House Speaker Robbie Wills told House members today that details of the scholarship portion of the draft lottery bill may be discussed in a committee meeting Wednesday. 

Wills says a joint meeting of the House Rules Committee and the Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs has been tentatively set for Wednesday afternoon, upon adjournment of both chambers, to discuss the lottery bill, which is still under construction. 

“We are working throughout the day and night and most of the day tomorrow preparing that, so please be on standby. We will confirm that 100 percent during the session tomorrow,” Wills announced during today’s House session.

The committees met last Wednesday to discuss the portion of the bill concerning the structure of the lottery.

A freshman House member moved today for a special House session on Friday to discuss the lottery, but House Speaker Robbie Wills refused to recognize the motion.

Rep. John Burris, R-Harrison, made the motion on the floor during today’s House session. He said later he believes the time has now come, after weeks of work by select groups of legislators, for the House as a whole to discuss the lottery.

Wills said he denied the motion because he does not believe a special session of the entire House is necessary at this time. He said he spoke to freshman House members in detail about the lottery on Monday, and the House Rules Committee and the Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs will meet jointly Wednesday for another lottery discussion. Everyone is invited to attend that meeting, he said.

Wednesday’s meeting will be in the Old Supreme Court room at the Capitol upon adjournment of the House and Senate.

Rep. Robbie Wills, D-Conway

In a memo to House members, Speaker Robbie Wills has provided a summary of draft legislation to create Arkansas’ voter-approved lottery for college scholarships. The memo is available here.

Wills filed a shell lottery bill before the session started, and the Conway Democrat has said that when the bill is amended to add details — as of this afternoon no amendment has been filed — it could be over 100 pages long.

Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter has called a press conference for 11:30 a.m. Tuesday in his office at the Capitol to release the results of a new poll concerning the lottery.

You may recall Halter took his scholarship lottery proposal to Arkansas voters last year after the Legislature two years ago declined to refer it to the 2008 general election ballot. Voters approved a constitutional amendment authorizing a state-run lottery by a wide margin in November.

Since, Halter has been recommending to the Legislature how the lottery program should be structured.

The 75 House members who voted Thursday to raise the state’s cigarette tax included some who were feverish with more than excitement.

Rep. Frank Glidewell, R-Fort Smith, informs that three House members who supported the tax increase were sick with fevers Thursday, but “the governor had enough squeeze” to make them show up. He needed every one of them to get to a three-fourths majority. The vote ended up 75-24, with no votes to spare.

House Speaker Robbie Wills, D-Conway, writes that he knew of one supporter of the cigarette tax bill who came in for the vote despite being sick. He says supporters tried to find an opponent to “pair” with the sick member — a practice that allows two members on opposite sides of an issue to sign a form in advance locking in their votes — but found no takers.

Wills writes, “In a shocking display of pettiness, the leaders of the opposition enforced a strict ‘no pair’ policy. … So, the sickly supporter had to come to the chamber to cast his vote …”

One Democrat who stayed home sick Thursday was Rep. J.R. Rogers of Walnut Ridge. Glidewell says he expected Rogers to vote against the bill. No one answered a phone call to Rogers’ home today.

A repentant Rep. Mark Martin apologized today for heckling a fellow member on the House floor in the middle of the cigarette tax debate Thursday.

The Republican lawmaker from Prairie Grove interrupted Rep. Gregg Reep, D-Warren, while Reep was presenting House Bill 1204, the bill to raise the tax on tobacco products to fund a trauma system and other health programs. The hotly debated bill passed in a 75-24 vote, receiving just enough “yes” votes to reach the necessary three-fourths majority.

As part of his presentation, Reep was explaining that Arkansas balances its budget when Martin shouted “It’s the law!” Martin was referring to constitutional mandate that the Legislature approve a balanced budget. House Speaker Robbie Wills of Conway later cautioned the membership about breaches of decorum.

At the start of today’s House session, Martin took the floor and said his behavior the day before did not live up to the House’s standards or his own.

“Sometimes even the smallest mistake can set us on a slippery slope that we don’t even realize actually will push the whole institution down,” Martin said.

House members applauded his remarks. Wills later termed the apology “very appropriate.”

House Speaker Robbie Wills say he’ll have a summary of upcoming legislation to create a state-run lottery  in the hands of House leaders by this weekend. 

The Conway Democrat says he wants  to get feedback  from House committee chairmen before sharing the summary with the rest of the House membership and the press, possibly as early as Monday. 

House members should be grateful for the summary. Wills has said the actual bill could be as long as 100 pages.

Senate Bill 77 by Sen. Sue Madison, D-Fayetteville, which would make aggravated cruelty to a dog, cat or horse a felony, was reassigned this morning to the House Judiciary Committee. House Speaker Robbie Wills said yesterday’s assignment of the bill to the House Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development was an error.

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel apparently spoke too soon when he said last week the animal cruelty bill he supports should have no trouble getting through the House Judiciary Committee.

Soon the Senate approved Senate Bill 77 today, House Speaker Robbie Wills assigned the  bill by Sen. Sue Madison, D-Fayetteville, to the House Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development — not to the judiciary committee as McDaniel had expected.

Madison filed a similar bill in 2007 to make aggravated cruelty to dogs, cats and horses a felony on first offense. It also passed the Senate and also went to the House Agriculture Committee, where it died. Madison’s new bill has an advantage over that bill, however: It has the endorsement of the powerful Arkansas Farm Bureau, which opposed the 2007 version.

House Speaker Robbie Wills apologized to reporters today for convening the House ahead of the announced time without notifying the press of the change.

Reporters arriving in the House press gallery for this afternoon’s session were surprised to discover the House had convened at 1 p.m. despite having approved a motion from the floor last Friday to convene at 1:30 p.m. today.

Wills later explained that the House met early because of a joint resolution approved last week that called for the House and Senate to take off Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Tuesday for the inauguration of President Barack Obama.

No one realized until this morning that the resolution — it trumped the motion from the House floor — called for the House and Senate to convene at 1 p.m., Wills said.

Wills met with reporters in his office and gave them a summary of the afternoon’s proceedings.

“We’re not going to let it happen again,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Senate ignored the resolution and convened at the usual time, 1:30 p.m.

House Speaker Robbie Wills reveals today that the child he and his wife, Dana, are expecting is a girl, according to an ultrasound. The couple already has one daughter, 7-year-old Rylee. The new addition to the family is due May 27, the speaker’s birthday.