The line is open. Noted:

* The House diesel tax was held up in Senate committee today. Five votes not immediately available. I think the Senate just looooves having a little something to hold over the House’s head as the final days wind down. I’m sure it’s only coincidental that the governor’s grocery tax cut was put off in House today.

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* A Senate committee produced some opposition Monday to another piece of mischief by the senator from ALEC, Missy Irvin, that would make dispensation of drugs to terminate a pregnancy all but impossible in Arkansas because of additional regulatory hurdles. It was not styled as a bill to end availability of legal early-term abortions in Arkansas, but of course that’s what it was. The anti-choicers won’t be happy until the morning-after pill is illegal and, in many of their cases, contraceptives, too. Have sex and you pay the price, by golly. Not clear if this bill is dead yet, or not, though the attorney general’s office noted that similar legislation has produced extensive and expensive court battles elsewhere because of questionable constitutionality.

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