LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Monday, Jan. 9 marked the beginning of the 2023 legislative session in Little Rock with a new governor coming in Tuesday, Jan. 10. Earlier Monday the legislative session started with members of the house and senate being sworn in ahead of tomorrow’s inauguration.
“I think this session will be one of all about change. We have a lot of new members, especially on the Senate side, but also in the house. And obviously we have a brand-new governor,” said Senator Greg Leding.
All house members and senators were sworn in for the official day of the 2023 legislative session. Dozens of bills were prefilled ahead of the session. A big topic that’s expected to be discussed is education reform. Senator Greg Leding, a Democrat representing Fayetteville says we need meaningful salary increases for teachers due to a problem with attracting and retaining teachers.
“Republicans, Democrats, we all have different ideas, I think there is going to be some common ground. But again, the one thing we can all agree on is that we have to do something, we got to make sure that our public schools are some of the best in the country. And that's gonna take a lot of work and a lot of investment,” said Leding.
Senator Bart Hester of Cave Springs was sworn in as senate president pro tempore Monday. He says children are our future and our most important commodity in Arkansas.
“I think it's really important that we continue to empower parents in Arkansas. What we know is that no two kids are alike. No two kids are alike within a family. So we could have a family where one child should go to public school and one to a private school, or maybe one homeschooled... We want to give parents the choice to best educate their children,” said Hester.
Senator Hester says another important topic is sentencing reform and the bill that’s called truth in sentencing.
“When they see the headlines of the paper, and we see some man brutally abused a child and got 50 years, we think they got 50 years. Well, in Arkansas, they really only got one six of 50 years. And if people knew that it wouldn't be acceptable,” said Hester.
Senator Leding agrees that we need to keep Arkansans safe and that people who commit awful and violent crimes, they need to be punished appropriately.
“But I don't think that's the only answer to addressing the overcrowding in our prisons. We have the fourth largest prison population in the country, if putting more people in prison equated keeping people safer than we'd be one of the safest states. And that's just not the case. So we got a lot of work to do there, too,” said Leding.
Senator Leding says he’s already met with the incoming Governor and they were able to identify areas of common ground so he’s hopeful. While Senator Hester says he’s very excited about working with Huckabee Sanders and likes that she’s ready to get to work.
https://youtu.be/TA1nWFbHRaw
Download the 5NEWS app on your smartphone:
Stream 5NEWS 24/7 on the 5+ app: How to watch the 5+ app on your streaming device
To report a typo or grammatical error, please email KFSMDigitalTeam@tegna.com and detail which story you're referring to.