Lawmakers moved quickly Monday afternoon toward approving a Game and Fish Commission appropriation bill, one of the reasons for this week’s special legislative session.
Ben Gilmore
Posted inArkansas Blog
Corrections board member accused of covering up child abuse must go, lawmakers say
The messaging today from Republican lawmakers sounds as if it’s an effort to get on the same page as the governor.
Posted inArkansas Blog
The queen’s gambit: Gov. Sanders and Co. play political games with overcrowded prisons
The governor’s plan to add more people to existing prisons, regardless of capacity or prison staffing, has her at loggerheads with the state Board of Corrections.
Posted inArkansas Blog
Allegations against Ark. corrections board member raise questions for Gov. Sanders’ father — and Trump
Do Republicans calling on Alonza Jiles to resign over allegations he knew about sexual assaults at the Lord’s Ranch believe Ted Suhl, a Huckabee family favorite, is guilty?
Posted inCover Stories
Making Arkansas worse again
A pliable legislature stomped on the poor, indulged the rich and threw teachers, librarians, children and trans people under the bus, all because the MAGA governor told them to.
Posted inArkansas Blog
Bill to further embrace mass incarceration in Arkansas clears the Senate
The Arkansas Senate quickly and overwhelming approved a plan to end or limit parole for serious crimes in Arkansas.
Posted inArkansas Blog
Senate committee advances lock-’em-up criminal justice bill
Already with one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, Arkansas appears poised to become even more of an outlier as lawmakers embrace incapacitation as a guiding principal for the criminal justice system.
Posted inArkansas Blog
Gov. Sanders names new state drug czar, blames Biden for opioid deaths
A new drug czar, former federal DEA officer Tom Fisher, will coordinate the state’s drug enforcement strategy, Gov. Sarah Sanders announced Friday. And legislation is in the works to allow prosecutors to charge drug dealers with murder when people die from overdoses, and to seek longer sentences and large fines for drug traffickers.
Posted inArkansas Blog
Disdain and ignorance on display as Arkansas senators sneer at trans community, vote to further criminalize medical care
Republican lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee, all of them white men, compared gender-affirming care to frontal lobotomies and child abuse.
Posted inArkansas Blog, News
Leaning into mass incarceration in Arkansas
Arkansas Republican leaders are poised to lock people up longer and build more prisons.