by Ainsley Platt, Arkansas Advocate
April 4, 2025

The state prisons board on Thursday approved sending out a request for general contractors to submit proposals to build a new prison in Franklin County.

According to documents provided to the board, the Department of Corrections will begin advertising the request on April 8, with a deadline for submitting proposals on April 22. 

The department is aiming to receive approval from the Division of Building Authority in June. Also in June, the department plans to bring the project to the Arkansas Legislative Council for review.

Early sitework is proposed to start in September, with the start of construction for the planned 3,000-bed prison in January 2026. 

The board also voted to appoint an executive committee to review the proposals and oversee the overall design process for the prison.

The executive committee will have “approval and decision-making authority” in the interest of making decisions about the proposed prison “expeditiously,” according to documents provided by the board.

“These decisions will not carry cost impacts until we have designed to the approved budget,” a document about the committee read. Department of Corrections spokesperson Rand Champion said committee members would be selected later.

Arkansas Senate rejects prison appropriation bill for second time

The committee will submit the designs for each design phase to the Board of Corrections for approval. Once the budget is finalized, any changes that would impact the cost by more than $250,000 would require additional approval from the board, something that board chair Benny Magness expressed satisfaction with.

“That’s more than adequate to me,” Magness told officials from Vanir Construction Management Inc., which the board retained to oversee the firm selected to build the prison.

The board did not spend long discussing the prison, but briefly talked about utilities — specifically, how drinking water and wastewater service would be established for the prison, which is proposed for a rural part of Franklin County. Opponents of the prison site have criticized its selection for a lack of adequate infrastructure.

Vanir officials discussed potentially building pipelines to bring in drinking water from Fort Smith; a wastewater pipeline is receiving similar consideration. Meetings with the city of Fort Smith about the matter would be happening on Friday, said Mike Beaber, the regional director for Vanir. Being able to pipe wastewater to Fort Smith instead of building a treatment facility on-site would allow builders to “put that money back into” the prison.

“Nothing is off the table,” Beaber said.

A $750 million appropriation bill needed to fund the prison’s construction failed to pass the state Senate for the third consecutive day Thursday.

In addition to the Franklin County prison, the board also raised the budget of a bed expansion at a work-release unit in Mississippi County by $4 million, which brought it up to $6.3 million. It had originally approved a $2.3 million budget in 2022, but multiple changes in the design have led to delays. The original budget called for adding 50 beds; the project now calls for 100 beds.

“We’ve still done nothing?” Magness asked. A department official confirmed that was the case.

Now, the estimated cost of the planned expansion is $5.6 million.

Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.

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by Ariana Figueroa, Arkansas Advocate
April 3, 2025

WASHINGTON — Amid dozens of injunctions placed against the Trump administration, Republicans on the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary discussed a bill Wednesday to curb the nationwide effects of those orders from federal judges.

The bill, sponsored by GOP Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, who leads the committee, would prohibit district court judges from issuing injunctions that have nationwide effects.

“We all have to agree to give up the universal injunction as a weapon against policies we disagree with,” Grassley said. “The damage it causes to the judicial system and to our democracy is too great.”

As of Friday, 39 judges who were appointed across “five different presidents and sitting in 11 different district courts across seven circuits” have ruled against the Trump administration, said one of the witnesses, Stephen Vladeck of Georgetown University Law Center.

President Donald Trump and Republican allies in Congress have complained that such injunctions give judges in single districts too much power to stymie the administration’s agenda.

Trump has also taken to social media to attack the judges, especially one who temporarily barred use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to quickly deport Venezuelan nationals.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota said Tuesday that Republicans are considering Grassley’s bill, but did not commit to bringing it to the floor for a vote.

House Republicans have introduced a similar bill.

Senate Democrats criticized the hearing and argued that the reason there are so many injunctions against the president’s executive orders is because they are unconstitutional.

The top Democrat on the committee, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, pointed to the several nationwide injunctions against Trump’s executive order to end the constitutional right to birthright citizenship, which the administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court in an emergency request to reverse.

Republicans see abuse

Republicans characterized the flurry of injunctions against administration actions as judicial activism.

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said the injunctions were unprecedented.

Hawley called the rulings from district courts a “pattern of abuse.” He added that it’s not only being done with nationwide injunctions, but with temporary restraining orders.

Florida Sen. Ashley Moody also took issue with temporary restraining orders, which generally are not appealable.

“There is keen interest in making sure our judiciary system remains impartial and that it is making rulings only in terms of relief to the parties before it and that we are encouraging expeditious resolution of these extraordinary important matters,” Moody said.

Criticism sparks threats, Dems say

Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island raised concerns about the increased threats of violence aimed at judges.

Whitehouse said the reaction from Republicans about preliminary injunctions against the Trump administration puts those judges and their families at risk.

“The discomfort to fury…about decisions against the Trump administration may actually have a lot to do with the unprecedented lawlessness and lawbreaking of the Trump administration rather than a weird cabal of judges trying to intrude,” Whitehouse said.

Klobuchar said that Trump has attacked judges on social media and has posted images of himself wearing a crown.

“We do not live in a kingdom,” she said. “It is important that we not lose sight of the underlying cause of these injunctions. It is not that these judges are ‘crooked’ or ‘lunatics’ or ‘evil.’ Those are words used by the president, it is because the administration is violating the constitution.   

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on March 18 issued a rare statement, pushing back against Trump’s suggestion that a judge who issued an injunction against an administration order face impeachment.

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

Jennifer Shutt contributed to this story. 

Last updated 4:46 p.m., Apr. 2, 2025

Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.

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by Tess Vrbin, Arkansas Advocate
April 2, 2025

The Arkansas Senate narrowly endorsed the elimination of the Arkansas State Library on Wednesday, but the bill did not receive enough support to go into effect July 1 if it becomes law.

Senate Bill 536 would transfer the authorities, funds, contracts and employees of the agency and its board to the Arkansas Department of Education. The State Library is already under the department’s umbrella but operates independently, and its board disburses state funds to public libraries on a quarterly basis.

Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Jonesboro, is the bill’s sponsor and has repeatedly promised to dissolve the State Library Board. Sullivan broadened his intention to dissolve the entire State Library last month after he said the board did not satisfy the conditions he gave them for its survival.

Most laws go into effect 90 days after the end of a legislative session, around Aug. 1, but SB 536 had an emergency clause that would have allowed it to go into effect July 1. This provision was one of many aspects of the bill that library directors opposed Tuesday before it passed the Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs.

Misty Hawkins, regional director of the Arkansas River Valley Regional Library System, said it would be impossible to rework the interlocal agreements in the four counties she serves within three months to account for the language of SB 536. Several library systems in Arkansas encompass multiple counties.

Emergency clauses need the support of two-thirds of lawmakers, which is 24 votes in the Senate. SB 536 instead received 18 votes, the minimum for a simple majority.

Republican Sens. Breanne Davis of Russellville and Bryan King of Green Forest joined five of the six Senate Democrats in voting against the bill. Sen. Stephanie Flowers, D-Pine Bluff, and Sen. Kim Hammer, R-Benton, were absent. Three Republicans voted present and five did not vote.

The Senate subsequently approved a clincher motion from Sullivan with a voice vote. A clincher prevents a bill from receiving another vote in the applicable chamber, so the House will consider SB 536 without its emergency clause.

Hawkins and three other library directors said Tuesday that SB 536 might cost them the state funding they need to operate their libraries. The bill’s criteria for receiving state funds include “prohibit[ing] access to age-inappropriate materials to a person who is sixteen (16) years old or younger.”

One-room libraries do not have segregated spaces to ensure that children under 16 cannot access specific material, and SB 536 says the Department of Education “may” disburse funds to libraries that meet the proposed criteria but does not mandate it, the library directors said. Sen. Clarke Tucker, D-Little Rock, repeated these concerns on the Senate floor Wednesday.

SB 536 defines “age-inappropriate material” as “books, media, or any other material accessible at a public library containing images or explicit and detailed descriptions” of sexual acts, sexual contact and human genitalia.

The State Library Board approved a motion at a special meeting March 13 to create “non-binding policies to protect children” while honoring First Amendment freedoms and libraries’ material selection policies. Sullivan had asked the board to pass a motion to protect children in libraries and to detach from the American Library Association; the board rejected two separate motions to these ends.

Sen. Terry Rice, R-Waldron, said he also asked State Library Board members to ensure that libraries keep inappropriate content away from children.

“It’s time for drastic things to happen if this incompetent bunch is going to continue to put our children at risk,” Rice said. “There’s going to be fallout, but we’ll fix the fallout.”

Tucker said the Legislature has the authority to reconstitute the State Library Board instead of dissolving it and its parent agency if lawmakers are dissatisfied with its actions or inactions.

Library directors and State Library Board members have repeatedly said, including at Tuesday’s committee meeting, that libraries already organize books on shelves in an age-appropriate manner in accordance with existing standards.

The location and availability of books based on “appropriateness” for minors was the thrust of Act 372 of 2023, also sponsored by Sullivan. The law would have given local elected officials the final say over whether to relocate challenged library materials some consider “obscene” and made librarians legally liable for disseminating such materials.

A federal judge temporarily and later permanently blocked portions of Act 372; Attorney General Tim Griffin appealed the ruling in January.

Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.

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