AG Griffin speaks at NWAEDD directors’ meeting in Harrison

Published 8:33 pm Friday, July 24, 2026

The Northwest Arkansas Economic Development District met Thursday at the North Arkansas College in Harrison. While regular business was discussed, the event included a stump-style speech from Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin.

“I’m a big supporter of Issue 3,” Griffin said. “There are 48 states that have some sort of empowerment.” Griffin was referring to the ability of counties and local municipalities in most states to offer tax breaks and incentives to court investors. “We can’t do that, and we are consistently losing out.”

All of the states surrounding Arkansas have similar programs and many in Arkansas feel this is driving development out of state as a result.

Griffin said, “Issue 3 is basically equipping localities, giving them the power to bring in and cut deals with people so that we can compete.”

“Right now we have a sort of Soviet system,” he added. By way of example, he described a situation in which a developer might come to a city and say that they’d like to build a business but would need some sort of incentive to make it happen. Right now, he said, that would require the state to cut that deal; like in the Soviet Union, apparently.

Issue 3, on the November ballot, would amend the state constitution and allow Economic Development Districts (EDDs) to be formed. Within these districts, established by local governments, bonds, infrastructure funding, and other incentives could be offered to potential investors to encourage them to develop in a given area.

Critics worry that redirected tax revenue, either postponed or reduced, could cause other priorities to suffer during the life of the EDD. Additionally, a comprehensive set of rules and guidelines has yet to be established, raising some concern.

After strongly signaling his support of Issue 3, Griffin moved on to what he refers to as the “gray zone warfare” conducted on Arkansans by the Chinese government. The “gray zone warfare,” as described by Griffin, is a series of activities conducted by the Chinese government that come right up to the point of requiring American military intervention, but not quite.

“China is fully engaged in our communities. And I don’t mean big cities,” Griffin warned. “China wants to do stuff they can get away with without officially being at war with America.”

His most prominent example of this infiltration was the high number of massage parlors in Arkansas.

“There are as many illicit sexual massage parlors in the U.S. as there are McDonald’s. And they are able to make money and send it back,” he said.

Griffin said that nearly all of the illegal massage parlors his office has busted have ties to mainland China. They involve human trafficking, sending currency back to China, and “destroying our social fabric because Americans are going to these places.”

They have found Chinese currency in rural Arkansas, Griffin said.

Griffin also pointed to the surge in Fentanyl deaths across the country. He said the Chinese government gives tax breaks to Chinese companies that send the ingredients to Mexico, where they are combined and sold on American streets.

This has caused the death of hundreds of thousands of “fighting-age Americans,” a cheap way to reduce America’s ability to defend itself.

Among other “gray zone” crimes by China Griffin listed were the theft of seed genome technology, cyber attacks and the transport of bacteria and viruses into the U.S.

Local crimes may not just be local events, according to Griffin. They could be the preparation of the battlespace in a future conflict with China.

The AG closed out his time in defense of the Protect Act and the need for increased prison space. “I leaned into the Protect Act,” he said.

The Protect Arkansas Act of 2023 eliminated early release for certain felonies and set requirements for the minimum sentence to be served for others.

As a result, the need for prison space has increased. The upshot, according to Griffin, is that there are fewer criminals on parole committing crimes. Without more prison space, though, criminals will be let out early.

The early releases are not “pot smokers and shoplifters,” Griffin stipulated, because those people aren’t in prison. They are supposed to be in county jails. Griffin said that, unfortunately, people who should be in prison are instead housed in county jails because the prisons are full.

The solution: build more prisons. Enough to house at least 5,000 more prisoners, Griffin estimated. He believes that at least 2,500 people incarcerated in county jails should be in prison.

Because county jails are filled with felons, misdemeanors aren’t being prosecuted the way that they should, Griffin surmises. He believes this leads to a lower quality of life for everyone.

Griffin addressed an argument he said he frequently hears from people who believe there are too many people in prison.

“I would say that we have too few people in prison,” Griffin said. He noted that parole violators aren’t being sent back to prison due to a lack of room. This is proof positive, Griffin believes, that there are too few people in prison. “By definition, we need more people in prison.”

Seemingly referring to Governor Sanders’ controversial proposal to build a 3,000-bed state prison in Franklin County, Griffin stated, “I support the governor 110%.” He added that it was the job of the governor and legislature to determine where and when the prisons are built.

Griffin did not address the manner in which the Sanders administration has gone about trying to establish that prison, or its growing cost, is currently stymied after the Senate declined to approve necessary appropriations.

“We’re doing a lot, we need Issue 3 to pass, and we need more prison space,” Griffin concluded.

More reporting from the NWAEDD, including a deeper look into Issue 3, will appear in future additions of the Times.