EDITORIALS : Faced With a Choice
Posted on Friday, May 11, 2007
It boggles the mind that it takes fewer signatures to trigger a vote on incorporation than it does to trigger a vote on package liquor sales. Think about it. A vote to create a new city — arguably the most challenging task a community can undertake — faces a lower threshold than a vote to decide whether a legal substance can be sold to people over the age of 21.
To trigger a vote on package liquor sales, petitioners must gather signatures from 38 percent of a county’s registered voters. By contrast, to trigger a vote on creating a new city, they need signatures from 25 percent of the voters within the area to be incorporated.
For most other types of referendums, state law requires an even lower signature-gathering threshold — 15 percent of the number of people who voted in the last race for county judge or mayor. We’d wager that, in Benton County, an organized group of petitioners could gather that many signatures in a day.
It simply makes no sense. Never has. But where the topsy-turvy issue of package liquor sales is concerned, very little makes sense.
The organizers of Citizens for Choice, the county’s latest attempt to get the wet / dry issue on the ballot, no doubt realize this. The group’s president, David Routon, was affiliated with the last such effort, Your Choice Benton County, which fizzled last year after falling far short of the required number of signatures.
We’re interested in seeing where this current effort goes — and how it gets there. In principal, we agree with what Citizens for Choice is trying to do. We think package liquor sales should be legalized in Benton County. But even more than that, we think Benton Countians deserve the opportunity to decide this issue for themselves, at the polls. We want to see the matter put to a vote. We’re happy to see a group of people willing to go after the signatures required to make that happen.
That being said, we have a little advice. The last signaturegathering effort, Your Choice Benton County, became mired in personal politics as its chief organizer, Justice of the Peace Bill Adams, used the effort as a platform to run for county judge. As Adams ’ campaign sputtered, so did the signaturegathering effort.
There’s no way to keep politics out of an effort like this, but there’s little room for personal ambition. The organizers of Citizens for Choice must devote themselves to the issue and the work related to the issue. As past efforts have shown, gathering the signatures of 38 percent of registered voters is a monumental endeavor. Your Choice Benton County needed 36, 000. They got 18, 000.
This being Benton County, the population has increased since that attempt, and so has the number of signatures required. If Citizens for Choice makes a serious go of this, the group will be looking at gathering approximately 39, 000 signatures. That’s a lot of signatures, but that’s what it will take to get this issue before voters in 2008.
Frankly, it seems an almost impossible mountain to climb. But we don’t know that its summit is any more out of reach than that of the other mountain in question: The one that must be climbed for the Legislature to lower the ridiculous wet / dry signature-gathering threshold.
Given our druthers, that’s the issue we’d like to see tackled. It should be up to local voters to determine the character of their community. The state’s 38 percent requirement for a vote on package liquor sales amounts to a prohibition on that. It should be done away with in favor of a more reasonable signature-gathering threshold.
Unfortunately, we don’t see the Legislature being open to that idea any time soon — especially if it originates in northwest Arkansas, which other parts of the state tend to look upon with envy. As difficult as it will be to gather the required number of signatures, that may actually represent the county’s best hope of deciding this issue at the polls.
Finally, Routon expressed a desire this week for community leaders to step up and make their opinions known on this topic. We agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly. It’s going to take a communitywide effort to trigger a vote, and for that effort to take shape, leaders must be willing to lead.
Again, we’re interested in seeing where this goes, and how it gets there. If it takes us to the polls, with a chance to decide our community’s future, the trip will be well worth it.
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online