By ANDREW DeMILLO | Arkansas Advocate
Known in legislative jargon as “special language,” the strings lawmakers attach to budget bills used to be a dirty little secret of the Arkansas Legislature. They were a way to sneak major policy changes in without the public noticing.
In an era of live-streamed hearings and social media tracking moves at the Capitol in real time, that language is no longer much of a secret. It’s harder to fold these provisions into bills without many people noticing.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not still a problem for the Legislature, especially during the abbreviated fiscal sessions that are meant to focus on the state’s budget.
In simple terms, special language refers to instructions lawmakers insert into bills often restricting how or when money can be spent. Sometimes, they can also take the form of specific policy.
Last week’s marathon session of the subcommittee that takes up these tacked-on instructions shows lawmakers still have work to do to rein them in. But it’s becoming more difficult to do so, with these attachments a workaround to the limits that were intended to keep fiscal sessions from blowing up into regular ones that take up a wider range of issues.
Among the most glaring examples were the proposals to effectively end the University of Arkansas’ King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies by cutting off its funding and to prohibit institutes of higher education from funding chapters of the Middle East Studies Association.
Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan pulled the proposals without seeking a vote on them. The proposals are part of increasing pressure by GOP leaders to dictate how the state’s colleges and universities are run. Sullivan indicated that the issue remains on his radar ahead of next year’s legislative session.
Several other proposals failed before the special language panel, including ones that dealt with the use of artificial intelligence for prescription renewals and an effort to block the salary of a Little Rock city director who hasn’t been attending board meetings.
When Arkansas voters in 2008 approved moving from the Legislature meeting every other year to annually, the argument was that lawmakers needed to be able to respond more quickly to changes in the economy. A two-year budget cycle made that more difficult, and the amendment was proposed after the Legislature had been regularly forced into special sessions over the years to respond to school funding litigation.
Special language already had a checkered history in the Legislature and played a role in the corruption scandal that ensnared former state Sen. Nick Wilson in the 1990s. Wilson, a longtime Democratic lawmaker, was charged with steering millions from state programs to enrich himself and others. He eventually pleaded guilty to racketeering.
But the use of special language to get around the fiscal session’s rules that non-budget items need a two-thirds vote in both chambers is a bipartisan problem. So are the complaints about its usage.
Former Gov. Mike Beebe raised concerns about special language when he vetoed a natural gas tax exemption that was attached to an agency’s budget bill in 2014. Lawmakers later overrode that veto.
Ironically, former Gov. Asa Hutchinson voiced worries about special language being used to craft policy. But he did so when he vetoed a budget provision that would have ended the state’s Medicaid expansion – language he had sought under an unusual parliamentary maneuver to save the program.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has seen other ways the budget process can be used as a political weapon, with the personnel subcommittee rejecting language that would have eliminated former Corrections Secretary Joe Profiri’s six-figure job as an adviser in her office. The effort grew from lawmakers’ frustration with Profiri not responding to questions before legislative panels.
Defenders of the special language process and its use during fiscal sessions say there are already safeguards in place against its misuse, noting that most budget bills require at least three-fourths approval of the House and Senate.
The challenge lawmakers face is where to draw the line. Lawmakers pushing for special language during the fiscal session argue their riders are still fiscal issues, even if they’re making major policy changes.
Those lawmakers argue some of these changes can’t wait, including the provision that’s aimed at assisting smaller, newly formed school districts.
For now, “special” remains in the eye of the beholder. In other words, lawmakers like special language when it’s their favored issue.
That’s a standard that can’t be sustainable if the Legislature wants to keep its attention during fiscal sessions strictly on the state’s budget.
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