Discussion for article #234917
How is that any different from a veto? Canāt the Legislature still make it a law with 2/3rds vote?
I must be honest: I did not expect this response from Gov. Hutchison. I sincerely hope the Arkansas legislature follows his advice.
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They will wait out the storm of outrage and then sneak it through as quietly as possible.
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Translation: āI heard from Walmart!ā
lmao
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Kind of a pseudo domino effect at play here, albeit a CYA move. But still a domino effect of the tipping point on this bullshit issue of āWe the victims of Teh Gays!ā Iād like to see all the laws in the other states revisited at some point and contested if they imply legislated discrimination as in Indiana.
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How does Arkansas law provide for āsending it backā vs. a bona fide veto? What is the difference?
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I doubt seriously there will be any more acquiescence on this issue. The toothpaste is out of the tube now on this one.
His veto can be overridden. Also, he is not directly on record for being pro-LGBT; e,g. a campaign ad: āhe vetoed legislationā¦ā is punchier than āhe asked the legislature to recallā¦ā
So what happens if the leaders of the general assembly decline his request to recall the bill (assuming itās even legal to do that)? Does the bill become valid without his signature? Does he veto it then? This sounds fishy at best, and I bet theyāre waiting for the Indiana to blow over (not realizing that then there wonāt be any distractions from their action).
this red state governor just obliterated the talking points the supporters of the Indiana law used to defend it to shreds. Indianaās law does not mirror the federal law just as Asa pointed out. I know Asa would have liked to sign the bill and would have had Indiana been able to pull off this sleigh of hand trick Pence and the redneck goons tried to pull. Now lets see what goobers on Fox have to say to this. How are they going to be able to say the bill mirrors the federal law when Asa says it doesntā¦Talk about blowin off both feet at onceā¦and to think Jeb Bush, who I actually respected at one time and thought him smarter than George has now gone on record supporting discrimination against gays and others who arent religious. And now I think George might have been the smarter one all alongā¦which is like saying Moe was smarter than Larry and Curlyā¦lol
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Funny enough, the one place the US Constitution just-barely-arguably āreflects Judeo-Christian valuesā is that the President has ten days to sign or veto a bill, but Sundays donāt count. If Arkansas is similar, that means if he doesnāt sign it, it will become law by default.
He is not vetoing, for the reasons I mention above. He is asking for the legislature to bail him out without him having to take a real stand.
Yep; I think Joshās article yesterday is spot on. The fact that even hardcore anti-gay conservatives are publicly trying to pretend these things donāt allow for discrimination and are slipping them in under the radar, and then backtracking when theyāre exposed, is a huge change. It will be interesting to see what the legislature does, after Georgiaās move to drop their bill entirely.
BTW, this article is mostly wrong about the Indiana bill, but itās interesting for maps that show thereās almost a perfect inverse relationship between RFRA laws (even non-discriminatory ones) and anti-discrimination laws. Only four states (CT, RI, IL, and NM) have both RFRAs and include LGBT people in their non-discrimination laws, while only nine states have neither.
Actually in Arkansas you only need more than 50% in the Legislature (this was pointed out yesterday by another person on here, and I checked and it was correct). But itās still a good move for him, and now if they just override him, the incumbents could lose votes in the next election. Iād wager to say the Legislature will reword the Bill.
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Yes, it can become Law with over 50% votes in Legislature. But Iād bet those clowns realize the mistake they made and will rewrite it.
The Arkansas Constitution allows him to send it back, heās merely making a request. They can then say we are not changing it, and then he will either veto or sign. My guess is they will rewrite it and then send it in for signature. But for now he can make the request to modify the Bill.
What the Governor said is even more significant than the decision itself. He made clear that state RFRA legislation in Arkansas and Indiana do not mirror the federal bill. He put the legislature on notice that they are making a decision about whether or not their bill sends the message of inclusion or exclusion in their State. Finally he raised the possibility opf executive order that places Governors in a position of more responsibility over ensuring that their states protect the rights of all on the basis of sexuality and gender identity/expression.
Whether it was because of his son Seth or his son Walmart, he laid down some pretty important markers for those of us in places like Georgia involved in fighting our own stateās discriminatory legislation.
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What I dislike is that these guys need to pass a bill, even though the Federal law is sufficient to accomplish their odious ends, because they need to prove to their base that they really, really hate gay people.
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This was actually rather crafty, but a huge gamble that all he didnāt do was kick the can down the road. By sending it back and not vetoing it he can avoid actually taking a stand against discrimination, thus preserving the religious bigot vote for him and put the public pressure on the legislators instead of him. However he even admitted he didnāt have any members lined up to change the bill, and tellingly refused to answer wether or not he would eventually sign it if the legislature made no changes and just sent it back in itās current form.
Having read thru the Arkansas Constitution, I think heās really doing a variation on the governorās power to effect a line-item veto.
44 of the states have constitutions that provide some form of line-item veto power. Some are broader than others; in some instances, the power is restricted to budgets, or even to certain categories of budget items. Some older ones - the one in Arkansas is largely unchanged since 1874 - allow, at least arguably, for a broader application.
The conventional view of a line-item veto is that itās a device to eliminate one or more parts of a passed bill without effecting a veto of the entire bill. Thus, a given bill, MINUS the items within it struck out by specifically citing them for veto, still goes into force as signed into law by the governor.
But it makes sense that a governor COULD determine that employment of the line-item veto power in the narrowest or strictest sense would have the effect of disturbing other parts of the bill to which the governor does not object and of which the governor does not wish to be understood as disapproving. There is a long-standing principle in interpreting legislation that courts should avoid absurd outcomes, with a companion principle or corollary that courts should strive to āsaveā laws where thereās any non-absurd constitutional power is being apparently exercised by those passing and signing them (principles under attack in King vs Burwell).
Absent a controlling precedent to the contrary, it would not be unreasonable to expect the Arkansas state supreme court to rule that what Governor Hutchinson has done here is a logical, even necessary, extension of the line-item veto power.
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