Bills to change Arkansas' citizen-led petition process continue to move through Legislature

Yahoo

25-02-2025

Rep. Kendon Underwood, R-Cave Springs, presents Senate Bill 207 to the Arkansas House on Monday, February 24, 2025. (Tess Vrbin/Arkansas Advocate)
Proposed changes to Arkansas' citizen-led ballot initiative process continued to advance through the state Legislature on Monday, with more movement expected throughout the week.
Two bills sponsored by Sen. Kim Hammer, R-Benton, passed a House committee for the second time after being amended and will go to the House floor next. A third bill passed the House and will return to a Senate committee for concurrence on an amendment.
The bills are among several Hammer is sponsoring that members of the public have said will impede Arkansans' ability to participate in direct democracy. Hammer, House sponsor Rep. Kendon Underwood and Secretary of State Cole Jester have all claimed petitions for ballot measures circulated last year contained many duplicate signatures, which is prohibited by state law.
Underwood, a Cave Springs Republican, presented Senate Bill 207 to the House and later presented Senate Bill 208 and Senate Bill 211 to the House Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs.
SB 207 would require canvassers for ballot-measure petitions to inform potential signers that petition fraud is a criminal offense. The section of Arkansas code governing initiatives and referenda designates petition fraud a Class A misdemeanor.
'I think many people just don't know that these are serious government documents, and this corrects that error,' Underwood told the House. '…[This bill would] protect the democratic process by helping to ensure that legitimate signatures are collected and reducing fraudulent activity that undermines the public trust.'
Rep. Tippi McCullough, D-Little Rock, asked Underwood how the state would collect evidence to prosecute canvassers for failure to comply with the requirement in the bill. Underwood said evidence 'could be provided in a number of ways.'
McCullough said she thought the requirement could 'chill this process' of collecting signatures, echoing concerns expressed in recent weeks by opponents of the bill and by other Democratic lawmakers.
'If you're putting someone in the position of doing a video recording [to prove compliance], it's kind of interrupting the process between the canvasser and the voter,' McCullough said.
She and 16 other House Democrats, plus nine Republicans, voted against SB 207. Three of the Republicans who voted against it — Julie Mayberry of Hensley, Mark McElroy of Tillar and Jeremy Wooldridge of Marmaduke — also voted against it in committee last week.
Five Republicans did not vote, and the remaining two Democrats, Glenn Barnes and Ken Ferguson of Pine Bluff, voted present.
SB 207 has an emergency clause, which would allow it to go into effect immediately upon the governor's signature. Emergency clauses need a two-thirds vote in each chamber, and the 67 Republicans who voted for SB 207 gave the emergency clause the bare minimum of support it needed for passage.
SB 208 and SB 211 also have emergency clauses. All three bills initially passed the Senate at or beyond the two-thirds threshold of 24 votes.
SB 208 would require canvassers to request a photo ID from potential signers, and SB 211 would require canvassers to file a 'true affidavit' with the secretary of state certifying they complied with the Arkansas Constitution and state laws related to canvassing, perjury, forgery and fraudulent practices in the procurement of petition signatures. Signatures submitted without the affidavit would not be counted.
The House Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs approved both bills as amended Monday, a week after hearing nearly six hours of public comment before passing the bills.
Kwami Abdul-Bey, representing the Arkansas state conference of the NAACP, spoke against the bills both Monday and last week. He said he appreciated the amendment to SB 208, which clarifies the type of photo ID the bill would require under existing state law, since he had expressed concerns about this technicality at the Feb. 17 meeting.
Abdul-Bey said he remained concerned about SB 208 because it did not include exceptions for voters who live in long-term care facilities or are in the military, since state law exempts them from presenting a photo ID to vote.
He also said he opposed SB 211's requirement for a 'true affidavit' because the term carries criminal liability.
State law already requires ballot question committees to submit an affidavit identifying paid canvassers by name and provide proof that the committee explained to canvassers the state's laws for soliciting signatures and gave them the Secretary of State's initiatives and referenda handbook before they started canvassing.
This affidavit is not a 'true affidavit' and therefore only carries civil liability, Abdul-Bey said. He also questioned why the proposed requirement in the bill could not be incorporated into the existing affidavit requirement.
'Not only are we creating an extra piece of paper, but we are also criminalizing the act of collecting signatures for a ballot measure,' said Abdul-Bey, who works for the Arkansas Public Policy Panel and has participated in multiple citizen-led ballot efforts in the past few years.
No other members of the public spoke for or against the bills, and the committee approved both bills with split voice votes after no discussion.
SB 208 and SB 211 will go to the House floor for a vote and back to the Senate if approved.
The Senate Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs is expected to take up SB 207 as soon as Thursday.
SESSION SNAPSHOT: Battle over regulating citizen-led petitions in Arkansas continues
Hammer is sponsoring two more bills, SB 209 and SB 210, which he asked the Senate to place on Tuesday's calendar.
Senate Bill 209 would disqualify signatures collected by canvassers if the secretary of state finds 'by a preponderance of evidence' that they violated state law collecting the signatures.
Senate Bill 210 would require potential signers to read the ballot title of a petition or have it read aloud to them in the presence of a canvasser. It would also make it a misdemeanor for a canvasser to accept a signature from people who have not read the ballot title or had it read aloud to them in the presence of a canvasser.
Both bills passed the Senate on Feb. 12, but they failed to receive the two-thirds majority vote required to pass the bills' emergency clause. The Senate approved Hammer's motion to expunge the vote, and the bills again failed to gain enough support for the emergency clauses on Feb. 13.
Hammer said Monday that Tuesday will be the last time he brings the bills to the chamber for consideration.
'Members, I promise you no matter who's in the room or who's not in the room, we'll vote it and see what happens and we'll be done with it tomorrow,' Hammer said.
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Deputy Editor Antoinette Grajeda contributed to this article.