McDaniel rejects ballot title on election-spending proposal

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel on Wednesday rejected a proposed ballot title and popular name for a possible ballot measure to limit spending by corporations in elections in Arkansas.

Paul Spencer of Little Rock, co-chairman of the Regnat Populus Ballot Question Committee, submitted the wording for the group’s proposed initiated act.

McDaniel said Spencer’s proposal seeks to deter corporate spending on elections through a penalty instead of flatly prohibiting corporate spending.

Under Spencer’s proposal, “corporations must choose between either (a) engaging in certain constitutionally-protected speech (i.e., certain kinds of election spending) and being stripped of their limited liability, or (b) refraining from constitutionally-protected speech in order to retain their limited liability,” McDaniel wrote in a letter to Spencer.

McDaniel, a Democrat, said Spencer’s proposal is designed to penalize corporations for engaging in constitutionally protected speech and is clearly unconstitutional.