The General Assembly of Arkansas is the state legislature of the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

. The legislature is a

bicameral Bicameralism is a type of legislature, one divided into two separate assemblies, chambers, or houses, known as a bicameral legislature. Bicameralism is distinguished from unicameralism, in which all members deliberate and vote as a single grou ...

body composed of the

upper house An upper house is one of two Debate chamber, chambers of a bicameralism, bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the lower house.''Bicameralism'' (1997) by George Tsebelis The house formally designated as the upper house is usually smalle ...

Arkansas Senate The Arkansas State Senate is the upper branch of the Arkansas General Assembly. The Senate consists of 35 members, each representing a district with about 83,000 people. Service in the state legislature is part-time, and many state senators have ...

with 35 members, and the

lower Lower may refer to: *Lower (surname) *Lower Township, New Jersey *Lower Receiver (firearms) *Lower Wick Gloucestershire, England See also *Nizhny Nizhny (russian: Ни́жний; masculine), Nizhnyaya (; feminine), or Nizhneye (russian: Ни́� ...

Arkansas House of Representatives with 100 members. All 135 representatives and state senators represent an equal number of constituent districts. The General Assembly convenes on the second Monday of every other year. A session lasts for 60 days unless the legislature votes to extend it. The

Governor of Arkansas A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political r ...

can issue a "call" for a special session during the interims between regular sessions. The General Assembly meets at the

Arkansas State Capitol The Arkansas State Capitol, often called the Capitol Building, is the home of the Arkansas General Assembly, and the seat of the Arkansas state government that sits atop Capitol Hill at the eastern end of the Capitol Mall in Little Rock, Arkan ...

Little Rock ( The "Little Rock") , government_type = Council-manager , leader_title = Mayor , leader_name = Frank Scott Jr. , leader_party = D , leader_title2 = Council , leader_name2 ...

History

The General Assembly of Arkansas is authorized by the

Arkansas Constitution The Constitution of Arkansas is the primary organizing law for the U.S. state of Arkansas delineating the duties, powers, structures, and functions of the state government. Arkansas' original constitution was adopted at a constitutional conv ...

, which is the state's fifth constitution. The first constitution was ratified on January 30, 1836, and the current constitution was adopted in 1874.Arkansas General Assembly
Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture (accessed April 28, 2013) The constitution has also been amended throughout the state's history since 1874. Originally, legislators met biennially, but today meet annually.Arkansas Legislative Council
Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture (accessed April 28, 2013) In 1922, Frances Hunt became the first woman elected to a seat in the General Assembly when she was elected to the Arkansas House of Representatives.

Powers and process

The General Assembly of Arkansas is responsible making and amending the laws of

. The legislative process is similar to that of other state legislatures in the United States. Bills undergo committee review and three readings on the floor of each house of the legislature. The governor has veto power, but a simple

majority A majority, also called a simple majority or absolute majority to distinguish it from #Related terms, related terms, is more than half of the total.Dictionary definitions of ''majority'' aMerriam-Webster

Terms and term limits

Amendment 73 of the

, approved by voters in the 1992 state general elections, set

term limits A term limit is a legal restriction that limits the number of terms an officeholder may serve in a particular elected office. When term limits are found in presidential and semi-presidential systems they act as a method of curbing the potenti ...

for Representatives and Senators. Representatives were limited to three two-year terms (six years); Senators were limited to two four-year terms (eight years). Amendment 73 also set term limits for U.S. Senators and Representatives, but this part of the Amendment was found unconstitutional by the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

in ''

U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton ''U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton'', 514 U.S. 779 (1995), is a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that states cannot impose qualifications for prospective members of the U.S. Congress stricter than those the Constitut ...

''. As Section 4 of the Amendment included a severability clause, the remainder of the amendment remained in force. This was replaced to a large extent by Amendment 94 in 2014, which extended the total years that could be served to 16 in any combination of House and Senate seats. The law was changed again in 2020 by a referendum removing the lifetime limit of 16 years in the legislature and switching to 12 consecutive years, with the option to return after a four-year break.

References

External links

* * {{Coord, 34.7467387, -92.2892220, format=dms, display=title, type:landmark_region:US-AR

Gen Gen may refer to: * ''Gen'' (film), 2006 Turkish horror film directed by Togan Gökbakar * Gen (Street Fighter), a video game character from the ''Street Fighter'' series * Gen Fu, a video game character from the ''Dead or Alive'' series * Gen l ...

Bicameral legislatures