A frustrating process

Getting attorney general’s OK on ballot proposals challenging

Something was missing Tuesday at polling places across Arkansas. Certainly, a lot of eligible voters failed to participate in this state’s primary elections, both the partisan variety and the nonpartisan judicial contests.

But those people who chose to abdicate their voices to the ones who did vote weren’t the only absentees.

Petitioners for a variety of ballot initiatives were not there either — not because they didn’t want to be out there collecting signatures, but because their initiatives have as yet been unable to pass muster with Attorney General Leslie Rutledge.

Hence, advocates for those issues lost the single most important day of the election season to gather signatures.

Yes, the process is admittedly annoying to voters who get interrupted on the way into and out of polling places. Nevertheless, it is on primary election day, within the legally allowable distance to the polling places across the state, when a petitioner is most likely to find qualified electors who might sign their petitions to get an issue to the ballot.

Never mind whether any specific issue is itself worthy of that signature, much less a place on the ballot. It may not be. The immediate question is public access to the ballot and the attorney general’s role in the process.

Under existing state law, the state’s attorney general must sign off of the draft language in proposed initiated acts and constitutional amendments. Until the office blesses the language, the petition cannot be circulated for voter signatures. What’s more, all this happens with looming deadlines.

The longer the approval from the attorney general takes, the less time petitioners have to gather the 67,887 signatures required this year for an initiated act or the 84,959 signatures necessary to get a constitutional amendment to the ballot.

The cutoff date for submitting the required signatures to the secretary of state’s office is July 6 this year.

All these steps, including this required review by the attorney general, have a purpose.

The process is supposed to keep petitioners from misleading voters. The attorney general points out a problem in a proposal and the petitioner may change the language to correct the problem.

This year, Rutledge has repeatedly refused to approve ballot language for many different ballot questions. She rejected as misleading proposed initiatives to allow casino gambling, raise the minimum wage in Arkansas and more.

She turned down rewrites on one particular casino gambling proposal for the fifth time earlier this month. She’s panned a minimum wage question at least three times, declining to certify the popular name and ballot title.

She contends that relatively recent Arkansas Supreme Court decisions have set strict standards for her to follow in making sure voters understand what a “for” or “against” vote means on any given issue.

The proposals she has rejected number well into the dozens now.

The last time she actually approved the language for a ballot question was in October 2016. She cleared a proposed constitutional amendment for stricter term limits for state lawmakers.

Most likely, if a petitioner approached anyone for signatures at the polls on Tuesday, it was for that proposal. Sponsors expect to gather sufficient signatures to submit to the secretary of state by July 6.

That issue may or may not be worth your vote in November. But, as of now, it is the only statewide initiative that appears to have a chance of being on that general election ballot.

Plenty of obstacles could short-circuit it, too, but the other proposals haven’t gotten past Rutledge.

Attorneys for some struggling ballot issues have taken their complaints against Rutledge to court.

A Pulaski County judge ruled last week that she must submit to questioning under oath about her ballot-initiative review process. The judge set an end-of-the-week hearing, but it didn’t happen.

Rutledge thwarted it by transferring the lawsuit to federal court, just minutes before she was to appear in state court.

What had been before Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen is now on the docket of U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker.

The lawyers who sued Rutledge then tried to drop the newly federal case, planning to file again in state court, but they’ve since dropped that motion and are asking Judge Baker for an emergency hearing.

The attorneys’ goal, regardless of the court that hears the case, is to get their ballot proposals certified so they can publish them as required by June 6 and try to gather the necessary signatures by July 6, a formidable task.

Oh, and just to confuse matters more, Rutledge is now calling on the Legislature to fix the initiative process.

That won’t happen until the General Assembly’s legislative session in 2019, if then.