Citizens in Charge

More bad news: Couch also e-mails me that SJR 16, the amendment meant to cripple grassroots petition campaigns ”” think medical marijuana, ethics, casinos, gas severance taxes ”” also won committee approval this morning.

 

Read the rest: Here

Earlier today, the Arkansas House of Representatives passed an amended version of Senate Bill 821 by a vote of 78 to 9.  The legislation, which passed the Senate in different form last month, creates a cumbersome, new state regulation scheme over paid petition circulators, including requiring registration with the state, a training program, providing a mug shot to the Secretary of State and a waiting period before a paid petitioner can begin gathering signatures.

SB 821, the Keith Ingram bill backed by Attorney General McDaniel to require registration of petition canvassers and otherwise present new hurdles to petition gathering, was approved in a House committee this morning. This is another Friday firm vehicle to benefit the likes of the Southland and Oaklawn casinos, which hate petitions for casino competition, and also to help gas companies who’d just as soon not see another petition effort to raise the severance tax. The frackers joined the gamblers in working for this bill today, opponents said. The bill, if passed, is likely to face a legal challenge for infringing on constitutional protections for petitioning. Legislators were urged to vote against the bill by Paul Jacob, who works for the activist group Citizens in Charge.

Citizens in Charge President Paul Jacob today sent a letter to members of the Arkansas House of Representatives urging them to defeat Senate Bill 821, which is pending today in the House State Agencies and Government Affairs Committee.

Jacob argues that the provisions of the bill are unconstitutional, not only under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but also under Amendment 7 to the Arkansas State Constitution, which in part, reads:

Last week, we warned of Senate Joint Resolution 16 in Arkansas, an amendment to the state’s constitution that would make it tougher for initiative petitions to qualify for the state’s grace period, which allows campaigns turning in more signatures than the minimum requirement to have an additional 30 days for gathering signatures should they need it due to some signatures being disqualified.

But today, we are pleased to announce that this constitutional amendment appears to be dead in the water, thanks to an 11-13 vote late Friday in the Arkansas Senate State Agencies and Government Affairs committee.  There is the possibility that the bill could resurface, but baring extraordinary legislative maneuvers, SJR 16 seems to be done for this legislative session.

The state Senate on Friday rejected a measure that would have made it harder for people to get their proposals on the Arkansas ballot - a plan that was opposed by an unlikely alliance of liberal and conservative activists.

The proposal would have made it more difficult for ballot campaigns to win more time to circulate petitions. If approved by the Legislature, the measure would have appeared on next year’s ballot as a proposed amendment to the state constitution. The Senate rejected it on an 11-13 vote.

Read more: from the Associated Press

But Not Dead Yet

The Oaklawn and Southland casinos, gas lobby and other business interests are in a House committee this morning with an 11th-hour amendment to SB 821 to strangle the ballot referendum process. This is on top of a constitutional amendment aimed at the same thing.

The amendment heaps more requirements and expenses on sponsors of ballot initiatives. It does remove the provision prohibiting payment to canvassers based on number of signatures gathered.

Duopoly casinos, rapacious gas and pipeline companies and the usual corporate interests DO NOT like that grassroot groups might propose laws that affect their business. They want to chill it.

When laws are broken, what’s the best response? Should we prosecute the law-breakers?

Or pass yet new laws?

Unfortunately, not a single “bad actor” has been prosecuted for any of the alleged acts of fraud. Not one. Instead, Arkansas legislators have proposed new laws to punish the good citizen seeking to take part in the political process right along with the bad actor.

A Joint committee of the legislature referred two more proposed constitutional amendments for potential voter consideration and failed a measure previously expected to easily garner committee support.

The committee has also pushed through a proposal that could change Arkansas’ term limit rules.

On Wednesday (April 10), the panel could not muster enough votes to allow SJR 5, a tort reform proposal, out of the committee. The proposed constitutional amendment had a competing measure and a rift in the legal community complicated its passage. At the beginning of the session, there appeared to be consensus and momentum for a rewrite of the state’s tort laws.

Read more: Here at the City Wire

I noted recently objections to the effort by Arkansas’s duopoly casinos at Southland and Oaklawn, in league with their friend Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, to make the referendum process prohibitively difficult in Arkansas so as to discourage future casino amendments, along with other potential laws unpleasant to the business lobby.

I mentioned yesterday that a lawsuit was already cooking should the legislature pass a proposal being pushed by the two Arkansas casinos at West Memphis and Hot Springs to make it difficult to put initiated acts and amendments on the ballot.

Here’s one reason why a lawsuit is likely. The pending Arkansas proposal would prohibit paying canvassers for signatures based on the number of signatures they gather. (This serves as a disincentive, because piece work, particularly in places where mass signatures can be gathered, is far more profitable.)

Read more at Arkansas Times

Here’s an article by Paul Jacob, a North Little Rock native who was an important foot soldier in the national campaign to pass term limits. He’s writing about efforts sweeping the country to make it hard to put citizen initiated laws and amendments on the ballot. That’s happening in Arkansas this legislative session, as he notes. Corrupt canvassing activities are being used to justify legislation that will make it prohibitively difficult to mount initiatives ”” for medical marijuana, government ethics, a fairer gas severance tax, casinos, you name it. Particularly name casinos.

The state Senate will vote on SB 821 today: if passed into law, this bill would create a cumbersome and expensive new government program for registration, training, and tracking citizens who are paid to circulate petitions to place initiatives and referendums on the ballot. SB 821, sponsored by state Senator Keith Ingram, would place extremely heavy burdens on Arkansas’s initiative and referendum process – indeed, the bill almost seems designed to make it difficult or impossible for citizens to run successful ballot campaigns.

You can read “How SB 821 Endangers the First Amendment,” AAI’s newest paper, here.

SB 821 threatens petition process

Arkansas State Senators will vote today on Senate Bill 821, sponsored by Sen. Keith Ingram of West Memphis, which would place extremely heavy new burdens on Arkansas’s initiative and referendum process.

Also today, the Advance Arkansas Institute has released a paper by Citizens in Charge President Paul Jacob, which outlines the roadblocks SB 821 places on the I&R process in the Natural State, including the creation of an extensive state registration, training and tracking program for paid petition circulators and making it a crime to “relate” pay to productivity.

Jacob noted that “the bill almost seems designed to make it difficult or impossible for citizens to run successful ballot campaigns.”