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Gambling, marijuana committees ask to join abortion amendment case

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Gambling, marijuana committees ask to join abortion amendment case

The casino committee said that it opposed the substance of the abortion amendment but saw common cause with the committee’s push for consistency and accountability.

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Two Arkansas ballot-question committees have come to the legal aid of a third in a case before the state Supreme Court.

The committees, one advocating that voters weigh in on new casino licenses and the other backing medical marijuana, filed a motion to intervene on Tuesday in a case which will decide whether a pro-choice ballot measure appears on the November ballot or is disqualified.

If the motion is granted, the committees will join in the lawsuit against Secretary of State John Thurston.

At issue is the question of whether contractors hired to collect signatures can sign campaign paperwork on behalf of ballot-question committees.

The secretary of state said “no” in July when he rejected Arkansans for Limited Government’s petition to appear on the ballot.

Certain pieces of paperwork submitted by the other two committees were also signed by contractors, though none of their signatures were rejected on those grounds.

Because of this, Arkansans for Limited Government alleges that Thurston discriminated against the group based on his own political viewpoints.

Who are the committees?

Local Voters in Charge is pushing to require local approval for casino licenses and revoke a license issued in Pope County, AR. It was certified for the ballot by Thurston in July.

Funded by the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, it is itself facing a legal challenge from a committee funded by a rival casino operator, Cherokee Nation Businesses, which holds the Pope County license.

Arkansans for Patient Access is behind a measure to expand access to medical marijuana by loosening restrictions on it including who can prescribe it and whether patients can grow their own plants.

Some of its signatures were disqualified after being submitted but it still had enough to clear 75% of the total required, which qualified it for a 30-day cure period to collect more.

Arkansans for Limited Government is behind a proposed constitutional amendment which would allow abortion up to 18 weeks from conception and in cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal anomaly and to save the health of the mother.

Why are the committees seeking to join the suit?

In a press release Tuesday, Local Voters in Charge said that today’s move served both its own immediate interests and those of the state at large.

“An adverse ruling in the ALG case could be used by local vote opponents in the lawsuit” that Local Voters in Charge is currently defending against. “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.”

“As citizens we personally oppose the pro-abortion policy that ALG is attempting to enact. But we also believe the job of government is to follow the rules,” spokesperson Hans Stiritz said in the release.

New and inconsistent legal interpretation, he said, “only creates further risks for the state of Arkansas, its citizens, and the democratic process.”

Bill Paschall, a member of Arkansans for Patient Access said on Tuesday that in his experience, contractors have signed on behalf of committees “for years and years and years.” He said his group is “seeking clarification on that very narrow issue.”

On August 8, Thurston sent the committee a letter informing it that, going forward during the cure period, only committee members can sign campaign paperwork.

“It came as a bit of a shock to us,” Paschall said, “that the rules were beginning to change.”

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