Arkansas Online

SENATE SENDS signature bill to governor.

Passing 21-8, it would raise ballot measure requirement

MICHAEL R. WICKLINE

The Arkansas Senate on Monday sent the governor a bill that would require sponsors of proposed ballot measures to collect sufficient signatures of registered voters from at least 50 counties, up from the current requirement of 15 counties, to qualify their measures for the ballot.

With five senators voting present, the Senate voted 218 to approve House Bill 1419 by Rep. Kendon Underwood, R-Cave Springs.

The Senate subsequently voted to expunge the vote by which the bill’s emergency clause fell short of approval and then voted 24-7 to approve the bill’s emergency clause. Twenty-four votes are required in the 35-member Senate to approve an emergency clause. Under the emergency clause, the bill would go into effect upon the governor signing it.

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is going to sign HB1419, Sanders spokeswoman Alexa Henning said afterward.

“The governor wants to ensure all Arkansans, especially rural residents, have a voice in this process,” Henning said Monday night in a written statement.

Supporters of the bill contended it would require sponsors of proposed ballot measures to get more statewide and rural support for the measures to qualify for the ballot, while opponents countered that it would violate the Arkansas Constitution and make it more difficult to get proposed ballot measures on the ballot.

Sponsors of proposed initiated acts are required to obtain the signatures of Arkansas registered voters equal to at least 8% of the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election to qualify their proposals for the ballot. Sponsors of proposed constitutional amendments are required to obtain the signatures of Arkansas registered voters equal to at least 10% of

the votes cast in the last gubernatorial election to qualify their proposal for the ballot.

HB1419 would require the sponsors of proposed ballot measures to collect sufficient signatures of registered voters from at least 50 counties rather than the current requirement of at least 15 counties. The number of signatures of registered voters required from these 50 counties would be one-half of the designated percentage of registered voters who cast ballots in the last gubernatorial election.

Sen. Jim Dotson, R-Bentonville, told senators the Arkansas Constitution requires sponsors of ballot measures to turn in signatures of registered voters from at least 15 counties to qualify their measures for the ballot and the Arkansas Constitution “sets the floor.”

HB1419 would require the sponsors to turn in signatures of registered voters from at least 50 counties “to ensure that we are getting representation from all across the state, not just large urban areas, but rural counties as well in having a lot of input into the process” in collecting signatures from registered voters and determining whether proposed ballot measures qualify for the ballot, he said.

“If it is truly a grassroots measure, it’s going to have wide, broad support for the issue,” Dotson said.

He said he believes the bill will pass constitutional muster.

But Sen. Clarke Tucker, D-Little Rock, an attorney, said “this [bill] is among the most blatantly unconstitutional bills that I have seen in my entire time” in the Legislature.

The Arkansas Constitution requires sponsors of proposed ballot measures to collect signatures of registered voters from at least 15 counties, he said.

Tucker said every registered voter in all 75 counties has an opportunity to decide the fate of proposed ballot measures in the general election every two years.

In the 2020 general election, voters rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would have increased the number of counties from which sponsors of proposed ballot measures would be required to collect signatures of registered voters from 15 to 45 to qualify their measures for the ballot. In 2019, lawmakers referred that proposed constitutional amendment to voters.

Sen. Linda Chesterfield, D-Little Rock, said the current requirement for sponsors of proposed ballot measures to collect signatures of registered voters from at least 15 counties allowed poor people to collect signatures to qualify proposed ballot measures such as a proposed minimum wage increase and “the right to life amendment” for the ballot.

“Keep the power in the people’s hands,” she said.

Senate President Pro Tempore Bart Hester, R-Cave Springs, countered that “the intent of this bill is keep our constitution protected away from billionaires and the outof-state rich who want to come buy our constitution.

“The reality is every one of us know that if our volunteer fire departments, if our police officers, if our local church groups want something, it’s simple to get 50 counties across the state to agree to it, if that’s what the people want it,” he said.

Misty Orpin, executive director of the nonprofit group Common Ground, told the Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee on Thursday that the Legislature has proposed constitutional amendments more than three times more often than what the people of Arkansas have over the past 20 years, and state lawmakers should stop referring constitutional amendments to voters if they are concerned about the state having too many constitutional amendments.

On Feb. 22, the House of Representatives voted 79-19 to approve Underwood’s HB1419 and send it to the Senate for further action.

A similar bill — Senate Bill 260 by Dotson — cleared the Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee on Feb. 16.

Like HB1419, SB260, would increase the number of counties from which groups would have to collect signatures from to at least 15 to at least 50.

Dotson’s bill differs from Underwood’s legislation in that it would also increase the required number of signatures from these counties from one-half to three-fourths of the designated percentage of registered voters who cast ballots in the previous gubernatorial election.

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2023-03-07T08:00:00.0000000Z

2023-03-07T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://edition.arkansasonline.com/article/281835762914406

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