Page notes success in legislative sessions
- Apr 19, 2007 - comment
Baptists and other Arkansans concerned about moral and ethical issues faced by the 86th General Assembly of the Arkansas Legislature can celebrate more victories than losses, according to Larry Page, executive director of the Arkansas Faith and Ethics Council (AFEC).
Voters will not have to face a vote on a state lottery or casino gambling. The initiative proposing a constitutional amendment to establish a state lottery was not recommended by the Joint Committee on Constitutional Amendments. Contacts to legislators made by Baptists, AFEC and others likely impacted the outcome.
A proposed bill, HB 2242, on local option elections also died in the House Rules Committee. The bill’s objective was to make it easier to call local option elections to determine the dry/wet status of a county.
“Passage of HB 2242 could have led to the conversion of most of this state’s 42 dry counties to wet ones within five years,” Page said. “As it stands now, most, if not all, of those counties will remain dry.”
The legislature passed a bill regulating sexually-oriented businesses. The new law, Act 387, requires that sexually-oriented businesses not be located within 1,000 feet of a childcare facility, park, church, playground, public library, recreational area, residence, school or other locations frequented by children.
Page called it “a good first step toward dealing with obscenity-related businesses like adult book stores. … Licensing and zoning ordinances and the enforcement of criminal statutes dealing with obscenity-related offenses are still the most effective ways to deal with those obnoxious businesses, but Act 387 is a firm step in the right direction.”
Another new law requires merchants to have “blinder racks” that cover the lower two-thirds of the covers of pornographic magazines they display in their establishments, preventing unwanted exposure to nudity depicted on the covers of such publications.
Another new law regulates charitable bingo, which voters approved in the November 2006 general election.
“We campaigned against passage of the amendment, but the voters chose to go the other way,” Page explained.
But the new bill controls and tracks raffles and bingo games. Page said if it is enforced, it will prevent large commercial bingo enterprises from springing up. It also assures charitable bingo will be conducted by bona fide charitable organizations operated by unpaid volunteers and actually used for charitable causes.
Another bill defeated would have permitted the shipment of wine into Arkansas from outside the state.
“The integrity of dry counties would have been severely damaged,” Page said, and “there would have been little or no opportunity to prevent underage persons from ordering and receiving wine they could order from out of state over the phone or internet.”
Among the “defeats,” Page notes the failure of a bill that sought to reinstate an Arkansas ban on gay foster and adoptive parents. It failed to win the approval of a House committee. The bill would have prevented gays and cohabitating couples from serving as foster or adoptive parents.
The AFEC also supported a bill that would have amended the law governing the ability of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board to grant private club permits. The bill failed.
“Had it become law,” Page said, it would have made it more difficult for restaurants in dry counties to receive private club status.”
Page also noted success in the fact that some issues failed to surface in the legislative body at all. These include casino gambling, a Mardi Gras bill to allow city councils to designate areas where alcoholic drinks can be carried openly outside, the medical use of marijuana and a push for local option elections allowing mixed drinks in restaurants.
Page said the legislative session “could well have been our most successful session ever. … Our victories far outnumbered our failures.”
He thanked Arkansas Baptists, especially churches and pastors, for their prayers, financial support and participation in contacting legislators. He encouraged follow up by thanking elected officials for their service.
This article is reprinted from the April 19, 2007, issue of Arkansas Baptist News, the newsjournal of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention.
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