The Arkansas Senate took barely 30 minutes to approve budget bills in batches this morning to complete its work in this year’s fiscal session.

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NEW SENATE LEADER: Jimmy Hickey.

Before adjourning, it met as committee of the whole to cast secret ballots on an election for the president pro tempore of the Senate in 2021 between Sens. Jimmy Hickey and Bart Hester.

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Hickey won. In emotional remarks, he said he’d work to bring the Senate together. “The ones who didn’t support me, that is 100 percent irrelevant at this point,” he said. “I love each and every one of you, and I will do the best I can for you.”

Hester spoke about a change in his behavior from his early pugnacious days in the Senate. He said he’d learned the value of mutual respect and unique perspectives. “If you will let me lead you, I promise you will be treated equally and fairly and when you’ve got something to say you will be heard.”

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Hickey said he’d sent a letter to senators that outline his ideas, but closed with a very brief talk. “I will try to do the right thing,” he said.

The vote was something of a surprise. Hester carried the Republican caucus vote and, by custom, the caucus lines up behind the winner. Not this time. Hester’s arrogance, despite his claim of having become a nice guy, left some ill feelings apparently. It seems unlikely that the small Democratic contingent would have supported him, given his many years of bullying gays, immigrants, minorities and Democrats. But with Republican defectors, they might have formed a winning bloc, which could prove useful now and then. Hickey has been a better friend of public schools, for one thing.

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The final adjournment was left open until Friday, April 24, in case any corrections are necessary.

In the course of tributes to senators who won’t be returning, Sen. Keith Ingram (D-West Memphis) noted that the legislature had finished in five days what usually takes 25 or 30. It raises again the notion of the necessity of a fiscal session, a product of a legislative ballot proposal that replaced the previous biennial sessions. It has moved the legislature toward being a full-time body, not a good thing in the eyes of some.

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The House, meeting at the Stephens Center at UA Little Rock, started a half-hour later and moved quickly as well, but the reluctance of a handful of right-wing representatives required full voice vote roll calls on several bills. Rep. Mary Bentley (R-Perryville), for example, didn’t want to vote for a bill including money for the state’s China business development. A few others didn’t want to vote on the Medicaid budget.

Rep. Matthew Shepherd (R-El Dorado) will get another term as House speaker.

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Gov. Asa Hutchinson at an earlier special session had been given authority over a pot of surplus money to deal with unexpected emergencies in the pandemic. The budgets approved today reflect a $200 million reduction from original budget forecasts pre-crisis. The governor has said the economic forecast is still a moving target. The legislature may be needed again. Sen. Jim Hendren mentioned that possibility at the close of the Senate session.

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