The week of Feb. 28 saw many efforts from Arkansas officials to support Ukraine, including legislative resolutions condemning Russia adopted in both the Arkansas House and Senate.
State Senator Jim Hendren filed two resolutions Feb. 28 condemning Russia — SR26 and SR27 — which were both co-signed by two Democratic senators and entitled “To condemn the actions of the Russian Federation taken against the sovereign nation of Ukraine and to call for action from the United States.”
Hendren is an independent who publicly exited the Republican party in February 2021 after citing a lack of accountability about the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
“It’s really more to make sure that the people of Arkansas heard clearly from their leaders what the truth was. The folks who are fighting in Ukraine deserve that, and I was proud that the Legislature stepped up and clearly defined this was Vladimir Putin’s war, and he is an evil war criminal,” Hendren said to Arkansas PBS.
After working to make the resolution’s wording more bipartisan, senators changed SR33’s title to add “to call for action from the United States to penalize the Russian Federation.” They also added two clauses — one calls for the U.S. “to place sanctions on Russian oil and other natural resources,” and the other calls for the U.S. “to take steps to increase the amount of non-Russian oil available to the United States and other countries, and to take steps to make the United States an energy independent country.”
State Senator Terry Rice presented the resolution with 34 co-sponsors, and it passed unanimously in the 35-member body. The only state senator who did not co-sponsor the resolution was Senator Trent Garner, a Republican who submitted SR28, which blamed President Obama’s Administration for Russia’s 2014 Crimean invasion and President Biden for the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
In his speech before its unanimous adoption, Hendren said the resolution does the right thing by only condemning Putin.
“It wasn’t Barack Obama, or Donald Trump or Joe Biden. It’s Vladimir Putin,” he said.
Though they don’t make or change policy, resolutions express a collective sentiment of the legislative body. That is why, upon their adoptions, both SR33 and its counterpart in the House, HR1035, were sent to President Joe Biden, Arkansas senators and representatives in the United States Congress, and the majority and minority leaders in the U.S. House and Senate.
Representative Aaron Pilkington filed HR1035 on Feb. 25, and the Arkansas House adopted it unanimously March 1. The key difference between HR1035 and SR33 is that the House Resolution’s title adds “to penalize the Russian Federation and deter similar conduct from other nations.” It adds that the Arkansas House of Representatives “support the people of Taiwan and free people everywhere,” saying that the government’s failure to adequately respond to Russia could lead to China taking similar measures against Taiwan. It also calls for the production of more domestic oil and the reauthorization of the Keystone Pipeline.
HR1035 had no co-sponsors in the Democratic party.
“I tried to draft it and get it filed in a timely manner and that it would be on the calendar as soon as possible. The lack of Democrat co-sponsors is merely not having enough time to discuss it with many of their members,” Pilkington said.
“I think Arkansas and Gov. Hutchinson are doing a lot of the right things [about Putin and Ukraine],” Pilkington said.
In a Feb. 28 letter, Governor Asa Hutchinson instructed all Cabinet Secretaries to begin internal reviews of their departments to determine if any contracts between Arkansas and Russian entities existed.
“We must do everything in our power to ensure that Mr. Putin and his enablers pay for their actions,” the letter said.
Hutchinson spoke about how Arkansas is getting involved in the conflict in his March 4 weekly radio address.
“I directed a review of our investments, and our alcohol distributors agreed to no longer buy Russian vodka. We need to do more,” he said.
Hutchinson also talked about Conway’s Kateryna Pitchford, a Ukrainian associate professor at Central Baptist College who has friends and family in Kyiv and Dnipro.
“She is proud to inform friends in Ukraine that the Hellfire and Stinger missiles going to their country are made in her home state,” Hutchinson said. The missiles are being produced in Camden, Arkansas, by General Dynamics.
The rotunda of the Arkansas State Capitol building lit up blue and yellow, the colors of the Ukraine flag, the night of Feb. 28. Frank Scott Jr., Little Rock mayor, tweeted Feb. 25 that the city’s downtown bridges would be illuminated with blue and yellow until Feb. 27 to show support for Ukraine.