Family Council Releases 2014 Arkansas Voter’s Guide

Arkansas Voter's Guide

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, September 5, 2014

On Friday, Family Council released its 2014 Arkansas Voter’s Guide.

Family Council President Jerry Cox issued a statement saying, “We are pleased to provide the People of Arkansas with this service. The Arkansas Voter’s Guide has been the state’s leading source of nonpartisan candidate information for more than two decades. This is an opportunity for Arkansans of all political persuasions to learn where candidates stand on issues that matter to them.”

Cox said this year’s guide focuses on a variety of issues. “We asked candidates where they stand on issues ranging from abortion to Common Core and from marriage to Medicaid. Our goal is to help Arkansans get as clear a picture as possible of who their candidates are, and I think this guide does that.”

Cox said he is pleased with the number of candidates who completed the survey. “We surveyed every candidate for state or federal office who has an opponent. A little over seventy-percent of the candidates answered our survey questions. That tracks pretty well with the response rates we have seen since we published our first Arkansas Voter’s Guide in 1990.”

Cox said the 2014 Arkansas Voter’s Guide is available at www.ArkansasVotersGuide.com. Arkansans may also request free, printed copies of the guide by calling Family Council at (501) 375-7000.

Cox said he believes it is important that voters understand where their candidates stand on important issues before heading to the polls. “The way I see it, candidates are like job applicants, and the voters are the ones doing the hiring. You wouldn’t hire someone to work for you without sitting down and learning a little about them first. Our voter’s guide is just one way Arkansans can do that.”

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Fayetteville Group Gathering Signatures to Vote on Ordinance

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repealflyerA group of concerned citizens are hard at work gathering signatures to bring controversial Fayetteville Chapter 119 (the so-called “nondiscrimination” ordinance) up for a vote of the people.

The group now has a website with information about the effort: www.repeal119.com. There is also a flyer highlighting some of the consequences of Fayetteville’s new ordinance and articulating why it should be repealed.

If the petition drive is successful, voters in Fayetteville will have the opportunity to keep or repeal Chapter 119 at the ballot box later this year.

We have written repeatedly about the unintended consequences of this ordinance, including:

If you would like to know more about the effort to repeal Chapter 119, call (479) 239-5900 or email info@repeal119.com.

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Arkansas Lottery Scholarship Funding to Hit All-Time Low in 2015

1 CommentArkansas Lottery

Since the Arkansas Lottery’s inception, we have written over and over again about the paltry percent of gross revenue the Arkansas Lottery Commission awards for college scholarships.

When the Arkansas Lottery began five years ago this month, we calculated that only about 22% of lottery revenue went to students. The rest went somewhere else. That meant if you bought a $1 lottery ticket, only 22 cents of that dollar went to scholarships. At the time, that was the third-lowest percentage in the nation.

Despite efforts by lawmakers to require the Arkansas Lottery to set aside a minimum percentage of its revenue for students, lottery officials continued reducing that percentage of gross revenue. We have seen the percentage allocated for scholarships drop all the way from 22 cents on the dollar to 19.8 cents on the dollar (last year).

Now the Arkansas Lottery Commission has reduced it again, with only 18.76% of gross revenue going to scholarships.

Under its budget for 2015, the Arkansas Lottery hopes to take in about $416,770,000 in gross revenue, and it hopes to pay out $78,185,000 in scholarships. That means for the first time ever, lottery scholarships will receive less than 19% of the Arkansas Lottery’s total revenue.

Just to put those numbers in perspective, Louisiana requires its lottery to allocate at least 35% of lottery revenue for education. That’s how the Louisiana lottery paid out tens of millions of dollar more in education funding than Arkansas’ did despite taking in nearly $100 million less.

It isn’t just Louisiana, either. Many state lotteries set aside at least 25% – 30% for education funding.

People keep talking about trying to bolster lottery ticket sales to improve scholarship funding, but when your lottery isn’t required to set aside a minimum percentage of its revenue for scholarships, there’s no guarantee soaring ticket sales will do any good for Arkansas’ students. After all, the way the law is currently written, the Lottery Commission could approve a budget that pays $0 for scholarships. It’s all up to them.

The Arkansas “Scholarship” Lottery continues cutting its scholarship budget and refusing to set aside even an average percentage of its revenue for education. That’s simply unacceptable.

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