Arkansas Politics

This year’s voting process has already experienced more turmoil than most previous elections. In response, the Democratic Party of Arkansas (DPA) announced Friday that it  created a voter protection hotline. 

Government spending and taxes emerged as main topics during a debate between candidates for Arkansas’ 3rd congressional district on Tuesday. 

Republican Congressman Steve Womack, the incumbent, spoke on his experience on the House Budget Committee and his vote for the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the economic impact he said it had.   

This week, Arkansas PBS will host several Congressional debates and a Senate forum. KUAR will also broadcast the debates at the same time they air on television.

The schedule for the taping and airing of Congressional debates begins on Monday afternoon when incumbent U.S. Rep. French Hill, R-Little Rock, takes on State Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, in their only head-to-head forum. The schedule is listed below.

Economic growth, police and conflict of interest polices were just some of the topics discussed during a forum between North Little Rock Mayoral Candidates Thursday night.

The digital forum, held by the League of Women Voters and the William F. Laman Library, featured all four mayoral candidates: Terry Hartwick, Alice Kunce, Debi Ross and Tracy Steele. Below are the candidates’ abridged answers. You can watch the forum here.

A state task force is recommending all Arkansas high schoolers be required to take a computer science course in order to graduate.

The state’s Computer Science and Cyber Security Task Force presented its final report of recommendations to Gov. Asa Hutchinson Thursday. Speaking with reporters at the state Capitol, Hutchinson said that would require every public high school to have a computer science teacher.

The 2nd Congressional District race between U.S. Rep. French Hill, R-Little Rock, and State Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, continues to offer the most fireworks and intrigue.

A new Talk Business & Politics-Hendrix College survey of 698 2nd Congressional District likely voters shows a virtual dead heat between incumbent GOP U.S. Rep. French Hill and his Democratic challenger, State Sen. Joyce Elliott.

2nd District voters are also favoring Joe Biden over President Donald Trump in the Presidential race.

The survey of 698 likely voters from Pulaski, Saline, Faulkner, White, Perry, Conway and Van Buren counties was conducted Sept. 4-9, 2020 and has a margin of error of +/-4.3%.

If the year 2020 has been a bad weather system, Gov. Asa Hutchinson has survived the storms — a pandemic storm, an economic storm, and a storm of civil unrest. Hutchinson, the two-term Republican governor, has a healthy job approval rating of 70%-26%, according to the latest Talk Business & Politics-Hendrix College survey of 698 likely 2nd Congressional District voters.

U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., was among 20 additional individuals named by President Trump as potential Supreme Court nominees at the White House on Wednesday.

U.S. Rep. French Hill, R-Little Rock, launched a new ad in his Second Congressional District re-election campaign that raps Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, for her votes on taxes, particularly a cell phone fee that partially funds 911 calls.

U.S. Rep. French Hill, R-Little Rock, debuted his first TV ad of his 2020 re-election bid on Tuesday.

The ad, “Together,” is an on-camera appeal from Hill discussing COVID-19 and his efforts to bring funding to Arkansas families and businesses for relief.

“I’m so proud to call Arkansas home and that feeling runs deep throughout Arkansas’s Second District,” Hill said in a press release for the ad. “When disaster strikes, like the global pandemic, that’s when the spirit of Arkansas is on full display. We have a resilient work ethic unlike any other.”

Arkansas state Sen. Joyce Elliott (D-Little Rock), the Democratic nominee for the state's Second Congressional District, released her first TV ad of the campaign cycle in her bid to unseat incumbent U.S. Rep. French Hill (R-Little Rock).

Rebecca O’Donnell pleaded guilty Thursday in the death of former Arkansas state Sen. Linda Collins and was sentenced to 50 years in prison. The plea deal includes charges of first-degree murder, abuse of a corpse and two no-contest pleas to solicit murder in Jackson County.

O’Donnell had worked for Smith in her business ventures and on political campaigns. Had she not accepted the deal, O’Donnell was facing a potential death sentence if the case went to trial. 

An Arkansas state senator is in the hospital after testing positive for the coronavirus.

Sen. Jason Rapert on Thursday said in a statement provided by the Senate that he was hospitalized after being diagnosed with pneumonia and testing positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The statement said Rapert was responding well to treatment.

Rapert is a 48-year-old Republican who has served in the Senate since 2011. Last year he announced he was seeking the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor in 2022.

The November election is less than four months away. In Arkansas, the marquee match up is for the second district congressional seat between incumbent U.S. Rep. French Hill, R-Little Rock and State Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock.  The seat continues to be one Democrats, despite falling short over the last decade, hope to reclaim.

The family of David Pryor, a former Arkansas governor and U.S. senator, says he's hospitalized in Little Rock after testing positive for COVID-19.

The family's statement said David Pryor and his wife Barbara Pryor both received positive test results Friday. Barbara Pryor, who didn’t have symptoms, is quarantining at home but David Pryor, who is 85 and a stroke and heart attack survivor, was admitted Saturday to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

If President Donald Trump decides to hold a campaign rally in Arkansas, the state will insist that all participants are socially distanced and wear masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Sunday.

Hutchison’s comments on NBC’s “Meet the Press” follow Trump rallies in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and at an Arizona megachurch, as well as an Independence Day celebration at Mount Rushmore, where most of the thousands of participants flouted public safety guidelines on maintaining a safe distance and wearing masks.

President Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., are struggling with independent voters in Arkansas less than five months before Election Day.

A new survey from Talk Business & Politics-Hendrix College shows that Trump and Cotton have negative job approval ratings with voters, with independents giving them low marks by a double-digit margin. The poll was conducted Tuesday, June 9 and Wednesday, June 10, of 869 statewide likely voters and has a margin of error of +/-3.3%.

A judge has ruled that a group seeking to create a voter-approved commission to redraw Arkansas’ legislative and congressional lines after each census doesn’t have to collect signatures in person but also can’t use electronic signatures and must abide by the state’s July 3 deadline.

U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes III issued a preliminary injunction May 25 barring the enforcement of a state law requiring signatures to be witnessed in person and also said canvassers don’t have to sign an affidavit with a notary present.

Arkansas lawmakers concluded the biennial fiscal session in less than two weeks, passing a $5.89 billion budget with significant cuts to most state agencies. The Senate also selected a new leader for the chamber.

With social distancing requiring legislators to conduct business in the Senate chamber and gallery as well as the Jack Stephens Center at the University of Arkansas Little Rock, it was anything but business as usual.

The first extraordinary session of the 92nd General Assembly was rather ordinary in its business, but extraordinary in its setting.

Arkansas lawmakers wrapped up a three-day special session to create a COVID-19 Rainy Day Fund. The funding mechanism will collect money from a variety of surplus and discretionary state accounts and be available to handle special money from the federal government, if necessary.

While Congress has already taken steps to address the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., Rep. French Hill, R-Little Rock, said more help will be on the way.

A proposal has been filed in Arkansas that would create a new nine-member independent commission to redraw the state's congressional and legislative districts.

Arkansas Voters First on Thursday filed the proposed amendment to the state's constitution that the group hopes to get on the ballot this fall. The group must submit nearly 90,000 signatures from registered voters by July 3 to qualify the measure for the ballot.

Arkansas' legislative districts are redrawn by a panel comprised of the governor, attorney general and secretary of state.