HOT SPRINGS -- State Sen. Alan Clark questioned the need for a special legislative session while speaking to the Garland County Tea Party this week.
Clark, R-District 13, told the Tea Party at its weekly meeting that since there already is money available, the special legislative session on tax policy and school safety grant funding scheduled to begin next week is unnecessary.
The Legislature will decide if $50 million from the state's $1.6 billion budget surplus will fund grants supporting the Arkansas School Safety Commission's recommendations.
"There's already money out there," Clark said. "This is being done as a show so the governor and the Legislature can say we put this money over here. There's a good chance that $50 million doesn't get touched, because there's going to be a lot of qualifications put on it that says you have to use the money that the feds have already put out there. School safety is extremely important, but we don't have to have a special session in order to address it."
Clark said most special sessions are unnecessary.
"You shouldn't have a special session without a clear reason why," he said. "It should be absolutely, specifically, this is why we have to have a special session. Emergencies do come up for things that happen. There's no emergency. I'm not for a special session. I'll go in kicking and screaming, but I've made it clear throughout we do not need a special session."
The Legislature will consider fast tracking incremental cuts in the top individual and corporate tax rates. The cuts are scheduled to be fully implemented by 2025, but the Legislature will consider making them retroactive to the start of this year.
Clark said the accelerated schedule can be considered when the regular session convenes in January.
"Those tax cuts are already in law," he told the Tea Party. "We're not talking about passing new tax cuts. This is more about show."
Clark said the federal government may claw back pandemic relief funds if the Legislature accelerated the tax cuts. The American Rescue Plan Act restricted states from cutting taxes if they accepted fiscal recovery funds from the bill. Arkansas was part of a 13-state coalition that won a federal court judgment in November enjoining the U.S. Department of the Treasury from enforcing the restriction.
"We talk about the feds taking half of it back if we accelerate the tax cuts versus just letting them happen as they're going to happen," Clark said, referring to the state's budget surplus. "The idea was floated we put this money aside in case the feds take it back. I think that's a terrible idea.
"It's because we want to present this picture that we're doing tax cuts. The Legislature doesn't want to present that picture. We can do tax cuts in January. The new governor doesn't want to present that picture, so you can figure out who wants to present the picture of doing tax cuts."
Clark said the Legislature may need to address language in the Arkansas Human Life Protection Act concerning exceptions for the life of a pregnant woman. The 2019 law took effect when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, undoing the 1973 precedent that prevented states from banning abortion.
Performing the procedure, except to save the life of a pregnant woman in a medical emergency, is now a felony in Arkansas punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
"I'm against abortion except in the case of the life of the mother being in danger," Clark told the Tea Party. "I've been told that our law is not as clear about that in some cases as it ought to be. We need to fix that."
He said because they have been used to justify an inordinate amount of abortions, exceptions for rape and incest are problematic.
"The fact is it has been used as a huge loophole," he said. "This is a fact. That's why so many have gone from accepting the case of rape and incest to leaving that out. It's not that we don't care about rape and incest. It gives us such a large loophole that in almost all abortions in the United States, this loophole was being used."
Clark said rape and incest claims made to justify abortions should be followed up on by the authorities.
"If it's addressed, it's got to be addressed with issues of filing a report, prosecution, because none of those things are being done," he said. "It's just there's a rape. We want an abortion. The people of Arkansas will not abide continuing that."
Also at the meeting, Clark declined to address his recent Senate ethics violation while in the presence of The Sentinel-Record.
"Not with the newspaper here," Clark said when asked to explain the Senate Ethics Committee's findings that he violated Senate rules by asking another senator to sign his name on the sign-up sheet for reimbursement of per diem at a June 3 meeting at the Capitol Clark didn't attend.
"I'll be glad to address it with y'all, because I've got lots to say that I would love for you to hear. But I've said everything to the newspaper that I want them to hear. Anything I say other than 'I did it,' and 'I'm sorry' sounds like sour grapes. In time, it will be shown to be what it is, and it may not be that long. It may be much faster than anybody realizes."
Clark told the newspaper last month that the ethics panel has ignored more egregious violations and said the complaint was filed to damage him politically. Fellow Garland County Sen. Bill Sample, R-District 14, asked the Senate to forward the Ethics Committee's file on Clark to the Pulaski County prosecutor's office.