Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge on Friday certified the popular name and ballot title for the Arkansas Term Limits Amendment.
Skip Cook, who is sponsoring the proposed amendment, said he would like to see Arkansans vote on the proposed amendment during the 2018 general election.
The measure would limit state lawmakers to serving a maximum of 10 years in both houses of the Arkansas Legislature, state representatives to six years and state senators to eight years. The measure also would prohibit the Legislature from putting future term-limit measures on the ballot.
Cook said it is equivalent to the amendment backed by Restore Term Limits that failed to receive the required number of valid signatures to make the ballot in November.
Lawmakers can currently serve up to 16 years in the House, Senate or both under Amendment 94 to the Arkansas Constitution, which voters approved in November 2014. That amendment, proposed by the Legislature, relaxed term limits set in an earlier amendment.
"We continue to ask for the same things now that we asked for then, which is a limitation on these guys so they don't go their entire lifespan" in the Legislature, Cook said.
Cook said he has been active in term-limit efforts in Arkansas for 24 years. During that time, he said lawmakers have constantly tried to overturn term-limit provisions.
"It just slays me, why they feel they are the only people who have the capacity and the intellect to represent the people they represent," he said. "They need to move on and allow other people to have a shot."
Restore Term Limits was a little "organizationally challenged" during this election cycle, he said.
The committee said it failed to gather enough signatures using paid petitioners after it was "blocked," said Angel Roberson, volunteer coordinator for Restore Term Limits, earlier this month.
Attorney David Couch of Little Rock, who worked with Sen. Jon Woods, R-Springdale, and Rep. Warwick Sabin, D-Little Rock, on what became Amendment 94, instructed National Ballot Access -- a company that collects signatures for ballot initiatives, veto referendums and recall petition drives -- not to allow canvassers to carry petitions both for the medical marijuana amendment and the term limits amendment.
Because Cook has nearly two years to collect signatures, he said gathering the required petitions shouldn't be a problem.
The proposed amendment is in its "embryo stage," Cook said, and he's not yet sure who will be involved in efforts to support it.
"People are going to have to start picking up the pieces from last time and go forward and try to make this a real deal this time," he said.
Metro on 07/30/2016