Why Family Council Supports Regulating the Ballot Initiative Process
The Arkansas ballot initiative process was passed by voters in 1910, giving them the constitutional right to propose laws by circulating petitions and placing measures on the ballot for a statewide vote. This law served Arkansans well for almost 100 years. But over the past century, the cost of running a political campaign has grown, and today the initiative process is out of reach for virtually everyone except wealthy special-interests who want to change Arkansas’ constitution or laws for their benefit. The growing influence of businesses that specialize in gathering petition signatures allows anyone with legislation, no matter how obscure or dangerous, to hire hundreds or even thousands of workers to gather as many petition signatures as is needed to qualify for the ballot. As a result, individuals or groups with enough money can easily acquire the necessary signatures. This makes it possible for almost any issue to be placed on the Arkansas ballot for a statewide vote, if the sponsors have enough money at their disposal. If the Arkansas Legislature does not enact good laws that bring accountability and transparency to the ballot initiation process, these problems will simply get worse.
Arkansas’ ballot initiative process has become the opposite of its intended purpose. Its original intent was to provide citizens a means of functioning as a “legislative body.” If lawmakers refused to act — and enough citizens decided “there ought to be a law” — the people could write the law, create a groundswell of public involvement, mount a volunteer effort to get the necessary signatures, and place their idea before voters in a statewide election. This works as long as the movement is truly grassroots, with average citizens taking time to circulate petitions because they believe, “It’s the right thing to do.”
In 2003 I worked with lawmakers at the capitol to propose a simple resolution stating that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. Lawmakers killed the resolution in a committee vote. So, in 2004 I led the effort to place an amendment on the ballot declaring that marriage in Arkansas is the union of one man and one woman. By the time we turned our signatures in to the Secretary of State, over 5,000 people statewide had volunteered and circulated petitions. That year, we needed about 85,000 signatures, but we turned in over 200,000. The marriage amendment was placed on the ballot, and Arkansas voters approved it with 75% of the vote. This was done without paying any canvassers or having to run deceptive ads, because it was a fundamental issue that lots of people cared deeply about.
Today the Arkansas Constitution is for sale — and it’s cheap. We’re a small state, so it only takes about 90,000 petition signatures to qualify for the ballot. All you need is about 100 temporary workers who will work as canvassers and each get about 1,000 signatures and you’re done. Imagine how easy it would be if you had enough money to hire 400 or 500 paid canvassers, which is what sponsors of the 2024 marijuana amendment did. As far as I know every “citizen-led” measure that has appeared on the ballot in the past 20 years has used paid canvassers. What was once a form of direct democracy has become just the opposite. It is a tool of the powerful that they can use to impose their will on the rest of us. Something needs to be done to stop the harm already being done.
Powerful corporate special interests have used our own ballot initiative process against us. The legislature tried to protect our citizens from a state-run lottery, but the special interests used the ballot initiative process to inflict it on our state anyway. They wrote the lottery into our state constitution. The legislature tried to protect our citizens from legalized marijuana, so the marijuana industry spent millions of dollars circulating petitions and successfully wrote “medical” marijuana into our state constitution. In 2018 powerful gambling interests paid people to gather signatures for a state constitutional amendment to give four casino operators a monopoly over the casino business in Arkansas. They succeeded, and now casino gambling is protected by our constitution. In 2022 and 2024 the marijuana industry returned for a second bite at the apple to further amend our State Constitution to give themselves a monopoly over the entire Arkansas marijuana business. In 2024, pro-abortion groups pooled their money and hired paid canvassers to go out and get signatures to overturn all of Arkansas’ pro-life laws. None of these measures would have seen the light of day if they had depended strictly on volunteer canvassers instead of hiring canvassers.
The marijuana industry has money to burn. So it’s nothing for them to come back every two years with an amendment to give themselves a monopoly over the marijuana business in Arkansas. The same people who sponsored the amendment to gut Arkansas’ laws against abortion have vowed to return. Imagine how many signatures they can collect if they get funding from out-of-state to out-source all the signature gathering to a professional petition signature canvassing company. If these and other groups can successfully “buy” their way to the ballot, think of how much money they will spend to lie to voters and confuse them into making abortion a guaranteed constitutional right.
Some might say that regulating the ballot initiative process is against democracy. There is nothing democratic about multi-billion dollar industries using this “democratic” process to write their business or vice into our constitution.
Some might say that letting the people vote on these measures is the democratic way. But it is unfair for clever lawyers and their high-powered business partners to write deceptively worded measures that mislead voters. The marijuana amendment that passed in 2016 was over 10,000 words long. The abortion amendment of 2024 used legal terms that sound one way to voters but mean something different in the courtroom. Sometimes people who are against a measure end up voting for it because the wording is so deceptive. Not to mention the advertising. Slander and liability laws do not apply to ballot measures, so proponents of an amendment that legalizes abortion for the entire nine months of pregnancy can run millions of dollars worth of ads that totally deceive voters. This has already been done in states like Ohio and Arizona.
For years, I and my organization, Family Council, have defended attacks on the ballot initiative process. However, when I see dark forces using the ballot initiative process to inflict harm like marijuana, gambling, and abortion on our citizens, I have to stand up.
In 2019 several lawmakers sponsored legislation, including a proposed state constitutional amendment, to address these and other problems. Most of these measures failed to pass. Things have only become worse since then, and they will continue to get worse unless lawmakers act now.
That is why, going forward, people can expect Family Council to be in support of just about every bill that our lawmakers put forth to fix this dangerous situation.
By Jerry Cox. February 9, 2025.
