LITTLE ROCK — The Legislature’s fiscal session is supposed to be all about the state budget, so much so that approval by a two-thirds majority in each chamber is necessary to even consider unrelated bills. But with other matters pressing, much of the pre-fiscal session debate this year centers on what type of non-budget bill is important enough to add to the fiscal agenda.
Sen. Jonathan Dismang, R-Searcy, and Rep. David Sanders, R-Little Rock, have filed identical resolutions asking the Legislature, which begins its fiscal session next week, to consider a bill that would give the Arkansas Parole Board authority to deny parole to people convicted of felony sex crimes.
Lawmakers were divided last week on whether the Legislature should allow the proposal onto the fiscal session agenda.
“I don’t disagree that this is a matter that needs attention … and I’m sure it will be duly scrutinized in the 89th General Assembly” in 2013, said House Speaker Robert S. Moore Jr., D-Arkansas City, who recently sent all House members an email saying he wants to them to stick to fiscal matters during this year’s session.
“The law Dismang and Sanders want to amend has been on the books since 1993,” Moore noted. “A very unfortunate circumstance recently occurred and this was responsive, obviously, to that … but we could easily turn this into a mini-regular session, and I don’t think that’s what the people of Arkansas expect us to do when we come back up here,” the House speaker said.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Former state Rep. Eric Harris, R-Lowell, who filed the legislation that later become Amendment 86 of 2008 mandating budget sessions in even-numbered years in addition to regular sessions in odd-numbered years, said last week he deliberately wrote the measure in such a way that lawmakers would have the option of adding non-budget items.
“I wanted the Legislature to have a little latitude so if there was something they needed to address they could, but I did not want to have a full-blown session every year,” Harris said. “That’s why (the vote) was so high because a lot of people were concerned that other bills would start squeaking in to the session.”
Harris declined to say whether he thought the sex offender proposal should be considered during this year’s fiscal session.
“If they can make their case to the full body and get enough support to bring it in then I feel like it’s probably an important matter,” he said.
Sanders and Dismang both said that they think their proposal is important enough to warrant consideration.
“One of the reasons we filed it early was so people could talk about it and make sure that it was going to rise to the level of concern needed to garner that much support,” Dismang said.
Dismang and Sanders filed their concurrent resolutions in the House and Senate last week after the state Parole Board granted parole to David Kent Pierce, a former church music minister who admitted in 2009 to sexual misconduct with members of a youth choir in Benton and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Some of the Parole Board members said later they did not have the authority to deny Pierce’s parole request because of a 1993 state law that took away the board’s discretion to deny parole to inmates except those convicted of certain offenses, including rape and murder.
Sexual misconduct with a child, what Pierce pleaded guilty to in Saline County Circuit Court, is not on the list of offenses.
“To me, the larger problem is that if we wait a year, then it’s a year more of convictions that will fall under the old law,” Dismang said.
“We have identified what is clearly a defect in the law related to mandatory parole for certain felony sex crimes,” Sanders said.
“The constitution allows for consideration of other things (in the fiscal session). It is a high threshold, but we think the seriousness of the problem and the specific nature of the policy certainly reaches that threshold,” he said.
Sen. Robert Thompson, D-Paragould, the Senate majority leader, isn’t so sure.
“I hate to say that I wouldn’t vote for it without reading it … but I can certainly tell that with me, it’s going to be a very high bar to vote for any non-fiscal matters,” Thompson said.
During the first-ever fiscal session in 2010, the Legislature did vote to consider two non-appropriation bills — to set lottery scholarship amounts and the Revenue Stabilization Act, which prioritizes government expenditures for the next fiscal year and bars deficit spending.
“Those are not technically appropriation bills, but they deal with fiscal matters,” Thompson said. The Legislature is expected to approve the RSA for consideration this session, he said, adding he does not think legislation dealing with lottery scholarship amounts will be considered.
“After visiting with other legislators, I think there is a general consensus to leave the lottery scholarship amounts where they are, take a wait and see approach, see what the revenues for the lottery are over the next year and then revisit the issue, if necessary, in the 2013 session,” Thompson said.
Sen. Gilbert Baker, R-Conway, said he supports the proposal by Dismang and Sanders and supports considering it during the fiscal session.
“I just think it’s important enough to deal with an issue like that,” he said.
Rep. Kim Hammer, R-Benton, also said the law should be revisited because the Parole Board needs to have more latitude. He said the Legislature should take up the issue during the fiscal session, in light of what happened in his home county.
“I would not want to be the one that would have to explain to somebody’s parents that their child was molested because we didn’t take it up as a matter of importance during the fiscal session. I would make an exception to the rule given the sensitivity of the issue.”