Arkansas

A federal judge said he will decide soon whether to block implementation of a new state law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools, following a nearly nine-hour hearing Friday.

Act 573 of 2025 requires that “a durable poster or framed copy of a historical representation of the Ten Commandments” be “prominently” displayed in public school classrooms and libraries, public institutions of higher education, and public buildings and facilities maintained by taxpayer funds.

Saltwerx, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil, applied for the royalty last month, just days after the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission approved an identical royalty for Standard Lithium and Equinor’s joint venture.

Exxon’s newly-approved royalty rate — 2.5% — and the broader royalty payment structure are identical to Standard Lithium’s. Much of the language in the application itself was also identical.

There is a new grant opportunity for those in Pulaski County looking to establish a community garden or build up their backyard farm.

The ‘micro grants’ are available from the Central Arkansas Sphinx Foundation in amounts between $4,000 and $8,000. Grant Writer Kalven Trice says the grants can be used by many groups.

After 13 years, large-scale swine farms are banned — permanently — within the Buffalo River watershed, ending a saga that started when Arkansas environmental regulators quietly approved a general water permit for C&H Hog Farms in 2012.

The Arkansas Legislative Council reviewed and approved the regulations containing the so-called permit moratorium during its Friday meeting without discussion. It marked the culmination of over a decade of efforts from environmental advocates and their allies to prevent a similar large-scale swine farm, known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) from taking root in the watershed. The moratorium specifically applies to medium and large swine CAFOs that meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s definition.

The Arkansas attorney general has filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit aimed at blocking the mandate to display the 10 Commandments in classrooms.

The motion was filed Tuesday in the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas in Fort Smith. It cites the public interest as the reason for intervention and states that the legal prerequisites for its intervention request are met.

The suit claims Act 573 violates the First Amendment’s establishment and free exercise clauses. Plaintiffs request a preliminary injunction to prevent the law from taking effect before the court case is completed.

The American Civil Liberties Union plans to challenge a new Arkansas law requiring Ten Commandments displays in public buildings.

Act 573 was passed by the Arkansas Legislature earlier this year. The law mandates a framed copy of the Ten Commandments be hung in all public buildings, including school classrooms. The ACLU is suing four Northwest Arkansas school districts, and not the state specifically, because Act 573 assigns enforcement to local school officials rather than a state agency.

The suit argues that the law promotes a Protestant version of the Ten Commandments and sends a message that students who don’t share those beliefs are outsiders in their own schools. Joining the suit are families of public school students in Northwest Arkansas. Some plaintiffs are Jewish or non-religious, while one family is Unitarian Universalist.

[Josh Duggar] cited “new legal theories and strategies [that] have emerged in public discourse” in documents that were filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas on Tuesday.

The language in the proposal serves to simplify the rules. It would also require changes to the process be made by the people of Arkansas and not the legislature.

The grassroots amendment process is promised in the state constitution, but many state legislators think the process is too easy. They have worked to pass laws further regulating each step.

Legislation that looks to abolish an Arkansas commission and board cleared its first major hurdle on Monday.

Senate Bill 184 would abolish the Arkansas Educational Television Network (AETN) commission and the state library board. It cleared the Senate Monday in a 23-8 vote and is headed to the House.

The legislation is sponsored by Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Jonesboro) and Rep. Wayne Long (R-Bradford). It is co-sponsored by Rep. Stephen Meeks (R-Greenbrier).

In November 2024, former Arkansas senator and current Arkansas State Library Board member Jason Rapert called for the library board to be dissolved due to its failure in “protecting children from sexually explicit materials.”

A bill introduced in the Arkansas legislature would end the state’s ability to hold moratoriums on permits along the Buffalo River and other watersheds.

If Senate Bill 84 becomes law, it will end the state moratorium on issuing, for example, confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) permits along the Buffalo River watershed.

The state currently maintains a temporary moratorium on issuing new permits for medium and large CAFOs along the Buffalo. The Department of Environmental Quality initiated the moratorium in 2014 after environmental concerns about the waste generated by a large-scale hog farm near the river. The farm closed in late 2019 when the state purchased its assets.

An Arkansas state representative filed a resolution Wednesday to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”

If approved, State Rep. Aaron Pilkington’s resolution would also require all state agencies to use the term “Gulf of America.”

The Republican, who represents parts of Johnson and Pope counties in northwest Arkansas, said renaming the gulf would “reinforce the role it plays in supporting the prosperity and security of the United States.”

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders ordered that Arkansas flags and United States flags at state buildings be raised to their full height on Jan. 20 for President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Flags were previously ordered to half-staff until Jan. 28 by President Joe Biden in honor of former President Jimmy Carter after his death on Dec. 29.

A federal judge on Monday struck down key parts of an Arkansas law that would have allowed criminal charges against librarians and booksellers for providing “harmful” materials to minors.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks found that elements of the law are unconstitutional.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/22314576

Summary

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders proposed a $6.5 billion budget for the next fiscal year, with half of the $182.5 million spending increase allocated to a school voucher program.

The plan boosts funding for private and home-school expenses to $187 million and sets aside $90 million in reserves for the program.

Critics warn the program could divert resources from public schools, potentially leaving them underfunded as voucher costs grow

The budget also includes $13 million for maternal health, $50 million for corrections, and $3 million to raise state employee pay, but some lawmakers criticized reliance on one-time funds.

Bills filed in the Arkansas legislature on Wednesday would repeal the requirement for fluoride in the Natural State’s drinking water.

Senate Bill 2 would repeal Arkansas Code § 20-7-136 that mandates the use of fluoride and places the Department of Health in charge of setting limits. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Clint Penzo (R-Springdale) and Sen. Bryan King (R-Green Forest), with cosponsors Rep. Matt Duffield (R-Russellville) and Rep. Aaron Pilkington (R-Knoxville).

As of 11:47 CT, Baker is beating Wood for Chief Justice.

For anyone that was following the abortion measure that got removed from the ballot, Baker wrote the minority opinion that normal procedure is for clerical issues to be fixed and that the measure should be allowed to continue. Wood wrote the majority opinion that it needed to be removed because rules are rules.

Issue 1 passed by a large margin, allowing lottery scholarships to be given at vocational and tech schools.

Issue 2 passed by a somewhat close margin, blocking the casino from opening in Pope County. Of note, Pope County voted a majority against this measure. This is notable because part of the explanation for the measure was Pope County previously voting against the casino.

Nearly 5,000 students who received vouchers in Year One continued into Year Two of the program. They were joined by more than 9,000 new enrollees who joined the program this year, for a total enrollment of 14,297. As with Year One, the overwhelming majority of the new enrollees — 83% — did not attend public school in the prior year.

Either way, the program has to date mostly provided vouchers to students who are not moving over from public schools. These results fit a consistent pattern in other similar statewide voucher programs nationwide. Most of the public cash doled out winds up boosting the bank accounts of families who were never in the public school system to begin with.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/30511343

A doctor who had confirmed the diagnosis was apologetic but insistent: the state’s laws meant he could be fined or jailed if he performed an abortion. In the wake of the US supreme court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v Wade, Arkansas activated a so-called trigger law that made all abortion illegal except if a woman was in an acute medical emergency and facing death. There are no other exceptions: not for rape victims, minors or fatal fetal anomalies.

A failed petition to ban voting machines in Saline County has been referred to an ethics committee after issues were found with the way signatures for the petition were collected. Members of the Arkansas Legislature made the decision Monday at a Joint Performance Review Committee Meeting.

The ballot measure would have mandated votes in the county be made without a machine and counted by hand. Restore Election Integrity Arkansas is led in part by Col. Conrad Reynolds, who told Little Rock Public Radio before that he does not trust voting machines.

Reynolds has said voting machines could be flipping votes to select more moderate Republicans over more conservative candidates. Little Rock Public Radio has not been able to verify these claims, and critics of hand counting say its expensive, costly and prone to error.

The legislators brought up a Facebook post by a man named Joshua James, whose profile says he lives in New Mexico. James posted on Facebook in July “The Arkansas PAPER BALLOT initiative is in need of 15-20 full time signature gatherers for 2 weeks.”

My personal favorite part :

The legislative committee Monday also alleged that canvassers or representatives from the group may have been altering documents. Under each signature page the canvassers collected, the address was blacked out and replaced with the same Conway hotel address. Two notaries testified that they did not see the alterations to the documents when they notarized them.

Sen. Jonathan Dismang, R-Beebe, called the situation ironic since the argument for paper ballots is that they are more secure : “The same group that wants paper ballots is okay with altering notarized documents before submission.”