Rejection of proposed Arkansas abortion amendment threatens other ballot measures, supporters say

Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston’s argument against certifying a proposed constitutional amendment for November’s statewide ballot threatens two other proposed amendments, the ballot question committees supporting both measures said in a Tuesday legal filing.

In July, Thurston rejected a proposal that would create a limited constitutional right to abortion, saying ​​his office would not count the signatures because the ballot question committee, Arkansans for Limited Government, did not submit required documents related to paid canvassers.

Later that month, Thurston certified a proposed amendment that would repeal a Pope County casino license and gave supporters of changes to the state’s medical marijuana industry more time to collect signatures.

The Arkansas Abortion Amendment has been tied up in a legal dispute for the past month after AFLG filed a complaint against Thurston’s office with the Arkansas Supreme Court. AFLG said it did in fact submit the required accompanying documents. State law requires an affidavit identifying paid canvassers by name and proof that the ballot question committee explained to canvassers the state’s laws for soliciting signatures and provided them with the Secretary of State’s initiatives and referenda handbook before they started canvassing.

AFLG submitted a “Sponsor Affidavit” signed by Allison Clark to Thurston’s office June 27, testifying to the signature collection education portion of the law. The July 16 court filings state it was the seventeenth time the document was submitted.

The group said it routinely submitted lists of paid canvassers to Thurston, including on July 4 and 5, and did not include another sponsor affidavit at that time because Thurston’s staff said it was not necessary and all the correct paperwork had been filed.

Thurston and Attorney General Tim Griffin, who is representing him before the state Supreme Court, have told the court that Clark should not have signed the sponsor affidavit because she works for the company that hired paid canvassers for AFLG.

According to a motion to intervene filed with the Supreme Court on Tuesday by the other two ballot committees, Thurston’s “erroneous and out-of-the-ether” interpretation of the law threatens to keep the other proposed amendments off the November ballot because members of canvassing companies signed their signature-collection education affidavits.

“This new interpretation is similar to not allowing a candidate for office to hire an accountant to file their campaign finance reports, or a lawyer to sign documents on a campaign’s behalf,” the anti-casino ballot question committee Local Voters in Charge said in a statement.

The two ballot question committees’ intervention in the case “would be for the limited purpose of addressing whether a sponsor can appoint an agent to fulfill its statutory duties” and would not concern any other issue before the court, the motion states.

AFLG said in a Tuesday afternoon response that it did not oppose the motion to intervene and asked the Supreme Court not to order any more briefs in the case “because time is of the essence.”

“If the Court grants Movants’ motion and delays any immediate, forthcoming decision on the merits of this case, it should also immediately grant petitioners’ pending motion for emergency relief and provide all relief necessary to protect petitioners’ interests during the pendency of this case,” the committee wrote.

The Secretary of State’s office must distribute certified election ballots to county election officials by Aug. 22.

Medical marijuana amendment

The proposed ballot measure from the Arkansans for Patient Access ballot question committee would alter an existing amendment approved by voters in 2016 legalizing cannabis for medical use.

APA submitted 77,000 valid signatures for the measure in July, which is 85% of the required number to put the proposed amendment on the ballot. Thurston gave the committee until Aug. 30 to collect at least 13,704 additional signatures from registered voters.

Arkansas law allows this cure period if a committee’s initial submission contains valid signatures equal to at least 75% of the overall required number of signatures and 75% of the required number from at least 50 counties.

Thurston told APA in a Thursday letter that his office had “discovered” that the canvassing company and not the sponsor had signed legally required paperwork and that his office would not count signatures collected during the cure period by paid canvassers “due to this error.”

In the motion, APA criticized Thurston for “making the same eleventh-hour about-face” he did with the Arkansas Abortion Amendment and said supporters of the medical marijuana measure had collected more than 18,000 additional signatures since being granted the cure period.

“That’s a concern on our end, that we’ll lose thousands of signatures because they changed the rules in the middle of the game,” APA member Bill Paschall told the Advocate. “Hopefully we’ll get some clarity from the Supreme Court on that, and they will say that an agent is a proper entity to file those canvasser registrations.”

Under the proposed amendment, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and pharmacists would be included as professionals who can certify patients for medical marijuana cards, health care providers would be able to conduct patient assessment via telemedicine, and providers would be permitted to qualify patients based on medical need, according to the initiative, rather than the existing 18 qualifying conditions outlined by the state.

If approved, the amendment would allow patients and designated caregivers older than 21 to grow up to seven mature marijuana plants and seven young plants. The measure also would eliminate application fees for patient cards and extend the term of the card to three years.

Casino license repeal effort

Opponents of the anti-casino amendment, including Cherokee Nation Businesses, asked the Supreme Court to disqualify the amendment on Aug. 1, the day after Thurston certified it for the ballot with 116,200 valid signatures.

The petition alleges that Local Voters in Charge hired out-of-state residents to collect signatures, failed to register and certify paid canvassers and fraudulently induced signatures. It also claims state law does not allow ballot question committees to delegate the certification of paid canvasser education requirements to any other entity.

Griffin and Thurston’s Aug. 5 response denied this claim “to the extent a response is required,” contrary to their past statements aligning with the claim.

The petitioners “have co-opted the Attorney General’s and Respondent’s interpretation” of the legal requirements for hiring paid canvassers and “are contending that LVC’s paid canvasser certifications are insufficient because they were made by LVC’s agent on its behalf,” the motion states.

The Supreme Court’s interpretation of the law in question could “predetermine the outcome” of the challenge to the anti-casino amendment without giving its supporters a chance to make their case, the motion states.

“Even though the LVC petition has been certified for the ballot by the Secretary of State, an adverse ruling in the A[F]LG case could be used by local vote opponents in the lawsuit filed August 1st… to have the Supreme Court disqualify the local vote initiative,” Local Voters in Charge said in its statement.

Arkansas voters approved casino gaming in 2018 in four Arkansas counties — Crittenden, Garland, Jefferson and Pope. While that constitutional amendment received a majority vote in the other three counties, Pope County voters rejected the proposal, and the license to operate a casino in the county has been the subject of consistent litigation since 2019.

In addition to repealing the license, the Local Voter Control of Casino Gambling Amendment would require that any new casino built in the state be approved in a countywide special election before a license can be issued.