Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe vetoed three bills Tuesday that state Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, says he sponsored to curb voter fraud.
Beebe said he received numerous communications from election officials and election commissioners “of all political persuasions urging me to veto these three bills” because they viewed them as “unwarranted attempts to undo a carefully crafted system of checks and balances and divisions of responsibility between the state Board of Election Commissioners, the secretary of state’s office and local election commissioners.
“Their objections to these bills are well taken,” he wrote in his veto letter to the Senate.
But King said he hopes to persuade the Republican-controlled House and Senate to convene to override Beebe’s vetoes.
“The people of Arkansas deserve a better election system,” he said.
Senate President Pro Tempore Michael Lamoureux, R-Russellville, and House Speaker Davy Carter,R-Cabot, said they would consult their chambers’ members on whether they want be summoned back to Little Rock to try to override Beebe’s latest vetoes.
If Lamoureux and Carter agree, they can reconvene the Legislature between now and noon May 17, but Carter said it’s unlikely lawmakers would be called back for this purpose.
This year, the Republican-controlled Legislature already has overridden Beebe’s veto of King’s bill to require Arkansans to present photo ID to vote. It’s now Act 595.
The governor Tuesday vetoed Senate Bill 719, which would create a Voter Integrity Unit under Secretary of State Mark Martin, a Republican.
The unit would include the director of the secretary of state’s elections division or his designee, the general counsel for the secretary of state, one employee in the elections division and one Capitol police officer. It would be required to investigate any complaint of election irregularity or alleged violation of election law that has been filed with the state Board of Election Commissioners, and would forward its findings to the secretary of state. The secretary of state would present the unit’s report to the board, which would dismiss the complaint, issue a letter of caution or refer the matter to federal or state prosecutors.
Beebe said the bill transfers “virtually unfettered investigative power and authority” from the election commissioners to a partisan-elected official “over complaints against persons accused, sometimes by political rivals, of violating election laws.
“However, while the bill makes it clear that the unit‘shall’ investigate ‘any’ such complaint, the bill makes no provision for those cases in which a complaint might relate to the activities of the secretary of state or his/her office, or persons running for that office,” he wrote in a letter to senators. “Placing such unfettered authority in a partisan-elected office is a profoundly bad idea.”
But King said the governor’s veto of the legislation “is just par for the course that protects the status quo that allows for election fraud and makes a national mockery of our election system.”
Martin was elected secretary of state in 2010, just like Beebe was elected governor, King said, and it therefore is appropriate to give Martin these extended powers.
Martin spokesman Alex Reed said it’s the governor’s prerogative to veto these three bills.
“We simply implement laws passed by the Legislature. If the Legislature chooses to exercise their prerogative to override, then we will do so, but that is a call to be made solely by the Legislature,” Reed said.
Beebe also vetoed King’s SB720 to authorize the state Board of Election Commissioners to remove a county board of election commissioner under certain conditions.
“This new, cumbersome and unworkable scheme seems unwarranted, especially when a procedure already exists for the removal of members of county boards by the county committees that elected them” under Arkansas Code Annotated. 7-4-102 (e), the governor said.
But King said he followed the suggestions of bill drafters, and there needs to be another way to remove incompetent or grossly negligent county election commissioners beyond relying on the political parties to do so.
Beebe also vetoed SB721 to terminate the six appointed members of the seven-member Board of Election Commissioners, effective July 1, and expand the board from seven members to nine. The newly appointed members would begin July 1, under the bill.
The six appointed board members are Pulaski County Election Commissioner SusanInman, Jefferson County Election Commissioner Stu Soffer, Grant County Election Commissioner C.S. Walker, Clark County Clerk Rhonda Cole, state Senate aide Barbara Mc-Bryde and Wynne attorney James Harmon Smith III.
The chairmen of the state Democratic and Republican parties would each appoint two board members under the bill, up from the current one board member apiece. They would each be required to appoint a county election commissioner and a county clerk.
The bill would allow the lieutenant governor to appoint a board member and reduce the governor’s appointees on the board from two to one. The Senate president pro tempore and House speaker would continue to make one appointment each to the board, and the secretary of state would continue to serve on it.
Beebe said the immediate effect of the bill would be to make the membership of the state board “more, not less, partisan.
“There is no evident need for a larger State Board of Election Commissioners, and blatant attempts to skew the political balance of a board charged with overseeing partisan elections will only harm, not promote, the public’s confidence in the integrity of our state’s election processes,” the governor said.
But King said Beebe’s suggestion that his bill would make the board more partisan “is absurd and ridiculous.”
Arkansas, Pages 7 on 04/24/2013