House, Senate OK fixes in ethics laws
A pair of bills intended to make legislative changes to ethics laws more readable advanced out of the House and Senate on Tuesday.
The Senate voted 35-0 to approve Senate Bill 1 by Senate President Pro Tempore Jonathan Dismang, R-Searcy, which he described as cleanup language for ethics bills passed during the regular session. The bills updated the ethics amendment in the Arkansas Constitution.
The House voted 90-1 on a nearly identical bill -- House Bill 1001 by House Speaker Jeremy Gillam, R-Judsonia. The dissenting vote was cast by Rep. John Walker, D-Little Rock.
"This bill does not make any substantive changes to those bills, and without these technical corrections, these acts will not read coherently and they'll be difficult to interpret and difficult to cite," said Rep. John Maddox, R-Mena, who presented the House bill.
SB1 now heads to the House and HB1001 goes to the Senate for further consideration.
-- Brian Fanney
and Michael R. Wickline
Chambers clean up medical pot tweaks
Bills aimed at making the various legislative changes to the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment more understandable were approved by the House and Senate on Tuesday.
The Senate voted 33-0 to approve Senate Bill 2 by Senate President Pro Tempore Jonathan Dismang, R-Searcy. Dismang said SB2 organizes the medical marijuana laws enacted in the regular session into Amendment 98 of Arkansas Constitution.
Sens. Jason Rapert, R-Bigelow, and David Sanders, R-Little Rock, didn't vote on the bill.
The House voted 91-1 on a nearly identical bill -- House Bill 1002 by House Speaker Jeremy Gillam, R-Judsonia. Rep. Andy Mayberry, R-Hensley, was the sole no vote.
"There are no substantive changes," said Rep. Carol Dalby, R-Texarkana, who presented the bill. "This is a renumbering, re-alphabetizing."
SB2 now heads to the House and HB1002 goes to the Senate for further consideration.
-- Brian Fanney
and Michael R. Wickline
A Section on 05/03/2017