Ballot language was submitted Wednesday to the Arkansas attorney general's office for a voter referendum to repeal Arkansas' ban on local anti-discrimination ordinances that differ from state law.
Supporters of the movement to repeal Senate Bill 202, which became Act 137 last month, also registered a ballot-question committee with the Arkansas Ethics Commission named Arkansans to Protect Local Rights. Attorney David Couch confirmed Wednesday that he submitted the ballot language and filed the paperwork earlier this month to form the committee.
"I've been contacted by several individuals and organizations from all over the country that have expressed an interest in doing this," Couch said. "I'm all about local rights. This takes away local options. Cities and counties should be able to make the laws that govern their people."
Judd Deere, communications director for Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, confirmed that the office had received the ballot question and a request for an opinion Wednesday afternoon. He said the office has 10 days to reject, approve or modify the proposed language.
The proposed popular name of the measure is "A Referendum to repeal the Arkansas Intrastate Commerce Improvement Act."
The proposed language of the ballot title describes the act as one "that prohibits a county, municipality, or other political subdivision of the state from adopting or enforcing an ordinance, resolution, rule or policy that creates a protected classification or prohibits discrimination on a basis not in state law; and provides that such prohibition does not apply to a rule or policy that pertains only to employees of the county, municipality, or other political subdivision."
Couch said he's confident about the language used because it mirrors the wording of the bill that was passed by the Arkansas Legislature in February.
The bill, by Sen. Bart Hester, R-Cave Springs, was crafted to curb civil-rights ordinances similar to the one passed in Eureka Springs and one that voters rejected in Fayetteville in December. Gov. Asa Hutchinson chose to neither sign nor veto the bill.
Hester said he supports residents' rights to use the ballot process.
"I don't feel any reservations that the people of this state will overwhelmingly support [Act 137]. There has to be some continuity in civil rights so that businesses can operate," he said. "I think their time would be more productive getting civil rights that they believe in than trying to repeal this law. If there's one thing I've learned from my time in office, it's that people's time is far more productive fighting for something that they believe in, not against something they don't."
Opponents of the law said they believe Arkansas is a test ground for the legislation that they fear will be advanced in other states. They cite Arkansas' being one of the first states in the late 1990s to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriage.
"This is the first time in a long time that any group of people have gotten together to repeal something that was passed in the Legislature," said Sara Scanlon, who plans to collect signatures to get the measure on the ballot.
"Frankly, we have a choice to allow this to go into place, or we have a choice to have a conversation in our communities and decide whether this is right for our communities or wrong for our communities, where we live," she said.
If the ballot language is approved, the group will then submit the wording of a petition for signatures to the secretary of state's office for approval. If that were approved, then the group would have 90 days from the end of the legislative session to collect roughly 51,000 signatures -- 6 percent of the voters who cast ballots in the 2014 gubernatorial election.
Couch said the 90-day window comes into play because the Arkansas Legislature failed to pass an emergency clause attached to the bill. The emergency clause would have put the bill into effect the day it became law, but without that clause, the law goes into effect 90 days after the end of the session.
"If we can get those signatures in, it's my understanding that the law won't go into effect until after the November 2016 election, until after voters get the chance to approve it or reject it," he said. "That's my goal, and that's why I went ahead and got started because there's such a small window."
Metro on 03/26/2015