Gov. Mike Beebe has convened a special session of the Arkansas General Assembly to consider an increase in the severance tax. “The main item on the legislative agenda is Beebe’s proposal to raise the severance tax to 5 percent of market value at the time of extraction with some exemptions, up from the current rate of three-tenths of 1 cent per 1,000 cubic feet, one of the lowest rates in the nation,” report Rob Moritz and John Lyon.

Moritz and Lyon report that Beebe has the support of 30 of 35 Senators and 81 of 100 House members. A three-fourths vote in both houses in required to raise the severance tax.

Beebe will address a joint session of the legislature to kick off the special session. House Speaker Benny Petrus expects for business to be wrapped up Wednesday by noon, the minimum amount of time it takes to approve a bill from both houses.

The special session will also address the marriage age of consent law and a request for more time for Pulaski County school district to request being removed from federal court supervision.

UPDATE: The severance tax bill cleared committee with little fanfare reports Steve Harrelson.

UPDATE II: Both houses approved the measure.  The House approved it 81-16 and the Senate approved it 32-3.  House Speaker Benny Petrus played a nice “April Fool’s” joke on Rep. Scott Sullivan.  Petrus declared the bill defeated before Sullivan was finished speaking.  The joke was ultimately on Sullivan who stood in silence as Petrus revealed his mischievous trick.

                                                            
Ellen McGirt has a very interesting article in the April issue of Fast Company about Barack Obama as a brand, and the lessons businesses can take from his campaign.  She concludes, “Barack Obama may not win his party’s nomination. And even if he is nominated, he may lose at the polls. If that happens, pundits will be quick to point out strategic or tactical missteps, and some will say America just isn’t ready to elect a black man as president. Such a pat analysis is to be expected. But there is no question that the brand of Obama — what he represents to the next generation of Americans — is important. A business that ignores this message does so at its own peril.”

March Madness: gotta love it.  Today at 4:05 CST, the Davidson College Wildcats and their prolific scorer Stephen Curry, take on the Kansas Jayhawks in the finals of the Midwest Regional.  The winners earns a ticket to San Antonio and the Final Four.  The Jayhawks are 34-3 and champions of the Big XII, a BCS conference.  The Wildcats have won 25 games in a row, including consecutive wins over Gonzaga, Georgetown and Wisconsin, all on a neutral floor.

Yesterday on “All Things Considered,” Andrea Seabrook talked with Christopher Gruber, vice president for admissions and financial aid at Davidson about the likely rise in applications as a result of the Wilcats cinderella run in the Big Dance.  Also on the program, Robert Baker, director of sports management at George Mason who talks about the impact their run to the Final Four had on admissions.

On of my favorite independent bookstores, up there with Wordsworth Book Co. in Little Rock, Dickson Street Books in Fayetteville, The Vermont Book Shop in Middlebury and North Country Books on Church Street in Burlington, closes its doors on Saturday. Lorenzen & Co. (7509 Cantrell Road, Tanglewood Shopping Center) has served Little Rock readers for 30 years. They’ll be open on Saturday from 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Proceeds from Saturday’s sale will benefit various literacy projects.

Many thanks to Rod and his staff. Lorenzen & Co. will be missed.

UPDATE:  The atmosphere was upbeat when I dropped in at noon yesterday. There were lots of people  buying books.  The staff seemed very glad to see old patrons and were polite and cordial as the assisted people trying to find certain titles.  I spent about an hour browsing.  My final purchases were:  “Independence Day” by Richard Ford, “Summerland” by Michael Chabon, “The Conservationist” by Nadine Gordimer, “Wait Till Next Year” by Doris Kearns Goodwin and “James Agee: A Life” by Laurence Bergreen.

Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey announced today that he was endorsing Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic Primary.  This is a stunning move because just weeks ago Casey said he would remain neutral.  According to the New York Times, “He is joining Mr. Obama today as he begins a six-day bus trip across Pennsylvania and plans to be with him for about three days as Mr. Obama meets up with just the kind of blue collar, Catholic men who have eluded Mr. Obama.”  Casey won his Senate race in 2006 with 59% percent of the vote.

Former Arkansas Attorney General Steve Clark has raised the issue as to whether he’s eligible to run for public office in Arkansas.  Clark was convicted of felony theft in 1990 for wrongfully charging less than $2,5000 in personal expenses on a state-issued credit card.  He was pardoned by Governor Mike Huckabee in 2004.  But a pardon alone doesn’t restore one’s right to run for office according in an AG opinion issued by Mark Pryor.  The criminal record must be exponged.

Today, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette reports that Clark has a court order from Circuit Judge John Langston exponging his criminal record pursuant to Ark. Code Ann. 7-6-102.

Clark, now living in Fayetteville, is considering a run for Mayor of that town.  He’ll make a decision in May.

Governor Mike Beebe issued the formal declaration yesterday calling legislators to Little Rock for a special session of the Arkansas General Assembly to pass Beebe’s severance tax increase on natural gas. Arkansas currently has one of the lowest severance tax rates in the United States. I speculated in an earlier post that Beebe has the requisite three-fourths majority in both houses to pass the increase.

Beebe also intends to clarify the marriage law in Arkansas. A measure passed inadvertently last year would allow a child of any age to get married with parental consent. The General Assembly will also consider an extension of time for the the North Little Rock and Pulaski County school districts to consider unitary status as fully desegregated schools.

The Tourism Trust Fund, passed to provide funds to promote Arkansas tourism via paid advertising and other means across the country, has released its January 2008 numbers.   The tax is only levied on specific items which includes lodging, camping fees, tourist attraction admission fees and marina rentals.  I’m told that lodging fees account for about 90% of the total revenue.

Based on the January revenues, Pulaski County leads the pack with monies totalling more than $200,000.  That an increase of more than 30% over January 2007.  Benton County follows with more than $77,000, an increase of 6.7% over January 2007.

In January  - December 2007 the total revenue for the fund was $11.6 million.  Pulaski County was $2.8 million of that revenue.   Benton County accounted for $1.1 million.  Together they accounted for roughly 1/3 of all of the Tourism Trust Fund revenues.

The 2008 numbers are up 11.2% overall in this difficult economy, yet the percentages seem to be working out the same.

Thus, it’s safe that say that without Pulaski and Benton counties, Arkansas would have a difficult time promoting the other parts of the state.  If that’s not a reason to bring Central Arkansas and Northwest Arkansas together, I don’t know what is.

“The Senate Committee on State Agencies and Public Affairs has set aside three days to hear evidence in former state Rep. Arnell Willis’ challenge of results from the June 2006 runoff, which Willis lost to Jack Crumbly,” reports Rob Mortiz.

When all of the votes were counted from the June 2006 runoff election, Willis led by 28 votes. But a recount put him down by 74 votes. A third vote confirmed the results of the second. According to Mortiz’ article, “Willis said Monday that testimony during the Senate hearing will show that St. Francis County Election Commission Chairman Frederick Freeman, who Willis contends was Crumbly’s campaign chairman, “stuffed the ballot boxes.”"

The committee will hear all of the evidence and then make a recommendation to the full 35-member Senate. It requires as 2/3 vote to remove a sitting senator.

I’ve written a lot about the future of the printed newspaper in this space. My initial conversation was prompted by an excellent speech by New York Times reporter Kevin Sack at the Clinton School of Public Service. Not long after, David Simon, the creator of “The Wire” opined about the business he participated in and subsequently covered in his show.

Eric Alterman, writing for the New Yorker, has this excellent and comprehensive piece in the 3.24.08 issue about the newspaper,

“. . . trends in circulation and advertising––the rise of the Internet, which has made the daily newspaper look slow and unresponsive; the advent of Craigslist, which is wiping out classified advertising––have created a palpable sense of doom. Independent, publicly traded American newspapers have lost forty-two per cent of their market value in the past three years, according to the media entrepreneur Alan Mutter. Few corporations have been punished on Wall Street the way those who dare to invest in the newspaper business have. The McClatchy Company, which was the only company to bid on the Knight Ridder chain when, in 2005, it was put on the auction block, has surrendered more than eighty per cent of its stock value since making the $6.5-billion purchase. Lee Enterprises’ stock is down by three-quarters since it bought out the Pulitzer chain, the same year. America’s most prized journalistic possessions are suddenly looking like corporate millstones. Rather than compete in an era of merciless transformation, the families that owned the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal sold off the majority of their holdings. The New York Times Company has seen its stock decline by fifty-four per cent since the end of 2004, with much of the loss coming in the past year; in late February, an analyst at Deutsche Bank recommended that clients sell off their Times stock. The Washington Post Company has avoided a similar fate only by rebranding itself an “education and media company”; its testing and prep company, Kaplan, now brings in at least half the company’s revenue.”

In my post on Mr. Sack’s speech I commented that both blogs and printed newspapers have an important place. But the online market is growing in influence. As Alterman notes, “Taking its place, of course, is the Internet, which is about to pass newspapers as a source of political news for American readers. For young people, and for the most politically engaged, it has already done so. As early as May, 2004, newspapers had become the least preferred source for news among younger people.”

A reader passed along a news release issued today by Mayor Mark Stodola and City Manager Bruce Moore regarding housing code enforcement.  According to the new policy, City Hall will place a sign on the property of a house cited for code enforcement.  Once the enforcement action has been concluded, the sign will be removed.

If you take a drive around Little Rock Central High School you will see dozens of houses with roofs that have caved in; front porches that are crumbling and walls that have been burned out.  Property owners, for the longest time, have avoided any kind of penalty - public or otherwise - that would force them into action.

The issue with these houses (and they exist in other parts of the city as well) is that the property owners are rarely compelled to fix the problem.  In some instances, the owners are no longer around.  Tracking them down through title searches is tedious.  So the vacant, crumbling houses sit idle, and serve as a haven for illegal activity.

As a member of the Central High 50th Anniversary Commission, I’d long hoped that we could take some positive step towards rebuilding that once popular and thriving neighborhood.  That never happened.  But several non-profits are in that area cleaning up houses and restoring what they can.  But it’s a long and expensive process for the private sector (and because of the low property values, securing bank financing isn’t as easy as you might think).

Code enforcement is a good step, yes, as is public acknowledgement that the enforcement is taking place.  Still, I wish the sign would contain the name(s) of the property owner so they too could be held accountable by their neighbors who have, most likely, lived with the nuisance a lot longer than they deserved too.

The release isn’t up on the LR city government website, but here’s the link for you to check back.

A Think Tank reader alerted me to this story by Dan Barry in today’s New York Times.  It’s about bullying in Fayetteville, Arkansas and it features high school sophomore Billy Wolfe.  The e-mail came to me with the following subject line: “sickening.”

“Bullying is everywhere, including here in Fayetteville, a city of 60,000 with one of the country’s better school systems. A decade ago a Fayetteville student was mercilessly harassed and beaten for being gay. After a complaint was filed with the Office of Civil Rights, the district adopted procedures to promote tolerance and respect — none of which seems to have been of much comfort to Billy Wolfe.”

This is truly heartbreaking.

There has been lots of talk on the web about whether New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson’s endorsement of Barack Obama matters. My view is that it helps considerably for these reasons:

1) Obama needed to change the conversation, and this endorsement helped shift the media’s attention away from the endless rewind/playback of Rev. Jeremiah Wright video clips.

2) Obama’s camp picked off a Clinton camp pass. Richardson should have been comfortably in Clinton’s camp. In order for one of these candidates to gain an edge, they have to start capturing votes from the other. Advantage: Obama.

3) It helps with the overall superdelegate issue. Based on every mathematical scenario I can find, read and comprehend, barring a collapse by either candidate, this is going all the way to the convention. If so, superdelegates will decide it. Richardson is a credible superdelegate, and his support of Obama, which came at the end of Obama’s worst week of the campaign since he lost New Hampshire, should help persuade other on-the-fence superdelegates.

4) It gave Obama positive control over another weekend news cycle at time when it could have been overwhelming negative. It may also help Obama among Hispanics, although none of the remaining states have a substantial Hispanic population. But if he gets the nomination, certainly.

The Clinton campaign’s response has been unkind. First, campaign chief Mark Penn said of Richardson ” The time that he could have been effective has long since passed.” However, Ben Smith of Politico noted that just eight days before the endorsement (and after the Texas primary) Bill and Hillary Clinton both called Richardson asking for his endorsement. Then James Carville compared his act to Judas.

Which no doubt prompted this response from Richardson today on Fox News Sunday. “I’m not going to get in the gutter like that, and that’s symbolic of many of the people around Sen. Clinton. They think they’re entitled to the presidency. It shouldn’t just be Bush-Clinton, Bush-Clinton, you know, what about the rest of us…It’s important we bring in a new generation of leadership.”

Others have weighed in on the Richardson endorsement, Dan Balz of the Washington Post has five reasons why the endorsement boosts Obama. John Dickerson of Slate also thinks the endorsement matters. Andrew Sullivan sums up the endorsement: “an act of simple judgment.”

Governor Mike Beebe called a special session of the Arkansas General Assembly to be held on March 31st.  He needs three-fourths of both houses to pass a severance tax hike on natural gas.  He has the votes, it seems, and then some.  Beebe’s tax plan expects to generate $57 million next year and $101.6 million by 2016.  95% the revenue is earmarked for road improvements across the state.  Roads = commerce = growth.

John Lyon has a story today about the severance tax issue and reminds readers about Beebe’s incredibly successful first legislative session.

“In Beebe’s first legislative session as governor, he signed into law the largest tax cut package in Arkansas history, including a 50 percent reduction in the state sales tax on groceries. He and the Legislature also increased per-student school funding by about $120 million, increased early childhood education funding by $40 million and parceled out a $919 million surplus Beebe inherited from former Gov. Mike Huckabee.“

As I noted in a post last week, with an approval rating of 82%, Beebe’s able to accomplish a severance tax increase.  His experience in the General Assembly combined with his natural ability to work well with others proved invaluable.  Which begs the question I raised in a post last week: shouldn’t Beebe’s name be on Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton’s short list of potential VP candidates?   Beebe, along with many other Arkansas elected officials, endorsed Clinton early in the campaign.

Consider that Republicans are beginning to circle the name of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal as a likely Republican VP choice.  Jindal’s being singled out because of his recent success in a special six-day session of the Louisiana legislature.