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Hello again everyone, and thanks very much for being with us.

Her administration is 2 weeks old now, and the major pieces of Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders legislative program, reshaping education, reworking the criminal justice system, revising the tax code, they're still essentially conceptual.

That doesn't mean Miss Sanders can't continue to campaign for them, education in particular.

At one point this week, she appeared before a sort of pep rally of students from non traditional classrooms.

Alright, so here we go.

We're gonna do 123.

We're going to give a big woo and wave your scarf.

Here we go, 123.

We're focusing on the Arkansas learns initiative.

We will be rolling out legislation on that initiative here in the coming weeks, but it's something I talked a lot about during the campaign.

The Arkansas learns initiative focuses on a handful of key areas literacy.

We have to make sure that we are putting a better foundation underneath our students so that they have a pathway to success.

Right now, our system is failing too many of our students and it's simply unacceptable.

At the end of the day, we have to make sure that we are never trapping students in a lifetime of poverty and that we are not sentencing them to a lifetime.

Of poverty because of where they live.

Or how much money their parents make, what zip code they're in.

We will not trap students in failing schools in this state any longer.

We will give parents the right to choose the best path for their child.

Yeah, in a few moments more on the new administration and these first days of the legislative session from 3 reporters on the Capitol B.

First, though, a couple of lawmakers with close ties to the Sanders administration and who are helping shape its program, representative Jimmy Gazaway of Paragould.

And Senator Ben Gilmore of Cross and gentlemen, thanks very much for coming in.

You are deeply involved in another issue, but we use that sound bite up top.

There was a bit of method to our madness.

There is going to be a great deal of competition for dollars in all this is in this session, but that budget surplus is sitting there like a Thanksgiving Turkey.

And a lot of people are going to want a piece of it, and Miss Sanders has some plans for it, too.

When are we going to see a program?

An education program.

When are we gonna get to take a look at that?

Do you have some insights that you share, Mr. Gassaway?

So my understanding is that the education bill is in the works.

My understanding is that they're meeting with all the stakeholders.

And trying to come to some consensus there, I I think it's being drafted at the Bureau.

And so once the language is prepared, hopefully within the next couple of weeks we'll see something.

But as you know, Senator Gilmore and I have been more focused on the criminal justice legislation.

And so, you know, there are other folks who probably have greater insight to that than than I do with Mr. Gilmore before we go to criminal justice, even the parameters of it.

Could you give us a clue?

Well, look, I I think the governor's made very clear, Steve, where where her focus is with education and to representative gasaway's point that's still being worked through.

I'd be hesitant to to speculate on what all's going to be in that package because I haven't seen the the education package yet.

I know they're working through it with stakeholders.

I trust they're being very thorough with that.

So look forward to seeing it in the coming weeks.

One more question on that, both of you represent districts that are parts of this.

State that has substantial numbers of of rural districts or you're close to rural districts anyway.

What is do you are you picking up some suspicion or some apprehension among your Superintendent, school boards, teachers, faculty about about what the governor intends to do?

Certainly they're they're following very closely and I actually was talking to a Superintendent this morning.

I was talking to one last night even.

And they certainly have their priorities they're focused on there's things they want to see in this bill.

They don't want to get hurt.

They well of of course they always want to try to make sure that that whatever comes this doesn't have any sort of unintended consequences.

And I think again from what I'm hearing I'm not on the education committee, so I would I would defer to those who are.

But what I'm hearing is they're being very intentional and very thorough in trying to vet out a lot of those policy.

Mr. Caswell, I'll give you the final word on that before we go to something else.

So obviously I mean I think superintendents of any public school.

District have a important role to play in this discussion.

My understanding is that the administration has been very intentional about keeping them informed and involved in that discussion in my district at Greene County Tech and Paragould School District 2, fairly large public school districts.

And so my understanding is that they're attuned to what's going on and involved in those discussions.

So on the criminal justice, your specialties if you will, one thing that seems obvious about the governor's program or any other program.

It's pending before the General Assembly that is going to get serious consideration, and that is that the state is getting ready to have to spend a great deal more money than it is now on the criminal justice and the correctional system.

Mr. Gazaway, how much more?

Well, I think that remains to be seen.

I mean if it's like with any other piece of legislation what can you build consensus around?

I think that's, you know, kind of where we are, we have to weigh, you know, what we need in terms of criminal justice reform in light of the money that may be spent on education, the money that may be spent on other priorities that exist.

And so, you know, I don't know exactly what we're willing to devote.

Those are the ongoing discussions that we're having that's, you know, people ask sometimes why, why haven't we seen a bill yet, you know, what are we waiting on?

Well?

Part of it is, you know, we have to determine among our priorities how much can we devote to criminal justice in light of what we're devoting to other priorities.

So I can't give you a number right now.

I mean, I I expect that it will be several $100 million.

But you know, again, ultimately that'll be what we can build consensus on.

Well, building consensus is inevitably going to come down to building space for more beds.

We've got 500 coming at Calico Rock.

ADC is looking for a place to build another thousand.

How many more beyond that would do you gentlemen have a a figure in mind?

What's likely to emerge?

Yeah, there's a there's a lot of figures that have been thrown out.

We we do know that there's a capacity issue right.

And we understand that there is an issue with the backup in our county facilities that needs to be addressed.

I would like to touch real quick on the question that you asked Representative Gazaway and that is the cost and and I would.

I would argue back what's the cost if we don't spend the money that's needed to address the acute crisis violent crime that's sweeping our state.

And so I think we have to be very intentional when we're looking at that that we that we consider the the, the negative externalities of not addressing our, our county backup issue of not locking away violent offenders where they need to be.

And that's in prison away from from our communities and our families that that we want to keep safe.

So I think.

All of that has to be factored into the equation of what is the cost Mr. Gasway well so realistically and to follow on Senator Gilmore's point, look, we have about 2000 people who are in county jails who are awaiting a bed in the ADC that we simply don't have.

So if you look at eliminating that backlog alone, you're talking about 2000 folks, then you're going to have natural growth that's going to occur.

Of course, we have a consultant who you know has projects kind of what the natural growth will be among the prison population.

So you have that to account for and then we're looking at.

You know, reforming our broken parole system because we have a broken parole system in this state.

We're not keeping the people, the violent offenders who we need to be keeping in prison.

People are only serving a fraction of their time.

And so if we reform our broken parole system then that also adds, you know, to the capacity issue.

So, you know, realistically I would say a minimum of 3000 beds could be as many as five.

I think you heard Lieutenant, sorry Attorney General Griffin say that the other day an interview, possibly even up to 5000 beds is the need we are spending.

If I have the numbers of the last time I checked anyway, I think for the current FY we're doing a between.

More than $600 million, I think, for correct community corrections and for the Department of Correction.

We're edging toward a billion dollars.

Are we now?

Well look again, not edging.

We're taking big steps toward it.

Well look again, it, it is expensive, right, but it's very expensive to keep our community safe, which I think is should be our number one priority.

I think also we have to look at the fact that it's a little bit inconsiderate and and disrespectful to law enforcement if we don't address these problems and make them go back and catch the same people over and over and over again.

So there's there's those things that have to weigh into that.

Equation of the cost but to representative gasaway's point we have things that we have to fix within the system.

The parole system is broken.

We have a revolving door.

Anybody within the corrections system can tell you that and and so if we if we don't fix that the costs are going to continue to edge up and so we and when I say edge up vastly more so than what we're dealing with now we had we seem always gentlemen to have a backlog.

With the county and well at the county level of anywhere from 1000 to to 2000 as you mentioned, are we doing something wrong and yet we keep building this or have over the years are we doing something wrong?

Well, I think the issue is, is that it really has been ignored for for several decades.

Yes, we've built beds in terms of community corrections, which are for nonviolent offenders.

But if you listen to the folks at the Department of Corrections, Solomon Graves, for instance, testified in a in a recent hearing last year that the what's driving the prison population or seriousness level 8-9 and 10 offenses, these are violent offenses.

These are the sexual offenses and the type of beds that we need.

And this is again Secretary Graves last year.

Our maximum security beds, the types of prison facilities that we have, the communal housing and that sort of thing doesn't address the need that we have in our state for more maximum security beds for the violent offenders.

And so I think that's what we're looking at, why we need to build more beds is to address those particular types of offenders.

Could this be addressed at to what extent could this be the situation be addressed by changes to the sentencing grid?

Is that under consideration?

To what extent is that under consideration?

Well?

Look, the what I think we have to address, first of all, we have to address the capacity issue.

And with that we have to find a way to keep the repeat violent offender locked away.

And I don't think there has to be a ton of changes to the sentencing grid to do that.

I think that what we need to do is we need to, we need to see some truth and sentencing.

We need people to understand that when they commit a violent crime in the state of Arkansas that it's going, they're going to be in prison for serious time and they're going to do almost all of that.

Time.

I don't think that's too much to ask for.

When someone is committing a serious, heinous crime, they need to do serious time with that.

Mr. Gatsby, you're a former prosecutor.

Go ahead, I'll give you.

We've got a little bit less than a minute remaining.

You've got it.

Well, you know, want to make something very clear.

I think the purpose of our legislation is, look, no one wants to imprison nonviolent offenders or drug addicts like that is not the purpose of this legislation.

What we have to do is make sure that we keep our communities safe by having sufficient capacity to incapacitate or lock up those violent offenders who are praying on our communities and that sexual predators child sexual.

Offenders, we have to have sufficient capacity to address those issues.

But in terms of the nonviolent offenders, look, I don't think that it serves communities, that it serves families, that it serves the taxpayer to keep people locked up who are nonviolent, who may just be drug addicts.

You know, the the purpose there would be to divert them from ever entering the prison population.

And the focus there should be on rehabilitation.

And so that's what we're seeking to do with this legislation.

Got into there.

Gentlemen, thanks very much.

Representative gasaway.

Senator Gilmore, thank you very much for coming in.

Please come back.

We'll do it hopefully as soon as the legislation is cooked.

Sure.

Sounds good.

We'll be right back.

Back now with more on the session from 3 pairs of eyes watching it fairly closely.

Andrew de Millo, Capital Bureau chief of The Associated Press, Steve Bronner, independent journalist and Josie Lenora, politics and government reporter from KUAR Public Radio in Central Arkansas.

Thanks to everybody for coming in.

Andrew, we'll bring you in from afar.

We're two weeks into the administration now, two weeks into the session, and everything is still pretty thematic.

We don't know what we don't know really about the administration's program.

Yeah, that's that's correct.

Yeah.

We're kind of in a holding pattern.

Everyone heading into the session had said the three big issues were going to be education, criminal justice and tax cuts.

And we have yet to see pieces of legislation on any of those 3 topics.

Obviously, tax cuts is something we're expecting to come at the tail end of the session.

But, you know, education reform, which is the issue that Governor Sanders has said is her priority, you know, we're still, you know, possibly a couple weeks away from seeing legislation.

On that, we know she's talked in kind of broad strokes about what she wants to do.

There's going to be some element of school choice in there.

There's going to be some some kind of teacher raised in there as stuff dealing with literacy literacy programs as well, too.

But a lot of the specifics and a lot of the numbers we still don't know about, and that's kind of keeping legislators in a holding pattern on a lot of the other issues.

Right now.

Well, we may not have the specifics on criminal justice, but we do know some of the numbers that at at a bare minimum, we know.

Guys, we're getting ready to spend a lot more money on the Department of Correction.

Josie.

Yeah the Lieutenant governor Tim Griffin has talked about how he wants to increase sentences for those who have been convicted of violent crime so that people wouldn't would spend more time in prison for their sentencing.

But again that's kind of all we know right now.

It's going to cost money though in addition to capital expenditures which we're getting seem imminent.

Steve M&O on those prisons is going to go up and you know once you have a prison you kind of got to fill it, but that's not going to be a problem right now.

There's, there's attorney General Griffin has said, yeah, basically our prisons are full and they're running over into the county jails, which are also full.

So we're kind of in a crisis situation.

So even if legislators might have different ideas about how you need to address crime, reduce the population, at this point, you've got to do something.

You've got it.

And so there we have a surplus, we have a need.

So we're going to build some prisons and you build a prison and you pay for it over and over and over again because you use it.

You know, we have a surplus right now.

Right now we have a surplus in the future.

But again, you know, as as General Griffin has pointed out.

You know, the bad guys are getting let out really early and the ones in misdemeanor offenses, offenders aren't even going to jail at all because they're just is no space.

So we are building a prison.

Yeah.

Andrew Demello on back to education for just a second.

It's, it's always been implied I think in earlier discussion during the campaign anyway, that parochial schools might well in Arkansas pick up some public dollars.

The administration, the governor is now using the word openly.

Which?

Surprised there's a little people are surprised at people a little.

Not a whole lot, maybe, but a little anyway.

Yeah and and that's still that's one of the areas that we're still you know waiting details on.

She's talked you know just generally about school choice.

You know I think the term that she's used is a parental empowerment but we don't really know what exactly does that mean.

You know is that going to be a straight up voucher program?

Are we talking scholarships, are we talking some kind of savings accounts?

You know there's different forms that this that this could take and that's going to be you know the details we're we're waiting to see and one of the issues that's going to come up on that is.

How do they deal with potential potentially some opposition from some rural Republicans to to a school, a school choice element of this legislation?

Obviously you're not going to get support from Democrats who have actually presented their own education legislation this week, kind of, you know, taking advantage of the fact that there's this vacuum right now on details on the education legislation.

But, you know, is this something where they can still get?

Through some some resistance that they may face within their own party on it.

Yeah.

Josie, do we know, do we have a sense yet of how much resistance the.

I was at her school choice rally this week where she had all the children chant students, not systems.

And she sort of regurgitated these lines.

She likes like no child should be caught in a failing education system because of the size of their bank account.

A lot of Democrats don't love, you know, things like a school voucher program because it takes money from public schools and funnels it into private schools.

And there's also a lot of backlash about those schools don't necessarily have to be accredited.

So this week.

Senator Wooster from BBC representative Wooster from B put forth two bills.

One that would make it so that your has to be public transportation to private schools that receive public dollars, and another one that would make it so these schools have to face certain accreditation requirements, some monitoring anyway, state monitoring of private school.

Steve, yeah, I think well, the the fact that we haven't seen the bill yet is pretty good evidence that there's a lot of pushback.

If there was unanimous agreement, then we would have already seen it at this point, even though this is going to be a pretty massive change.

So I think that we can gather that.

As you said, Representative Wooten, he's a Republican and yet he is, you know, he's basically by following those two bills was making the argument against vouchers, which is that private schools have not had to do the same things that that public schools do, which is educate everybody, transport them, educate the hard students, not be exclusive.

All those what that's what he was doing.

That's that argument.

That's what we'll see and and that's why that's why we haven't seen the bill yet and this is.

Not a new position from these for Mr. Wooten.

He has argued in Sessions previous that any encroachment on the public school fund is is inevitable.

Any expansion anyway of vouchers is inevitably, in his estimation, going to damage the public school fund.

And there are Republicans across the state who are going to agree with that.

So we'll we'll see.

This is going to be the big issue.

Look, we had a governor elected with 63% of the vote.

As she is is our first term, it is unthinkable that that she's going to lose completely on this issue.

She will get a big part of what she wants.

It just as depends on on on what is proposed and what is what what the what the debate boils down to.

But we're going to have something pretty significant because it's her signature issue and she cannot fail and they won't let her fail.

Well, chemically speaking, ideologically speaking, Josie, it would seem to be a General Assembly that is rather in tune with the governor.

She hasn't done any.

I can't recall her saying anything in the two.

We are related for that matter during the campaign that would put her substantially at odds with with the Republican majority in either chamber.

I haven't seen a lot of pushback to any of her policies.

And within that education bill, she's talked a lot about raising teacher salaries and then having a more of a phonics curriculum as opposed to whole reading curriculum.

And I haven't seen any pushback or any disagree with some of those policies.

Andrew, as Steve mentioned, just second ago there was a Democrat or one of our panelists mentioned there was a democratic alternative or a democratic bill for for teacher pay introduced.

This week, I would I would put my money on whatever the administration proposes.

Yeah, I I think so.

You know, this is something though signed on by all the Democrats in the House and Senate.

But you know, this is a predominantly Republican legislature.

And yeah, I don't, I don't really know that this is going to get get that far.

But they're at least, you know, taking advantage of the fact that there there's an opportunity to at least put attention on their proposal and on their issues right now.

But I think the focus is going to be on whatever the teacher raise element is in her legislation and also the other big.

Question is, is there going to be some kind of merit pay or performance incentives type plan in this legislation?

Yeah.

One of the things that strike just two weeks into the session and that is the sharp and predictable at it.

At one level Josie, that Steve, that's the sharp ideological divide now between the parties.

You have a super majority Republican super majorities in both Chambers but there seems to be a great cohesion on on the part of both.

Democrats just don't have muscle to do much.

Steve.

Josie.

Well, you know you there's.

Basically 80% of the of the legislature is Republican.

All the constitutional officers are Republican.

This is a Republican state.

So you know we're Democrats have some leverage as it's if if they're they can you know form coalitions with enough Republicans who will be opposed to certain elements of of what the governor is trying to do and then they can sneak some things through.

You know that representative flowers has an interesting bill that would allow felons to to regain their ability to have a have a have a, have a gun.

And that's a kind of a interesting pro gun legislation by a Democrat and it's and it's probably it's got a good chance to going through.

So that's how a a Democrat can get something through if they play their cards right pick the right issue get the right allies and and and do what they need to do that.

It can it can happen and in that case it probably will.

My conversations with the Democrats and all the interviews I've seen with them, they do kind of fall back on this rhetoric.

We're going to focus on what unites us and what not divides us.

We're gonna focus on issues that we can all agree on.

Which is why I think even in this, within this education debate, they keep talking about teacher pay and phonics and things that you have wide support.

Keep in mind also that while Republicans might appear to be unified at, you know, on the surface at times there is going to be some pretty major differences issue by issue and overall.

And so in some ways it would be easier for them if there were 67 instead of over 80 in the house.

And you know that that major majority almost makes things more complicated for them at times.

There does seem to the the executive and the legislative is certainly the legislative majority seem to be in lockstep on this Andrew de Millo and that's.

A at times not so gentle repudiation of of Miss Sanders Republican predecessor.

Yeah, that's that, that's true.

Yeah.

I think we're seeing, you know, some of the pushback that you saw in the front.

You know, the final years of Governor Hutchinson's administration from fellow Republicans, I think has boiled over even to this session now, which we've seen with us some of his, some of his appointments being that being rejected.

And, you know, we're also seeing that with the Governor Sanders rolling back some of his positions and some of his initiatives she had dissolved, some of his panels that he had formed addressed, addressing COVID.

She's reversed.

This position opposing a, you know, opposing a judge's ruling that struck down the ban on mask mandates by government entities.

So yeah, I think this is kind of, you know, an indication that she's going in another direction and also, you know, the legislature kind of indicating, you know, still indicating some of their displeasure with some of his stances.

Yeah, it's a General Assembly that's moving and an administration that's moving to the right.

Well, I mean the Republican Party has moved to the right that the cultures become more split.

And then also keep in mind too, I mean Governor Hudson was there for eight years.

You had the whole COVID thing which was which was divisive for a lot of people.

Not necessarily what he did.

I'm just saying that that was a divisive time.

He was part of it.

And then he was there for eight years probably.

And governor Sanders is 8 years incumbent, 15 year.

There will be issues with her from some people if she stays that long.

Josie, what are we looking for in the next?

Five days?

What are we looking for the next 5 days?

I'm interested to see make it 6 do get the education ability time soon, but I haven't seen any indicators.

Do we have any kind of timeline at all, any signals at all?

Steve, from the administration to Speaker Shepherd and Governor Sanders were talking about a couple of weeks, representative Brian Evans, who's the chair of the House Education Committee, told me Wednesday, maybe by the end of this week, but that was a in terms of possibility.

So it's going to happen in the next couple of weeks.

But we'll see, Steve, you get our Andrew, you get the last word, what you're projections for the coming week.

Yeah, I think the thing to watch is going to be a social issues.

We're going to see a dominating the session right now like we saw at the beginning of the session a couple of years ago.

We're going to see likely final action next week on a bill that puts restrictions on drag shows, which could put Arkansas as the first state to make such restrictions.

We have a bathroom bill that's going before committee and I would not be surprised to see movement on other kind of cultural wars types issues that coming up in the next week and a lot of them.

All right, that does it for us.

Gents and lady, thanks for coming in.

As always, as always, thank you for watching.

See you next week.

Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, The Arkansas Times and KUARFM 89.