LITTLE ROCK — The Family Council is rewriting its proposed initiated act to ban unmarried couples from adopting or fostering children even though the attorney general already certified the measure for the ballot. The Little Rock organization will submit a new version for state certification today.
Jerry Cox, president of Family Council, said the group's attorneys drafted a new version partly as a reaction to recent criticism from Gov. Mike Beebe and Attorney General Dustin McDaniel of a previous version.
Beebe said this month that he opposed that proposal. He said it went too far in seeking to keep unmarried couples from adopting children. Adoption and foster care are different and shouldn't be bundled together in one proposal, he said.
Cox said the new draft would still ban unmarried sexual partners who live together from adopting or becoming foster parents.
But it will include a section that makes clear that the aim of the act is child welfare, what's in the best interest of children, he said.
The group's first draft had included "findings of fact" to make the case that unmarried couples offer a less stable upbringing for children.
But McDaniel suggested that "gratuitous inclusion" of such language in the measure's title may prove problematic, so the Family Council took it out in the second draft. McDaniel certified that draft, so the organization could begin to collect the 61,974 signatures necessary to get the proposal on the ballot in 2008.
Cox said he then took note that Beebe and McDaniel made comments in news media that such decisions should be made in the best interest of children.
"We placed that language in the initial draft, the references to child welfare and what's in the interest of children. They told us to take it out, and then we found ourselves being criticized on that very topic," Cox said.
He said he didn't think Mc-Daniel or his staff tried to hurt the act's chances by suggesting the original wording beexcised.
"He's entitled to his opinion like anyone else," Cox said.
Gabe Holmstrom, spokesman for McDaniel, said Tuesday that the attorney general wouldn't comment on the plans to submit a new proposed initiated act.
Matt DeCample, spokesman for Beebe, also declined comment. The governor will likely refrain from discussing the proposal until McDaniel's office issues an opinion on the new draft, DeCample said.
The attorney general lacks authority to reject or approve proposals on the basis of their merits. Rather, the law requires him to review the popular name and ballot title of proposals, the parts voters see on their ballots, to ensure that the phrasing accurately and fairly reflects the substance of the proposal.
In approving the seconddraft, McDaniel substituted for the popular name another one he thought more clearly reflected the scope of the measure. At the time Cox said it was fine.
But he said Tuesday that after studying it for a while, attorneys for the Family Council decided against McDaniel's version. The new name will also be part of the changes submitted today, he said.
Arkansas, Pages 12 on 10/24/2007