More political games

Lawmakers use authority in attempt to punish court

After elections, governing is supposed to displace politics. A legislative power play in Little Rock suggests that isn’t happening.

Republican lawmakers, led by Rep. Bob Ballinger, R-Hindsville, held up the budget of the Arkansas Supreme Court last week.

It is an $11 million budget for the upcoming fiscal year. And it is the lawmakers’ responsibility to oversee all elements of the state budget.

The problem here is the holdup appears not to be about the budget itself so much as it is about some lawmakers’ objection to the way the court did its job this year.

Sen. Trent Garner, R-El Dorado, had said in October that there would be “consequences,” beginning with the budget, after the Supreme Court stopped votes from being counted for and against Issue 1.

The proposed amendment to the state Constitution would have limited monetary awards in civil trials, capped attorneys’ fees in contingency cases and allowed the Legislature to write rules for the courts.

Ballinger, chief House sponsor of Issue 1, led the budget challenge on Thursday.

After the meeting Garner tweeted that the Legislature was taking steps to “hold our Supreme Court accountable.”

The court’s rejection of the proposed constitutional amendment made total sense. The Legislature had so packed the proposal that the court necessarily found it to carry unrelated elements. It was a bad amendment.

The Legislature may refer a limited number of amendments each general election. But the Constitution prohibits putting unrelated changes within a single amendment.

The Legislature went too far in drafting Issue 1 and now lawmakers are apparently retaliating against the court for calling the Legislature out. This isn’t governing. This is politics.

S••• peaking of amendments, how about the one Arkansans passed two years ago allowing the cultivation, sale and use of medical marijuana?

Two long years later, implementation is seemingly stuck.

There has been nothing but controversy first over the selection of a handful of cultivators who will grow the plants. Now the process to name dispensaries is dragging along.

Last week, a consultant hired to score applications put a mid-December estimate on completion of the grading process.

The aim is to have some dispensaries open by the end of March.

The vote to approve medical marijuana was in November 2016.

That’s a long time for the Arkansans who need the drug to have had to wait to be able to get it legally.

A••• nother 3,800 Arkansans are going into the holiday season without Medicaid coverage.

That’s the latest round of cuts that have now put more than 12,000 of the state’s residents off health insurance.

They lost coverage because of a state work requirement for enrollees in the Medicaid expansion program known as Arkansas Works.

This is the program that requires enrollees to report their hours of work or other approved activities to a state website, to which not all have easy access.

Even the feds have urged a temporary stop to its enforcement.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson has said there wouldn’t be an Arkansas Works program without the work requirement. He couldn’t have passed it through the Legislature.

Well, governor, the people gave you a mandate with your 65.37 percent re-election win. Use it to fix this threat to so many Arkansans’ health coverage.