LITTLE ROCK — With a month of canvassing to go, backers of citizen-led ballot initiatives had high hopes Tuesday of collecting the thousands of signatures necessary to qualify for the November general election.
Even two sponsors who say some of their supporters have been hindered from collecting signatures said they expect to submit the requisite number of signatures to the secretary of state’s office by the July 6 deadline.
Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has certified the ballot names and titles for three proposed constitutional amendments and three initiated acts.
Supporters are in the home stretch of trying to gather enough valid signatures of registered voters — 78,133 for constitutional amendments and 62,507 for initiated acts — to qualify the proposals for the Nov. 6 general election ballot.
Former gas company executive Sheffield Nelson said he hopes to submit more than 80,000 signatures for his proposed initiated act to raise the state severance tax from 5 percent to 7 percent and eliminate exemptions to the current rate.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“We do feel good about where we are,” Nelson said.
The Committee for a Fair Severance Tax has raised $155,000 on behalf of the initiative, a fraction of the contributions to Arkansans for Jobs and Affordable Energy, an opposition group led by the Arkansas State
Chamber of Commerce-Associated Industries of Arkansas that has raised nearly $1.3 million, the bulk of it from natural gas producers Southwestern Energy, Stephens Productions and XTO Energy.
Two groups are backing the proposed Campaign Finance and Lobbying Reform Act of 2012, an initiative that, among other things, would ban lobbyists’ gifts to legislators, make former lawmakers wait two years after leaving office before becoming lobbyists and ban direct corporate and union contributions to candidates for public office.
“I’m very confident that once the dust settles, if it ever does, we’re going to be on the ballot in November,” said Paul Spencer, chairman of Regnat Populus 2012, which wrote the proposal and is using volunteers to gather signatures for it.
Better Ethics Now Committee, a bipartisan group with political and financial influence, has committed $100,000 to pay canvassers to collect signatures for the measure.
A Texas businessman behind a proposed constitutional amendment to allow casinos in seven Arkansas counties said he would collect the required number of signatures despite some problems.
“It looks like we are going to meet the deadline, but we are having a lot of trouble because there is some dirty politics out there,” Michael Wasserman said. “People are coming up to our canvassers and wanting to buy their sheets of petitions for more money than we are paying (to collect signatures) so they can trash them,” he alleged.
Melissa Fults, treasurer of Arkansans for Compassionate Care, a group pushing to legalize marijuana use for medical purposes, charged her canvassers are being regularly harassed and said two were recently issued citations in Corning that were later dismissed after the mayor and city attorney were notified.
“For people to assume that because you are petitioning for this you are a drug addict or you are a pot head or whatever, they have no idea,” Fults said. “They have obviously never read the bill that we are trying to get on the ballot.”
Still, Fults said she is optimistic the signatures will be collected in time to get the proposed initiated act on the ballot.
“We’re about three quarters of the way, so we have every confidence that we will make the deadline and make the ballot,” she said.
Along with Wasserman’s proposal, which would allow his Arkansas Hotels and Entertainment Inc. to operate casinos in Boone, Crittenden, Garland, Jefferson Miller, Pulaski and Sebastian counties, supporters of a separate casino proposal also are gathering signatures.
A group called Arkansas Counts is backing a measure to allow Nancy Todd’s Poker Palace LLC to operate casino-style table games and up to four casinos in Crittenden, Franklin, Miller and Pulaski counties.
Todd said expressed confidence Tuesday that her supporters would meet the signature threshold by July 6 and denied any knowledge of alleged attempts to undermine Wasserman’s casino proposal.
“That is the first I have heard about it,” she said. “I’ve not had any body approach any of my people at all.”
Spokesmen for two organizations formed to oppose both casino measures also disavowed any attempt to hinder signature-gathering for the measures.
“I don’t know about it and definitely not involved if it is happening,” said Robert McLarty, spokesman for the Stop Casinos Now Committee, a coalition of state lawmakers, law enforcement leaders and ministers.
“I can assure you no one in our group would do that or encourage that,” said Bill Wheeler of Marion, one of the directors of the Coalition to Preserve Arkansas Values.
Jimmy white, chairman of a group promoting a proposed constitutional amendment that would reduce the state’s 1/8-cent conservation tax and remove the state Game Fish Commission from the list of agencies that receive revenues from the tax, did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment Tuesday.