LITTLE ROCK — Architects of a proposed ethics and campaign reform initiative credit the Occupy Wall Street movement, which later took hold in Little Rock, for their inspiration.
But Paul J. Spencer, a more conventional mentor of the anti-big money Occupy crowd and chairman of the Regnat Populus 2012 Ballot Question Committee, also said the group might have to hire a canvassing firm to help collect 62,507 signatures of registered voters needed by July 6 to get the proposed initiated act on the November general election ballot.
“We really would have rather used volunteers because there is something fundamentally more profound about doing something like this when you are talking about limiting money in government and so forth, and it just doesn’t seem right to spend a lot of money to do it,” Spencer, a government and politics teacher at Catholic High School in Little Rock, said in an interview with the Arkansas News Bureau.
Marie Mainard O’Connell, a member of Occupy Little Rock and a member of the ballot question committee, said most of the local group that has been protesting corporate greed in the state’s Capitol city since October supports the proposed ballot initiative and she expects many to volunteer to collect signatures.
“This is a partnership that might help Occupy Little Rock do what it wants to do.”
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Last week, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel certified the ballot title and name of a proposed initiated act known as the Campaign Finance and Lobbying Reform Act of 2012.
The proposal would ban lobbyist from giving gifts to legislators. Currently, they can give up to $100 in gifts, food or other items to individual legislators.
It also would double the one-year “cooling off” period the Legislature imposed just last year that a lawmaker must wait after leaving office before becoming a lobbyist, and it would prohibit direct corporate and union contributions to candidates for public office.
Spencer said the idea for the proposed initiative act evolved after he and his wife, Stephanie, attended some of the early meetings of Occupy Little Rock last fall.
The Occupy movement started in New York with one of its main complaints that power and wealth are disproportionately concentrated among the richest 1 percent of Americans. The movement has spread across the country and the world, with activists camping in parks and staging protest marches.
In Little Rock, the group initially camped on the grounds of the Clinton library. At the request of the Little Rock police, the members later moved to a parking lot a few blocks away, where the encampment still remains.
“I’ve lectured on a lot of this material for 13 years … and I’ve grown a little disillusioned lately with the disconnect between reality and the way government is suppose to work,” Spencer said.
He said he and his wife attended some of the early meetings of Occupy Little Rock because they were “intrigued.”
Spencer said he began discussing politics with some of the Occupy members and later gave them advice from an historical perspective.
“I’m 45 with three kids, so that precludes a lot of camping out,” he said. “But being a teacher and a student of politics and history, I was able to help them in some little way, in giving them tangible information.”
He said he talked to members about last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, in which the high court said the government cannot restrict political spending by corporations and unions, clearing the way for vast infusions of cash into election campaigns.
He said he also told them about “some of the more progressive movements in the 1890s.”
“I always thought my capacity was more of an advisory kind of role,” Spencer said.
He said he soon began talking to some of the older members of the movement and learned that they, like him, liked the idea of protesting, marching and camping, but wanted to do something that fit their more settled lifestyles.
“I applaud what the movement is doing, but I’m an older, middle age guy with a bunch of kids and a lot of work-related responsibilities,” he said. “It just seemed natural to me to kind of strike out in a direction where I had some ability to actually make a difference, and that’s what led us to where we are today.”
Spencer said he initially met with a few people and soon their group grew to include college professors, attorneys and other professionals. As the group grew, so did the ideas, he said.
The group first conceived five points for a possible ballot proposal and eventually narrowed the number to three, abandoning a statement opposing the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling and a proposal to raise the tax credit for political contributions from $50 to $100.
O’Connell said she welcomed Spencer’s request for her to join the ballot committee.
“What attracted me to the proposal was really what attracted me to the Occupy movement. Getting money out of politics, I think, is a really important thing that we need to do,” she said.
“I think it’s good to protest and it’s great to do direct action,” she added. “That’s all good, but I always had in the back of my head, ‘How are we actually going to change it?’”
When the Spencers attended an Occupy Little Rock meeting and presented their proposed initiated act, there was near unanimous support, she said.
“They said, ‘This is what we’ve been talking about,’ ” she said.
Rep. Duncan Baird, R-Lowell, who worked to get the one-year “cooling off” period approved by the Legislature in the 2011 session, said he supports the proposed initiated act.
“Overall, I think it’s a real good proposal,” said Baird, who does not accept gifts from lobbyists.
The conservative Republican said the proposal shows that people with varying political viewpoints can work together to develop a proposal that everyone can support.
“I think you will find people on both sides who would look at lobbying rules and no gift rules, and they may disagree on other issues but they would all come together and agree” on those, Baird said.
He said the removal of some early parts of the proposal made it more palatable to mainstream voters.
“The way it could have been written it might have been something that I couldn’t agree with, but I think the great thing that they have done is that they have narrowed it down to something that I think everyone, regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, can agree to,” he said.
“Ultimately the citizens of Arkansas are our boss,” he said. “I think it’s a great way for the people to say, “Hey, these are our instructions for you all for how we want you to conduct yourselves, and how we want you to work as legislators.’”
Spencer said he hopes supporters can begin collecting signatures this week. Originally, the group estimated it would need about $10,000 for the signature gathering effort. The amount likely will rise if it brings in an outside firm to gather the signatures.
Spencer also said he hopes a favorable poll on the proposal by Talk Business and Hendrix College will translate into signatures and donations.
In the poll, 69 percent of respondents said they would support the proposal, 18 percent said they would not and 13 percent said they did not know.
“That poll was very encouraging,” he said.
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