Arkansas Advocate

1 day ago | arkansasadvocate.com | Tess Vrbin

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders vetoed two bills from the 2025 legislative session on Tuesday and returned them to their respective chambers. Both bills had emergency clauses, meaning they would have gone into effect immediately upon Sanders’ signature. House Bill 1961 would have created limited reasons for medical providers to “temporarily withhold a patient’s medical records from being released directly to the patient or any individual authorized by the patient” for up to 30 days.

2 days ago | arkansasadvocate.com | Tess Vrbin |Arkansas Advocate

State driver’s license offices in five Arkansas cities will be open Saturday to accommodate demand for REAL IDs, which will be required for all Americans to board flights or enter certain federal buildings starting May 7, the department announced Tuesday. REAL IDs are signified by a gold star on a driver’s license or state-issued ID cards. The Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration has issued roughly 140,000 REAL IDs since Jan.

2 days ago | arkansasadvocate.com | Tess Vrbin |Arkansas Advocate

A coalition of Arkansas minority-focused health organizations will host their first free community health fair and “baby shower,” with an emphasis on Black families, on Saturday in southeast Little Rock. The event will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at 3701 Springer Boulevard, home of the Watershed Human and Community Development Agency, a Black-owned nonprofit that provides job counseling, food assistance and disaster relief, among other things.

3 days ago | arkansasadvocate.com | Tess Vrbin

The League of Women Voters of Arkansas filed a federal lawsuit Monday alleging that eight new laws governing direct democracy are unconstitutional. Direct democracy is the process by which Arkansans can propose new laws or constitutional amendments and put them to a statewide vote. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Arkansas is one of 24 states to allow this process, which involves collecting a minimum amount of signatures on petitions for proposed ballot language.

6 days ago | arkansasadvocate.com | Antoinette Grajeda |Tess Vrbin |Ainsley Platt |Sonny Albarado

With one major exception, Arkansas lawmakers gave Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders almost everything she asked for in the 95th General Assembly, and even then it wasn’t a total loss. The Legislature’s Republican supermajority passed bills addressing Sanders’ priorities: maternal health, a higher-education overhaul, concerns about the effects of social media platforms on children and restrictions on the influence of China in Arkansas.