Chamber brings in lobbyist to discuss Issue 3

Published 2:24 pm Monday, September 28, 2026

The Harrison Regional Chamber of Commerce hosted an Issue 3 town hall meeting on Tuesday at the Signature Bank Community Room. This event marked the latest local effort to encourage voters to greenlight the Arkansas constitutional amendment. In July, Attorney General Tim Griffin promoted the amendment during a Northwest Arkansas Economic Development District meeting held at Northark.

Presenting the case for Issue 3 was Attorney Justin Allen from the firm Wright Lindsey Jennings. According to his bio, Allen leads the firm’s Government Relations practice. He previously served as Chief Deputy Attorney General before providing government-relations and lobbying services to clients “in the areas of energy, telecommunications, gaming, alcohol and tobacco regulation, agriculture, healthcare, economic incentives, business development and manufacturing,” according to his firm’s website.

Allen said the push for Issue 3 was a “grassroots outreach” intended to fix an “unlevel playing field.”

“There’s Arkansas money going to Texas because they can make the business case for their investment in Texas and not in Arkansas,” Allen said. He makes the case that Arkansas has been limited in its ability to offer locally controlled financial incentives to developers as one of two states without the kind of “toolkit” Issue 3 is intended to provide.

As an example, he said the border town of Texarkana was “getting their brains beat in” by economic development occurring on the Texas side of the border.

The key feature of Issue 3 is the ability of a locally established board to create a specified area, an Economic Development District (EDD), that operates under a negotiated set of rules agreed to by the board and the developer(s). These areas can include a single piece of property or encompass larger areas.

The boards, created by a city council, quorum court, or both, will allegedly have a broad set of tools to offer tax abatements or discounts on new revenue generated by the developed location. It will not alter or reduce baseline property or sales tax as established by rates prior to development. In other words, communities won’t lose existing tax dollars, though they may lose a percentage of future tax dollars.

“What that particular transaction is going to look like is going to be up to your local elected official. It’s going to be up to your quorum court. It’s going to be up to your city council or some combination thereof,” Allen explained.

A city or county could also choose not to participate in EDDs, though he wouldn’t recommend that path.

Arkansas already offers job-creation incentives and tax credits, as evidenced by the deal between Provalus and Harrison. Allen said Issue 3 will allow more flexibility at the local level to craft deals outside of what those programs offer or require of developers.

“This is working to bring private money and investment and capital to your community,” Allen said.

He referenced a saying he attributed to AG Griffin that this was a nuclear arms race. “We don’t want to have to have nuclear arms. We don’t. Nobody does. But if our opposition is going to have it, we’ve got to have it. Our opposition when it comes to business development, economic development, especially at the local level, is kicking our tail,” Allen said.

Those lobbying for Issue 3, like Allen, point to large franchises purposefully avoiding Arkansas for development. Allen described Buc-ee’s as opening up new locations everywhere but Arkansas. With Issue 3, local governments will be able to incentivize these multimillion-dollar corporations to build in their towns and counties.

Not just Buc-ee’s will be convinced, though. Allen gave examples of how areas without grocery stores could create economic incentives to eliminate food deserts.

The set of rules in which EDDs will operate doesn’t exist. The General Assembly will decide those if and when Issue 3 passes in November. A proposed set of regulations, pointed to by Allen as a possible framework, is contained in Senate Bill 647.

Allen was asked if voters would have the ability to decide on individual development deals: “I just don’t think you can get any projects done as a practical matter if you put everything out to the vote of the people. I think the developers would look at Arkansas and say, ‘I don’t have to do this in Missouri, I don’t have to do this in Texas.’” He did clarify that a vote would be required if bonds were to be issued.