House backs proposal on amending constitution

Rep. Mickey Gates talks with Rep. DeAnn Vaught on Thursday during consideration of Vaught’s legislation that would toughen the law on ballot initiatives. The bill “is designed to protect the people of Arkansas’ rights and to ensure citizens’ initiatives are genuinely citizens’ initiatives and not special-interest purchases,” Vaught said. More photos are available at arkansasonline.com/45genassembly/
Rep. Mickey Gates talks with Rep. DeAnn Vaught on Thursday during consideration of Vaught’s legislation that would toughen the law on ballot initiatives. The bill “is designed to protect the people of Arkansas’ rights and to ensure citizens’ initiatives are genuinely citizens’ initiatives and not special-interest purchases,” Vaught said. More photos are available at arkansasonline.com/45genassembly/

The Arkansas House voted Thursday to refer a proposed constitutional amendment to the 2020 ballot that would make it harder to change the state constitution.

The proposal, among other changes, would triple the number of counties where signatures must be gathered if residents want to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot and move up the date when those signatures must be submitted.

The House voted 68-20 for House Joint Resolution 1008 by Rep. DeAnn Vaught, R-Horatio; it must now be approved by the Senate.

The resolution follows ballot initiatives in recent years that have miffed many lawmakers, including the legalization of medical marijuana in 2016 and casinos in 2018. Vaught said the resolution aimed to preserve the sacredness of the Arkansas Constitution.

"HJR1008 is designed to protect the people of Arkansas' rights and to ensure citizens' initiatives are genuinely citizens' initiatives and not special-interest purchases," Vaught said.

[RELATED: Complete Democrat-Gazette coverage of the Arkansas Legislature]

The resolution would be the third ballot initiative referred by the General Assembly during the 2019 session. The other two are proposed constitutional amendments that would permanently extend the state's half-percent sales tax for highway funding and limit state lawmakers to 12 consecutive years in office, which would reset after a four-year break.

A potential fourth citizen-initiated referendum is also underway. In March, the private Arkansas Term Limits ballot committee filed a proposed constitutional amendment that would cap years in legislative office at 10. That proposal is similar to the committee's last one that was struck from the November ballot after a legal challenge. To get its latest proposal on the 2020 ballot, the committee will have to collect more than 89,000 valid signatures of registered voters.

HJR1008 would:

• Require signatures of at least one-half of the designated percentage of the electors in 45 counties instead of the current 15 counties.

• Require a three-fifths vote of both chambers of the General Assembly to refer a proposed constitutional amendment to voters.

• Eliminate the 30-day signature cure period, in which ballot-measure sponsors may collect additional signatures if they submitted at least 75 percent of the required number of registered-voter signatures on time.

• Require challenges to the sufficiency of any ballot measure to be filed no later than April 15 of the election year.

• Require citizen-initiated petitions to be filed with the secretary of state by Jan. 15 of the election year rather than the current four months before the election.

Rep. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle, speaking against the resolution, said it was an over-reaction to recent ballot measures. He acknowledged that he believes the process should be changed, but he argued that HJR1008 wasn't the best way do do it.

"We're not putting the referendum process out of the reach of big money," he said. "They're the only ones that are going to be able to afford this kind of high threshold."

House Democratic leader Rep. Charles Blake, D-Little Rock, also spoke against the bill, saying it made it more difficult for Arkansans to speak "their wills."

"When people at home realize what we're doing here, they're not going to be happy," Blake said.

Rep. Stephen Meeks, R-Greenbrier, said in support of the resolution that the state's constitution should be its most basic guiding principles and be extremely difficult to alter. At the current rate, Meeks said, the Arkansas Constitution will eventually have hundreds of amendments.

"Right now in our state constitution, we've got drugs and casinos and gambling," he said. "You think our forefathers would be happy with the fact we've got marijuana and casinos in our constitution? Do you think that is what they intended it to be?"

David Couch, the Little Rock attorney who drafted amendments in recent years to legalize medical marijuana and raise the state's minimum wage, said he's preparing a competing amendment to HJR1008.

That proposal, Couch said, would make the initiative process more "user friendly" by rolling back provisions that have made it more difficult to petition for a ballot slot.

"We'll let the people decide if they want the people's amendment or the politicians' amendment," Couch said.

In addition to citizen-initiated measures on medical cannabis and casinos, Arkansans in recent years have approved referrals from the General Assembly to require photo identification at the ballot box, levy a half-percent sales tax for highway funding and increase lawmakers' term limits.

A Section on 04/05/2019

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