The committee promoting a proposed constitutional amendment to limit state lawmakers to serving a maximum of 10 years in the Legislature failed to collect enough signatures of registered voters to qualify its proposal for the Nov. 8 general election ballot, officials for the committee said Thursday.
The Restore Term Limits committee's proposed amendment also would limit state representatives to six years, state senators to eight years and prohibit the Legislature from putting future term-limit measures on the ballot.
Lawmakers may now serve up to 16 years in the House, Senate or both under state Constitutional Amendment 94, which voters approved in November 2014.
Though the deadline is today to turn in 84,859 valid signatures to the secretary of state's office, the Restore Term Limits ballot question committee would need "a full month" more to reach that threshold, said the committee's volunteer coordinator, Angel Roberson of Sherwood.
The committee's volunteer signature-gatherers were "great," but it would have been helpful if the committee had "a greater" paid signature-gathering campaign, Roberson said.
The Restore Term Limits committee later said in a written statement that "though, we gathered over 50,000 signatures. ... we were blocked from hiring enough paid circulators in the last two months to get all the way to the 85,000 signatures in the time required." Roberson declined to elaborate about who blocked the committee from hiring enough paid signature-gatherers.
Attorney David Couch of Little Rock, who worked with Sen. Jon Woods, R-Springdale, and Rep. Warwick Sabin, D-Little Rock, on what became Amendment 94, said Thursday that it's no surprise that the Restore Term Limits' proposal won't qualify for the November ballot.
A few weeks ago, Couch, who has been promoting the proposed Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment, said he instructed National Ballot Access -- a company that collects signatures for ballot initiatives, veto referendums and recall petition drives -- not to allow canvassers to carry petitions both for the medical marijuana amendment and the term limits amendment. "Canvassers have a choice -- they can choose to carry term limits or the medical marijuana petition," Couch said then.
At that time, Bob Porto of Restore Term Limits said Couch was telling independent contractors how to do their jobs, but he wasn't accusing Couch of an illegal activity.
Before Amendment 94, state lawmakers had been limited to serving six years in the House and eight years in the Senate. House terms are two years and Senate terms are four years. Some senators were able to serve 10 years in the Senate if they drew a two-year term after winning in the election after once-per-decade redistricting.
Amendment 94 also barred state elected officials from accepting certain gifts, such as meals in one-on-one meetings, from lobbyists; created a citizens commission that increased the salaries of state elected officials last year; banned director corporate and union contributions to state officials; and extended the cooling-off period for lawmakers before they may register as lobbyists.
The Restore Term Limits committee said Thursday that "the response we received all across this state was wonderful because Arkansans strongly support restoring term limits, after legislators tricked voters in 2014 [with what became Amendment 94].
"It remains our hope that in 2018, the people of Arkansas will have the opportunity to restore term limits through an honest vote," the committee said.
Woods said the proposed amendment promoted by the Restore Term Limits committee "definitely went too far and it was unreasonable, so I'm not surprised there is a lack of support for it."
Arkansas still is one of 15 states with term limits for state lawmakers, he said.
"We will always have term limits. They are called elections," Woods said.
A Section on 07/08/2016