Arkansas
Regnat Populus has issued a rallying cry for good government advocates to fight Sen. Keith Ingram’s bill to make it far more difficult to qualify popular initiatives for the ballot.
Paul Spencer, chair of the good government group, sees the fine hand of lawyers for the state’s casino monopolies ”” at Oaklawn and Southland ”” in the measure. Hard to quarrel. It’d be cheaper for them to never have to face casino proposals than to have to spend on lawyers to fight them when they surface, as happened last year.
HB1187 is now Act 312 after being signed into law by Governor Beebe today. The new law prohibits the use of public funds by a public employee, school board, city, county, or any public entity to influence the outcome of ballot measure elections. (We’ve previously analyzed it here.)
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel (D) says Arkansans can have faith in our election system but he adds, that doesn’t mean changes aren’t needed.
Joined by Senate and House members on Thursday, Mcdaniel unveiling a push for election and ballot reform.
The package of three separate bills SB 343, SB 821 and SB 822 targets everything from fake signatures on ballot initiatives to criminal background checks for candidates.
Gov. Mike Beebe said Wednesday (Jan. 25) he is “re-evaluating” his support for a proposed ballot initiative that would raise Arkansas’ severance tax.
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Sheffield Nelson, a former natural gas company executive, has received ballot title approval from Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel for a referendum to raise severance tax on natural gas to 7% and exclude current loopholes. The tax could raise as much as $250 million a year, with the money dedicated for Arkansas highways.
Ballotpedia’s final analysis on donations to all 2011 statewide ballot measure campaigns has been released; the donations add up $85 million.
The report reveals some interesting information like the fact that the state with the highest contributions from all campaign sides from all ballot measures was in Ohio. The least amount of contributions was in Arkansas.
You can also find an overview of the contributions from supporters & opponents, a ranking of ballot measures from the most to the least contributions, and the ranking of political topic contributions where “labor” shows the most donations in Ohio on Issue 2.
Fort Smith city council members are likely to send a new tax on prepared foods to referendum in November in the hopes of ending lawsuits against the city. Citizens petitioned for a referendum after the council approved the tax and have been in court since the spring over rejected petitions.
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel today declined to certify a proposed ballot initiative calling for a study of hemp agriculture and medical marijuana. McDaniel rejected the popular name and ballot title of the proposed initiative by the group Cannabis-Hemp Study Advocates, citing ambiguous language.
A group called Arkansans for Compassionate Care has won approval for the title of a ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana. Attorney General Dustin McDaniel approved the “Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act” as an appropriate title on the November 2012 ballot.
Former natural gas executive Sheffield Nelson on Tuesday refilled his proposed ballot measure to raise the severance tax on natural gas to 7 percent. Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel rejected Nelson’s original proposal in February, citing ambiguities in the text. At a news conference Tuesday, Nelson said that he appreciated McDaniel’s feedback and that he believed his revised proposal sufficiently dealt with the ambiguities.
The Boone County clerk says voters will get a chance in the Nov. 2 general election to decide if the sale of alcoholic beverages should be legal in the county. County Clerk Crystal Graddy on Friday certified that petitions turned in by Jeff Crockett, seeking a wet-dry election in the now-dry county, contained enough valid signatures to put the question on the ballot.
LITTLE ROCK ”” The Arkansas man whose organization provided most of the funding for legislative term limits is championing a new cause to give voters a greater say in government.
Paul Jacob, 50, played such a large role in the national push to create limits on the duration of political service that he rose to the national stage.
Now, his Virginia-based Citizens in Charge advocates making it easier for citizens to try to change laws and state constitutions through the petition process.
Secure Arkansas, the grassroots organization pushing a citizen’s sponsored illegal immigration ballot issue, has failed to submit enough raw signatures for its measure to be considered for the November general election, according to this exclusive report from TalkBusiness.net. Secretary of State Charlie Daniels reports that after a closer examination of the affidavits submitted by the group, the official signature count totaled 67,542 ”” nearly 10,000 signatures below the minimum required by state law.
Leaders of the Arkansas Progressive Group announced Thursday (May 27) they will withdraw their AR OneTax ballot initiative following an Arkansas Supreme Court ruling that the group could not challenge its own initiative in court. The tax proposal sought to vastly restructure Arkansas’ tax code so that state tax revenue would largely be dependent on a higher sales tax.
The sponsor of an Arkansas ballot proposal cannot file a friendly challenge to his or her own measure, the state Supreme Court ruled today in a case involving a Fort Smith group’s proposal for a statewide flat tax. The court dismissed a challenge by the Arkansas Progressive Group to the group’s proposed constitutional amendment to repeal all existing state taxes and replace them with a flat-rate sales tax.