LITTLE ROCK, Ark– Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Tuesday, January 14th delivered the State of the State Address after the convening of the 95th General Assembly Legislative Session.
The Governor’s remarks as prepared are below:
Speaker Evans, President Hester, Constitutional Officers, members of the Supreme Court, distinguished Members of the General Assembly, my amazing family, my fellow Arkansans:
It is an honor to join you to kick off another transformational legislative session for the people of Arkansas.
When I took office, I was the youngest Governor in the country and I promised to bring a new generation of leadership. Over the past two years, Arkansas has been the vanguard of a national conservative revolution, which in just six days will put President Trump back in the White House.
But these victories don’t mean we can take our foot off the gas. Today, I am here to renew my promise: for a new generation of leadership, for a new path forward for our state, and for a new vision for Arkansas.
When I took office two years ago I was the youngest Governor in the country and as I love to remind my kids, that’s still the case! Although my youngest, George, recently heard me say it and replied, “You’re the youngest Governor, mom? The rest of them must be really, really old.”
Whether you think I’m way too young or really, really old, the results of our first two years speak for themselves: our economy is up, crime is down, education is improving, Arkansas is growing. The State of the State is very strong.
But that doesn’t mean there weren’t hard moments. One of the most difficult days I’ve had as Governor came last summer, when a gunman opened fire at the Mad Butcher grocery store in Fordyce and senselessly killed four and severely injured nine innocent Arkansans.
13 Arkansans, 13 lives, 13 everyday heroes that you might find in any small town in our state. But if there is any place to take refuge after a horrible event like that, it is in the words of Sheriff Mike Knoedl:
“This will not define us and it will not divide us.”
That’s true for Fordyce and it’s true for Arkansas. Our state still faces many challenges: the days of incredible pain, like the shooting in Fordyce or the tornadoes that struck our state over Memorial Day weekend; the day-in, day-out issues of struggling schools, too-high crime, hunger, and poverty.
But I have always believed that we are not defined by the problems we face; we are defined by the way we face our problems. With our heads bowed and our eyes to the future, Arkansans can conquer anything.
When I was growing up, my dad never missed an opportunity to tell us that being Governor was the best job he ever had. I remember a few weeks into my time in office, after a particularly tough 48 hours, I called up my dad and asked him: “You know how you always say being Governor is the best job in the world?” He said, “Yes.” And I asked him, “When exactly will that start?”
And in a way only a dad can, my dad said, “Sarah, you haven’t done anything yet. Just wait, and when you least expect it, you’ll get it.”
And he was absolutely right. Not long after that phone call, at my kids’ sports games, at the grocery store, person after person came up to thank me for the job we are doing.
And I understood why it was the best job, because the work we do here makes a real difference in people’s lives.
And no reform comes up more often than LEARNS, which passed by overwhelming margins thanks to the work of our legislators.
I hear from teachers who are now earning $50,000 a year for the first time in their life, or from the lifelong educator who earned thousands of dollars in a merit bonus for the great job she’s doing. And it’s not just the money – it’s feeling recognized for their work.
Or I hear from the parent whose child struggled with reading and is now getting the one-on-one attention he needs because of our high-impact tutoring grants. Or it’s from the parent who, seeing news from around the country, is so thankful for the investments we made in school security.
One student I’ve heard from is Elijah, who recently enrolled in St. Theresa’s in Southwest Little Rock. Elijah is here today with Father Stephen Gadberry, whose leadership at that school should be an inspiration to all of us.
St. Theresa’s is a Catholic school and many of its students come from Central Arkansas’ Hispanic community. Before the LEARNS Act, most families had to scrape and save just to afford the school’s modest tuition.
LEARNS flipped that equation on its head. Elijah’s parents had sent him to their local public school, but knew they wanted a faith-based, smaller environment that met Elijah’s needs. More than that, they wanted a community in which the whole family could be involved.
Elijah’s dad is a veteran, so this school year, the family was able to sign up for an EFA account, enroll Elijah in the school, and he is now thriving. His parents are learning too: they go to Bible study over the weekend.
Stories like Elijah’s are happening all over the state and starting next school year, Education Freedom Accounts will go universal.
By working together, we have achieved tremendous progress on K-12 schools, but education is a lifelong journey, and in this administration, education reform will be too.
Our Secretary of Education Jacob Oliva often talks about on-ramps and off-ramps – the exit you take when you graduate high school or college; the on-ramp you take when you go back to school to finish a degree or earn a credential.
But for some Arkansans, that’s not a strong enough metaphor. For some Arkansans, education is a lifeboat – without it, they’d drown; with it, they can take control of their life’s journey.
Tiffany String, who is here today, is one of those people. Tiffany’s mom pulled her out of school just a few weeks into the sixth grade. She was married at 17 in her home state of Georgia, and then fourteen years later found herself in Beebe, Arkansas, with her husband and three kids.
Then, Tiffany’s life imploded. Her husband walked out on their marriage, leaving her with three kids, hundreds of miles from her closest family, with no job and no car.
Tiffany figured out that Sonic was one of the few places she could go work without a GED. She signed up for government assistance and leaned on friendly neighbors. She found a bike and latched a carriage to the back of it.
She would bike her kids to school, then bike herself to Sonic for work, and on the side, biked herself to school to earn her GED. Once she got that, she continued to work and go to school and earned her nursing degree at Arkansas State University – Beebe.
She now works full-time as a nurse in Searcy. And this May, she is going to graduate with her RN degree and work as a registered nurse.
Throughout it all, her sons – now 15, 12, and 12 – have seen a strength in their mom and what her determination and a good education can do. They prayed over her and have been her biggest cheerleaders.
She pushes education on them constantly: she knows it’s the best ticket they have to a better life. You should have seen the smile on her face when her oldest son sent her a picture of the 100 he got on his test. And you should have seen the tears in her eyes when one of her sons looked up at her and said, “Mom, I want to grow up to be like you.”
Higher education can be the difference between a life of poverty and a life of success. And it should be available to everyone, no matter their background.
That’s why today I am announcing my plan to improve our state’s higher education system: Arkansas ACCESS. Together, we will expand Arkansans’ access to higher education and non-degree credentials, whether their path comes straight after high school graduation, or many years down the line like Tiffany.
That starts with making applications easier. We will make it so that you submit one application, pay one fee, and can use that same application for any state-supported college or university in our state.
Arkansas students go to our colleges and universities to learn, not to be bombarded with anti-American, historically illiterate, woke nonsense. We will make it so that any professor – tenured or not – that wastes time indoctrinating instead of educating can be terminated from their job.
We will address the skyrocketing cost of higher education by funding college credits while students are still in high school and expanding scholarships to associate’s degrees and non-degree credentials.
And we will change our higher education funding model so that it puts state dollars behind all types of degrees: bachelor’s, associate’s, and non-degree credentials.
For far too long, students were told the lie that the only way to be successful in life is to get a four-year college degree right after high school. When this body passes Arkansas ACCESS, every student, young and old, will know the truth: every Arkansan is unique, and every education journey will be unique too.
The investments we make today in education will have a payoff a long time down the road. In the meantime, Arkansans are struggling with the high costs of groceries, gas, and just about everything else.
The good news is that in just a few days, the reckless tax-and-spend policies of the Biden Administration will be over and we’ll have President Donald J. Trump back in the White House.
But our families need relief now. The cost-of-living crisis is what drove my administration to work with our legislators and cut taxes not once, not twice, but three times, lowering our personal income tax rate by a full percentage point.
Our tax rates are quickly dropping, and my administration just released our report on our Arkansas Forward initiative that will save our state at least $300 million – and hopefully more.
The budget I introduced for this year controls spending increases while still making needed investments in priorities like education and maternal health.
The results of these policies have been quick and clear: We’ve now recorded record-high jobs numbers for nine months in a row. At the end of last year, Arkansas ranked number one in economic growth, number one in inbound movers, and number one for having the lowest cost-of-living.
Thanks to my husband’s work on the Natural State Initiative, we’re breaking tourism records too. The most recent statistics show that more than 50 million people visited our state in 2023 and spent nearly $10 billion while here.
Despite our progress, we know some Arkansans are still struggling. Last year, I signed Arkansas up for Summer EBT, a program made possible by Arkansas’ senior Senator John Boozman. Summer EBT gives $120 over the summer months to parents whose kids receive free and reduced-price lunches during the school year.
We’ve partnered with groups like the Arkansas Hunger Relief Alliance to sign families up and last summer, we served more than a quarter million Arkansas students through this program.
$120 may not sound like much but it can be life-changing to Arkansas’ families. That’s why I will work with the legislature to end our most regressive tax, the state Grocery Tax, and ease the burden on families just trying to put food on their tables.
I’ve already announced that Arkansas will participate in Summer EBT this year. Today, I’m announcing my plan to use Medical Marijuana money to make both this program and our free lunch and breakfast programs financially sustainable for years to come.
We will also use those funds to make school breakfast in Arkansas completely free.
At the same time, it should be easier for all of us to be good neighbors. We’ve all seen good food go to waste because a restaurant doesn’t think it can donate it. If you give food to a food pantry, you shouldn’t have to worry about going to court. We will pass the Good Neighbor Act to give liability protection to those who donate food.
SNAP should be focused on healthy, nutritious food. Arkansas will be the first state to seek a SNAP waiver to ensure our neediest families are getting the food they need to stay healthy.
We will also support healthy diets while also supporting Arkansas farms and businesses. I’m introducing the Buy Local Act to encourage our schools to purchase their food in-state.
Educating and feeding our kids will be two of our biggest priorities this session. The third is keeping them safe.
With the help of this body we passed the Protect Act. Violent crime here in Little Rock is down and we are ending the catch-and-early-release of repeat violent offenders. We now have more State Troopers than we’ve had in a generation and through our new state pay plan, will raise their starting pay by nearly 20%.
Not long ago, my husband and I visited the Pathway to Freedom program at the Wrightsville Unit here in Pulaski County. It was an amazing image: men – many of whom are in prison for violent crimes, tattoos on their arms and faces – with their hands in the air, praising God.
After that visit, I received a letter from one of those inmates, whose clemency petition I had previously denied. In his letter, he thanked me for denying his petition, because that meant he could participate in Pathway to Freedom. He said that because of the program, he will “be a better husband, father, and son.”
Every inmate in Arkansas deserves access to programs like Pathway to Freedom. We will expand and require evidence-based programming in our prisons – but that can’t happen with our chronic prison bed shortage.
That’s why I am glad we have worked to open almost 1,500 prison beds at existing facilities, easing the burden on our county jails. And for the first time since my dad was in office, thanks to our close work with the legislature, we are expanding our prison system with plans for a new, 3,000-bed prison in Franklin County.
But there are other threats to our public safety: modern threats that require modern solutions.
Nowhere is that truer than with our kids. In the past decade across America, suicide rates among teens have tripled, self-harm among girls has risen by nearly 200%, and depression among teenagers has increased by 150%. The culprit is clear: unrestricted access to phones and social media.
With us today is Jennie DeSerio from Centerton who tragically lost her sixteen-year-old son, Mason, to suicide in 2022. It was a complete and total shock to the family: before Mason took his own life, he seemed like a happy, healthy, thriving kid.
He loved football and track and being outside. But in the last few weeks of his life, as a relationship he was in got difficult, Mason started spending more and more time watching TikToks on his phone.
When Mason’s relationship ended, his mental health deteriorated. On the last night of his life, Jennie tried to take his phone away so he could get some undisturbed rest. Mason punched her, something that was a complete 180 from anything he’d ever done before.
Mason’s stepfather took the phone away and his parents regrouped for just 13 minutes before realizing Mason had gone up to his room and locked the door. Mason’s stepfather raced upstairs and pounded on the door but it was too late: Mason was already gone.
Months later, reeling from grief, Jennie decided to go through Mason’s phone. She got on his TikTok and what she saw shocked her: video after video giving step-by-step instructions on how to take his own life.
Jennie says, “I completely believe in my heart that Mason would be alive today had he not seen those TikTok videos.”
In Jennie’s shoes, so many of us would be lost in our grief. Instead, she has dedicated herself to saving other families from the tragedy she experienced. She is fighting her way through the legal system to hold these abusive social media companies accountable.
Congress and federal courts have failed to step in. But where they have stalled, Arkansas will act.
With the help of this body, we have already taken major strides. We started a phone-free schools pilot program, and three quarters of our school districts voluntarily signed up. In just one district, a phone-free school saw a 57% drop in verbal and physical aggression and a 51% drop in drug-related offenses.
This session, we will ban cell phones in our schools, bell to bell, so that our kids are not distracted, in class or out of it. And we will break the cycle of the mental health crisis facing our kids.
We will update the Social Media Safety Act so that it’s no longer held up in court and can begin to be enforced.
And we will give moms like Jennie the right to sue Big Tech companies under state law, so that they can hold bad actors accountable.
Arkansas has led the nation on commonsense, conservative reforms for the past two years and 2025 will be no different.
The good news is that we now have a partner and ally in the White House. I have an amazing relationship with President Trump and he and his administration will have no greater friend than Arkansas.
The President has promised to deal with the crisis on our southern border and fix our broken immigration system. Here in Arkansas, we will pass the Defense Against Criminal Illegals Act to slap enhanced penalties on violent illegal immigrants and remove them from our state.
President Trump was the first President in my lifetime to stand up to China, and Arkansas was the first state in the nation to kick Communist China off our farmland and out of our state.
We will expand that law with the Communist China Defense Act, divesting state resources from Communist China and banning our adversaries from buying land around things like military bases and electric substations.
President Trump will bring law and order back to our country. I like to think we’re already pretty tough here in Arkansas, but we will take on the growing problem of squatters by allowing property owners to call the Sheriff’s Office to get squatters off their land.
Education, cost-of-living, public safety. Those are the priorities that have defined the first two years of my Administration, and with your help, those are the priorities that will define the next two.
But I am also clear-eyed about the future. I know that government doesn’t have a magic wand it can wave to make everything better. To improve we need to be united, in our vision and our actions.
Arkansas is blessed with the greatest asset any state could hope for: good, generous, hard-working, God-fearing people.
At the beginning of my speech, I mentioned the tragic shooting in Fordyce and the four Arkansans we lost that day and the nine who were injured. Those on the scene know that it could have been many, many more were it not for the actions of Dallas County Sheriff Mike Knoedl.
Within minutes after the first shots were fired, Knoedl and his officers were on the scene, returning fire to the gunman. They distracted him, allowing victims to find cover and escape.
Immediately after they apprehended the gunman, Knoedl organized transportation and aid for the wounded. In the days and weeks after, he helped raise tens of thousands of dollars for the families of the victims.
When a tragedy like this happens in small-town Arkansas, it’s personal. These victims weren’t just citizens in Mike’s county; they were his neighbors and friends. He knew them by name. For him to have found the energy and courage to lead his community after this terrible event shows the strength, the courage, and the faith of this great hero.
I meet so many incredible Arkansans traveling around our state, and I believe they deserve more recognition than a mention in a speech or in the newspaper. So today, I am announcing the Arkansas Medal of Freedom, to recognize and honor Arkansans who have distinguished themselves in service to their state and fellow citizens.
I cannot think of a better person to receive the first Medal of Freedom than Sheriff Knoedl. Mike – please join me at the podium so this distinguished chamber and our entire state can recognize you for your bravery and sacrifice.
As Mike exemplifies, Arkansans are the kindest, most hardworking, most generous people on earth. As their public servants, let us walk in their footsteps and live out their example, every day of this legislative session. With the people as our priority and God as our guide, we will build the state our children and grandchildren deserve.
God bless you, and may God bless the great state of Arkansas.