July 1, 2022 Today I’d like to talk about the Fourth of July, or Independence Day, in Arkansas, the state with enough lakes, rivers, hiking trails, and outdoor festivals to accommodate 3 million Arkansans and visitors as we celebrate the 246 years of our Nation’s independence. And of particular importance, is our beautiful state parks. The Arkansas…

June 24, 2022 Arkansas’s education system greatly depends on our ability to attract and retain teachers. We need to make sure the pay reflects the importance of their job and our respect for their role in shaping the lives of the next generation of leaders. When the pandemic impacted the world, our schools were heavily burdened. Education could not…

June 17, 2022 I signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Israel Innovation Authority this week, and today I’d like to talk about what this means to Arkansas. On Tuesday, my economic development team gathered with Dr. Ami Appelbaum, Chairman of the Innovation Authority, and Livia Link, Consul General of Israel. We gathered at the Melrose Hotel …

Hundreds of high school students explored the halls of the Arkansas Capitol last week during the annual exercise in government known as Girls State and Boys State. The week-long programs, which are sponsored by the American Legion and the American Legion Auxiliary, offer rising seniors the chance to form a government, run for office, and write and …

As our nation mourns the death of nineteen students and two teachers at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, the national conversation has turned again to the need to make our schools more secure. In Arkansas, educators and legislators have long recognized the need for vigilance to keep our children safe. Concern for the safety of our students didn’t …

Monday is Memorial Day, and this week, hundreds of volunteers are placing an American flag in front of every gravestone in each of Arkansas’s five military cemeteries. We observe Memorial Day, which began shortly after the end of the Civil War, to honor the memory of those who died in service to the United States. The flags honor everyone who serve…

The graduation season is upon us, so today I am congratulating the members of the Class of 2022 who overcame the expected difficulties of high school and college and then surmounted the totally unexpected challenges of a worldwide pandemic. COVID-19 forced you to do many things differently. You attended some classes virtually from time to time. You…

There is no question that many families suffered financial setbacks as the coronavirus swept across the nation two years ago. Today I’d like to discuss my vision to stabilize housing and to assist Arkansans with opportunities to move up the economic ladder. Arkansas’s unemployment rate rose to more than 10 percent in the early months of the pandemi…

The freedom of speech is one of the bedrock principles upon which our country was founded. The purchase of Twitter by the world’s richest man this week has reignited the discussion surrounding free speech, and I’d like to share my thoughts on the importance of this freedom. Social media censorship has been a concern of many Americans for years. Whi…

Thirty-seven years ago this week, I put on a bulletproof vest and entered a white-supremacist compound to try to convince the group they were outmanned and outgunned and should surrender. As I have reflected on that moment as well as the racial tension and civil unrest that have roiled our nation over the past two years, I have thought about the le…

This week, I declared Washington County a disaster area in the wake of an EF3 tornado that damaged more than 350 homes and businesses and demolished the gym at George Elementary in Springdale. The process that led to the declaration officially began at 5:34 a.m. on March 30th when the director of the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management noti…