Lawmakers to vote on new travel policy

The Arkansas Legislative Council is expected to modify its policy on lawmaker travel Tuesday as legislators plan which conferences they will attend this year.

The 2011 Legislature gave the House speaker and Senate president pro tempore authority to veto legislators’ out-of-state travel requests, but the policy of the Arkansas Legislative Council was not updated to reflect that.

Previously committee chairmen could authorize legislators’ trips and approve the use of state funds to reimburse the travelers.

Under the new law and policy change, once a committee chairman signs off on the travel, it is then reviewed by legislative leadership.

The Council’s Policy-making Subcommittee referred the change to the council Friday. Because there were not enough members present, the subcommittee could not vote on the policy change.

The policy affects conferences or national committee meetings legislators would like to attend beyond the usual five national meetings legislators traditionally attend.

Groups of lawmakers normally attend meetings of American Legislative Exchange Council, Energy Council, Council of State Governments, National Conference of State Legislatures or Southern Legislative Conference.

Other acceptable, but less attended, meetings are the National Black Caucus of State Legislators or the Southern Regional Education Board.

Senate President ProTempore Michael Lamoureux, R-Russellville, said he hasn’t received travel requests yet.

“Most of the conferences, the national conferences, are in the summer, so I expect we will soon,” he said.

Lamoureux said the change wasn’t caused by a particular incident.

“Just to put an extra layer on it, making sure somebody’s looking at it, making sure somebody’s accountable for it and making sure there isn’t some embarrassing story,” he said. “I don’t think there’s been a recent problem. There’s been past abuses or past perceived abuses and I think this is just a way of making sure it doesn’t happen again.”

For several years the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has reported on how much lawmakers receive in expense reimbursements.

For instance, the paper reported in 2008 about a lawmaker who took a circuitous route through several states to get to a meeting in another state on a trip financed by Arkansas taxpayers. He reimbursed the state after the story was published.