ROGERS -- Getting a hate crimes bill out of legislative committees is the toughest challenge such a bill faces, the Senate sponsor of one of those bills said Saturday.
Minutes later, a sister of his who is also a House member, said she and her constituents have reservations about the bill but will give it a fair hearing. Both sponsor Sen. Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs, and Rep. Gayla Hendren McKenzie, spoke at a forum hosted Saturday by the Rogers-Lowell Area Chamber of Commerce. The 9 a.m. forum took place by video link because of anti-pandemic considerations. Reps. Delia Haak, R-Gentry, and Josh Bryant, R-Rogers, also participated.
Arkansas, Wyoming and South Carolina are the only states left without a law increasing sentences for certain crimes committed because of the victim's race, ethnicity, sex, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation or other identifying characteristics, such as military service.
Opponents criticize Senate Bill 3 by Hendren as an attack on religious liberty because of its protections for LGBTQ Arkansans. The Arkansas Family Council, an influential faith-based advocacy organization, opposes the measure and its House equivalent, House Bill 1020 by Rep. Nicole Clowney, D-Fayetteville. The Rogers-Lowell chamber supports the bill, as does Gov. Asa Hutchinson, an uncle of both Hendren and McKenzie.
"There are people I care for on both sides of this issue," McKenzie said.
Both she and constituents are concerned a hate crimes law could be misinterpreted and used to contract freedom of speech and religion, McKenzie said. She wants to hear more about how the legislation could address those concerns but, for now, discussion of that and other issues is being crowded out by controversy over two bills that would restrict state funding to schools with certain courses, events or activities dealing with race, gender and other social groups.
"I was probably getting 500 emails an hour on those," McKenzie said.
Hendren predicted hate crime bill supporters will make their move to get some version of the bill through legislative committees in the next two week. They are working on a strategy to do that now, he said. Hendren and Clowney's version of the bill are in their respective chambers' judiciary committee. Hendren said the bills have enough support in each chamber to stand a good chance of passage if either of them get through the committees.
In other issues, Hendren said the most stringent challenges to the governor's emergency powers, such as ending his declared state of emergency by legislative action, has "pretty much lost steam." The pandemic that caused the governor to declare an emergency, giving orders such as restricted business hours the force of law, has not gone away. "People are dying," Hendren said.
The senator said he still expects the law, passed by the Legislature in the 1970s, that grants the governor broad powers will see some revision to allow some legislative oversight if an emergency lasts for months. "The governor doesn't want to be a dictator and the legislature can't be," he said.
Bryant said earlier in the forum that pandemic restrictions and "getting back to normal" are priorities for his constituents, ones they had impressed upon him.
Also, expect Benton and Washington counties between them stand to gain four or as many as five House seats in legislative redistricting, which will take place this year, Hendren predicted. The senator said he had discussed the issue with the secretary of state, one of the three members of the state Board of Apportionment overseeing the process. The other members are the governor and the attorney general.
Doug Thompson can be reached by email at [email protected] or on Twitter @NWADoug