Senate panel advances bill to end affirmative action

The Arkansas Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee on Tuesday advanced a bill that is aimed at ending affirmative action programs in state and local government in Arkansas and giving state agencies two years to implement the bill.

In a voice vote with Sen. Clarke Tucker, D-Little Rock, dissenting, the Senate committee endorsed the latest version of Senate Bill 71 by Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Jonesboro, after three people testified against the bill.

A different version of the bill cleared the Senate committee Jan. 31 before the bill was further amended.

Sullivan told the Senate committee on Tuesday that immoral behavior will never justify another immoral act.

“If we agree that racism and carve outs are wrong, then we have got to stop that,” he said. “If one says ‘what is the end point to that?’ and we say, ‘well, the end point will come when no one is impacted,’ that is just never going to happen. Someone is always going to be impacted favorably and some disfavorably.”

Sullivan said nine other states have enacted similar laws and several other states are considering enacting similar measures. California enacted a similar law in 1996 and “the sky has not fallen in California over this,” he said.

Arkansas has a rich history of ending discrimination, Sullivan said, and has more minorities in state government among elected officials and employees and more Black mayors across the state.

“It is time we set that stake in the ground and say we are going to end state-sponsored discrimination,” he said.

But Tucker said, “We are better than this as a Legislature.”

“This is irresponsible governance,” he said. “We pass bill after bill after bill that is based in theory and we ignore what the reality is.”

Tucker said other states that have passed laws about affirmative action dealt with higher education admissions.

“They don’t have laws on the books that say what this bill says,” he said.

Tucker said the state’s Mosaic Templars Cultural Center is a museum about Black history in Arkansas that will cease to exist if the bill is enacted into law.

“We are going to kill a Black history museum in Arkansas because we want to ‘end state-sponsored discrimination,’” he said.

Tucker said there is going to be a demonstrable need on gender and race in Arkansas and “we are so far behind as a state in all of these areas.”

But Sullivan said state agencies will have two years to implement his bill.

“When we change this over, some of these programs that are government sponsored, people in need will still qualify,” he said.

“We can’t just say they no longer qualify when they have need,” Sullivan said.

Under the bill, “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, an individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in matters of state employment, public education or state procurement,” under a section of the bill which states that it would only apply to an action taken after the effective date of the measure.

The bill states this section of the bill does not prohibit the consideration by the state of bona fide qualifications based on gender that are reasonably necessary to the normal functions of state government, public education or state procurement; invalidate a court order or consent decree that is in force at the effective date of this measure; prohibit an action necessary to establish or maintain eligibility for a federal program if ineligibility would demonstrably result in a loss of federal funds to the state; or preempt state discrimination law or federal discrimination law.

Under SB71, a person who negligently violates this section of the bill would be guilty of a Class A misdemeanor.

All state agencies would be required to begin developing a plan to implement the bill immediately upon the effective date of the bill under the measure.

A cabinet-level department secretary would be in violation of the bill if the secretary fails to be in full compliance with the bill within 24 months of sine die adjournment of the 94th General Assembly’s regular session.

Anna Beth Gorman, chief executive officer of the Women’s Foundation of Arkansas, said the foundation invests heavily in helping female entrepreneurs and works with the Arkansas Economic Development Commission’s Minority and Women-owned Business Enterprise Division.

“I don’t think the state of Arkansas discriminates, but people do,” she said.

Among other things, Senate Bill 71 would eliminate the ability to address significant health disparities in the state, Gorman said.