Arkansas Senate passes scores of measures in long floor session; key votes on PBM rules, recidivism, wind energy and kratom

Lede The Arkansas State Senate met in a lengthy floor session and approved a large number of bills and resolutions across health care, criminal justice, energy and budget items. Key outcomes included the passage of a pharmacy benefit manager licensing bill with an emergency clause, changes to the Medicaid appeals period, a new wind-energy regulatory framework, a set of recidivism-reduction measures, and a law to legalize and regulate kratom sales in the state.

Nut graf Lawmakers considered dozens of bills and several multi-bill budget packages. Many measures were passed by roll call; a handful failed or were re-referred. The session combined bills that generated floor debate (for example, wind-energy siting and an alcohol-shipping reporting requirement) with numerous technical or budget bills adopted by unanimous or near-unanimous votes. Below: a concise "Votes at a glance" roundup listing each recorded final action, vote tally and short description.

Votes at a glance (selected bills and outcomes) - Senate Bill 104 (pharmacy benefit manager licensing; emergency clause): Approved by roll call; tally 32 yes, 0 no, 3 present. Outcome: passed; emergency clause adopted. (Sponsor: Senator Penzo)

- Senate Bill 257 (Medicaid Fairness Act; appeal-period changes): Approved by roll call; tally 35 yes, 0 no. Outcome: passed. (Sponsor: Senator Penzo)

- Senate Bill 323 (Horizontal Property Act definitions): Approved by roll call; tally 34 yes, 0 no, 1 not voting. Outcome: passed. (Sponsor: Senator Bryant)

- Senate Bill 227 (Freedom of Information Act changes — public meetings): Approved by roll call; tally 34 yes, 1 no. Outcome: passed. (Sponsor: Senator Tucker)

- Senate Bill 437 (Arkansas Wind Energy Development Act): Approved by roll call; tally 29 yes, 1 no, 5 present. Outcome: passed. (Sponsor: Senator Hester)

- Senate Bill 439 (Department of Labor & Licensing duties cleanup): Approved by roll call; tally 35 yes, 0 no. Outcome: passed. (Sponsor: Senator Irvin)

- Senate Bill 447 (required reports by common carriers about alcohol shipments): Approved by roll call; tally 20 yes, 12 no, 2 not voting, 1 present. Outcome: passed. (Sponsor: Senator Petty)

- Senate Bill 475 (pharmacy services administrative organizations regulation): Approved by roll call; tally 34 yes, 0 no, 1 not voting. Outcome: passed. (Sponsor: Senator Dismang)

- Senate Bill 485 (recidivism-reduction provisions tied to sentencing, programs and quality-assurance units): Approved by roll call; tally 34 yes, 0 no, 1 present. Outcome: passed. (Sponsor: Senator Tucker)

- Senate Bill 516 (technical clean-up for judicial ballot titles): Approved by roll call; tally recorded as 33 yes, 0 no, 1 not voting, 1 present. Outcome: passed. (Sponsor: Senator Gilmore)

- Senate Bill 534 (Kratom Consumer Protection Act — legalize/regulate kratom): Approved by roll call; tally 24 yes, 5 no, 3 not voting, 3 present. Outcome: passed. (Sponsor: Senator Letting)

- Senate Bill 540 (rules for driver's-license restrictions after seizures): Approved by roll call; tally 32 yes, 0 no, 3 present. Outcome: passed. (Sponsor: Senator Mark Johnson)

- Senate Bill 562 (various internal-audit / TAP cleanup): Approved by roll call; tally 35 yes, 0 no. Outcome: passed. (Sponsor: Senator Hill)

- Senate Bill 565 (valuation/constitutional-method definitions for property tax): Approved by roll call; tally 29 yes, 1 no, 5 present. Outcome: passed. (Sponsor: Senator Petty)

- Senate Bill 567 (multistate apportionment cleanup): Approved by roll call; tally 35 yes, 0 no. Outcome: passed. (Sponsor: Senator Crowell)

- Senate Bill 611 (amendments to the Social Media Safety Act): Approved by roll call; tally recorded as 21 yes, 3 no, 7 not voting, 4 present. Outcome: passed. (Sponsor: Senator Deese)

- Senate Bill 354 (Department of Corrections capital appropriation / Calico Rock request): Failed on the floor; tally 19 yes, 10 no, 6 present. Outcome: failed. (Sponsor: listed in calendar)

- House Bill 1927 (technical date/emergency correction to earlier act): Approved by roll call; tally 34 yes, 0 no, 1 not voting. Outcome: passed; emergency clause adopted.

- Budget packets and batches: The Senate adopted a bundle of House budget appropriation bills (house budget batch) by roll-call, tally 35 yes, 0 no, and a group of Senate budget bills (senate budget batch) by roll-call, tally recorded as 34 yes, 0 no, 1 not voting. Outcome: budget appropriation batches approved and transmitted to the House as required.

- Procedural/other: A motion to re-refer Senate Bill 600 to Judiciary for amendment carried by voice vote. Several bills were withdrawn or sent to interim study or to engrossing for technical cleanup as noted on the calendar.

Context and what senators said Senators framed several bills as consumer-protection or data-collection efforts. Senator Petty described the alcohol-shipping reporting bill as a “data collection” measure to identify volume of shipments into Arkansas, saying, “All we're trying to do is identify that. And at that point, we can decide what we wanna do, after 2 years.” Senator Ledding (carrying the kratom bill) emphasized the public-health and harm-reduction intent; senators supporting recidivism bills described those measures as a multi-year, multi-agency effort to expand validated risk assessments, behavioral interventions and justice-system quality assurance.

Nuts-and-bolts follow-up - Several bills that passed with emergency clauses were sent for enrollment and transmittal to the House and, where appropriate, to the Governor. Where a bill passed with a roll-call tally recorded as "present" or "not voting," the chair noted those individual procedural statuses on the record. - The Department of Finance and Administration and affected agencies will publish implementation guidance as required by statute or rule changes; some bills (for example, Medicaid reimbursement rules and PBM licensure) will require department rulemaking or administrative implementation steps.

Ending The Senate paused after the budget votes to take a short administrative recess and planned to continue supplemental and House third-reading business later in the day. Several bills that were amended on the floor were sent to engrossing for technical corrections before final enrollment and transmittal to the House.