An eye-opening day at the Capitol

Scott Loftis

“Regnat Populus.”

That’s Latin for “the people rule.” It’s also the Arkansas state motto, though thats seems to mean less and less nearly every day.

I had the opportunity to watch our state Legislature at work recently, when I traveled to the state Capitol to speak to a State Senate committee about a bill that would weaken government transparency. That seems to be a recurring theme in this legislative session, as does a full-on assault on the people’s right to actively participate in their own government.

Our legislators don’t want us pesky citizens meddling in their affairs. And they especially don’t want us placing proposed amendments to the state constitution on the ballot to be decided by the voting public.

Simply getting such a measure on the ballot is an enormous challenge already. First, the “ballot title” for such initiatives has to be approved by the state’s attorney general. That means that if the AG — or perhaps, the governor, if the AG feels it’s in his best interest politically to serve her interests — wants to keep a particular measure off the ballot, he can effectively do so. Of course, his decisions can be appealed in court, but that takes time, and there’s also a deadline for getting signatures gathered, submitted and certified. If nothing else, the AG can — and will, and has — stall the process long enough to make it impossible to meet that deadline. Now, legislators want to add even more red tape with ridiculous requirements for the people who work to collect signatures after the AG finally gets around to approving a ballot title.

As I waited for my turn to testify in a committee hearing, I watched as the committee members discussed several bills that clearly were aimed at consolidating the Legislature’s power by taking it away from the people.

Among the bills that came before the committee that day was a proposal by State Sen. Jim Dotson that would have required that any constitutional amendment proposed by the people of Arkansas, in addition to clearing all of the hurdles placed in its way just to make it to the ballot, be approved not by the majority of people voting in an election, but by the majority of eligible registered voters. Thus, if voter turnout was less than 50 percent, a proposed amendment could get 100 percent of the vote and still fail.

Sen. Dotson, by the way, reminded me a great deal of former state legislator Bob Ballinger. That’s not a compliment.

As the committee discussed Dotson’s proposal, State Sen. Dan Sullivan made a point of chastising one Arkansas citizen by declaring that “the founders” never envisioned a direct democracy but instead believed in “representative democracy.” In other words, Sen. Sullivan seemed to be saying that the only time we should have any say in our government is when we elect the people who represent us. For the record, there are 100 members of the Arkansas State House of Representatives and 35 state senators. By the way, they can place a proposed amendment on the ballot far more easily than we pesky citizens can.

I should note that Sen. Sullivan eventually voted against Sen. Dotson’s bill, to my great surprise. But his attitude — and that of most of the other committee members — was clear.

Three million-plus people, subject to the whims of 135.

“Regnat Populus?” Not so much.

••• Scott Loftis is editor and publisher of the Carroll County News. His email address is SLoftis@Carroll-CoNews.com.