Arkansas General Assembly
General information
Type:	State legislature
Term limits:	16 years lifetime in the legislature
Session start:	January 14, 2019
Session end:	April 24, 2019
Website:	Official Legislature Page
Leadership
Senate President:	Tim Griffin (R)
House Speaker:	Matthew Shepherd (R)
Majority Leader:	Senate:Jim Hendren (R) House:Marcus Richmond (R)
Minority Leader:	Senate:Keith Ingram (D) House:David Whitaker (D)
Structure
Members:	35 (Senate), 100 (House)
Length of term:	4 years (Senate),2 years (House)
Authority:	Art 8, Section 3, Arkansas Constitution
Salary:	$39,400/year + $150/day
Elections
Last election:	November 6, 2018 Senate House
Next election:	November 3, 2020 Senate House
Redistricting:	Arkansas Legislature controls Congressional Redistricting, Board of Apportionment controls state legislative redistricting

Arkansas convened its legislative session on January 14, 2019, and legislators remained in session until April 24, 2019. Republicans had aveto-proof supermajority this legislative session, just as they did in2018. Following the2018 election, Republicans had a 26-9 majorityin the Senate and a 76-24 majorityin the House. The party also controlled the governorship, creating a Republicanstate government trifecta.

Click the links to read more about the 2020state Senate andstate House elections.
Click the links to read more about the 2018state Senate andstate House elections.

Partisan control in 2019

See also:State government trifectas

Arkansas was one of 22 Republicanstate government trifectas at the start of 2019 legislative sessions. A state government trifecta occurs when one political party holds the governor's office, a majority in the state Senate, and a majority in the state House. For more information about state government trifectas,click here.

Arkansas was also one of 22 state legislatures where one party had aveto-proof supermajority in both chambers. Veto overrides occur when a legislature votes to reverse a veto issued by an executive such as a governor or the president. If one party has a majority in a state legislature that is large enough to override a gubernatorial veto without any votes from members of the minority party, it is called aveto-proof majority or, sometimes, asupermajority. To read more about veto-proof supermajorities in state legislatures,click here.

The following tables show the partisan breakdown of theArkansas General Assembly in the 2019 legislative session.

Arkansas State Senate

From 1992 to 2018, the Arkansas Senate flipped from a 30-5 Democratic majority to a 26-9 Republican majority. The rapid partisan change in the chamber coincided with the American South's shift from nearly 175 years of Democratic dominance to being solid Republican in the early 21st century. The table below shows the partisan history of the Arkansas Senate following every general election from 1992 to 2016. All data from 2006 or earlier comes from Michael Dubin'sParty Affiliations in the State Legislatures (McFarland Press, 2007). Data after 2006 was compiled by Ballotpedia staff.

The chamber was in Democratic hands for every election between 1874 and 2012. The solid Democratic majority that arose after the Civil War and Reconstruction did not allow Republicans to gain more than two seats in the chamber until 1982. From 1914 to 1968, there were no Republican members of the chamber.

Even the years from 1992 to 2016 were mostly dominated by Democrats. There was very little partisan change in the chamber between 1992 and 2008, with Republicans gradually moving from five seats to eight seats. But despite the Democrats' long-standing dominance of the chamber, the transition in power came relatively fast. In the 2010 and 2012 elections, Republicans gained 13 seats and took control. The seven seat swing in 2010 and the six seat swing in 2012 were the two largest the chamber had seen since 1872, when Democrats reclaimed the chamber from Republicans empowered by Reconstruction. The 2014 and 2016 elections were comparatively calm, with Republicans gaining five seats between them. Still, even minor Republican gains helped to pad their majority and complete the chamber's transformation from Democratic to Republican dominance. The chamber's Republican gains from 2010 to 2016 were in line with a national trend toward Republican state legislatures during the presidency ofBarack Obama (D). From 2009 to 2017, Democrats experiencedlosses in state legislative elections, totaling 968 seats altogether.

Arkansas House of Representatives

From 1992 to 2018, the Arkansas House flipped from an 89 percent Democratic chamber to a 74 percent Republican chamber. The rapid partisan change in the chamber coincided with the American South's shift from nearly 175 years of Democratic dominance to being solid Republican in the early 21st century. The table below shows the partisan history of the Arkansas House following every general election from 1992 to 2016. All data from 2006 or earlier comes from Michael Dubin'sParty Affiliations in the State Legislatures (McFarland Press, 2007). Data after 2006 was compiled by Ballotpedia staff.

The chamber was in Democratic hands for every election between 1874 and 2012. The solid Democratic majority that arose after the Civil War and Reconstruction rarely wavered as it did not fall below 95 seats from 1900 to 1978.

The years from 1992 to 2016 marked a rapid decline of the Democratic Party in the Arkansas House and the rise of a new Republican majority. From 1992 to 2002, Republicans slowly chipped away at the Democratic majority, bringing it down to 70 seats. Democrats maintained a 71-28 edge over Republicans after the 2008 elections. This strong majority allowed them to withstand the 2010 elections, which delivered other southern Democratic strongholds—such as the Alabama Legislature—into Republican hands. Republicans took control of the chamber in 2012, winning a 51-49 majority. They expanded on their lead in the next two cycles, bringing the majority to 73-27 after the 2016 elections and completing the chamber's transformation from a Democratic stronghold to a Republican supermajority. The chamber's Republican gains from 2010 to 2016 were in line with a national trend toward Republican state legislatures during the presidency ofBarack Obama (D). From 2009 to 2017, Democrats experiencedlosses in state legislative elections, totaling 968 seats altogether.

Leadership in 2019

Arkansas State Senate

• Senate president:Tim Griffin (R)
• Majority leader:Jim Hendren (R)
• Minority leader:Keith Ingram (D)

Arkansas House of Representatives

• Speaker of the House:Matthew Shepherd (R)
• Majority leader:Mathew Pitsch (R)
• Minority leader:Michael John Gray (D)

Regular session

The following widget shows up to 25 pieces of legislation in the 2019 legislative session that most recently passed both chambers of the legislature, were signed by the governor, or were approved by the legislature in a veto override. This information is provided by BillTrack50.

Standing legislative committees

See also:Standing committee andList of committees in Arkansas state government

Astanding committee of astate legislature is a committee that exists on a more-or-less permanent basis, from legislative session to session, that considers and refines legislative bills that fall under the committee's subject matter.

At the beginning of the 2019 legislative session, there were43 standing committees in Arkansas' state government, including24 joint legislative committees,10 state Senate committees, andnine state House committees.

Joint legislative committees

Senate committees

House committees

Legislatively referred constitutional amendments

In every state but Delaware, voter approval is required to enact a constitutional amendment. In each state, the legislature has a process forreferring constitutional amendments before voters. In 18 states,initiated constitutional amendments can be put on the ballot through a signature petition drive. There are alsomany other types of statewide measures.

The methods by which the Arkansas Constitution can be amended:

See also:Section 22, Article 19, of the Arkansas Constitution andLaws governing ballot measures in Arkansas

TheArkansas Constitution provides two mechanisms for amending the state's constitution—a citizen-initiated process and a legislative process. Arkansas requires a simple majority vote (50% plus 1) for voters to approve constitutional amendments.

Initiative

See also:Initiated constitutional amendment

Aninitiated constitutional amendment is acitizen-initiated ballot measure that amends astate's constitution. Eighteen (18) states allow citizens to initiate constitutional amendments.

In Arkansas, thenumber of signatures required for an initiated constitutional amendment is equal to 10% of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election. Arkansas requires that a petition must contain qualified signatures equaling at least half of the required percentage of signatures (5%) from each of 50 of the state's 75 counties. A simple majority vote is required for voter approval.

Legislature

See also:Legislatively referred constitutional amendment

A simple majority vote is required during one legislative session for theArkansas State Legislature to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot. That amounts to a minimum of 51 votes in theArkansas House of Representatives and 18 votes in theArkansas State Senate, assuming no vacancies. Amendments do not require the governor's signature to be referred to the ballot.

Historical context:

• A total of48 measures appeared on statewide ballots in even-numbered years between 1996 and 2018.^[1]
• From 1996 to 2018, an average of four measures appeared on the ballot during even-numbered years in Arkansas.
• The number of measures appearing on even-year statewide ballots between 1995 and 2018 ranged from two to six.
• During even-numbered years between 1996 and 2018, 73% (35 of 48) of statewide ballot measures in Arkansas were approved by voters, and 27% (13 of 48) were defeated.

Public-sector union legislation

The following is a list of bills related to public-sector employee unions that were introduced in or passed by theArkansas State Legislature in 2019. To learn more about each of these bills, click the bill title. This information is provided byBillTrack50 andLegiScan.

Note: A blank list indicates that no bills relevant to public-sector union policy have been introduced in the legislature in 2019. This list will auto-populate with bills as they're introduced.

Staying on top of public sector union policy news in your state is easier with Ballotpedia.

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Historical partisan control

The table below depicts the historical trifecta status of Arkansas.

See also

Elections	Arkansas State Government	State Legislatures	State Politics
Arkansas State Senate elections, 2018 Arkansas House of Representatives elections, 2018	Arkansas General Assembly Arkansas House of Representatives Governor of Arkansas Arkansas Supreme Court	State legislative elections, 2019 State legislative special elections, 2019 State legislative elections, 2018 State legislative elections, 2016	State government trifectas State government triplexes Veto overrides in state legislatures State executives State courts Ballot measures

External links

• Search Google News for this topic
• Arkansas General Assembly homepage

Footnotes