Backers fall short on alien petition
Posted on Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Supporters of a proposed initiated act to ban certain state services from illegal aliens in Arkansas fell short of their goal of getting it on the state’s Nov. 4 ballot.
Voters will have as many as five ballot issues to consider in the general election.
Monday was the deadline for supporters of proposed initiated acts and constitutional amendments to turn in the necessary signatures from registered voters.
Jeannie Burlsworth of Bryant announced during a news conference at the state Capitol that her organization, Secure Arkansas, had collected 56, 122 signatures, short of the minimum of 61, 974.
“We are not going anywhere,” Burlsworth said, praising volunteers as she heaved a pile of petition sheets from Baxter County across the marble floor. She said she was illustrating her support in that county and pledged to push the issue before the Legislature in 2009.
She attributed her group’s failure to “simply a lack of time.” She said her newly assembled group was trying to organize as it was also gathering signatures. She stressed that Secure Arkansas only collected signatures for about two months.
But an opponent said he thinks Arkansans question the aims of Secure Arkansas.
“It says a lot about the people of Arkansas that [Secure Arkansas ] wouldn’t generate enough signatures to get it on the ballot right now,” said Stephen Copley of Little Rock, a Methodist minister who is chairman of the Arkansas Friendship Coalition. “A lot of folks just didn’t sign on because they weren’t in agreement.”
Also Monday, Jerry Cox of Little Rock, president of the Family Council Action Committee, turned in 65, 899 signatures to place on the ballot an initiated act to ban certain people in Arkansas from adopting children or providing foster care for them.
Cox previously has said he expects the secretary of state will invalidate about 15, 000 of the signatures as not being from registered Arkansas voters. He said he expects it will take the secretary of state’s office about a week to count the signatures.
The group will get another 30 days to turn in signatures after being notified of a shortage, said secretary of state lawyer Tim Humphries. He said the law doesn’t prohibit more signatures from being collected while the petitions are being counted.
During a news conference at the Capitol, Cox stressed that his proposal bans people with live-in boyfriends and live-in girlfriends from adopting or being foster parents.
He said critics are wrong to say the proposal will take children from foster homes. He said state policy already disallows cohabiting individuals from being foster parents.
The Family Council Action Committee wants to “protect children” and “blunt the gay agenda,” Cox said.
Opponents have said the state shouldn’t limit the pool of those adopting and being foster parents.
Jennifer Ferguson, legal director of the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, which opposes the Family Council’s proposal, addressed reporters after Cox’s news conference. She said that opponents will scrutinize the signatures from the Family Council for accuracy and possibly file a challenge with the state Supreme Court, where lawsuits against such ballot petition proposals begin.
Ferguson said possible problems include signatures not conforming to requirements and other legal matters, which she declined to elaborate on. The state’s petition laws contain provisions spelling out requirements concerning the distribution of signatures from areas of the state, the notarization of signatures, the witnessing of signatures, and other matters.
She emphasized that the current state rule that bans cohabiting couples from being foster parents doesn’t extend to adoptions.
The Family Council’s proposal would cover both private and public adoptions.
The Secure Arkansas proposal would have made state agencies take affidavits in which people say they are citizens before they would be eligible for government benefits.
It would have exempted some benefits that federal law requires, such as public school education. Also exempted would have been Medicaid-funded prenatal care, which isn’t federally required but which the state has chosen to provide since 2004.
Burlsworth said her group is considering forming a political action committee to lobby legislators in the 2009 session. If no laws adequately addressing illegal immigration are passed, she said the group will try again with an initiated act in 2010.
She said people are “overburdened” with gasoline bills and don’t want their tax dollars to “subsidize illegal aliens.”
Opponents, including Gov. Mike Beebe, contend that most of her proposal is already covered in other sections of state or federal law.
On another potential ballot item, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter on June 26 turned in 138, 615 signatures to the secretary of state’s office in hopes of getting on the ballot his proposed constitutional amendment to authorize the Legislature to set up state lotteries in Arkansas to pay for college scholarships.
Proposed constitutional amendments need signatures from 77, 468 registered Arkansas voters to get on the ballot.
The Legislature in 2007 referred two proposed constitutional amendments to the Nov. 4 ballot:
Proposed Constitutional Amendment 1: This amendment concerns voting, qualifications of voters and election officers, and the time of holding general elections, removing from the constitution language deemed by the secretary of state to be antiquated regarding who can vote and who can be poll workers.
Proposed Constitutional Amendment 2: This amendment proposes annual legislative sessions, providing that no legislative appropriation shall be for longer than one year, with regular sessions to be in odd-numbered years and fiscal sessions in evennumbered years, unless the Legislature by two-thirds vote decides to combine fiscal and non-fiscal matters into one session.
Also referred by the Legislature is Referred Question 1. This would allow the state Natural Resources Commission to issue as much as $ 300 million in general obligation bonds under the Arkansas Water, Waste Disposal and Pollution Abatement Facilities Financing Act of 2007, to finance and refinance development of water, waste disposal, water pollution control, abatement and prevention, drainage, irrigation flood control and wetlands and aquatic resources projects.
The Arkansas Sheriffs’ Association failed to come up with the necessary signatures for its proposed constitutional amendment to extend sheriff terms from two to four years.
Other proposals which either failed or were dropped were: Four Year Terms for Elected County Officials. A proposed constitutional amendment sought by Marvin Cossey of Evening Shade would change the term of all county elected officials from two to four years, beginning in 2010. Casino gambling. Former state Rep. Charles Ormond of Morrilton proposed a constitutional amendment that would legalize a lottery and casino gambling in the state and create a commission to oversee the games. Under Ormond’s proposal, he’d be the initial director of the commission.
Legislative term limits. Ormond proposed another amendment to extend the terms of state representatives from two to four years. Severance tax. Former utility executive Sheffield Nelson of Little Rock proposed an initiated act to raise the state severance tax on natural gas to 7 percent of its sales price. This measure was dropped after the Legislature enacted the Nelson-backed compromise tax increase forged by Beebe with gas industry executives.
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