Tag: Arkansas

Categories
term limits

The Next Election

Elections are wonderful, even when the results are awfully hard to take. Last night in Arkansas, Issue 3 passed very narrowly — in a sea of voter confusion.

That confusion had been instilled by disinformation in the ballot wording.

The win for Issue 3 means the term limits on state legislators will now be dramatically weakened from six to 16 years in the state’s House and from eight to 16 years in the Senate.

Plus, a new commission appointed by legislators is now poised to give legislators a big, fat pay raise.

The politicians who schemed up Issue 3 are slippery smart. Give them that. They slipped a doubling of their allowed terms in office as well as a scam to hike their pay into a constitutional amendment featuring a popular partial ban on lobbyist gift-​giving to legislators. Oh, and the measure will also add an extra year’s delay before a legislator can switch-​hit to work as a lobbyist.

Still, the respected Talk Business/​Hendrix College poll repeatedly demonstrated that telling voters what the measure actually did — the popular gift ban as well as the unpopular weakening of term limits — led voters to overwhelmingly come down against the ballot measure, weeks ago by 62 to 23 percent.

But on the ballot, while voters were told about the measure “barring gifts from lobbyists,” they were not told about the doubling of the term limit. Instead, the ballot language deceptively said the measure was “setting term limits.”

A strong grassroots campaign crisscrossed the state trying to alert folks, but confusion reigned. On Facebook, countless early voters were angry to find they’d been duped:

“I was fooled, we ought to petition to revote on that issue with wording that is straightforward and not so obfuscated.”

“I, too, was misled into voting for it. The ballot printed version is an out right lie!”

“It was set up to be tricky … I caught it, but there are a lot who won’t!”

“Dang! It is a trick question! I voted wrong!!!!”

One friend of mine, no fan of term limits, offered, “For all of our other differences, I’m with you on this. It’s a bait-​and-​switch designed to snooker the electorate.”

An Arkansas Term Limits leader noted that the Yes on Issue 3 campaign “pursued a campaign of silence, letting the deceptive ballot title do their work.”

Sen. Woods (R‑Springdale), who co-​authored the measure with a House Democrat, slyly told reporters, “I would advise anyone going to the ballots to read Issue Three and tell me it is not a good bill.”

“For this to fail,” he added, “it would send a bad message to law makers. Because, it would just show people aren’t necessarily that big on us working together.”

Woods even dubbed Issue 3, “bipartisanship at its best.”

The senator and the forces of boss rule are about to meet a bipartisan grassroots at its best.

“If this passes, it’s because many voters were tricked,” explained Kay Carico Wilson days ago. “Lots of people are saying they did not understand it and voted the wrong way. The interesting thing is that many Conservatives and Liberals are equally upset over this. We have found some common ground.”

It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature; it’s not wise to trick the voters. To these deceivers, the politicians who cheated the people of Arkansas: There will be another election.

See you there.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption term limits

Burkina Faso and Arkansas

Maybe Burkina Faso, in northwest Africa between Mali and Niger, isn’t the easiest “Jeopardy” question for most of us in the U.S. But any place that’s seen massive protests because the head of state tried to escape term limits becomes pretty memorable to me.

In fact, the first region that pops into my head as a point of comparison and contrast is my own home state of Arkansas.

There are big differences in the respective battles over term limits, of course. In Burkina Faso, thousands clogged the streets after the 27-​year presidential incumbent, Blaise Compaore, schemed to evade a constitutional term limit on his office. Facing unrelenting pressure, Compaore soon stepped down, not even awaiting the next election.

The furtive attempt to water down state legislative term limits in Arkansas hasn’t gotten as high on the radar there as the machinations in Burkina Faso. But the folks at Arkansas Term Limits (“vote AGAINST Issue #3”) have done much to publicize the scam, taking a wooden Trojan horse from town to town to vivify the point that the politicians bearing the “gift” of suspiciously eager self-​reform have hidden a bomb at the bottom of the package: a doubling (or more) of their maximum permitted stay in a single legislative seat.

The media has started to pay attention. The story has gotten out.

Has it been enough? Have enough voters been reached to fend off the assault? When Tuesday’s results come in, we’ll know.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
Accountability initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

“Deceptive” Charge “Misleading”

Many politicians serve as powerful arguments for term limits. Arkansas State Senator Jon Woods rivals the best.

Sen. Woods (R‑Springdale) and State Rep. Warwick Sabin (D‑Little Rock) authored a 22-​page, 7,000-word constitutional amendment on this November’s ballot. They say Issue 3 is about ethics and transparency.

You decide.

Woods and Sabin threw together various ethics provisions and then stuck in a gutting of term limits. Their ballot title reads it is “establishing term limits” — without bothering to inform voters that it doubles how long legislators can stay in the Senate and more than doubles the House limit — to a whopping 16 years!

This week, Arkansas Term Limits debuted TV ads alerting the public to the scam, charging that legislators have “pursued a campaign of silence … letting the deceptive ballot title do their work,” so that “when Arkansas voters go to the polls there will be no mention of the doubling of term[s].”

The unrepentant Sen. Woods says that it is “misleading” to call his Issue 3 deceptive. Meanwhile, the Arkansas Democrat-​Gazette reports that, after asking if Woods’s ballot language wasn’t indeed deceptive: “Woods said he doesn’t know.”

The senator’s response to the Arkansas GOP Convention’s nearly unanimous resolution against Issue 3? “You just have a couple of nuts that got together on a Saturday that were out of touch with Arkansans and passed a silly resolution that in no way reflects the point of view of all Republicans in Arkansas.”

Perhaps Democratic politicians are smarter. Democratic co-​author Sabin is nowhere to be found in news coverage of Issue 3, likely hiding under his bed.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall media and media people term limits

Corrupt Craft

Some political opponents win your respect, even if not your agreement. Others … well, not so much.

Earlier this week, a publication called Arkansas Business editorialized against Issue 3 on the Natural State’s November ballot, calling it “a freakish hybrid, a gambit to trick voters into expanding term limits for state legislators.”

This constitutional amendment was proposed with overwhelming support from state legislators, who designed it to hoodwink voters into gutting their term limits. The measure hides that consequential change — from six years in the House to 16 years and from eight years in the Senate to 16 years — inside a so-​called “ethics” amendment.

The ballot wording only tells voters that the measure is “setting” term limits, which Arkansas Business correctly points out “conveys something close to the opposite of what the amendment would do,” adding “it’s certainly misleading.”

Now, Arkansas Business is no fan of term limits. The editorial concludes, “Arguments can be made for each of these proposals [in Issue 3], including longer term limits.… But we can’t endorse the current form, as much as we’d like to.”

Arkansas Business seems clearly offended by the deception. How endearingly unsophisticated!

Meanwhile, more elite opinion applauds the brilliance of the scheme, the amazing skill of these politicians applying their sneaky technique.

“Arkansas voters soundly rejected term-​limit changes in 2004,” reports Governing magazine, paraphrasing University of Arkansas Professor Janine Parry, “but this time proponents craftily inserted their language into a broad package that, among other things, prohibits corporate contributions to candidates and lobbyist gifts to elected officials.”

“Craftily”?

What on earth is their craft? Fraud?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall term limits

Legislators, Tramps and Thieves

In the closing days of Arkansas’s 2013 legislative session, solons of the Natural State surreptitiously voted to put a measure on the state ballot, without fanfare or ballyhoo.

Five months later, the Arkansas Democrat-​Gazette finally noticed what happened, and published an editorial, “Outrage of the Year.’ It has just been reprinted. The outrage hasn’t changed. The measure would extend time in office “for state representatives from 6 to 16 years and for state senators from 8 to 16 years.”

But what an Arkansan will read on the ballot seems a tad different: “An Amendment Regulating Contributions to Candidates for State or Local Office, Barring Gifts From Lobbyists to Certain State Officials, Providing for Setting Salaries of Certain State Officials, and Setting Term Limits for Members of the General Assembly.”

“Setting” term limits? No sir. Term limits, already set by voters, would be drastically weakened.

But the good people of Arkansas are beginning to hear the good news, the truth, thanks to the campaign being waged by Arkansas Term Limits against what will be “Issue 3” on the ballot.

The group is led by Bob Porto and my brother, Tim Jacob, who are traveling the state speaking to audiences. Not surprisingly, the people are shocked and angered upon hearing the manifest fraud their representatives are perpetrating.

At a recent talk, Jacob called it “an attempt to deceive the voters,” noting “they have done it on purpose.”

Yet another argument for strict term limits … and fully informed voters.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
judiciary

Beardless in Arkansas

The United States Supreme Court has accepted a legal petition presented in an unusual manner: in handwritten form, without the benefit of any lawyer.

The case comes from a convict in the Arkansas State prison system, one Gregory Holt, “aka Abdul Malik Muhammad,” who wants to wear a beard while incarcerated, in accordance with his religion. The prison rules prohibit beards on hygiene and security grounds. Muhammad’s case is interesting. Questions include (and I quote)

  • Whether the Arkansas Department of Corrections’ no beard grooming policy violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act 
  • Whether a 1/​2 inch beard would satisfy the security goals sought by the policy.
  • Whether the no beard grooming policy violates Petitioner’s First Amendment right to practice Islam as he believes it 

How will the Supreme Court rule? On the face of it (no beard pun intended), prisoners’ appeals for court intervention in how they are incarcerated, on the basis of their rights, may seem odd to some. After all, the whole point of imprisonment is to deny the most basic right to liberty, because, presumably, a criminal has denied someone else’s rights.

But in our society, even those guilty of serious crimes and having lost much of their freedom retain certain rights. This stems mostly from our fear of what becomes of us — not the criminals — should we stop respecting every person’s humanity.

It’s also heartening to see a petition rise to the highest court in the land from the very lowest perch without aid of a lawyer … or even a computer or typewriter.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ballot access term limits

Too Sneaky by Half

A funny thing happened on the way to reform.

The freshly minted Republican-​dominated Arksansas State Assumbly put up three constitutional amendments for next November’s ballot. Secretly, they are likely proudest of one of them, “The Arkansas Elected Officials Ethics, Transparency, and Financial Reform Act.” For, snuck into the amendment, is a gutting of term limits.

The voters long ago enacted six-​year House limits, not the 16 years proposed now by legislators. The voters limit state senators to two four-​year terms, while legislators are trying to double their ride on the gravy train.

A number of legislators now claim even they didn’t know the term limits provision was in the legislation. Others explain that their “aye” vote was cast mistakenly on their behalf after they had left the building.

But all that’s nothing compared to this wrinkle, which I wrote about on Townhall this weekend. Hidden in a separate piece of legislation passed last year was a strange provision dealing with setting ballot language for measures referred by the legislature. Legislators took the power to write a ballot measure’s “Popular Name” — the so-​called short title — away from the Attorney General, who previously enjoyed that statutory role, and gave it to themselves.

However, after legally stripping any other elected official of that same power, the plotters neglected to do one teensy-​weensy thing: provide that language for their new term extension.

The upshot? The sneaky, dishonest anti-​term limits amendment may not appear on the ballot.

Hoisted on their own petard, the whole elaborate scheme threatens to blow up in their own dear faces.

Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving bunch.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Illustration by ocularinvasion used under a Creative Commons license.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

Arkansans, Call Your Lawyers

Seeing how the IRS flagrantly violates the civil rights of Americans, do we really need more government agents, more bureaucracies to ride herd over our political endeavors?

Arkansas’s Senate Bill 821, an unconstitutional slap at citizens who dare propose ballot measures, was passed despite my many, many, many complaints, and is being implemented as Act 1413.

The law mandates that every paid petitioner read the Secretary of State’s booklet explaining the state’s initiative process. But the booklet didn’t even exist … until now.

It explains: “The Secretary of State’s Office has attempted to incorporate the changes made by Act 1413 into the procedures that follow. However, since the changes in the law were extensive, it may be helpful to review Act 1413 of 2013.”

How nice of the Secretary of State not to use the term “extreme” and to go, instead, with “extensive.” Call it Arkansan generosity.

One of Act 1413’s more draconian provisions throws out an entire page of voters’ signatures on a petition if one signature is a voter from a different county.

“Determining whether a Petitioner has signed the correct petition is not always obvious. Many cities cross county boundaries,” the booklet sympathizes, noting that such honest mistakes happen “frequently with voters whose homes are near a county border.”

And will now be used against you.

The main thing the booklet advises? Hire a lawyer:

“If the reader has questions concerning Act 1413 of 2013 … the reader should contact his or her own attorney for a legal opinion as to specific facts.”

Should only citizens with their “own” attorney be able to participate?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall insider corruption term limits

The Natural State of Politicians

Republicans took over both chambers of the Arkansas Legislature, last November, and now have control for the first time since Reconstruction — that’s the century before the century before this century.

Not long after their installation ceremony, the Republican majority — apparently eager to make new reforms — introduced Senate Bill 821, creating a new state program to regulate people circulating initiative petitions. Arkansas activists, the Advance Arkansas Institute and Citizens in Charge were effective in getting legislators to dramatically pare back and remove several harmful and unconstitutional provisions of SB 821, but the legislation designed “to make the referendum process prohibitively difficult in Arkansas,” still passed.

Even more underhanded was passage of House Joint Resolution 1009, “The Arkansas Elected Officials Ethics, Transparency and Financial Reform Act of 2014.” It’s a doozy:

  • With claims of preventing legislators from giving themselves a pay raise, the measure actually removes the current constitutional requirement that voters approve any pay increase and creates a commission of citizens (appointed by legislators and other politicians) to give those same politicians a pay raise.
  • While claiming to enact a gift ban and other ethics reforms, the measure actually provides, Arkansas Times’ Max Brantley wrote, “constitutional protection extended to special interest banquets and travel junkets for legislators.”
  • Completely unannounced by the title, the measure also changes the state’s term limits by allowing legislators to hang around for 16 years in the House or the Senate.

Still, I look on the bright side. The people of Arkansas, having meet their new boss, will petition and vote and sue to protect their rights.

Plus, yesterday, the legislature adjourned. It’s safe again in Arkansas.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.