Senate panel rejects bill on new party signatures

LITTLE ROCK — A bill that would require new political parties to collect 10,000 signatures of registered voters to get on the ballot fell short of clearing the Arkansas Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee on Tuesday.

Under state law, a new political party is one that hasn’t achieved party status. To achieve that status, a party’s nominee must receive at least 3% of the vote on the gubernatorial or presidential ticket.

The committee’s 4-1 vote on Senate Bill 277 by Sen. Kim Hammer, R-Benton, fell one vote short of the five votes required on the eight-member committee for a measure to clear the committee. Committee Chairman Sen. Blake Johnson, R-Corning, dissented.

Hammer said the bill is a response to a federal judge’s ruling that declared unconstitutional a 2019 state law that increased the signature requirement for new political parties to get on the ballot from 10,000 registered voters to 3% of the number of people who voted in the last election for governor.

U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker granted a preliminary injunction in 2019. Based on the 2018 election, a new political party would have been required to turn in more than 26,000 signatures of registered voters to get on the ballot under the 2019 state law, according to the secretary of state’s office.

Hammer said he worked on the bill with Michael Pakko, chairman of the Libertarian Party of Arkansas.

Pakko told the Senate committee that he generally approves of “the fixes” in Senate Bill 277, although he believes requiring the new political parties to obtain 5,000 signatures of registered voters would be sufficient rather than 10,000 signatures of registered voters.

He said he hopes the committee recommends Senate approval of the bill.

Patko said the Libertarian Party didn’t mean to mess up the political party filing periods through its lawsuit against Secretary of State John Thurston over the new political party signature requirement.

Baker also struck down the political party filing periods, said Josh Bridges of the secretary of state’s office.

SB277 would require the one-week party filing period for years in which the office of the governor will appear on the ballot at the general election to begin at noon one week prior to the first day in March and to end at noon on the second day in March. The bill would require the oneweek party filing period for years in which the office of the president will appear on the ballot in the general election to begin at noon on the first Monday in November preceding the general primary election and end at noon on the eighth day thereafter.

The bill would require a new political party that wishes to select nominees for the next general election to file a sufficient petition no later than three weeks prior to a preferential primary election. No signature of a registered voter that is dated prior to the first day of January immediately following the general election shall be counted for new political parties under the bill.

In other action,the Senate committee endorsed a bill that would transfer the authority for considering certifying the popular name and ballot title of proposed ballot measures from the state Board of Election Commissioners to the attorney general.

With a voice vote with no audible dissenting vote, the Senate committee advanced House Bill 1320 by Rep. David Ray, R-Maumelle, which would transfer the authority for considering certifying the popular name and ballot title of proposed ballot measures from the state Board of Election Commissioners to the attorney general.

Act 376 of 2019 shifted the responsibility of certifying a proposed ballot measure’s popular name and ballot title from the attorney general to the state Board of Election Commissioners. Then-Attorney General Leslie Rutledge, who is now the state’s lieutenant governor, supported the 2019 measure.

Certification of the ballot title and popular name is one of the two requirements under state law for a proposal to get on the general election ballot. The other requirement is for the secretary of state to certify that the sponsor has submitted the required number of valid signatures of registered voters on petitions.

In September, the Arkansas Supreme Court overturned a decision by the state Board of Election Commissioners not to certify the ballot title and popular name of a proposed constitutional amendment that would legalize recreational marijuana and cleared the way for votes to be counted on the proposed constitutional amendment.

In the majority opinion, Justice Robin Wynne wrote, “We hold that there is a clear and unmistakable conflict between Arkansas Code Annotated section 7-9-111 and article 5, section 1 of the Arkansas Constitution.

“Article 5, section 1 provides that the Board ‘shall certify’ the ballot title to the Secretary of State,” Wynne wrote in the ruling. “The word ‘shall’ is mandatory. Under the plain language of article 5, section 1, the Board has no discretion to determine whether to certify a ballot title; it must certify the title to the Secretary of State. Section 7-9-111, by giving discretion to the Board, violates article 5, section 1,” thus the board had no authority to decline to certify the ballot title to the secretary of state.