medicaid issue really required a lot of study and a lot of negotiation,” said Rep. James McLean, D-Batesville, who is serving in his third term and a member of the Joint Budget Committee. “And a lot of the tax cuts and budget issues were tied up in the Medicaid issue.
“It wouldn’t have mattered who was in charge - Republican or Democrat,” he said. “What was unusual [about this session] was the enormity of the issues.”
Rep. Andrea Lea, R-Russellville, a member of the House Revenue and Taxation Committee, also downplayed GOP legislative control as a reason for the session dragging to the 100-day mark, noting that the “51-seat majority … for all intents and purposes is a majority in name only.”
The “obvious answer” for the length of the session was Medicaid and the other “incredibly important issues we had to talk about and deal with,” she said. But the narrow majority in the House meant that “we had to compromise. Compromise takes time, there’s no doubt about it. Nothing was a slam-dunk.”
Some, however, thought partisanship was a factor in driving the debate and extending the session.
The length of the session was “about right,” said Sen. Jon Woods, R-Springdale. “I think this was how it had to play out. I don’t think there’s any way around it.”
He said on one side was a “very popular Democratic governor” in Beebe and, on the other, a Republican majority in the Senate and the House. Add to that, Woods said, big issues such as Medicaid, the tax cuts and “very complex ballot measures” that will go to voters.
All of that took time.
“At the end of the day, when you’ve got divided government, with the governor clearly being on one side and a slim majority in the House, I think you get healthy debate,” Woods said. “I think it’s good. We got a lot done that it had to take a little bit longer than previously.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/20/2013