The Arkansas Legislature will return from its extended recess on September 29, continuing the regular session of the 93rd General Assembly.

According to the schedule released by Senate President Pro Tempore Jimmy Hickey, the General Assembly will return to vote on redistricting before adjourning the 2021 session sine die.

After each census, the state redraws the boundaries for seats in the General Assembly as well as the boundaries of the districts for its seats in the United States Congress.

The legislative districts are decided by the Board of Apportionment, which consists of the governor, secretary of state, and attorney general. The board and its staff use census data to redraw the 100 districts of the Arkansas House of Representatives and the 35 districts of the Arkansas Senate so districts within each chamber represent roughly the same number of people.

Drawing boundaries for the state’s federal congressional districts is the responsibility of the General Assembly. The number of districts in the state will remain at four based on the population count from 2020, but the distribution of the population has shifted away from rural areas toward more urban areas.

A registered lobbyist who lobbies members of the General Assembly is required to file a monthly report due 10 days after the end of the month for any month the General Assembly is in session.

Hickey stated he hoped the General Assembly would continue for only three days, meaning the session will likely continue into the month of October. If the session continues into October, a monthly lobbyist activity report will be due November 10, which is 10 days after the end of the month.

In light of the devastation brought on by Hurricane Ida, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards ordered the delay of upcoming fall elections that featured important Constitutional questions statewide and municipal elections in New Orleans.

The October 9 primary election will be held instead on November 13 and the November 13 general election will be held on December 11.

The October 9 ballot was full of primaries for three legislative seats, along with the mayor, sheriff, assessor, and the seven city council members in New Orleans.

It also has four Constitutional amendments and a number of questions for locals around the state, such as a renewal of a property tax that funds the bus system in Baton Rouge.

The November 13 general election had been scheduled as runoffs for those contests not decided in the primaries.

Many parts of the state are still without power, some voting locations are damaged and a number of people are still displaced from their homes after Hurricane Ida.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has selected September 28 as the date of the House District 118 special election to replace former state Rep. Leo Pacheco.

Pacheco resigned effective August 19 to accept a position with San Antonio College.

House District 118 is in San Antonio and covers parts of Bexar County south and east of the city.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is calling state lawmakers back for a third special session on September 20 to begin redrawing legislative and Congressional districts.

Gov. Abbott also added other items to the agenda, including how to distribute federal pandemic aid and whether local governments can mandate the COVID-19 vaccine for employees.

The focus of the special session, however, will be squarely on redistricting, which occurs every 10 years after the release of new census data.

The state population grew by more than 4 million people since 2010. As a result, Texas gained two new Congressional seats and lawmakers must determine where to put them.

In addition, lawmakers will redraw their own Texas House and Senate districts to consider population growth and decline.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced on August 5 that a second special legislative session will begin at noon August 7 with an expanded agenda.

The 17-item agenda still includes well-known Abbott priorities like the election bill that caused House Democrats to flee the state at the start of the first special session, which ends August 6.

The special session also features six additions, including the spending of federal COVID-19 relief funds and potentially changing the legislative rules regarding quorums.

There is also a new item on public education during the pandemic, an increasingly salient issue as parents prepare to send their kids back to school with the virus on the rise again in Texas.

No adjournment date has been set yet for the second special session.

A Senate bill in Hawaii passed affecting the reporting of electioneering communications.

Senate Bill 404 provides persons, including corporations, making expenditures for electioneering communications in an aggregate amount of $1,000 instead of $2,000 during any calendar year must file reports within 24 hours of each disclosure date.

The bill also exempts communications that are actual expenditures of an organization from being considered electioneering communications and excludes candidate and candidate committees from the disclosure requirements.

The information is effective and applicable for the 2022 primary election.

A Texas House bill relating to restrictions on accepting political contributions has passed.

House Bill 2283 provides the joint elections commission, county election commission, and county election board may not accept a contribution of $1,000 or more, including the value of in-kind donations, offered by a private individual or a business entity, including a corporation, partnership, or trust, or another third party.

Under the bill, the joint elections commission, county election commission, and county election board may accept a contribution of less than $1,000 only with written consent from the relevant political subdivision.

The bill will take effect September 1.

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson reinstated the states’ general health emergency July 29 and called for a special legislative session to convene in the first week of August.

Hutchinson cited staffing shortages at hospitals along with the rising number of COVID cases.

His emergency directs the state to seek help from other states and to ease licensure rules for health care professionals. Huthcinson also contacted the White House for possible assistance.

The special session will amend Act 1002, which prohibits the state government from requiring face masks for most entities, including schools.

The Arkansas Legislature is currently in extended recess and is still considered to be in session for purposes of lobbyist activity reports. Lobbyists who are registered to lobby the General Assembly are required to file a monthly report for any month the General Assembly is in session.

The Hawaii State Senate will convene a special session Tuesday, July 27 to review judicial appointments.

The special session will only address the judicial appointments of Dan Gluck to the Intermediate Court of Appeals and Lesley Maloian to the District Family Court of the First Circuit.

The Senate will convene in a floor session on Wednesday, July 28 at 10 a.m. followed by a separate decision-making meeting of the Judiciary Committee at 10:30 a.m.

Final Senate votes on the appointments are expected on Thursday, July 29 at 11 a.m.

A lobbyist and employer activity report must be filed if expenditures or contributions are made relating to legislative action considered during the special session. Any such report would be due within 30 days of adjournment sine die of the special session covering the period from May 1 through the adjournment sine die date.

The Louisiana Legislature ended its first-ever veto override session July 23 after failing to gather enough support to overturn any of the 28 bills Gov. John Bel Edwards had vetoed.

During the session, which could have lasted until midnight July 24, lawmakers failed to reach the necessary two-thirds majority in each chamber to revive the vetoed legislation.

The most noteworthy proposal, Senate Bill 156, would have banned transgender athletes from taking part in girls’ and women’s sports.

The House voted 68-30 July 21 in favor of overriding the governor’s veto of the bill with two votes shy of the 70 needed to make the bill law.

This does not affect lobbyist reporting.

Louisiana lawmakers will convene for the first veto override session in history as the Republican-dominated Legislature plans to challenge Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’ vetoes on a transgender sports ban, a gun rights expansion and as many as 26 other vetoes.

The veto session, which will begin at noon July 20 and must end by midnight July 24, was triggered when a majority of legislators in both the House and Senate withheld their ballots that would have canceled the session.

Only 12 of 39 senators returned ballots to cancel, while 35 of 104 members of the House returned ballots to cancel. One seat is vacant in the 105-members House.

The most often mentioned targets for override have been Senate Bill 156 by Sen. Beth Mizell, R-Franklinton, to ban transgender athletes from competing on girls sports teams and Senate Bill Senate Bill 118 by Sen. Jay Morris, R-Monroe, to allow anyone 21 and older to carry a concealed firearm without a permit or training.

If any veto is overturned, the bill becomes law without the governor’s signature.

This does not affect lobbyist reporting.

Louisiana election officials have scheduled a special election November 13 for the District 102 seat in the Louisiana House of Representatives.

The seat became vacant after former incumbent Gary Carter Jr. was elected to the state Senate on June 12.

The primary is scheduled for October 9, and the filing deadline is on July 16.

The special session of the Hawaii Legislature adjourned sine die July 8, spanning a brief two days.

Lawmakers made several corrections to the state budget at the suggestion of Gov. David Ige and overrode six veto measures, including House Bill 53, the legal mechanism that authorizes the state government to borrow more than $1 billion in the next two fiscal years to fund construction projects.

The session end triggers a lobbyist and employer activity report due August 7, which is 30 days after adjournment sine die of the special session. The report will cover the period from May 1 through July 8 and applies to and includes only those expenditures and contributions relating to legislative action considered during the special session. Expenditures and contributions included in the report do not need to be included by the person filing the report in any subsequent statement of expenditures. 

High-ranking government officials in Hawaii will soon be subject to revolving door provisions after the passage of an ethics bills establishing clearer boundaries between government and private-sector lobbyists.

House Bill 0671 creates a 12-month cooling off period before government officials may be paid by private parties to lobby the Legislature or administrative agencies. The revolving door restriction applies to the governor, lieutenant governor, executive department heads, legislators and permanent legislative staff, and other high-ranking paid government officials.

The bill will become effective January 1, 2022, as it was not on Gov. David Ige’s Intent to Veto list.