Tess Vrbin, Arkansas Advocate

Arkansas lawmakers gave final approval Friday to two rules that have generated opposition and litigation: one limiting the use of electronic signatures on voter registration forms and one eliminating the gender-neutral “X” marker on driver’s licenses.

The Arkansas Legislative Council’s Administrative Rules Subcommittee approved both rules Thursday.

The driver’s license rule prohibits the use of an “X,” which has been accepted since 2010, to indicate someone’s gender in place of “M” or “F.” It also restricts the use of a blank space as a gender marker.

It was one of several rules Friday that required a vote of the full council, which separated it from the batch of rules approved Thursday at the request of House Minority Leader Andrew Collins, D-Little Rock.

Collins said he would vote against a rule that “goes beyond rule-making… and into policymaking.”

Arkansans urge state finance department not to reverse gender-neutral driver’s license policy

“Obviously there’s been a way things have been done by [the finance department] for a long time,” he said. “To change in midstream like this with no change in the law is disruptive to people, hurtful to people, and it just seems like it oversteps what the agency’s authority should be in this case.”

The Department of Finance and Administration initially rescinded the gender-neutral driver’s license policy in March. The rule is meant to prevent threats to law enforcement officers’ safety, department officials said.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Patricia James blocked the emergency rule in June in response to a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, but Friday’s vote from lawmakers implements the rule on a permanent basis.

Nearly a dozen Arkansans, many of whom are transgender or nonbinary, urged finance department officials later in June not to reverse the policy because it was not causing any problems or harm.

Voter registration rule

Roughly 200 public comments were submitted to the State Board of Election Commissioners regarding the rule requiring “wet signatures” for voter registration forms, with exceptions for forms completed at certain state agencies, such as the DMV.

Earlier this year, the voter advocacy group Get Loud Arkansas created a popular online voter registration tool that included an electronic signature. That same tool caused the State Board of Election Commissioners to implement an emergency rule prohibiting the digital mark in April.

Proposed Arkansas voter registration rule blocks access, opponents say

Get Loud’s form has since been amended to no longer include an electronic signature, but the organization is leading a lawsuit challenging the rule, calling it a tool of voter suppression.

The rule required a declaration of review from council co-chair Sen. Terry Rice, R-Waldron, rather than a vote from the council.

Sen. Clarke Tucker, D-Little Rock, said he disagreed with the rule. He pointed out that electronic signatures are allowed for court documents and bank loans, among other things, and that Arkansas’ voter registration and turnout numbers are consistently low compared to other states.

“I think to prevent voter fraud is a worthy goal that I support, but it also needs to be balanced with a couple of things,” he said. “One of those is evidence, and the other is the goal of making sure that all citizens of Arkansas have the right to vote… If we want to talk about freedom in this state, there’s nothing that’s more vital to freedom than the right to vote.”

The Legislative Council also gave final approval to PEER’s Monday decisions, which included directing $500,000 to the Board of Election Commissioners to pay for representation in the lawsuit since Attorney General Tim Griffin recused himself due to a conflict of interest.

Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com. Follow Arkansas Advocate on Facebook and X.

Supporters of a proposed Arkansas constitutional amendment that would allow a limited right to abortion denounced a conservative advocacy group’s publication of a list of paid canvassers, calling the move an intimidation tactic.

The right-wing Family Council posted Thursday on its website a list of 79 people that the Arkansans for Limited Government ballot question committee is paying to collect signatures from across the state. The committee needs 90,704 signatures from registered voters by July 5 for the proposed amendment to appear on the November ballot.

The Family Council obtained the list of paid canvassers and their home cities via an Arkansas Freedom of Information Act request, according to the post. Ballot question committees do not have to submit lists of unpaid or volunteer canvassers to the state.

AFLG released a statement Friday in response to the post.

“The canvassers working tirelessly to collect petitions in support of the Arkansas Abortion Amendment are proud of the work they are doing to promote reproductive liberty in the state and to engage in direct democracy — they aren’t hiding,” the group stated. “But when the Family Council releases lists of their names and whereabouts to their network of anti-choice protestors who vehemently, and sometimes violently, disagree with our work, it puts our team at great risk for harassment, stalking, and other dangers. The Family Council’s tactics are ugly, transparently menacing, and unworthy of Arkansas. We won’t be intimidated.”

Other states’ ballot successes provide model for Arkansas abortion initiative

The Family Council’s post is the second instance of alleged intimidation of abortion amendment supporters in less than two weeks.

On May 30, canvasser Veronica McClane filmed an interaction between herself and Little Rock police, in which Officer Christopher Tollette told her that both Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Commission did not want her and others canvassing at the intersection of 9th and State streets.

Tollette told McClane that canvassers could be arrested for obstructing traffic. The canvassers told reporters they were not blocking traffic but instead sought the attention of drivers from a public sidewalk. The Martin Luther King Jr. Commission, located at the 9th and Broadway intersection, attracted a slow-moving line of cars with a free food giveaway on May 30.

Mark Edwards, the Little Rock Police Department’s spokesman, told reporters that Sanders had nothing to do with the officers’ presence and that Tollette misspoke when he mentioned her.

Edwards also said the police arrived because a Martin Luther King Jr. Commission member claimed to have overheard a canvasser trying to coerce someone into signing the petition.

The proposed amendment

The Arkansas Abortion Amendment would not allow government entities to “prohibit, penalize, delay or restrict abortion services within 18 weeks of fertilization.” The proposal would also permit abortion services in cases of rape, incest, a fatal fetal anomaly or to “protect the pregnant female’s life or physical health,” and it would nullify any of the state’s existing “provisions of the Constitution, statutes and common law” that conflict with it.

The Family Council claims this measure would allow “thousands of elective abortions in Arkansas every year” and “permit abortion through all nine months of pregnancy in many cases” because of its health provisions despite the 18-week limit.

The proposed amendment would alter Amendment 68 to the state Constitution, which currently states that Arkansas policy “is to protect the life of every unborn child from conception until birth, to the extent permitted by the Federal Constitution,” by adding “and the Constitution of the State of Arkansas” at the end.

Arkansas Legislature saw wide range of maternal and reproductive health legislation in 2023

Amendment 68 states, “No public funds will be used to pay for any abortion, except to save the mother’s life.” The proposed amendment would not alter this statement, contrary to the Family Council’s claim in Thursday’s post.

Abortion has been illegal in Arkansas, with a narrow exception to save the pregnant person’s life, since June 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that made abortion a federally recognized right.

Democratic state lawmakers introduced bills during the 2023 legislative session that would have created exceptions to the abortion ban for fatal fetal anomalies, child victims of incest and threats to the health of the pregnant person. Republican lawmakers voted down all three proposals in committee.

The anti-abortion Arkansas Right to Life has been leading a “Decline to Sign” campaign encouraging voters not to sign petitions for the amendment. McClane said last week that opponents of the proposed amendment have attended AFLG’s signing events in protest, which she said amounts to harassment.

Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com. Follow Arkansas Advocate on Facebook and Twitter.

Col. Mike Hagar, DPS secretary and head of the Arkansas State Police, asked on Nov. 2 for the money to distribute as a grant “to support physical security enhancements and other security activities for nonprofit organizations that are at high risk of a terrorist attack based on the organization’s ideology or mission.”

He cited increasing safety concerns following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that has incited war between Israel and Palestinian militants.

The Arkansas Legislative Council’s Performance Evaluation and Expenditure Review subcommittee tabled the request Tuesday after several lawmakers said they wanted more details about how the Department of Public Safety would determine the risk of danger and what protection measures it deems necessary.

Members of the full Legislative Council asked similar questions Friday, including whether DPS would ensure it did not give money to groups that might support or incite violence.

The state Division of Emergency Management distributes roughly $2.5 million in federal grant funds to nonprofits for security every year, and DPS will use this grant as a model for distributing the requested state funds, Hagar said. The federal funds can go to any nonprofit while the state funds will specifically go to religious nonprofits, he said.

“We’ve had requests from different institutions of faith since Oct. 7 specifically asking for assistance,” Hagar said.

Rep. Mark Berry, R-Ozark, moved for the Legislative Council chairmen to direct the funds to DPS upon receipt of a detailed grant distribution plan. Berry previously asked PEER on Tuesday to defer the request to the full council.

‘Temperature increase’

Officials at DPS, the State Police and the Arkansas State Fusion Center will evaluate applications for the grant, Hagar said.

DPS relies on several state agencies and federal partners to determine risk of terrorist threats, he said, and authorities have seen an uptick in threats toward the Jewish community since Oct. 7.

“The difficult thing with threats is [that] it’s hard to quantify,” Hagar said. “…A lot of what you’re looking at is honestly just taking the local temperature.”

Sen. Jonathan Dismang, R-Searcy, asked if law enforcement agencies have seen “active terroristic threats in Arkansas right now.”

Hagar said agencies have cause for “great concern” due to monitoring social media sites but have no “specific target” or “specific suspects.”

Sen. Jim Dotson, R-Bentonville, asked Hagar what authorities consider an “elevated” risk of terrorist activity.

“When we have something like this happen, like on Oct. 7, you see those site visits increase,” Hagar said. “You see that chatter increase… you see that temperature increase in the rhetoric that’s being expressed. That’s not unusual, but as that larger group grows, that’s when you get concerned about the outliers.”

Dotson asked for more specific information, and Hagar repeated that threat levels are difficult to quantify.

House Speaker Matthew Shepherd, R-El Dorado, asked Hagar if threats are likely to increase with several religious holidays coming up. Hagar said he expects this to happen.

Rep. Fran Cavenaugh, R-Walnut Ridge, said she hoped DPS would not run into any “constitutionality issues” while distributing grant funds, especially since “‘faith-based’ can mean lots of things to lots of different people.”

“One thing that I don’t want to do is get the state, and your department in particular, into an issue where we’re having to fight your reasoning on why you gave [funds] to this group. but not to this group or that group,” Cavenaugh said.

DPS has not yet decided how long grant applications will be accepted or when it will stop accepting them, Hagar said.

He agreed at lawmakers’ request to provide quarterly reports to the Legislative Council on the use of the grant funds if the department receives them. He also agreed to provide a list of nonprofits that have received federal grant money for security purposes.

Earlier on Friday, the Legislative Council approved more than $12.5 million in federal funds for four rural Arkansas hospitals that requested aid for costs incurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

PEER approved the aid on Tuesday for Eureka Springs Hospital, Magnolia Regional Medical Center, Piggott Community Hospital and Delta Memorial Hospital in Dumas.

Arkansas lawmakers have now allocated nearly $40 million in American Rescue Plan Act relief for 10 rural hospitals after setting aside $60 million for this purpose last year.

Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com. Follow Arkansas Advocate on Facebook and Twitter.