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Arkansas Senate Fails Bill Allowing Legislators To Amend Voter-Approved Measures

A bill that would have allowed the Arkansas General Assembly to amend voter-approved constitutional amendments by a two-thirds vote of each chamber failed in the Senate on Monday.

Senators voted 9-17, with two members voting present on Senate Bill 75, ultimately failing the bill. It would have allowed the legislature to modify or even repeal measures "approved by a vote of the people." The legislation defines a measure as any bill, law, resolution, ordinance, charter, constitutional amendment, legislative proposal or "encactment of any character."

In presenting the bill to the Senate, Sen. Mark Johnson, R- Little Rock, spoke on the sales tax for roads that Arkansans approved in 2020, and how the state Supreme Court ruled in October that under the amendment, money gained from that tax cannot go towards highways larger than four lanes because of the specific wording of the amendment itself.

The bill, Johnson argued, was not only needed to change the wording of that particular amendment to include multi-lane highways, but also to set a precedent for the legislative body concerning its powers to amend voter-approved measures, powers that the bill interprets are already provided by the existing constitution. 

"If there’s some language that is wrong, then we by an extraordinary majority, and I think that’s an important point – this is not a willy-nilly thing and I don’t think it’ll ever be looked at as something we do willy-nilly – can fix errors and omissions and change things," Johnson said. 

Sen. Clarke Tucker, D-Little Rock, questioned Johnson on the bill.

"The people could vote [to] adopt a constitutional amendment by 90% of the polls in November and then January, conceivably under your interpretation, we could come in here and overturn that," Tucker said.

"Theoretically, it could," Johnson said.

After the bill failed, Johnson motioned it be moved to the Interim Committee for study. The motion passed.

Sarah Kellogg was a Politics and Government reporter for KUAR from November 2018- August 2021.
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