Rep. DeAnn Vaught talks with Rep. Dwight Tosh, R-Jonesboro, during House business Friday while in a Senate committee, her proposal tightening rules for initiated acts and constitutional amendments moved closer to getting on the ballot. More photos are available at www.arkansasonline.com/46genassembly/ ( Arkansas Democrat-Gazette / Thomas Metthe

A proposal that would make it harder for Arkansans to put proposed initiated acts and constitutional amendments before voters is one step away from being placed on the 2020 ballot, after clearing an Arkansas Senate committee Friday.

In a voice vote with Sen. Will Bond, D-Little Rock, dissenting, the eight-member Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee recommended Senate approval of House Joint Resolution 1008 by Rep. DeAnn Vaught, R-Horatio. Senate approval is the last step needed to get the proposal in HJR1008 on the next general election ballot. No action by the governor is required.

The proposal, which would be the third legislative proposal on the 2020 ballot, also would increase the number of votes required for the Legislature in the future to place proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot.

Randy Zook, president and chief executive officer of the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce, testified for HJR1008, while Jerry Cox, president of the Family Council, said he opposes it.

[RELATED: Complete Democrat-Gazette coverage of the Arkansas Legislature]

Sen. Mat Pitsch, R-Fort Smith, who is the Senate sponsor of HJR1008, said the Arkansas Constitution is a sacred document that isn't meant to be easy to amend.

"Our founders did not anticipate the vast level of special interest group money and outside influence that is used to take advantage of the citizens' right to amend their constitution via the petition process," he said. The proposal "protects people of Arkansas' right to ensure citizen initiatives are genuinely citizens' initiatives," he said.

HJR1008 would require initiative petitions to have a certain percentage of valid signatures of registered voters from each of 45 counties. The designated percentage would be based on the votes in each county in the previous gubernatorial election. The constitution now sets that minimum at 15 of Arkansas' 75 counties.

"We believe that ... that mass broad appeal for constitutional petition drives is necessary," Pitsch said. "We didn't feel like we were getting the mass broad appeal by limiting it to 15 counties."

Cox noted that the current state constitution requires sponsors of proposed initiated constitutional amendments to get signatures of registered voters across the state equal to at least 10 percent of the number of voters in the last gubernatorial election. According to the secretary of state's office, 891,509 people voted in the November 2018 governor's race, so more than 89,000 signatures would be required to place an amendment proposal on the 2020 ballot.

Cox also noted that the constitution has specific requirements on getting signatures in 15 counties -- in each county picked by sponsors, they must get signatures equal to at least 5 percent of those who voted in that county in the previous gubernatorial election. For example, in Pulaski County, 134,667 voted in the last governor's race, so about 6,700 valid signatures would be needed on petitions from that county if backers used Pulaski County as one of the 15.

"If you only validate 15 counties and if you fail in one, it's ballgame over for you, no matter how many signatures you gathered elsewhere," he said.

"What this measure does is, it increases this 'gotcha' threshold, up that number to 45, so if you trip and fall in any one of those 45 counties, then everything you have done is out. You have been disqualified," Cox said.

"So you have 45 opportunities to litigate something off the ballot, signature by signature by signature," under the proposed amendment in HJR1008, Bond said.

The proposal "makes it where the big money, the people with unlimited funds, can still get on the ballot and then everybody else is on a huge mountain to climb," he said.

"There have been some comments about the difficulty of gathering signatures [and] it should be," Zook said. "It is incredible to me that people [took] sort of a cavalier attitude toward what should be enforced and shouldn't be enforced."

Cox told the Senate committee there have been only five citizens initiatives approved during the past 22 years and "the rest of them came from here," referring to proposals from the Legislature.

But Pitsch said, "If you look at what has happened in the last two [election cycles], those have come predominantly from petition drives."

HJR1008 also would:

• Require a three-fifths vote of the 35-member Senate and 100-member House to refer a proposed constitutional amendment to voters. Currently, a majority vote in both chambers is required.

• Require initiative petitions for statewide measures to be filed with the secretary of state by Jan. 15 of the year they would be voted on. They are now required to be filed four months before the election.

• Require a challenge to the sufficiency of a statewide ballot measure to be filed no later than April 15 of the year of the general election in which the ballot measure will be voted on.

• Eliminate the 30-day cure period, which now gives more time for signature gathering if the sponsor of a proposed ballot measure falls short on valid signatures but turns in at least 75 percent of the required number.

"We appreciate very much what Sen. Pitch and Rep. Vaught have done in formulating this approach to this problem, this challenge," Zook said.

"The most significant and important [part] in the proposal is the change in the dates, so we avoid the train wrecks that we had three weeks before the election [last year] regarding that significant issue not being allowed to be counted in the election process due to a Supreme Court decision," he said.

Zook said, "We challenged two of the proposals on the ballot last time, one with term limits and one with the minimum wage issue."

The state Supreme Court struck from the ballot a proposed constitutional amendment that would have limited lawmakers to serving a maximum of 10 years. The state's high court declined to kick off the ballot a proposed initiated act to raise the state's minimum wage from $8.50 to $11 an hour by 2021.

Cox urged the Senate committee not to approve the measure because "you will see people still buy their way to the ballot [and] you will see people write themselves into the constitution."

The House and Senate already have voted to refer to voters in the 2020 general election a proposed constitutional amendment that would limit state lawmakers elected several years from now to serving a dozen consecutive years before requiring them to take a four-year break from legislative service. The measure is Senate Joint Resolution 15 by Sen. Alan Clark, R-Lonsdale.

Under SJR15, state lawmakers elected after Jan. 1, 2021, would be limited to 12 consecutive years in the House, Senate or both. Two-year Senate terms related to redistricting would be included in that total. After the four-year break, former lawmakers could run again.

Also under the resolution, lawmakers now in office, who are limited to 16 years (or more with two-year terms in the Senate as a result of redistricting) would be eligible for subsequent service in the General Assembly once they are out of office for four years.

The House and Senate also have approved referring to the 2020 general election ballot a proposed constitutional amendment that would permanently extend the half-percent sales tax for highways approved by voters in 2012 for a 10-year period. That's House Joint Resolution 1018 by Rep. Jeff Wardlaw, R-Hermitage.

A Section on 04/06/2019