Gov. Mike Beebe vetoed legislation Monday that would require voters to present photo identification before casting their ballot, calling Senate Bill 2 an “expensive solution in search of a problem” that “is not supported by any demonstrated need.”
The House sponsor of the bill, Rep. Stephen Meeks, R-Greenbrier, said he is not concerned about having enough votes in both chambers to override the governor’s veto. Senate sponsor Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, said he will bring the bill up and attempt to override Beebe’s veto Wednesday.
The bill passed the Senate by a 22-12 vote. It passed the House by a 51-44 vote. It takes a simple majority to override a veto.
The bill would instruct the secretary of state to create rules requiring county clerks to issue voter-identification cards at no cost to individuals who don’t have other valid forms of identification and have filled out voter-registration applications. If enacted,the bill would become effective Jan. 1, 2014, but only if the state had the money to issue the voter-ID cards.
The Bureau of Legislation Research estimates it will cost $300,000 to purchase the needed equipment.
Under current state law, poll workers ask for identifying documents, but voters are not required to show them.
Similar bills have been enacted in Georgia, Indiana, Kansas and Tennessee, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin also have similar laws, though they are not currently in effect because of lawsuits or because the federal government has not signed off on them.
According to the conference, 30 states require voters to present some type of identification at the polls.
Beebe wrote in his veto letter that he believes “the bill unnecessarily restricts and impairs our citizens’ right to vote.”
Beebe waited until five days after the bill was approved by both chambers to issue his veto. The bill would have become law without his signature Monday afternoon if he had not acted.
The governor said he waited on an opinion from state Attorney General Dustin McDaniel about whether the bill was legal or would violate the state constitution.
Beebe pointed to Article 3, Section 1 of the Arkansas Constitution, which sets the qualifications to vote and states that a person who meets those qualifications “shall be allowed to vote at any election.”
“Article 3, Section 2 unambiguously limits the power of the General Assembly to adopt any law that would deny or impair that right,” Beebe wrote in his veto letter.
He said that the strong language in the article raises concerns about the constitutionality of Senate Bill 2.
Beebe wrote that if the law was challenged, a court might decide that the bill is not an unconstitutional impairment to the right to vote, but may rule that it is an invalid attempt to add additional qualifications for voting that are not found in the article.
He also wrote that there is not a demonstrated need for the law.
Proponents of the law point to the case of former Rep. Hudson Hallum, D-Marion, to justify the need for the legislation.
In September, Hallum and three other men pleaded guilty in federal court to bribing absentee voters with cash, chicken dinners and vodka in exchange for votes in three special elections in 2011.
King said Beebe is turning a blind eye to the issue, as Democrats have in the past.
“This is just a continuation of the same attitude they’ve always had that there’s no voter fraud in Arkansas,” King said. “We’ve had voter fraud going on for years here.”
King said the veto is only symbolic because the Legislature can override it.
“I’m not really surprised, he’s just coming out and pandering to the left,” King said.
Both the House and Senate Rules Committee weighed in on whether the bill dealt with voter-registration requirements found in Amendment 51 to the Arkansas Constitution and thus needed a two-thirds vote to pass.
If the bill changed Amendment 51, it would need such a supermajority.
The question arose after Rep. Jim Nickels, D-Sherwood, objected to the bill when it arrived in the House. Speaker Davy Carter, R-Cabot, then referred the bill to the Rules Committee so it could determine whether the bill had received enough votes in the Senate to proceed.
The House Rules Committee voted that the bill needed only 51 votes to pass.
When the bill returned to the Senate it was also referred to that chamber’s Rules Committee. The committee, controlled by Democrats, said a supermajority was needed. That vote was overruled by the full Senate, which is led by Republicans.
Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock, said the law would make voting less accessible and created a barrier that some people might not be able to or feel able to overcome.
She said there could be other obstacles to obtaining an identification card that were not addressed in the bill or the debate over the measure.
“I think there’s all kinds of possibilities that it could be an impairment,” Elliott said.
Sen. Stephanie Flowers, D-Pine Bluff, agreed that the law could be seen as “problematic” for some eligible voters.
“I think it can make it difficult for people who have limited access, that don’t have the mobility that I might enjoy,” Flowers said.
Flowers said she is hopeful that if the statute is challenged in court, it would be overturned because it only received a simple majority.
“I hope the court can see the connection and how that bill is germane to Amendment 51 and then rule that it needed a2/ 3 vote from each of the houses,” she said.
The state’s political parties jumped on the veto quickly as well.
Democratic Party Chairman Will Bond released a statement thanking the governor for the veto and for “protecting the basic, fundamental right to vote for all Arkansans. SB 2 was only going to do three things: increase government bureaucracy, increase government spending, and suppress voter turnout.”
Republican Party chairman Doyle Webb also released a statement that said the party looked forward to overriding the veto.
“Gov. Beebe has once again overruled the wishes of Arkansas voters, disregarded the will of bipartisan majorities who passed the bill in the legislature, and even ignored the opinion his own attorney general released just this afternoon. In order to ensure the fairness and integrity of Arkansas elections, we look forward to overriding this veto in the days to come,” Webb said in the statement.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/26/2013