Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, The Arkansas Times and Little Rock Public Radio.

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

It has been a vexing several weeks for governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders at the top of her list of troubles, what's come to be known as podium gate or sometimes lectern gate.

Who was the intended purchaser?

Who was the vendor?

Why the price?

A local story quickly went national.

And to complicate matters for the administration, the legislative branch, just as directed its own auditors to review the purchase.

Senator Jim Hickey, Republican of Texarkana, made the formal request.

You know, my reasoning for this is right or wrong.

You know that this issue with the lectern, podium, whatever anybody wants to call it, it's been it's been convoluted that it that it goes along with what happened in the special session with for you.

And I think you all have probably heard the same thing that I've heard, you know.

Well, could that have possibly been made a security type issue because it contains Kevlar and it's bullet proof or whatever.

So then, of course, we've got all of the time line that has to deal with, you know, when the Republican Party, you know, reimbursed and all that which like got it needs needs to look at.

But what further you know what I believe further does where we need to look at everything that we made you know back to the retroactive date is the fact that on that podium purchase, whether it was a coincidence or whether it was not, that I know that the Senate that we adjourned on ten 1002 on the 14th of September, we had a bill signing that was somewhere probably close to noon.

And then I found out, you know, even this this week, that that reimbursement was actually done the same day that we left.

We left after out of here.

So, you know, that reimbursement needs to be looked at and more.

At Miss Sanders request, the legislature in special session amended the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.

It was a compromise version.

And now a citizens organization is campaigning to not only restore the Freedom of Information Act to much of its previous language, but enshrine it, as it were, in the Arkansas constitutional and some additional incoming involving reductions in the state Medicaid rolls and the first numbers on the Learns Act and private school enrollment.

So here to update those stories and more, Andrew DeMello, Capital bureau chief of the Associated Press.

Josie Lenora of Little Rock Public Radio, and independent journalist Steve Bronner.

And thanks to everybody for coming in.

Steve, we'll start with you.

It is it's been kind of a bumpy road for the administration, the governor, the last couple, three weeks.

It has been, you know, policy was a highly successful legislative session, got the Learns act passed, got the prison reform bill, prison building bill done.

And our national profile remains high.

And she gets all the national press she could probably want more from friendly outlets.

This has percolated now for several weeks.

There are a lot of dots.

This $19,000 podium purchase that and the bouncing around of who paid for it between the state and the Republican Party of Arkansas.

To all that with the Freedom of Information Act requests by Matt Campbell, the Blue Hog report, the Arkansas State Police not immediately complying.

And then it mixed in with a special session, which was included at on Friday.

We learned that FOIA would be included and there were major changes for them.

Next Monday, special session ended up getting the humongous response.

And then that's right.

Now, you know, we still have a whole bunch of dots.

We don't know what they connect to.

We don't know if it's nothing.

There's very likely that the so-called cover up is much more than whatever happened.

But at the moment, we're still trying to figure out what's going to happen.

And at least now we had the legislature on the case, whatever that means.

Yeah.

Josie, one thing that was interesting about the joint auditing committee yesterday, as everyone was in agreement that the audits just going to show what it shows, the governor's been a little inconsistent on her answers about what happened with the podium purchase.

We know it was purchased with a state credit card.

It was reimbursed, but it took about three months for that reimbursement to happen.

And the timeline is really interesting because it happened right after those documents were foiled.

So we'll have to see what happens as we go forward with this audit.

Yeah.

Andrew DeMello It seems that at a minimum here, among other things, that's going on.

General Assembly, the legislature, at least some elements of it, seems to be asserting itself as it has not really in the last since since the governor took office.

Yeah, Yeah.

I think the fact that you saw the requests for the audit on the podium go through, you know, really pretty easily through executive committee.

A little bit of pushback on the second part of the audit, looking at security and travel records.

I think it's very telling and, you know, legislative audit, we have to remember, is, yes, an agency that it's viewed pretty favorably by both Republicans and Democrats, and it has very broad powers.

You know, they have subpoena power for documents and witnesses, and they really are known for going very, very detailed into records.

And they have experience with this.

They do more than 1000 audits of state government agencies, local government school districts.

And the fact that this is expedited, this is still going to drag out some.

But we may see possibly some answers by the end of the year.

But it's still unclear if is this going to be as muddled at the end of this as it is right now, or are some of these dots not going to be connected?

And then the question is, what happens then?

You know, who else looks into it and what are the next steps?

Well, there's this aspect, too, of it, Andrew, is it not?

The joint audit has always had well, as you mentioned, a high degree of credibility.

It's respected on both sides of the aisle, as it were.

Yeah, that's that's correct.

You know, they're known as being a very thorough agency for looking at things.

The one thing that could complicate this is the vendor that is listed as the seller of of the election is, you know, back at events LLC in Virginia they're out of state.

And is that going to be complicated in terms of legislative audits, ability to get records and get information from them?

And that's yeah, that's a big question because at this point back at events has not responded any questions, has not responded to inquiries from a large number of reporters asking about what what justified the cost of this this $19,000 lectern that appears considerably higher price than any other election that you can find online and purchase from an agent or a vendor that does not is not known for selling podiums or lecterns.

Yeah, correct.

You look on their website, that's not a service that you find on there.

And so that's one of the other questions and also the question of why, you know, out of state the vendor for this rather than someone in state you know the state you know, state Democrats even made a point of showing that the election that they used for their event on Medicaid the other day costs $5 from state surplus.

Well, that any amount of I'm Josie Steve this is this is this is a distraction that no administration wants.

Ms.. Sanders has issued a statement repeatedly.

Yeah.

Bring on the honor to welcome the audit.

You know, jump on it.

We're ready.

But it's still something.

It's not something that any administration wants to have to deal with.

It's not just the $19,000 price tag, too.

There was also a $500 credit card fee that was within that.

And so a lot of that's just kind of, I think, a little mysterious for people to wrap their heads around for a podium.

And it also looks a lot like the podium that she used during her inauguration.

So I think there's just a lot of looming questions that we all have about the podium or the lectern and what it all means.

Yeah, the whole thing is just so curious.

I know evidence of something like major at this point.

Just what what is going on and why was why did they pay $19,000 for a podium to somebody that doesn't sell podiums?

It's all just very curious and there hasn't we don't have the answers yet.

Was it do for her relationship with the legislature?

Well, we were talking a minute ago, it was the legislators who got yelled at in the committee meetings.

You know, she was not as directly involved.

So there may be it may be easier for them to feel the need to address this.

And so that's why you had the request.

Senator Hickey is a banker by trade numbers guy.

Maybe he has wanted to get to the bottom of this.

So that's where we are right now.

Yeah.

We will continue to follow on another issue updated.

Well, before we go on to that, we need to talk about the if there is now a citizens organization with some obvious bipartisan support to strengthen the FBI, actually by removing it from the statute books and putting it into the Constitution, Joseph David Couch and Nate Bell are on opposite sides of the political aisle.

So it's really interesting that they've joined up on this.

They both have the exact same value, which is their really strong belief that there is something that makes our democracy better if they both really support fire.

And what I think is interesting about this constitutional amendment is it doesn't just make for enshrined in our Constitution.

It takes us back to the way laws that we had before the special session.

So the laws that were passed would have barred us, bar us from accessing this gov security information, which would be changed.

But and that will still be under the proposed amendment as drafted.

Now Steve, that will still be available, but with with the time lag on, I'll say again, I didn't get the jokes they're going to yeah the information on governor security expenses will at some point become available.

I think joint auditing has access to it, but we don't have access to it through the Freedom of Information Act because under the under the Constitution, which would take away that retroactive part, right.

Of the bill would take everything back to where it's been and it would add additional changes.

For example, any time the legislature wants to change the constitution to make the government less transparent, two thirds vote in it automatically goes to the voter.

Is the next election to vote on if they want to add an emergency to it.

90% support.

And that raises some some interesting questions because as we see in the US House of Representatives right now, if it has if something has to have 9% support, it just takes a handful of legislators making their own demands on perhaps unrelated issues to keep it from going through.

So, you know, this is really designed to make it very hard for the legislature to make the government less transparent while making it easier to make it more transparent.

Yeah.

Andrew DeMello There was during the legislative session, there was an immediate pushback against what the Sanders administration was was seeking in terms of the FOIA.

Yeah, immediate pushback and kind of strange bedfellows where you had, you know, transparency advocates, media groups, some conservatives speaking out against it.

And I think that's kind of the interesting thing with this ballot measure is seeing this, you know, collection of people across the political spectrum.

The big question is what resources are they going to have?

Because you need to have money to be able to do signature gathering and also to deal with potential legal challenges, which I think you might face for trying to get this on the ballot.

But it also poses an interesting question, too, is even if it doesn't make the ballot or even as they're gathering signatures, this is going to be happening as people are filing for office, as we're getting ready for the primaries next year.

Is this going to be an issue where are candidates going to be asked, do you support putting the FBI in the Constitution?

And you know, what kind of political fallout would there be for candidates who won't say or are opposed to it?

Well, as always, one of the one of the signal issues and any constitutional amendment is getting the ballot title cleared by the attorney general and getting it on the ballot, certified for the ballot.

That can be Andrew de Mello.

That can be a pretty steep hill.

Yeah, especially what we've seen with the legislature in recent years.

They've made it more difficult to get measures on the ballot.

There's been a higher bar.

So that's going to be the other question is are they going to be able to clear that?

And that's why I think resources are going to be a big part of it, because as we've seen, you know, some of the you know, some of the measures that we've seen approved in recent years, things like medical marijuana, things like a minimum wage increase, they've had big money behind them.

And do you have the same resources that can go behind it, a pro athlete measure?

Yeah.

Steve Bronner, you know, the attorney general is famous for handing out his cell phone number at every event that he speaks at.

So maybe he would be inclined to be for transparent government if he's going to be consistent with that typical action.

So we'll see that if there's going to be an easy way to get this on or if we had the usual challenges that occur throughout the whole process, the signature collection lawsuits that inevitably occur, I will say.

But he mentioned to Andrew mentioned two different a message pass.

Both of them were led by David Couch, who is one of those that is one of the leaders of this.

He knows what he's doing.

I mean, he is good at this.

He is you might say he is the 136th state legislator.

But and there's also this attorney General Griffin, who has to approve the ballot title.

He's indicated, though, early on during the session and once it began.

But yeah, maybe the FAA could stand a little tinkering.

So Mr. Couch and Mr. Bell, I think both of the two guys, you know, who are behind this, this movement to to move it to the Constitution, the FAA, they have suggested that Mr. Griffin may not be he may apply extra scrutiny, that he may not be entirely sympathetic to what they're up to.

I've covered a couple of these ballot initiatives and ballot amendments, and it sometimes takes several times to get the attorney general to approve it.

And even if they're successful, they have to get 90,000 signatures from people all across the state.

So that includes really rural counties where people might not be following the for story.

It's a it's a very tall order and very few people have been successful at it.

But it's definitely possible.

I mean, as a government reporter, you very rarely see bipartisan outrage the way you did during the special session.

So it could go either way.

Yeah.

Steve, anybody you know, anybody that tries to gum up this process will be on the side that the popular opinion is not on.

So that will be that consideration.

David Couch told me that on one of his Zoom calls, Austin Bailey, who is the editor of The Arkansas Times, and Jan Morgan, who ran for governor against Sarah Huckabee Sanders as the far right candidate, they were on the same phone call.

So this is this has was spread across the entire political spectrum.

This idea is support our democracy.

On to another issue.

Updated numbers reflect a continuing decline in Medicaid enrollment in Arkansas.

The Department of Human Services Secretary, Christy Putnam justified the action in a written statement and may we quote, Medicaid resources should go to Arkansans who qualify for them and not for those who are ineligible.

I'm proud of the work that staff across our entire agency performed over the past six months to ensure that our program is serving only those who truly need Medicaid.

But the Arkansas Democratic Party vice chair granted, it wasted absolutely no time in condemning the cuts.

We know that somewhere close to 70% of the people who've been terminated were terminated only because they didn't respond to a letter or answer a telephone call.

No determination as to their eligibility for medical purposes was ever made.

So to say the only people left on the rolls are those who truly need Medicaid.

You either don't understand the program you run or you're lying to the people of Arkansas.

This needs to be fixed and it needs to be fixed.

Now, granted, the Democratic State Committee, Gavin Les Nick, the spokesperson for DHS, the Department Human Services, responded thusly.

The Arkansas Democrats take on Democratic Party's take on the state's successful Medicaid.

Unwinding is a gross mischaracterization of the extensive efforts DHS made to ensure that beneficiaries were ready and prepared for this process.

And it has zero basis in reality.

DHS began messaging to beneficiaries more than a year ago, before the end of the public health emergency, and has continued this focus throughout the previous six months.

Throughout this process, we've reached out to beneficiaries by mail, phone, email and text, made staff available through a call center dedicated to this effort.

Jose Back and forth.

But it was all it was.

It was preordained, foreordained and we've what, about 430,000 now off the rolls and about 150,000 of those around that are children.

During that same press conference, granted, all told a lot of stories about people going to their doctor and then finding out that they don't have Medicaid that they were used to.

So I think that's a little scary for some people.

But the administration is pretty insistent that they're only doing this to clean up the rolls and they're just giving Medicaid to the people that need it.

So we'll have to see what happens going forward.

Steve brought up one thing, is that when they go to the doctor and they don't have Medicaid, they can sign up at that point and believe that this will be covered, that there is still some a lot of churn in this process.

There is some disruption, and there would have been some percentage of Arkansans who would have come on and off the rolls anyway during this.

This is all goes back to Covered Arkansas, like almost all states, if not all states got extra money from the federal government in order to.

And the deal was you had to keep people on Medicaid.

Nobody gets kicked off throughout the pandemic.

We're now through that process.

Arkansas, unlike most states, is doing it in six months, not a year.

It is true that the majority of those who are getting kicked off are doing it for paperwork issues did not report return their their annual paperwork.

So it is a messy process.

And then right now they're you know, that that amount has gotten off the rolls.

Yeah.

Andrew DeMello Yeah, I think I think it's clear that Democrats see the concerns about the Medicaid unwinding, not just the numbers, but just the pace of it.

In Arkansas.

You know, Arkansas is required to do it within six months under state law.

Just the stories that they have and what their point out with it.

I think Democrats really see their, you know, there being a good political message on this.

When you think about the number of people who live in Arkansas, 430,000 people, that's a huge number of people.

And especially for an impoverished state that has really has a lot of people who rely on Medicaid.

So I think you're going to see, even though the unwinding is done, you're going to see this messaging going on even more as we head into election year, next year here.

Well, there's there's also this, too, Andrew, and that many of those 437,000, they're going to continue to seek medical care, which is going to put some additional pressure on hospitals, particularly in the rural area.

Well, everywhere.

Yeah.

And that's the big concern that, you know, critics of Arkansas approach have had that this is going to have a ripple effect.

This is not just about one person or one family losing care.

It's about what's it going to mean for the community, what's it going to mean for your hospitals in these areas.

So they're looking not just beyond just the individual people, but just, you know, the larger impact that we're going to see from it?

Yeah, because Josie, see some people that many people that are off can get back on.

Some cannot get back on.

All right.

And may not know it until they until they go to the doctor and then some are no longer eligible and they know it.

And they have gotten they did not return the forms because they are they they've got insurance somewhere else.

And that is the argument that DHS has been making.

DHS has tried to get in touch with these people, but it is a mobile population that can be hard to get in touch with, at least elements of it.

This is this is hard for anybody that's trying to keep up with people.

Americans move a lot and post office boxes and mailboxes change a lot.

This has been a challenging process.

It has happened in six months rather than a year.

And at this point, we're still not sure.

You know, at this point, they're off.

They're just off.

And we'll either they'll get back on or or they'll be a larger percentage of Arkansans who are uninsured.

Yeah.

And finally, this issue, Andrew DeMello, we got the first numbers back really on involvement, participation in the governor's Learns act.

And in terms of the I think the educational freedom Accounts, Andrew Yeah, you know, we've started seeing these these numbers coming in and, you know, the, the learns the, the vouchers that, that these create, you know, this is being phased in.

So we're getting kind of better, a better sense of, you know, the impact this is going to have.

But you know, we're in the first year, I think, you know, we're going to see even bigger impact over the next couple of years on it.

Yeah, Josie was interesting in that report as they showed you what percentage of kids at different private schools are getting Lauren's money.

If you do the math and estimate, I mean, it's it's tens of millions of dollars that could be going from from taxpayer money to these private schools.

And a lot of them are small, private Christian schools that I've never heard of before.

I know schools like Easterseals and Access, which are schools for students with disability.

Almost all of them are getting some kind of voucher.

What was also interesting about that report is it showed that the vast majority of these kids were already enrolled in private schools.

And I think that was kind of that was something that kind of drew contention from a lot of people already enrolled.

Yes.

Which Steve kind of.

That's a subsidy, is it not?

It is to them, Right.

It's a subsidy to the schools and to those those families that were already in private school.

An argument would be made that this is a three year rollout, that private schools will pop up all over the state and that as more people become eligible, that you will see, you know, different opportunities, There'll be maybe a wider range.

But at this point, almost everybody that's on are the vast majority that isn't receiving a subsidy was already in school.

This is what critics of the of the administration's proposal were telling the General Assembly.

They've long maintained.

I found a bunch of little private Christian schools, mostly that have been just kind of popping up here and there.

And we don't know what the educational outcomes of those schools might be.

They could be really good.

They could be really bad.

The governor has promised accountability measures, and I think that is one of the crucial pieces of this, because I'm interested to see what those accountability measures will be for some of these smaller schools.

All right, Andrew, you get the last word.

Andrew Demelo if you want it.

Yeah, Yeah.

I think we had a significant ruling this week related to Lawrence O'Donnell in the Learns Act that seemed to basically uphold the way the legislature has allowed laws to be fast tracked into implementation.

And so I think that was a significant ruling from this week.

BLOCK Got to end it there because we're out of time.

Andrew Demelo, Steve Rayner.

Josie, thanks for coming in.

All of us, as always, we thank you for watching and we'll see you next week.

Support for Arkansas Week provided by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, The Arkansas Times and little Rock Public Radio.