Vote against Issue 3

Issue 3 puts our state legislators’ self-interest front and center. If passed, Issue 3 will make it significantly harder for citizen-led initiatives to get on the ballot while only nominally impacting the legislators’ process for putting constitutional amendments on the ballot.

Currently we citizens can put an item on the ballot by collecting signatures from 15 counties before early July of the election year. Our Legislature is proposing to triple the number of counties where signatures must be collected while decreasing the amount of time allowed to collect them. If Issue 3 is passed, ballot measures from concerned citizen volunteers will be practically impossible to get on the ballot while ballot measures from special-interest groups will make the ballot because they have ample money to pay signature collectors.

In contrast, our legislators propose minimal changes to their own ballot measure process. If Issue 3 is passed, legislators will be required to obtain 60 percent vote in support of ballot items instead of the current 50 percent +1 vote. This would surely be easy for our Legislature given the overwhelming party majority.

We don’t need stricter gatekeeping of citizen-led ballot measures. Getting a measure on the ballot doesn’t automatically mean the measure becomes law. It just means that we, the people of Arkansas, get a chance to consider it and decide for ourselves.

Simply put, Issue 3 proposes changes that are good for the legislators and bad for the people. As Arkansas citizens, we have the right to put items on the ballot and make state laws. Don’t cooperate with legislators in limiting that right to wealthy corporations and special-interest groups. Vote no on Issue 3. CHARLOTTE SCHOLL SHURTZ

Bentonville