State Agencies & Govt'l Affairs-Senate

SB 3 So members, you know, we voted this bill out of committee and off the Senate floor two weeks ago. There was an amendment over in the House that we're just looking to concur with. So with that, Senator Sulliv Sullivan chair as you know, the bill passed the House and the Senate and the House. We had a small amendment. The amendment to SB 83 makes two simple changes. We removed the criminal penalty as an enforcement mechanism, of course, the civil cause of action remains, and we clarified that when someone successfully on a violation of the prohibition of race, sex, or preference, and it's entitled attorney fees. If that's successful party sued the state recovery of those fees would go through the claims commission, not the court. So those were two items that were discussed here. Those are the two amendments that were made, and I asked for a good vote. All right, so we're going to need two different motions. So Senator Sullivan, I'm going to let you backtrack and start with the First Amendment, and that's going to take one motion and the second one will take another to remove the criminal penalty is an enforcement mechanism. Alright. And the civil action remains. OK. So yeah, we're gonna move to adopt. So I got a motion from Senator Sullivan, second from Senator Payton, all in favor say aye. Opposed. All right, and then that's been adopted that we clarify that when someone successfully sues for the violation that goes far attorneys' fees. Or other areas it goes back to the claims commission, not through the court. I make a motion to approve. We got a motion from Senator Sullivan, second from Senator Payton, all in favor. Say aye. Congratulations. Thank you. All right. And they send it out with the pass. I think we're good. That's good. All right, before we get started, um, Ian Ratliff, Ian, where are you at? Ian's paging with us today. He's from Little Walk West High School, and we're happy to have you here, man. Welcome. You put the good day to be here. All right, um, Senator Hammer. We're going to start up with you and I'm gonna let you go ahead and present, you know, all 6 of your bills, and then we're going to stop and go back and we'll allow members to question them, you know, going in order from SB 7 through SB 12 and the public comment on each one of them, but for the purposes of expediency and time management. We're going to let you go ahead and present all 6 of them. And so I remembers that startup, we're going to have Senate Bill 7. 207, excuse me, 207. Mr. Chair Would it be possible, I know we're going to do them all at one time, but a couple of things. One, would the chair allow uh that we would take the Senate Bill 2101. Yeah, that'd be fine. And then with the chair allow for Leslie and for Nathan from the Secretary of State's office to sit up here with me. I think it would help maybe expedite the asking of questions or answering questions and so come on up. Right. Senator Hammer, yeah, there's a chair right back. Mr. Chair, I think Senator Peyton asked this question, but is this the brightest that the that the lighting can get in here? Uh, that's a good question. I think I OK, thank you. Yeah, do we have anybody? Is anybody? So Yeah, we'll check on that, Senator Tucker. I'm getting older, Senator Flip the choir, Senator Tucker. Um If you'll introduce yourselves and tell us you're with for the record and then Senator you'll be recognized to proceed with SB 10. I'm Leslie Bellamy. I'm the director of elections for the Arkansas Secretary of State's office. I'm Nathan Lee. I'm chief legal counsel for the Arkansas Secretary of State. All right, Senator Hammer, you are recognized proceed with SB 210. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate you being here. I appreciate everybody being in the room. I know there's quite a few people that are here for the bill, quite a few people against the bill within itself, I think, makes a statement. I think some got an opportunity to sign up. Some may not have got an opportunity to sign up, so I appreciate everyone here. What I'd like to do, Mr. Chair, because of the manner in which you're going to handle the presentation of these bills if it's all right with I'm going to read one opening statement that applies to all 6 bills because all 6 bills are intertwined with each other to enhance the integrity process by which initiatives are operated and offered to the citizens of Arkansas, and with that I'd like to read my opening statement. I will go through each one of the bills with a summary of the chair allows and would like to go that way and then opened it up for questions if that's OK. All right. Thank you. Thank you, members for the opportunity to present. 6 Senate bills addressing the ballot initiative process. You've heard from people regarding these bills and the effect they will have on the gathering of signatures for ballot initiatives today you may hear from those both for and against these bills. I think that within itself should reaffirm that there are two sides to every argument. Today I hope that you will vote on the side of the facts. That is why through the presentation of these bills, I will simply ask that you listen to the facts as they are presented and hopefully you will see their value absent of the misinformation campaign that has been waged against these bills. Each one of these bills helps to safeguard the rights granted in the Constitution. None of these bills undermine those rights. That is why each of these bills have been prepared, working with the Secretary of State's office to assure that each bill safeguards the rights granted under the Constitution while not infringing on the rights of citizens and their respective groups who want a safe, secure, and integrity-driven process through which signatures can be gathered for an initiative. Also, these 6 bills have been reviewed by Attorney General's office, and they have been deemed constitutional and our attorney general and his team stand ready to defend each of these 6 bills that I am presenting. And to that point, The facts about first of all, the Senate bill 210. are as follows Canvassers, as the bill is, canvassers may not accept a potential signer's signature until the signer has read the ballot title. The Secretary of State Elections Department, pro-life organizations, churches and members of the General Assembly have received numerous reports that citizens have been tricked into signing petitions that would never support. Instead they were given a misleading information such as calling the abortion amendment an amendment to protect pregnant women or women's health. This will be enforced through the canvasser's affidavit. Only the battle, only the ballot title summary will be required to be read prior to the obtaining of the signature. Would you like me to go on to the next bill, Mr. Chairman, with that brief explanation. Yeah, you can proceed. OK. Could we go to 28, Mr. Chairman? Senate Bill 208208. Yes, sir. That's agreeable. On Senate Bill 208, it requires voter ID for petition signing. The Arkansas Constitution calls for a voter signature on a petition their vote in Arkansas we believe in voter ID but failed to apply it here where it is needed. Only registered voters should be voting with their signatures. On the Arkansas residents should be voting with their signatures. Last year, the medical marijuana amendment had over 4500 duplicated signatures. The cause of these duplicates are unclear, but many are likely caused by someone signing their own name than someone else, family member, friend, coworker, etc. signing their name again. We have no way to prevent this. The ID required by this bill will be the same as what is required to vote. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to go on Senate Bill 207, if I may. You recognize proceed with Senate Bill 207. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Each act of petition fraud is a Class A misdemeanor punishable by almost a year in prison. Canvassers are tricking thousands of our cans in each year in signing petitions they have already have had signed cannot legally sign or accidentally committing other acts of fraud. Largely this is because people do not see the parking lot petitioner seriously as government documents and this bill will fix that error. I'd like to proceed to Senate Bill 212, please. Senate Bill 212, you're recognized proceed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Currently the Secretary of State has no real ability to investigate and canvassers are turning in fraudulent documents or if they are violating their affidavits. The election division currently gets many reports of petition fraud. Right now if a problem is reported to the Secretary of State or elections Department Secretary of State elections call for the sponsor who of course denies the fraud. No other investigation happens. This bill establishes investigative authority for the Secretary of State for documents turned in to the Secretary of State's office. This bill will not give the Secretary of State authority to investigate campaign finances. This bill allows the document validity, division to refer his findings to the correct department. for prosecution if necessary and thus does not infringe upon the duties of the judiciary. Mr. Chairman, I like to do Senate Bill 211. You recognize proceed with Senate Bill 211. Thank you. Names the honest Canvassing Act, the petition, the petition Protection Act right now, the Secretary of State is mostly bound to a on its face review rather than a review of canvasser conduct. This bill adds a layer of protection against canvass or fraud by having canvassers swear under oath that they have followed all the laws requiring or while canvassing. This also allows the canvasser to have a simple good faith protection by being able to fall back on their sworn statement. if they are accused after a good faith mistake. This does not add an extra sworn statement like the one on the petition parts already, that is a testimony to knowledge that the signatures are truthful and this testimony of their own conduct, and with that I'd like to move on to the final bill, Senate Bill 209, Mr. Chairman. You proceed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The criminal, criminal signature disqualification. Right now the Secretary of State reviews for sufficiency on the face of the petition itself, which might involve bad conduct investigations. This bill clarifies that signatures obtained criminally will be disqualified, period. The burden of the Secretary of State for determining the criminal obtained signatures would be the preponderance of the evidence, a standard much higher than the on its face review of the petition itself, more likely than not. This gives the Secretary of State more ability or gives greater ability in assuring petition validity while holding him accountable for his determination, and that is a summary presentation of all six bills, and we'll proceed however the chair would like if you'd like to go direct into questions. Or however the chair would like to, but I would defer to assistance from the Secretary of State if there are detailed questions about the bills that I can't answer, please. All right, so we'll start with Senate Bill 212, and then we'll just work our way. That's where you started, so that's what we're gonna, or 2:10, excuse me, and then we'll just work our way down from there. So starting with Senate Bill 210, Senator Tucker, did you have a OK, you recognize that for a question, Senator. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'm gonna have Several questions, but it's, it's really for the I'll have particular questions about particular bills, but As you said, Senator Hammer. Most of these questions are directed at all the bills together as a package. So I just want to start because I know we're going to have a discussion this morning with the members of the committee and with members of the public, which is great. That's the way the process is supposed to work, and you know with the chair's indulgence, I just wanted to start because I think this should be the context for our discussion today, and that is Article 5, Section 1 of the Arkansas Constitution, and I'm just going to read a few lines from this because I think this should be the foundation of everything we discuss one way or the other today, and that is that the legislative power of the people of this state shall be invested in a general assembly, which shall consist of the Senate and the House of Representatives, but the people reserve to themselves the power to propose legislative measures, laws, and amendments to the Constitution and to enact or reject the same at the polls independent of the General Assembly and also reserve the power at their own option to approve or reject at the polls any entire act or any item of an appropriation bill. Next paragraph. The first power reserved by the peoples of the initiative. Next paragraph. The second power reserved by the people is the referendum. If you go further down in Article 5, Section 1, the people remove the governor's power to veto a measure initiated by or referred to the people. Keep going. There's a an increased threshold for the General Assembly to amend a measure initiated by or referred to the people 2/3 threshold rather than the simple majority it takes for us to overrule our own legislation. Yeah There's, there's quite a, quite a few more that I won't read. The last one I'll mention is there's a subsection of Article 5, Section 1 that's titled Unwarranted Restrictions prohibited. And it says no law shall be passed to prohibit any person or persons from giving or receiving compensation for circulating petitions in order to prohibit the circulation of petitions, and this language is important, nor in any manner interfering with the freedom of the people in procuring petitions, so that's foundational language for our form of government in Arkansas, and I just want to mention that before we get started. My first question is, There's, there's two phases to a ballot measure process. The first phase is gathering signatures to get something on the ballot, and then the second phase is for the people of Arkansas to vote on it if it makes it to the ballot. What do you view the purpose of the first phase, the signature gathering process. What's the purpose of that process? I'll answer it from a legislator's perspective and defer to the Secretary of State to add on if that's all right with you, Senator Tucker. Of course I would like to address the opening comment that you made though in that I would like to also say I do not believe that any of these six bills violate the Constitution or that which you've read regarding the constitutional framework under which petitions can be gathered, otherwise I think we would have been told that by the Attorney General's office, and I do not think he would be ready and his team to defend these should these be taken to court, so I would liken it unto, you know, two attorneys in the room. You have two opinions and someone else may end up deciding what they view is right to your, to your question about gathering. I do not believe that any of these six bills interfere with anybody who wants to operate under a fair and a process that has a high level of integrity. with regards to getting those signatures, it will probably be just a simple we agree to disagree, but I do not take the position that any of these six violate the ability for citizens who want to operate in a above board integrity driven process to gather signatures, OK? And so I, I understand and you know, I know we're going to agree to disagree on a few things here today, and that's OK. That's part of democracy. But, but my The question really is, I understand you want the signature gathering process to have the utmost integrity and obviously we're going to talk about that, but I'm kind of taking a step back from that and from a big picture standpoint asking what is the reason why we have, why don't we just put it on the ballot? Straight away, or why, why don't we have more? What's the reason for the signature gathering process in your view? In my view, I think it's an opportunity for citizens who are wanting to get an initiative on the ballot for the overall citizens of Arkansas to be able to vote on absent of legislators not taking those particular issues up or the citizens disagreeing with we legislators, what we as legislators have voted to do. It's an opportunity for them to have a voice in the process and much like we as legislator ator s want to make sure that the process respects individual opinions. We also want to make sure that every step of the process is absent of anything that may intimidate or prohibit citizens or mislead or misinform citizens by gathering his signature under a false pretense. OK. Fair enough. And I think, you know, my layman's version of what the purpose of the signature gathering process, I think, is similar to what you just said, which is that It's really to find out if enough Arkansans care about this issue for everyone to vote on it in layman's terms is the way that I view it, so. That's the purpose of the signature gunning process in my view, not. Not putting words in your mouth, but I think you said something not too different from that. So my next question is, and I know your view of these bills is To protect the integrity of the signature and gathering process, and that's a valid goal, um, and so my next question is, what are the harms that you're trying to guard against. Well, I think on the merits, as mentioned in some of the summaries given on each one of them that they are all driven out of issues that have been brought to the attention of either legislators, Secretary of State's office and just various avenues in which these issues have been brought forth and these are proposed solutions to those that I think I captured in each one of the opening statements or It possibly addresses something that potentially could be used in a manner which would jeopardize the integrity of the process. However, the majority of these are the result of things that have actually happened and have been reported. OK. And I heard you say now and and in your opening comments that Maybe two of the harms that that you're trying to guard against are someone being misled and signing something they don't intend to sign. Correct. I'm sorry, say again, I heard the first part, not one of the harms that I think you're trying to guard against is someone being misled into signing a petition that they wouldn't have otherwise signed. That's correct. And then another is maybe a Invalid signature. That's correct. And I, I, I recognize those are harm, you know, those are things that we want to try to protect against. In my view, those are kind of on one side of the ledger. the way I see this, right? And then on the other side of the ledger there's another harm, which is the people of Arkansas not being able to get their proposed ballot measures on the ballot, and we we kind of have to balance those against each other, um, do you have any thoughts about that? Sure, I think that if the issue is that high of a priority to any group of individuals regardless of whatever side of the issue they may be on that each should want a process by where just like We have coined the phrase that every vote matters and every vote counts, I think that ought to be carried down to the petition process. That's why we work so hard to make sure that our elections are secure and make sure that our elections are driven by integrity, and I think that begins at the point that you ask somebody for their signature in order to get it on the ballot, and I failed to understand. If there is an issue that I feel strongly enough about that I want to go out and find out if there's a majority of other Arkansans who feel equally strong as I. I do not see where any of these six bills will prohibit me from doing that. In fact, if anything, I think it will secure the fact that if I am able to get those signatures that are legal signatures to be on those forms. I've built an even stronger case because given opportunity to speak for this bill, you will hear testimonies from individuals that will bring real life stories to the exact two points that you just mentioned if we are able to get that far. OK. Tucker, would you mind, I got Senator King's got a question I know. Did you circle back and finish up your current question and then jump back in. Yeah, let me, let me ask maybe two more. So this may be, maybe this is not a great analogy, but I've been thinking about this in terms of Our traffic laws As an analogy because we know that On one hand, people need to get around, but we also know that there's an inherent danger. We know people were going to die in car accidents every year. As a society Now, um, We could put a stop sign or a stop light at every intersection. We could do that. We could prohibit cars entirely. We know for certain. That would make people safer. But the restrictions are so severe that it makes Travel by car, useless. I don't know how long it would take you to get to the state Capitol from your home in Saline County if you, if there was a four-way stop sign at every intersection. You would be safe. But it would be kind of pointless. And Uh, do you have any thoughts about that there's, there's, there comes a point where, in my view, It's, if you look at any, you know, we've passed, I don't know, we've passed laws to make the signature gathering process more difficult in every legislative since 200 every legislative session since 2013 and sometimes several times a session, and if you look at any one of these individual measures by itself. Maybe it's fine. But there comes a point where it's death by 1000 cuts, and it becomes too stifling, and the more you add on, I feel like we're getting closer to the point. Where, yeah, you can make a legitimate argument that it's going to be more secure, but it's like putting a four-way stop sign at every intersection to the point where there's no point in even getting in your car and attempting to drive anywhere at that point, so anyway, I I think that comes down to an individual's understanding of the value of life in regards to your analogy, number one, and number 2, I do not subscribe to any thought processes that is less than 100% accurate, whether That is at the voting box and the results are less than 100% accurate. I do not subscribe to the mindset that says that is acceptable. I am willing to accept less than 100% accurate, especially when you have the ability to know that the vote outcomes are 100% accurate, and I think that's the greater danger that we face is that we begin to recognize that there are problems and we are They're too afraid to address them, or we are intimidated out of addressing them, and I think that's what these 6 bills are brought forth to do is to say this intersection that we are at in the petition gathering process doesn't need a roundabout. It needs a stop sign, and we're putting down 6 stop signs. One down, one to go, Mr. Chair. Last question. So I think one of the mistakes, and again I'm speaking generally big picture terms right now, I think one of the mistakes that the legislature has made when passing these measures and referring these measures out to the people over the last decade is that we have conflated. The two separate phases of this process. One is the signature gathering, and one is when the people of Arkansas vote. Now, in my view, when the people of Arkansas vote, I want there to be exactly 0 fraudulent votes cast. And I think there's real harm. To the people of Arkansas, if something passes and the only reason it passed is because they were Votes cast fraudulently or invalidly, and likewise, I think there's real harm to the people of Arkansas if something would have passed but for some fraudulent votes. I want there to be zero fraudulent votes at the ballot in November. To me, uh, that's a separate process from the signature gathering process, and the harm. Of maybe some people signed who shouldn't have signed. Now I'm not for that. But the harm is not at the same level in my view. Because the downside is maybe there were 85,000 valid signatures instead of 90,000. Or 87,000 instead of 90,000. And so really the only harm is that the people vote on one more measure. And the damage done to the people was not at the same level. Um, do you have any thoughts about that? Uh I respect you and we like each other. I cannot On any time I'll spend on this planet. Subscribe To that mindset. That allows for a lesser interpretation of the value of a signature going on a piece of paper that has been signed. As an affidavit of truth. Notarized And there are 4500 examples. That show that those 4500 examples misrepresented. And also for Somewhat practical purposes may have canceled out another 4500. I want every signature. To be valued and I want every signature to count so that made the best argument win through the most fair process established. Right. Thank you, Senator Tucker. Senator King, you're going to ask for a question. OK, Senator Tucker cover some things and some things, and one thing I want to compliment you on, Mr. Chairman, did you hear that? I'm talking to Senator Hammer. I'm sorry, but I'm making sure you know that I'm complimenting you by all means, great latitude here, Senator King. OK. So, And understand our banner sometimes unfortunately for everybody goes out in front of the public. You ought to see what goes on behind the scenes, but, uh, so I compliment you on breaking these apart, you know, not doing an ominous bill. I mean, I know that is so I appreciate that because there's gonna be some of these ones the photo ID one, obviously I like since I wrote the photo ID amendment here, but so, and I'm not going to get into some of the Senator Tucker questions, but the big thing is the cost part of this. When you do investigations and somebody's been on a lecture. commission in an election nerd, you'll just admit it and been part of the process and you have a signature gathering process, you know, and you're talking about some one person, you know, looking into uh several, maybe thousands or hundreds of, you know, possibly something wrong. There there's no cost estimates about like. You know, there's no physical impact statement. I know that's hard to guess because you really just don't know what you don't know out there, but like in the overall scheme of our budget and the Secretary of State's office is a central Services fund. So you're going to get funded to your appropriation. So I mean These investigations, any estimates on the cost of the extra officers, whether these, you know, this is the overall bill, but there's just no cost to any of these things, and I know it's a hard guess, but there needs to be something. Sure, and Senator King, I appreciate the question because I know it's one of the concerns out there. I'm going to ask the Secretary of State's office to respond to that, but I would say that one way in which we can measure cost is through whether or not additional staff would need to be added. I think that is a direct driver to the cost, and I'd like to yield to the Secretary of State's office to address your question if you're OK with that. Oh, OK. OK. Um, we're not looking at adding any additional staff. Uh, we already go through, um, a lot of the documents, uh, so it would just be taking some additional staff that we already have to go ahead and further look at those past what the elections division scrutiny has done. So I think it, I think you hit the nail on the head that it is a little hard to to determine because you don't know what measures might have more fraud or might not have any fraud. Uh, so I think that we have looked at it from trying to absorb it within our budget with no additional staff with the people that we already have. Yeah, and, and I mean, that's the thing that I think that it needs to be out there is how much money are you going to be looking at because as I say, we just don't know what we don't know and we're talking about, I mean, every time an agency comes in here and I've been here a while and unfortunately that means that sometimes you learn things is that they say, well, we're gonna do it with the existing staff, and then you have the law, and then all of a sudden we have We don't know. And when Secretary of State being central Services and being funded at that amount. You know, it's very crucial to at least look and see and have targets because this existing staff, based on what I know and been involved in elections, uh, You know, the potential of it could be a lot and if you're short staffed and you don't have it, then you come back and say, You know, We don't have the money. We thought we did. We didn't know this, so I think of having allowances with our budget. To say there should be a separate appropriation bill, there should be a separate target that potentially and understand with central services, you don't have to have Secretary Martin to me as a Secretary of State did not get a lot of credit because he managed and concised his budget down and with that extra money they were, we were able to buy voting machines and do things to turn them back and have partnerships with county because he did that and that is my concern about a lot of this, even though there's some of this, I'm with Senator Tucker on. I mean, I just feel like they were moving the needle away from the citizens' initiative. I want to make it far easier for citizens. As long as it's done correctly to get on the ballot. We've turned this into a rich person's game of getting things on the ballot for the most part. But I think the cost part, I think that's crucial to know because we can't budget right now and I say this on the budget part as somebody who's been down here a long time. Education spending is going up right now. Whatever you want to say about your greed. Medicaid's not gonna go down, special interests and a lot of things are not going to allow that. So I'm just being honest change. Corrections, everything that we're doing right there, this is not a singular issue. Like I said, we be in central services right now revenues are going down. And I, I, I, it behooves me of like how things today that we are not looking at our overall spending. Whenever you revenues are going down, they've been down 5% the last two months. They're going down. And overall, and this is, this is not just Secretary of State, it's everything in state government right now that spending is going up. So I would appreciate, like at least some type of target or some type of separate entity because Even though you're, I'm sure you're being honest and well intentions about we're going to do existing staff. You get out there and have a bunch of petition gathers. I mean, I went out and busted a bunch of illegal voter registration fraud in East Arkansas 12 years ago. I probably spent 4 or 5 days on my own traveling around to get those out there. I, I can tell you with existing staff that that's problematic to me. With the cost, and I'm not going to get into his questions again. Thank you, Senator, thank you. These, well, as testified, no additional staff will be added 1.2, the, except for the one bill where the question is probably generating the concern all the other ones have no additional cost to the department and then the third thing I would say is this that if testifying today if they were to come back and ask for additional. staff, although I think historically they've been able to absorb things that were perceived as having an increased cost that have not come to fruition. I think that's where we would say, do you remember when you said, and we would hold them accountable to that. There's enough future generational legislative presence in this room to remind them that for the next 2 to 6 cycles or 2 to 6 years. All right. Thank you, Senator. Senator Payton, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Senator Hamra, I do appreciate that they're short bills and then it's broken up because the legislative process is very important that you, I'm maybe a little more paranoid than some of my colleagues down here, but My constituents expect me to read every word of every bill and know exactly what it's going to do and, and even though I may be on board for the objective. It matters how we get there and what the language is in that bill. So I appreciate Senator Tucker's Question about why do we have the petition process. And, and I agree it's to demonstrate that there's a general consensus. That something needs to be done about a topic. But, but when we do a ballot initiative or constitutional amendment, and we're gathering signatures that language has already been crafted. And it has not been through a debate and a legislative process. Like what we do here and every word questioned, uh, the title gets questioned and they're and they're gathering signatures, but Senator Hammer. Do you believe that a signature on a petition. To put something on the ballot. Is, is of more weight than a vote at the ballot box for or against that. That initiative. I believe they each need to be treated with equal integrity because what is signed on an affidavit of which we have verified that there are problems in the signature gathering. I think they each carry equal value, and the reason I would say that is because it is a gateway to the ballot box and why would we want to delay the process, or why would we not want a process that is as thorough and as strong, but yet as fair. and as transparent in the gathering of that signature signatures ought to be treated like heartbeats. So let's say you have an election with 100,000 people that vote. And it's going to take 50,000 plus 1 to pass that measure. But it only takes 10,000 to get it on the ballot. I would argue that being one of 10,000 makes your signature. Worth 5 times what your vote is worth. Because it takes 50,000 plus one to pass it. Only took 10,000 to put it on the ballot. That's a 5 to 1 ratio. And so we require identification. We have, we keep voter rolls. We try to make sure that whoever votes in favor or in opposition to a measure that is a valid vote. We're very concerned that we have accuracy in the county. Why wouldn't we? want to be just as concerned that we have accuracy. And identification in the ballot process. I mean the signature. No, I, I would agree. I think we are saying the same thing. Maybe I misinterpreted your original one, but I think we're arriving at the same destination. I agree it is, it is. Exactly what you said, well, and you probably misinterpreted some of my questions because I'm I'm trying to look at both sides and I'm gonna have questions that sound for it and some questions that sound against it as we get into this this is the legislative process. That's what it is, and that's what the the ballot initiatives lack, in my opinion, and that's why we need to be concerned. With preserving access to the ballot. When the people have a grassroots effort, and there's overwhelming. Uh Concern to, to fix something or to pass something. But I'm very paranoid about the content of the something, because when you go out and advertise, you get a sound bite or two. The wins or loses votes and I'm expected to read the bills, but Sometimes I don't trust all of my colleagues to read the bills, and I certainly don't trust all my neighbors to read the bills and uh The reason I don't, one of the, I, I, I do trust. People's integrity to want to know what's in it. But we have a legislative session going on right now. I've lost track of how many bills are filed. Uh, I know I've already reached my capacity. To read and study and vet every bill before me and I'm just in one of 10 committees that handles 10% of the bills. But with all that said, if we go to the ballot box. And we have 25 citizen-led initiatives on the ballot. How, how much time is that gonna take for people to vote, even let's just assume that they've studied every word of every initiative, but there's 25 or 30 of them on the ballot. We have to at some point consider limiting that access. So as we look at the scale or the ledger that Senator Tucker Talked about You have maybe more than 2 sides to the scale. It may be more like a disc we're trying to balance with because I do believe that we need access. I do believe we need people to do their due diligence, and I appreciate the fact that this one of these bills requires people to read at least the title and know what the title is. But we also have a need for brevity. I mean, I would like to limit how many bills can be filed down here in a session. And if we need to have another session, let's have another session, but I mean, there's a limit to how. How much due diligence we can do. On 2000 or 3000 or 10,000 bills. We do need some brevity at the polling place. So there has to be, I mean, I've been trying to pass a used car sales tax exemption for all my time down here. I'd love to run a I, I mean, I think I have overwhelming support. I could probably get the signatures and get that on the ballot. But we can eliminate every tax if we're not careful, right? So anyway, I I guess I'll have some more to say later, but I'll get out of the queue. Senator Hammer. I just I just want to know. Are you, are you trying to Eliminate ballot access. Not at all. I'm trying to protect the process by which the ballots have additional value by knowing that each of those signatures on that ballot initiative has been well vetted and The public has had the greatest opportunity to be informed and not misled as to what they're signing, and I want to give a shout out to Senator Tucker. I don't think I'm wrong on this. You can straighten me out. I think he's running a bill where those initiatives are going to be put on the Secretary of State's website. Hey, I think that is a great thing. But also at the same time I think these are 6 bills that if we are going to reach out and touch any piece of the ballot initiative process, then let's make sure that each piece that touches it brings value. I'll take his brings values. I think mine bring value. I mean, I've had a lot of emails that say you're eliminating valid access. That's not your goal. No, sir, and I'll take advantage of this opportunity. I don't think all these out of state calls that have been blowing up my phone or tele marketers, it always strikes me as interesting. Why do people out of state get so interested in what's happening in our state unless there's an underlying ulterior motive. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Payton. Senator Tucker, you're up next and recognize her question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, I kind of want to pick up a couple more big picture questions before we dive into the language. Uh, I appreciated some of Senator Payton's comments because that's, that's where I was. Going next really in under the Constitution of Arkansas we've got two sets of lawmakers in Arkansas. One is a group sitting at this table 135 of us in this building, and the other is every citizen of the state. Their lawmakers just like we are. Under the Constitution. And The, the, the corresponding act for us as legislators is filing a bill. For them, for the people to gather signatures and get something on the ballot, um, and, and so, you know, if I sort of wonder if we If we should put some restrictions on legislators filing if we're concerned about Because that's the analogous part of the process if we should put restrictions on legislators filing bills. Just so we have the same restrictions that we're placing on the people to enact laws. Well, I would say That if you'd like to introduce that piece of legislation along with Senator Peyton. That'd be a good bipartisan bill, and we'll see where it goes. And I would just say to Senator Payton, you know, That to me, uh, signing something saying that people should You're not actually making a making a decision when you sign a petition. All you're saying other than to say that people should vote on it. You're not, you're not casting a vote. I've signed petitions of ballot measures that I would vote against if they were on the ballot because I thought they should be decided by the people, um, which is a, so it's really a separate question. To me, but anyway, for what that's worth. Um Of course. When I put my name on something, whether it's the credit card receipt. Or check that I right. Or a bill that I sign in to be consideration. We do so much. We pass laws. To prevent somebody's signature from being misused or misrepresented from the intent of which it was presented to be asked for. I failed to see why we shouldn't bring that same standard that we live with every day of our life to protect that signature to the ballot initiative process. Well, it's and Y'all are welcome to answer this as well, but it's already illegal to sign someone else's name to a petition, correct? Yes, and we have examples of that having happened. Right. And and so that, that, that's a question of enforcement, enforcing the current law rather than passing a new law. Yeah. I'm sorry, say that again. That would be a matter of enforcing the current law rather than passing a new law. I think it would be a matter of enforcing. Let me just, let me interrupt folks in the audience, if you could please, you know, you know, keep your silence here. Everybody's going to have their opportunity to speak with these signed up, you know, for against these bills. It does interfere with the members' ability to hear the questions or hear the answers. So if you keep that silent, we'd appreciate that. Thank you. That ability is already there, I think, by the evidence of the fact that that abuse continues to happen, that what is being added does not take away from that, but I think what it does is provide that additional ability for those who do it to be held to a higher standard of accountability. How so? What's the higher standard of accountability? Would you mind which bill you're referencing? Uh, well, I, I, I don't know, and I'll get into the bills, but I'm, I'm just curious about your, your statement that it's a higher standard of accountability for signatures and and I guess I don't understand. How that is if it's already illegal, it's already illegal to sign someone else's name. It's already illegal to sign your name more than once, correct? It is already illegal to sign your name more than once, correct. So what is, what is imposing the higher standard of accountability that you mentioned. As it relates to the bills that are before us, I think that as you look at and if you have one particular bill that you're raising the question about, or are you just speaking to to the overall bills overall bills, I think that probably one of the arguments that could be made are one of the things that would legitimize the necessity for all 6 bills is that what it does is it closes any unaddressed loophole that is currently being taken advantage of. What loophole is that? Don't mind all that attorney answer or give input to the questions. Uh, Senator Tucker, we, we agree with you that it's important to balance the interests of the people to have their voice, but also for the petition process to be secure, um, we feel like these bills help balance those interests and secure the petition process, I think we want to get into specifics of, of how they do that right now, clearly, um, There are issues with the process and these bills are aimed at fixing those issues. So I think it might be better to, you know, kick it over to Director Bellamy to talk about some of the things that have happened and how these fix some of those problems. OK, let's let's just talk about each of the bills, and I don't, I'm not gonna have a ton of questions on each individual bill, um. For what it's worth, Mr. Chair. So I'll go in the same order you did, Senator Hammer. Well, so we'll start with SB 210. To watch you. That's fine. So this bill requires the ballot title. For the person who's going to sign either to read it or or to be read aloud to them. Correct? This summer, yes, sir. Are you aware that some of the ballot titles can be 6600 words or 800 words. I'm aware that some of the ballot titles. could be perceived as lengthy. I'm not sure that the ballot titles are as lengthy as the Uh, ballot itself, and so this is best effort at gathering what would be the summary. Did y'all Time, how long it would take to read any of the ballot measures that we're going to The signatures were being gathered for in the last election cycle just to see how long this would take to gather an individual signature. What were some of those times? I read over some of the ones from the last two cycles, um, and the part that we're wanting them to read the most lengthy one, that I had was from referred from the legislators and it took me right around probably 8 minutes to read it and be able to You know, comprehend it. OK. I think, if I may, I think one of the things that drives the necessity for this is the fact that we have evidence of people that were asked to sign something, and it was misrepresented as to what it truly represented and, and I think if we ever get to the point where the public can testify, you will hear someone who would give testimony, so one of the things we want to do is, yes, we'll take 8 minutes. Yes, it may take 2 minutes to pen. I think it will cause people to make sure they tighten up their definitions or their summaries, this goes through, but you know, again, I'm going to go back to the argument to the principal that anything of importance that you're going to sign, whether it's your papers at your house or whatever the case may be, one of the most important things is what you are putting your name on the line that you would like to see put before the citizens to vote, so 8 minutes or 8 seconds the ci ple all applies equal to the time it takes to read it. I hope when I check out at Best Buy, they don't read the terms and conditions out loud to me before I And Senator Tucker, I want to commend you, I know this is like Senator King and Senator Flippo. I want to commend you because you have just addressed the concern that you have because you are going to run legislation to put it up on the website where any voter that wants to really do due diligence, can read that before it's ever placed, so I want to commend you for running that legislation. I'll be glad to vote for it. Thank you. I'm going to run an amendment. Maybe I can put you on as a co-sponsor. I'll put you on mine if you want, Senator Tucker, can I, can I ask you if you've got a follow-up question of that, but if not, I've got Senator Sullivan that's got a, you know, got some questions, so let me finish with this bill. You bet. Thank you. So I, I, I really have two follow-ups to what you just said. Well, I, I sort of made it. A joke about one like the terms and conditions at Best Buy, you're signing your name when you do that, correct? Um, just like you are on, so anyway, 11 specific question is, do you think having a 500 to 600 words of legalese read aloud. To a person will help them understand what they're voting for, I guess, I guess you do. I think what it will do is make for a more educated individual who's going to sign something and the burden of responsibility is on them to choose whether or not to read it yourself online as you're doing or at minimum we need to make sure that there's no because the one thing about reading it, it's not only so that the person who signs it understands what they're signing, but it's to hold accountable the person who is asking that person to sign something and that they have not misrepresented the facts of which we have cases to prove that the facts have been misrepresented, so it's, it's a dual edged sword. It holds the person accountable that's signing it. It holds the person accountable who's asking for the signature best way to do that is clarity of saying this is what you're about to sign. Did y'all work with any, here's my other question. Did y'all work with any signature gatherers when you were putting this bill together? We had We had input but direct meetings, no. OK. Uh I'm almost done with this bill, this particular bill. So really, really just two more questions on this particular bill. One is we know it's going to take more time, correct? And, and so did you go ahead. I mean, I don't want to cut you off. That's not really my question, but I think we know it's going to take more time, but feel free to comment if you want, but the question is, I'll just go ahead and ask and you can respond to all of it as you want, but the question is, did you consider extending the amount of time that people can gather signatures. In order to account for the fact that each individual's signature is going to take more time. I think that could be a debate that could be had under a separate bill. Again, I think what you just stated was Not necessarily that you're in opposition to the concept you're may be expressing opposition that it may slow the process down or discourage people from signing it because they don't want to stand there and have it read to them and if a bill was ran to extend the length of time in which signatures could be gathered, I think that would just reinforce that this would be the right thing to do. OK, you can continue, Senator just jumped out, so he's there. Oh, he jumped out of the queue. OK, OK, literally jumped out OK, sorry, Senator. So if you need a break, Senator. So is it not already, is it not already a crime to misrepresent what a petition says or does. Yes, it is. So once again, it's a that's really a matter of enforcing the current law rather than adding a new law. The way I would address that question is that it is acknowledged that it is illegal to misrepresent. Something so if we know that it's going on, which we have evidence that it is going on. Would it not be better to prevent it from going on by bringing legislation forward that would eliminate it so that less people would be charged with a crime, but those that are being asked to sign would have a greater level of protection by having this afforded to him. We are trying to prevent it from happening by doing these things, whereas one mindset is let it happen, and then we'll see who gets caught afterwards. There is already mandatory training for all paid canvassers, correct? It's Bellamy, yeah, OK, so one thing that Senator Payton said on the floor last week, which I really liked is chapter and verse because it's good to go back and see the context for things and in some of these bills. Um So in 210, for example. It adds a new subdivision 10. To Uh, Arkansas code 7-9-103C. and so I went and looked up because it doesn't have the whole section printed out, so I've got 7-9-103C here. And what that list does is it says a person commits a class A misdemeanor. If they do any of the following, and one of those things is what I just referenced. Number 6 is knowing knowingly misrepresents the purpose and effect of the petition or the measure, so that's already a crime. I think we passed that two years ago. I voted for it just be just for the record, so What this does, this new subdivision 10, it would make it a crime to accept a signature without making sure they read the ballot title or reading it aloud to them, correct? That's right. Are you concerned at all about the burden that we're especially volunteers. People who are exercising their First Amendment rights to gather signatures to put something on the ballot that we're turning them into potential criminals if they don't read something that can take up to 8 minutes every time they collect a signature. No, senator, it's just a good faith requirement on the canvaser whether paid or unpaid that the person reads it, so if somebody Acts like they read it, but they really don't as long as that good faith effort was made by the canvasser. There would be no issue with that canvasser, right, but if this bill passes, And you just have an Arkansan volunteer exercising their First Amendment rights, and they don't do something with each signature they can take up to take up to 8 minutes, then there are potential criminal under the law. This bill passes. This bill doesn't change the fact that if a canvasser commits fraud or misrepresents something that they've committed a crime that already exists, so this bill wouldn't change that. I understand that, but that's not my question. My question is, if they don't do An affirmative act that specifically reading aloud the ballot title or having them read this the person who would sign an affirmative act up to 8 minutes every time they collect a signature, then they're a criminal under the law if this bill passes. I would respond by saying you're using an 8 minute. I don't know that that is number one, the average time. 2. Um, I think as used the example that Senator Peyton did a while ago, balancing the scale we have examples of individuals that have signed things that were misrepresented to them. How are we going to address that so that people are not signing something that a petition gatherer. Purposely or may not purposely. Has misinformed the person. How do we address that problem? What is the way to resolve that problem so that both the one gathering the signature and the one that is signing is going to be protected. It's not about it's about protecting both ends of the process and the only way to do that is to make sure that they are educated in what they are about to sign to me this would help prevent somebody from being falsely accused, and those that want That type of protection should not be objecting to this. Approximately what percent? If you, I mean, you may not know, but if you can, if you can give an estimate what percent of signature gatherers are misrepresenting what the petition is about. Senator Tucker, I don't, I don't think I could put an actual number on it. I know that my election library gets hundreds of calls every petition season about being told, you know, that the abortion one is about, you know, women's health or whatever the marijuana one was about, you know, every time there's people that call, they want their names removed from the petitions because they've come to realize that it was not what they were told. Uh, so I would think that, you know, this just mitigates the possibility of fraud, so that the voters understand what they're signing, and it also protects the good canvassers. Because the ones that are doing it right. So I, I, you know, I don't know how many signature gathers are, are misleading as to what the petition is about for the purpose of this next question, I'm just going to say 5%, even though I believe that number to be high, but I'm just going to use that for this hypothetical, and Senator Hammer raised the question, how can we address that if people are misleading, and my question is, would it not be better to prosecute the 5% of bad actors for for committing that crime that is already on the books then imposing a new obligation on the other 95% who are doing it the right way. Well, that's one mindset, but mindset would be this Why do we want to leave a system in place. That is going to charge 5% that's going to tie up our prison system, make us have to build more prisons, put more people in a position to have records on hand. Why that's that's like saying we need a stop sign there, but we're going to take a chance at 5% people that drive through it aren't going to make it, and that's a calculated risk. I don't think we ought to be in the business of calculated risk, but we ought to be in the business is making sure that people avoid those situations either. By accident, unintended unintended actions intended actions, but also to the protection of the person that is signing it, so I subscribe to the mindset that if you're going to initiate a process, your volunteers, it's your responsibility to train your volunteers and people will know what they're signing up to do. And if you've got a really good initiative that you want on, you're not going to have any trouble finding people that want to do the right thing. If you don't, you might have problems. And then maybe you need to think about the initiative you're trying to put forward. I'm just worried about finding people if people think they're going to be subject to criminal liability every time they go out there, but, um, and I would also say that if we had one tell me if we have one, Ms. Bellamy, but if we have one example of a prosecution conviction on the books of a signature gatherer misleading to the extent that's happening out there, which is subject to debate. To the extent that's happening down there, I think it would go way down. We're not going to have continued. misleading representations to where you're going to be putting a lot of people in prison over this. I think that when you take a look at leg audit and what we experience this type of crime versus prosecutors having to spend their time going after other crimes such as murder and the severe crimes we hear it echoed through these halls all the time that if they have to make a choice, and it is delegated to the local prosecutor to make that choice. I think you have to factor that into the consideration. Do I agree with that? Do I think? That's the way it ought to be. I'm not saying that I do, but I'm saying the reality of the argument is when you sit through enough meetings down here, especially in Lake Audit, you hear these kind of things, and this again in the absence of a prosecutor. Either having time, interest, resources that should not be a reason why we let it go on so that hundreds of calls that are evidence to exactly what we're talking about continue to come in if we can minimize that. OK. If the current crimes aren't being enforced, I don't know what's going to cause this one to be enforced, but, but anyway, I'll move on to the next bill, Senate Bill 208. Well, Senator, based on what you just said, there should be no fear about this bill then. Yes. Senate Bill 208. This is the voter ID one, photo identification. I just have a specific question about A line in Article 5 Section 1 of the Constitution. If you go to the verification subdivision of Article 5 Section 1. It says All signatures shall be in the presence of the affit. And that to the best of the affiance knowledge and belief, each signature is genuine. And that the person signing is a legal voter. And it closes by saying no other affidavit or verification shall be required to establish the genuineness of such signatures. So, is it not possible that requiring someone to provide photo identification is Another verification being required in violation of that subdivision of Article 5 Section 1. Would you, I want to make sure before I respond, Would you state your concern again on that and you're on 208, and what page where? Page 1 line 27. I mean just where you require the photo identification. OK, go ahead. Do y'all, do you have to, do you happen to have a copy of Article 5 Section 1 there with you? I'm sorry, go ahead. OK, so I, I'm just gonna reread. If you go to Article 5 section 1, there's a subdivision called verification. And It says, I'm going to paraphrase so I don't have to reread the whole thing. Uh, but then I'll read the part that I think is germane. It basically says you have to make sure that you know that the person is, you know, that it's a legitimate signature. And then it says no other affidavit or verification shall be required to establish the genuineness of such signatures, and my concern with this bill is that you're adding another affidavit or verification requirement to establish the genuineness of a signature in violation of this language in Article 5, Section 1. Senator Tucker, I don't, I don't want to get too much into legal back and forth with you. I think the simplest way to explain our stance on it is that we believe that Signing a ballot petition is is a vote or voting the same as voting and in the same way that it's legal to require ID verification when someone's casting a vote at the ballot box, it would be legal here before somebody signs. So You believe that language was amended when the when the people amended the constitution to require a photo ID in order to vote. I believe that requiring identification verification as it's laid out in the bill prior to somebody signing a petition is illegal and constitutional. So this in combination with the previous bill that we just looked at, um. How long do you think it takes for someone to Provide a photo ID and verify. How long do you think that takes? Well, I go to the bank, I cash a check at a bank that's not Um My bank. I've got to pull out my photo ID. I go to the doctor's office. They want to see my photo ID. I go anywhere where legal business is being conducted. I have an ID. on me. I don't think it's out of the realm of reasonability that A person is walking around with a form of ID, I understand. My question really is in combination with Senate Bill 210, which is, I'm curious if you all ran the numbers as to if you add up the time that all of these would take to gather a signature what the total time per signature might be if you all ran the numbers on that. No, I didn't run any numbers on that. I mean, it takes mere seconds for me to pull out my ID to get my prescription, uh, to go to the doctor to cash a check. I don't really go anywhere without ID. I don't think most people do, even one of the questions that was posed to me was the festivals. Well, a lot of the festivals, you might be Going to buy an alcoholic beverage or you'll have your ID for that. So I don't think that it's going to cost any time to pull out the ID certainly. Uh, in the, in the constitutional amendment that requires photo ID in order to vote. There's a cure in that amendment for not having your ID, correct? I don't see a cure in this bill. There is not one. OK, so if you don't have your ID, there is no cure. That's correct. OK, moving on to to Senate Bill 207. Well, one last one on 210. There's also criminal liability attached to that, correct? So if you, if you get a signature without requiring the photo ID as a signature gatherer, then you're subject to criminal liability, correct? Is that for that's for paid and volunteer canvassers both. There's criminal liability in misrepresentation or fraud on the part of the canvasser already existing. This would not change that. This bill, these bills wouldn't change that. But it adds a new provision for criminal liability too. It adds a provision that makes it harder to misrepresent or commit fraud with the petition process. OK. And that applies to both volunteer and paid canvassers. Yes, center. OK, Senate Bill 207. This bill Requires the canvasser. To notify the person signing that petition fraud is a class A misdemeanor. Correct. Um, correct. Are you concerned that this might intimidate anyone? And prevent them from signing if they think they might be committing a crime by signing. I think what it's going to do is it's going to create a responsibility on the one gathering the signature to inform them but have reasonable ability to assure them that they will not be because of everything that's being required in these bills. This will take a bit more time too, correct? Um Probably about as long as 5 seconds that I want to make you aware that signing this fraudulently could result in Class A. That's about 6 seconds. And this also adds a new section for criminal liability if the canvasser does not do this. I believe that's what's on page 2 line 3. OK. OK, Senate Bill 212. With this authorize the Secretary of State's office to investigate nonprofits doing voter registration. Would you say that again? There was an echo effect. Of course, I think I moved away from the mic a little as well. With this authorize the Secretary of State's office to investigate nonprofits doing voter registration. It would authorize the Secretary of State to be able to investigate. Documents that were turned into the office, uh, I believe under Tile 7, chapters 5 and 9. So Senator, if Um, they do so under chapters 5 and 9, then I guess. It would. OK, so why is this, does the Secretary of State not already presently have the authority to conduct investigations. We, the Secretary of State has the authority to look into matters currently, but this bill would officer offer some tools for the investigative process that the Secretary of State doesn't currently possess. I move down to subsection D. I'll starting on line 26. You know, this, this says that a person is not excused from a subpoena. Even if it might incriminate them, correct? Well, as you know, Senator, if someone's compelled to testify, then because of the compulsion and what they say can't be used against them by the by the state. So if, if that authority was used, it would be because it was deemed that their testimony was valuable to the security of petition process or something like that, um, and what they said wouldn't be used against them, could not be by the state, but we can't make that guarantee on behalf of the federal government. Can we? Well, it depends on the type of hearing or in what context somebody's testimony was compelled. Or do you have any Fifth Amendment concerns with that provision? No, Senator. OK, on the last line of the page. I just think there's an extra word in there except Maybe I'm reading it wrong, please correct me if I'm misreading it, but I think there's an extra word in there. Where's that senator? The word except on page 2136. Right there, OK, uh. I'll give you. This assurance bill makes it out of here. We'll amend it and let it go through the amendment process. OK. Thank you for catching that. Uh, on, on page 3 subsection E starting on line 2. OK Document determined by the division to contain fraud or falsity by proponents of the evidence shall be declared null and void. So that's a unilateral authority to the to the division of the Secretary of State's office, correct? Any fraud we find right now, we already take that out of the the count, so it's not really adding anything new that we don't already do. If we find transcription, which would be, you know, a whole page of the same handwriting or if we find that the husband and wife's signatures and handwriting matches, we already take those out. Right, under the current law, is there a cure possibility? We do allow, um, I think any of the sponsors that are here today that would testify as we work with them. We allow them to look at what the Secretary of State's staff and our temporary staff has called and give them an opportunity to prove, you know, that, and we will add it back in if necessary if we show that they proved to us that it's a good signature. But that's not in the language of this bill, is it? That's more just procedural, um, it doesn't, the bill doesn't make us do that, but we have some ability to have procedures in place, and that would not change that. We would still work with the sponsor, that if they thought it was good, we could sit down with every sponsor that requested a meeting, and we let them go through. They scan, uh, what we're working off of to, you know, we allow them to do that while we're still trying to verify their petition, but that's a practice about Secretary of State's office. Yes, it's not required by law. It's not required by law. It's in the Article 5 Section 1. That if the Secretary of State for a statewide petition declares a petition to be insufficient, then they should be permitted at least 30 days from the date of such notification. For correction or amendment. Do you believe the cure is possibility is guaranteed by the Article 5 Section 1 of the state constitution. Yes, we allow for the cure if they've met their their signature requirements. They're allowed to turn in more signatures and they're allowed to gather while we're verifying your current signatures. Um, OK. Do you, do you not think that it should be required by law that a cure or an appeal should be in code rather than just a practice of the current Secretary of State, which I'm glad he does, and I'm glad his predecessors did, but his successor may not. Give the same indulgence. Uh, I'm, I'm not sure that it should be in law. I don't foresee us ever changing that procedure. It's been that way since way before I started the Secretary of State's office. We, we go with petitions like completely, you know, on no one side. We just want to make sure it's done right and it's done legally, so anything we find we give both sides. If there's an against side, we give them the same opportunity. Look at the things and as you say, cure certain signatures or if they find fraud that we didn't find, we'll look into that as well. Miss, I heard Senator Page say he had a question on this bill, so I'll defer to Senator page. Senator Peyton, you're recognized, and Senator King. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Senator Tucker. When you refer to Article 5 Section 1, would you please Give me some sort of a heading for the paragraph. I'm having a hard time finding the cure. No, I found, I finally found both the times you did say next time you do, if you could give me a heads up on exactly where to look. That's a long document there. small print. I'll get you. And maybe the Secretary of State's office can answer this. Are we lacking a law enforcement agency that could handle this? Why do we need to create a new one. I'm gonna get my answer and stand to be corrected by the Secretary of State's office, I think part of the intent behind this is that the more that can be done in the way of due diligence. will provide for a more efficient method that in the event it is determined. That something has been Broken, unlawful that the ability to have all that ready to present will make for a stronger case, and I would hope actually it would lead to greater prosecution, I think that by giving them this capability of which they're going to have to correct me if I'm wrong, and please weigh in. I think, you know, they're not going to be the ones going to court to prosecute these things. They're going to be the ones that are gathering all the information and this will just help in the process, and I think what it will also do is communicate a message. to the public that That the seriousness of the ballot initiative process has been elevated to where if you are doing something illegal or inappropriate, you stand a greater chance of getting caught so that that can be handed over to the to the proper channels to be prosecuted, and I, I'd welcome y'all's inputter, correct me if I said anything inappropriate. No, I agree. And just to add on, I think we'd say that um This division would just be investigating. They'd just be the factfinders regarding things turned into the Secretary of State's office and then if something actually did rise to a criminal level, it would be referred out to another law enforcement agency such as a prosecutor's office, but um you know, the attorney General's office already has their election election integrity unit, and this is just, um, and then of course, Various law enforcement agencies could investigate things with under their purviews they saw fit. Um, this is just for the Secretary of State to be investigating things that fall underneath his or her purview um and it might be true in some of those cases that a state officer of the law or peace officer could investigate that but for a variety of reasons a lot of times that might not happen. Well, I can see why every constitutional officer might want to have their own. Police force. I disagree with the highway department having their own police force and, and, you know, if we're going to have the state police, I think They could easily have a division for this or a division for that, uh. But I would like to think that whoever is the law enforcement agency are well trained. And experienced And, and so somehow when you divide that into so many different Agencies and divisions, I begin to feel like you may not have. Skillful investigators or experienced investigators. Uh, where you might be better served to have it under a Law enforcement agency that Has a broader scope of work. Go ahead. I would. I would characterize this as these are subject matter experts that are closest to not only the offense that has occurred, but what the law says surrounding the offense that has occurred, so we already know who they're going to be. I don't know about that, but I think the skill set is they've testified, evidently they believe they have the skill set in place because they believe they can take it on under the current load, but it is the primary responsibility of the Secretary of State to be knowledgeable in all areas surrounding elections, so I really think that this is good in that they will be able to apply that subject matter expertise and the knowledge of the laws that rests as their primary responsibility. so that if they do turn something over, it could be handled in a more expeditious way, but also to prevent something from not being turned over to an outside agency that may come in and not have the knowledge that they have, and it could be a tool that would protect the innocent as well as we're trying to find those, you know, who have who have broken the law. I appreciate your position on that. I, my experience with the tow board and others has been that just because they have expertise on the subject matter, they do not have expertise in law enforcement and investigation. Yes, sir, and the Secretary of State is elected by the people, and if that becomes the case, unlike the tow board, they can be unelected or not elected. Thank you So I guess I have a couple more questions. This bill kind of took a little more time for me because I've never been on the judiciary Committee, but is it normal for us to grant Um Jurisdiction out of state because And at the top of page 2 in paragraph A, it says within or outside this state. Do we have jurisdiction outside the state? Uh Yes and no, Senator, what that language in there is just saying is that Take a simple crime we might all be familiar with like robbery or murder or something like that, um. If you murdered somebody in Arkansas in our jurisdiction and then you ran to Alaska or Puerto Rico or Florida. We could still investigate that crime if the sheriff or the officer at the prosecutor's office chose to do so, and then try to extradite that person if we were able to find him and prove up the case and that's what this language is getting at. We we're only going to be investigating things under the jurisdiction of Arkansas, but that might involve someone outside of this state potentially. Well, I, I maybe understand it when you're talking about somebody that's being charged with a crime, but this, this talking about document validity, and To determine whether documents submitted, it sounds to me like we'd be going and seizing fowls. documents from a location not extraditing a criminal, but yes, sir. Yes, Senator, it could, it doesn't always have to be a crime to your point if somebody was um housing documents relevant to our investigation involving something turned into the Secretary of State's office and that they were outside of the state as long as we had, so it's not unprecedented. The law enforcement agency in Arkansas can go out of state and seize documents. No sooner. OK, thank you. I mean, I'm not familiar with that area of law, uh, so down here in the, in, in the paragraphs that deal with the pleading the Fifth Amendment Amendment. Uh Again, this is something I'm not familiar with. I've asked a couple of questions and people told me not to worry about it, but I won't bring it up. Uh It says that If you plead the 5th, We're still going to compel your testimony. But we're going to grant you automatic immunity for your testimony. So anybody we're going to prosecute, wouldn't it just be wise for them to plead the fifth and get automatic immunity. That Senator, I'll say it, that that's a common practice for um It's common that that is something that's in a prosecutor's discretion in all kinds of different cases or In things involving this document validity division, Secretary of State's office. If you're compelled, say, by a grand jury to speak, then then you're going to be given immunity for that. The testimony, um so you said it's in the prosecutor's discretion, but the language I'm reading here doesn't put it in the prosecutor's discretion. It just says it's automatic. The language is saying that this group could compel witness attendant shall not. So in number 2, the the individual that has claimed his or her privilege against self-incrimination shall not be prosecuted. Do Would you, what page are you on there? Page 2 down next to the last paragraph. starts with a 2. 2nd line, It's, but anyway, just start at the beginning, an individual that has claimed his or her privilege against self-incrimination shall not be prosecuted. Oh, that's not prosecure pro prosecutorial discretion. That's a shall not be prosecuted. It's only referring to if you, Senator, if you continue to read that that paragraph. It's only referring to the statement given under compulsion, and it's just that the standard rule across all law enforcement or prosecution that if you're compelled to testify, then that testimony isn't going to be used against you. OK, well, again, that's not something I'm familiar with. Uh But I would like uh recognition that I had also caught the typo. Thank you, Senator Peyton. Thank you Senator King, you're ask your question. So I may have missed this. So if someone has a complaint with this, uh, law enforcement arm that you're wanting to create with this, uh, in a petition drive. So is Is there like a, I mean, do you envision like a mandatory report to be able to investigate each one of those, or will you just make a decision, say this seems a little on the frivolous side or your resources may be. Extended out somewhere else, we just don't have the time and we, like I said, keep saying we just never know what we don't know. I mean, will there be some type of public report done after to say we looked into this measure. And we did not look into this measure. You may actually even Decide we may not even send the resources out to even look at this, what's going to be the procedure, and you may have covered it if you did. I'm sorry. No, Senator, thank you for the question and the as the the reporting after the fact, that might be something that is decided after the fact right now it would be based on complaints from citizens or witnesses wanting to complain about something that they saw and then like any group, there would be that discretionary call on whether or not The Jews was worth the squeeze, if you will, on if there was enough there to use resources to investigate that report if a report was generated, I'm sure that it would be made available after the fact that might be something that's promulgated after the fact. So this is a question I have. With all this befoable? At what point would it not be for you, but what would be for you, what would not be foolable. Open investigations wouldn't be foable, but once ad either case closed or once the adjudicative process has ended, so usually there's some time after the right to appeal or something like that or the adjudication process is done. It it could be foible while the investigation was ongoing, it would not be. So looking at the flow chart of this, it could be that. You might refer something to the local prosecutor if it's in a certain area, or would you refer it all everything the Pulaski County prosecutor, or could it be state and federal, could be federal too. It would be It would be referred to uh the local prosecutor. Where then you made the most sense, essentially. So if it was in Jonesboro, then you would go. We'll refer it to the local prosecutor and then you're going to pass it off to him to be prosecuted or her. OK, and you will be once again making that determination of where you've got some substantial. I mean, what I'm trying to get into is back in the voter fraud days when they were when the denial of the voter fraud days, there was just so much that was discarded and said frivolous when it actually I quote Hudson Hallam who said this is just basic when he got convicted paraphrase, this is just the way we did it. I mean, I mentioned the voter fraud regres uh Registration forms that I went over there and you would see one person with the same name with 4 different signatures, you'd knock on their door and say, none of them are my signatures and I can tell you I turned all that over to that and absolutely nothing happened. And uh so the Hudson Hallam case, once again, there was a mountain and listen on the voter fraud stuff if somebody who's been on the election commission and everything and been through a lot of things. There is a lot of that. I mean, it, it, it is, I mean, that is realistic, but what this sorting out of different things, I think that At least producing a mandatory report. Requirement because then you get into And and I'm pro life and probably abortion. I'm not going to vote for it, but I want those people to have a fair process and if you get into a thing of your You're deciding there needs to be some type of report to prove that Even though this measure may be against what the Secretary of State might not want, we still did our diligence, so, you know, even though I probably overall not going to be for this, I, I think that mandatory reports, the foable aspect, you're, you're certain that every step in the process that you were doing to look into something will be foolable or won't maybe. Because it's a criminal investigation at some point and then does that get into another area. Once the investigation was complete, it would be foible or if Charges were brought by some prosecutor somewhere, it would probably be at the end of that adjudication process that then it could be once the case was closed, it would be foable, um, but the Secretary of State also in his or her discretion could mandate a rule that At some point once the investigation was done, the report be publicized in some form as well. So I mean, you know, I mean, I mean, so let's say I, I'm seeing that there's fraudulent signature gathering in Carroll County. I, I call you on that and then you say, OK, we've got this report and I give you some examples like I gave him the fraudulent voter registration forms of signatures that so at that point in time when I give that to you in that correspondence with you. Would that be for you right there at the start, or would that not be for you? There are protections that could be put in place for citizens or anonymous complaints if that's your question, Senator, but essentially the answer is, is we could protect people who reported us to initiate investigation. Yeah, but you could also in false accusers be, I mean, I, I'm just saying just right now, if I called you and I said there's 17 fraudulent signature gathering here that I have with one person with or 6 people with different signatures like I gave the example. I call you and then you Email or have some type of correspondence with your law enforcement arm and you look at looking at it and then that's a week later and then I fool you, you a week later to see your correspondence with them. Would a week after that call and I turn over actual documents to you like I did the state board of election commissioners thing. But a week later that be for you. I'm not sure I understand the question, Senator. if it's, if it's an open investigation, then people wouldn't be able to get it, if it's that's all. Thanks, Senator King. All right. Senator Tucker Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to get to the public testimony. I'll be succinct. I've got a few more questions and I appreciate your indulgence and of course thank you Senator Hammer your indulgence as well. Uh Under the current law, bad signatures, if you determine the signature is bad for any reason. It already gets tossed, correct? OK. Um, on the current law you're also required by law to notify the prosecutor if you believe a fraud has taken place on a signature. Yes, and, and a lot of the times if it's um possibly like a canvas or, um, We probably would defer to the general counsel of the Secretary of State's office to send that on to the prosecutors. But we do, as far as the elections division, we do call those signatures, I don't have any teeth to go past that. We're just finding the documentation that if it's transcription or if it's, you know, we would uh and we're not signature experts, so we do call those and like I said, then we give the sponsors time to turn those back into us, but we would refer that on to our legal division if they're going to refer for prosecution as far as the teeth goes, you are required by law to notify a prosecutor if you believe there's fraud currently. Yes, and in the past, like I said, we've turned it over to the legal division, and to my knowledge, most of the time nothing's been done with that. I think that's what these laws are is to just give us a little more teeth and a little more description of what would be how it would be passed on through that investigative division, and I know you said you notify the petition sponsor if signatures are struck, but that's not required by law. That's a practice, correct? Yes, sir it's just a practice that we deem to be fair to the signature sponsor even if there's a bad actor as one of their canvassers has done something that that might seem not valid or fraud. We feel it, you know, it's incumbent upon us to give that sponsor time to answer to that. We don't just automatically say it came from the sponsor down. Is there any notice to the to the voter whose signature is being tossed because no sir, there's not being disenfranchised in a way if they're a real person. And I say that honestly like at at this point, um, if they call, we'll look it up for them, but we, we might even have close to, you know, 4 or 500,000 signatures, um, and we just have not really had the office staff to send out those kind of letters by the time we're going to court. hitting it on a ballot and then getting through 3 or 4 ballot initiatives. We just haven't had the time. But if the voter initiates it and wants to know if they're counted, we will look them up and and make sure that they know they were counted or not counted and why. Are these going to be certified police officers or what's going to be the training that they undergo. The document validity division is going to be made up of current existing staff of the Secretary of State's office. It's a law enforcement agency in that if an investigation is ongoing, um. It's they're investigating a potential crime. It's not necessarily going to be made up of all certified, you know, peace officers in the state of Arkansas if there was some type of police action that was required, then it would most likely be referred to another law enforcement agency is laid out in the statute or prosecutor's office. On 211. I genuinely just, I don't understand the timeline of how this works. So Under subdivision J1 on line 28. canvassers shall file a true affidavit. Is this before or after they've gathered signatures. It, it is um after they've gathered signatures. So then starting on page 2 line 3 subdivision K. The canvasser shall not collect additional signatures unless the Secretary of State determines that the sponsor. is eligible for an amendment. Can you under the current law. While you're waiting to determine whether you have a. You can still gather signatures, correct? No, I'm good. I'm good. Thank you. I've asked too many questions. Yes, our Senator Tucker, it is allowed now that while they're waiting to see if they meet the cure, they are still collecting signatures, but would this change that? I. Mm For my benefit, which you have that again I'm just and I'm just trying to understand, I genuinely don't understand, would it change the fact that you can still gather signatures while you're awaiting a cure because this, this says that the canvasser shall not collect additional signatures until the sponsor until the Secretary of State determines whether the sponsor is eligible for an amendment. Once the This affidavit would be a final affidavit on behalf of the canvassers, so they would wait until all their signatures are collected and then sign this and turn it in. And once that had been done, then they wouldn't be able to collect signatures. That's right. So that's a change from the current law. Well, right now, and Leslie you want to speak to. Yeah, it changes, I think that if the canvasser If I'm reading that right, if the canvasser's affidavit. Uh, needs an amendment. That would prevent them from collecting additional signatures. I don't think that's what it says, and, and maybe I'm misreading it, but I think it says the canvasser cannot collect additional signatures until the Secretary of State determines that the sponsor, not the canvasser, that the sponsor of the initiative petition or referendum petition is eligible for an amendment, an amendment being the technical word for cure. Under the Article 5 Section 1. I don't think that that doesn't change the current law because um A sponsor could be eligible for a cure period currently. This is only regulating one individual canvasser after they've turned in all their signatures, right, but under the current law that individual canvasser could continue to gather signatures pending a potential cure potentially yes, so it does change the current law then in that regard, yes, it does, Senator. OK. Senate Bill 209. And this is a similar question that I had on, I forget the number, but Basically Uh, you know, this says that if the Secretary of State funds by preponderance of the evidence that a canvasser has violated Arkansas law. Then the signatures gathered by that canvasser won't be counted. Right, and so is there any recourse for the canvasser, the petition sponsor, the voters whose signatures got tossed any right of appeal or it's just a unilateral decision without a trial or hearing, and then you're done. They would have the same same rights that currently exist. So if they disagreed, then they could, um, you know, appeal that. And again, those rights exist by practice, not by obligation as occurred they exist as a as a courtesy and practiced by the Secretary of State, but there's no legal obligation for the Secretary of State to do that. Well, I think in in practice it's done also I do believe you could file suit in Arkansas courts if you wanted to as well. OK. Alright, 2 more questions back to the big picture, not on a particular bills. We've established that the purpose of these is to make sure that every signature that's placed For something that's going to be on the ballot has integrity. There are 2 types of Measures they get things that get placed on ballots by signatures. One are ballot measures and referendums, and the other is candidates. You can get on the ballot as a candidate by gathering signatures. So my question is, why are we not imposing all these same requirements for candidates to get on the ballot that we are for ballot measures to get on the ballot. I think this is tailored to address one. Particular aspect and if you would like to run legislation on there we'll have a sidebar conversation to talk about that. We can talk about that. OK. Last question. All 6 of these bills have emergency clauses. Correct. That's correct, yes, and the where emergency clauses are dealt with in the state constitution as Article 5, Section 1. Correct? Run that by again. I couldn't hear. I'm sorry. Where emergency clauses are addressed in the state constitution is in Article 5 Section 1. Right? That is correct. And the reason for that is because If a legislative bill has an emergency clause on it, it affects the people's ability to put a referendum on that bill. But not So in my view, emergency clauses. On bills that affect the people's ability to put a referendum on that bill. Should be, should be, should have even more scrutiny than a typical emergency clause. And so my question is, you think that these matters are so urgent. That Number one, they should go into effect immediately. And number 2, even though they're going to affect the people's ability to put a referendum on these bills. We should inhibit their ability to put a referendum on these particular bills by putting an emergency clause on there is the emergency that intense? He's He can join in to add to what I'm about to say in answer to your question, but I think that because of the Because of what we've experienced that has brought the necessity of these bills to address. I think that having the emergency clause on there will expedite getting this done. I would also say that as an emergency clause and correct me if I'm wrong, that that portion would have to be voted on separately if these bills make it into the chamber that concern that you have, if that is a concern shared by the majority, that that could be addressed at that point. Thank you, Senator Hammer, for answering my questions. Thank you. Thank you, Senator. All right. Are there any more questions from members of the committee? All right, see, no more questions. We do have several people sign up speak for and against this bill, so we're going to start in the order in which Senator Hammer presented to them. So we're going to start with Senate Bill 10. 210, excuse me. And for the sake of time, I see several names that are that are signed up to speak on multiple bills. So if you all just want to encompass, you know, you know, your comments, you know, you know, at one time that would be great because we've got quite a few people signed up here, um, so with that we're going to start with Mr. Jimmy Cavin speaking against Senate Bill 210. And Mr. Cabot, I'm going to ask this the same everybody speaking. If you would, if you wouldn't mind just so we can keep these, you know, comments straight for the record. The specific bill which you're speaking for or against. So if you've got a separate comments for each for all for all bills. So I understand you want me to just speak on 212. Is that Senate Bill 210, but since I see you signed up to speak on other bills. I speak on 2:10 and 212. OK, so I'm gonna let you speak to both, I guess, yeah, and if you'll just let us know when you're starting with 212. Absolutely. OK, perfect. So you proceed with 210 and then eventually 212. OK, yes sir. Jimmy Cain with Arkansas News, but I'm here representing myself as a citizen. Uh 210 is, is, is really disturbing. And I'm gonna read a canister knowingly accepts the signature when the person signing the petition has not read the ballot title for of the petition in the presence of the canister or the ballot title petition has not been read aloud to the person in the presence of can sir. My question is, what gives The legislature to write To mandate that I have to read something to sign it. That's my choice. Uh, whether you think it's prudent or not. Really not your business. Uh, We heard a lot about that and the importance of that, right? And how important it is for that signature and the value that Senator Hammer puts on it, and I'm not disagreeing with him on that. So if that's the case, Or we're now gonna expand this and make a law to the ballot box. Well when I go to vote, exercise my right to vote. And there's an amendment or an initiated act on the ballot. Are you going to eventually require that I have to read that and that the poll watcher has to verify that I read it, and if I don't, I'm not allowed to vote. That's where this is going. This is to the extreme. Are you, uh, Are you gonna mandate or we to a point now that we're gonna say, OK, now, it's not just enough that we read it. Now we're gonna mandate that you take a test on it. And we're gonna score you on that before you're allowed to sign. A petition and we're going to take it, you're gonna have to take a test before you're allowed to vote. Because that's where this sounds like it's going. Um, on 2:12 because I'm gonna try to be brief because I know so many people are here. On 212. When you create A law enforcement division. OK, to, to try to convince people that you're gonna create a division, a new division of law enforcement, and it's not going to cost anything more than what the Secretary of State's office budget is now. That's, that makes no logic whatsoever. That's gonna be a hard sell because you can say that and say, well, right now, we're not going to incur any expense, but then I'm gonna wait for you to come back to the next budget season. And then we're going to see what the Secretary of State to ask for. There's no way you're gonna create a division, an entire new division in government that's not going to cost the taxpayers more money. The second thing is, if you're, if you're for if you're for uh growing government, raise your hand. Because this crow's government. Any way you cut it. Now let's go ahead to another deal. Let's talk about the law enforcement, OK? In, in the criminal in the criminal uh laws in our country. Here's what we have. We have law enforcement. One of my sons is a police officer that was a firefighter, so I'm absolutely pro law enforcement, but you have a law enforcement division that investigates. OK, they turned that file over to a prosecutor. Prosecutor decides to charge. At that point, we go to a court with a judge. And a jury That's the way it's supposed to operate, right? The way this is drawn up, this division of Secretary of State's office just became law enforcement, prosecutor, judge, and jury. Because they can null and void. At their discretion. And when you null and void, my signatures or somebody's efforts and you do it without due process. Then we have a problem. In our finish with this, and this is strong language, but, uh, Clint Lancaster wrote an article in Arkansas first where he described this as a Gestapo. So what it sounds like to me. It's what it sounds like to me, and I think it's good that sounds the way to the public. And I hope today what we're gonna do is like we did in Foy. Well, I hope we're gonna do, uh, Blake Senator Johnson once told us in this state agency committee that you guys are putting forth a product. For the people, OK? The people who are here today to tell you they don't want your product. They don't want your product. And this is to me is nothing more than an attempt to undercut the citizens' rights in the Arkansas State in Arkansas State Constitution. And they're they're here to stand against it, and with that, I'll be happy to take any questions. Ms. Kavin. Members, are there any questions? All right, see no questions. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Alright. Next up, speaking for, we got Miss Vicky Parker. You. And Ms. Parker, you, introduce yourself and tell us who you're with or you're representing yourself, and then I see you spun up to speak for a couple, so you're recognized same as Mr. Kavin. um, you know, we're going to start with Senate Bill 210 and any others you signed up to speak on, you you'll just reference when you're beginning your comments on those specific bills. OK, thank you. I'm Vicky Parker with Arkansas Pregnancy Network and as private citizen, um, what I testified today is, uh, me and across the state of Arkansas during the abortion amendment. Canvassing what we witnessed. I'm going to start with, I believe what you have in your hand right now and this was for the AG office. It already has there and it's a letter for to whom I my concern, and it's a pastor that uh testified to what happened to him outside of a business in Northwest Arkansas when he was uh uh talked to about signing an amendment for the um I think it was the female, um, Uh, diapers and for Finin products, and it was a teenage girl, uh, which we know was wrong, uh, and asked them that the amendment was told that since he couldn't see the amendment and he asked to see it, to read it before he, before he signed it. He was told at that point that it wasn't written yet, that they got the signatures first and then they would write it and of course we all know that that's wrong. So that's the first one, that one was sent to the AGR AG office, um, that affidavit and then conversations with other owners at the Olive bloom, um, was a pettician about uh that it had to do with allowing women who want an abortion because of rape and incest to be able to discuss it with the health provider and make Decision. She also mentioned that would allow abortion in case of fetal abnormally and ectopic pregnancy because of the life of the mother and so therefore she didn't go as far as the the last one that you're gonna see there is a picture, and this was at the olive gloom, and this is a table with a petition, um, uh, with all of the petition, um, clipboard sitting there and there's nobody inside. And we also know that that is illegal. So this is where the integrity is very important for this process, whether you be a citizen for or against uh uh any particular amendment for that matter. I will tell you that uh had we not been out on the streets with these people during this thing, I can tell you none of this would have been told because no one would have known, but because we were standing out there head to head, line to line, uh, can just standing there in peace, not in an argument, just standing. in piece of it, but we overheard, you know, when you can keep your mouth shut and you just listen and you can hear what's going on around you. So what we heard was That it was for reproductive rights. Um, what we saw was that they were not asked every time if they wanted to read the amendment. I always and across the state, we had the actual amendment in her hand. I had copies of it to hand to people to say, if you're not sure that this is what you want to read to to sign or if you haven't read it, please take this and read it and then you can come back and sign it, you know, if that's what you want to do, but understand that's what it is. Then I had an stand side by side and tell me that I could not say to people that without limitation, meant without limitation because that's not what it meant, and I said, well, that's strange because In the dictionary, it says that and Google it. It says that. So I think the evidence was there as well, but he continuously tried to shut me down. And again, told me that told the people that he was talking to that um That I was not an attorney and I and in which I said, you know, we don't have to be an attorney to be able to read and understand. Now the common person don't always understand these bills. It takes a while sometimes to be able to read these. The other one is in El Dorado. Uh, I was contacted, uh, that there was a two women sitting on the end of a, a table, I mean, not a table but a a truck and they had two teenage boys walking the Walmart parking lot, and they want to know, uh, asking for the abortionment to be signed and so, and of course we know that that's illegal, but had nobody been there to see it, we wouldn't know about that. Um, so that's important that the integrity of have the, the process has to be kept, there has to be boundaries, there has to be a legal things that happen within that, uh, canvassers all over the state, we're telling people that um that they could sign more than one time. And especially toward the end of it. They, they would come up and they would say, oh no, I've already signed it. They said, well you can sign it again, you can sign it multiple times. That was witnessed by people all across the state, and again I say that had we not been there, um, on any given um amendment that you might bring up any given amendment, the integrity of it is there's not always going to be people out there in opposition of it. There's going to be, there's not going to be people standing there to hear. what is being said. So to close, what I say is without solid um representation without solid boundaries. We humans are going to fuzz that line every time we're going to, we're going to cross it, it depends on how passionate we are about what, what we're um either against or for and uh so it just needs boundaries put up and those boundaries, I do feel like that for these bills. have been appropriated here. Uh, I hope that y'all will um help people because a lot of people didn't understand the language and they didn't read it and they weren't asked to read it. I stood toe to toe with the lady, and she said that what I had in my hand was uh there was no way to know that that was true, and I said, OK, I told the person that she was trying to get to sign, then take my bill and you flip yours over, you do have it, right? Flip it over and let him read. Both. I don't have a problem putting mine against because I printed it from the same place you got yours. So this was the kind of things that actually happened out there on the line. And I close with that, I thank you. OK. All right, thank you, Mr. Parker, for your comments. Senator Payton, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks for being here and a question came to me that I might have posed to Senator Hammer, Secretary of State's office or or anybody, but You've been on the front lines. I don't know if you were paid or volunteer, but Maybe somebody else coming to the table can answer this and. Are the paid, I was told that we can't really differentiate in the law as to whether they're paid or volunteer canvassers, but are the paid canvassers paid per signature or per hour or do you know? I don't know if they're paid per signature. Uh, we have a testimony coming up where they were paid and then if if if there was um um a skirmish, um or agitation that they would get $500 for the day, so you But we were all of us were not, sir, so you mentioned the canvassers would say it's OK, you can sign it twice or you can sign it 3 times. That's when the question came to my mind, well, All they care about is getting another signature because they're getting paid per signature, but anyway, maybe somebody else coming up can speak to that. Thank you. Thank you, Senator. Senator Tucker, you're question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. With your indulgence, Miss, I can tell you, Senator Payton, it's illegal to get paid per signature gathered. Yes, sir. Um, did, so when these, when you observe these things, for example, you can sign more than once. Did did you ever call the police? I'm sorry, say again. Did you ever call the police when you observed these illegal police were there. OK, did you were always there. Did you notify them this was happening? Yes, and in some cities they would not do anything, um, and my city, they would say you've got to talk to the SOS. You've got to talk to the AG office, you know, they, they ran us up the line. I don't know that honestly that they knew what to do. OK, um, and did you reach out to the Secretary of State's office of the Attorney. We got the affidavits for the people that would that could testify to it. We got those sent up there, people that were on the line, the pregnancy center people that were standing out on the line, you know, they, they let their state representatives know what was going on and what we was witnessing, but there was nothing that happened throughout the whole process. Thank you. Thank you, Sentra. All right, see for your questions, Mrs. Parker, thank you for being here. Thank you. All right. Next up, we've got Courtney Hood. You're speaking against courting. Welcome, Ms. Hood, and I'm going to ask you, as I've asked those coming before I see you're signed up to speak against each one of these bills. So if you've got specific comments for specific bills, you just let us know where that starts and we're going to start with Senate Bill 210 and um go to Senate Bill 208207. I will make it easy and I'm against all 6 of these bills. Um, and I'm against for Roughly the same reason. OK so the reasons the same for each one that I'm just gonna let you proceed with your comments, thank you all. Um, my name is Courtney Hood, and I'm a citizen. And I'm here before you today to express my strong opposition. Just all Senate bills 207 through 212. Each of these are ultimately unnecessary. And I believe an attempt. To strip Arkansans of their constitutional right to direct democracy. The current, the current system has in place many rules for vetting. Citizen-led initiatives and those rules already work. We've heard how they vet the signatures and throw out fraudulent, duplicated signatures. They, when someone calls in about a bad actor collecting signatures to discount all the signatures. And allow a cure period for if there was a mistake, but these signatures are already vetted with the current rules. And we currently aren't processing. Any criminals or we aren't bringing any criminal charges to bad actors currently. Why add more rules in which we probably won't prosecute. I believe the only reason for SB 207 and 212 to exist is To make it harder for we the people to have a voice in our own government. Now sit in your ham hammer. It's also conveniently running for Secretary of State and has introduced these bills as a poison pill. Designed to kill citizen-led initiatives. These bills intend to intimidate voters, create unnecessary hurdles. Drown petition efforts in needless red tape. And are transparent power grab. If Senator Hammer gets his way, future initiatives will die before they ever even hit the ballot. I urge you to reject these bills and uphold Arkansans' right to direct democracy. That was what I wrote. I have a couple of notes that I took as listening to people's testimonies, um, just a random question, if I go to a place where There have petitions available to sign like I did in Garland County. I went to the Hot Springs Library last year to sign a number of petitions, um. If I have to now listen to someone read the entire petition to me, and I am a member of the deaf community. Are we making sure that all canvassers are required to know ASL or speak other languages? Just throwing that out there. I think these create unnecessary hurdles. To a problem that doesn't really exist. There already are so many checks and balances to making sure that massive fraud is not put in place and that initiatives that are Fraudulently, um, Signed don't end up on the ballot and then it's on the ballot where it has to pass a vote anyway. So that's the end of my comments. Thank you very much. Thank you, Ms. Hood. Uh, are there any questions from members of the committee? All right, see, no questions. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you. Next up we have Ms. Wendy Curry speaking for. Miss Grey. And if he'll just introduce yourself and if you're representing speaking for yourself or for any specific organization, if you could notify that as well. OK, I'm Wendy Curry. I'm out of Bradley County. I'm the director of Hope Place in Warren, um, and what I'm gonna speak about is what I personally witnessed. Um, we were notified that canvassers were in our area and so myself and other team members went out and we saw some at the Dollar General, two young females. Um, and they had a table set up and so we got out with our sons, our declined to sign signs, and we were approached very quickly by a blonde-headed woman that was screaming and having her finger in our face, um, yelling, you want women to die. You know nothing about babies and women's health in Arkansas. And so, My team member just told her, have a blessed day and we went and stood on the opposite side of the door of the store, just holding our sons peacefully. We were not there for an argument. We wanted people to know what they were assigning, but yet, We weren't pushy about it. So a lot of people would come up and They would say, Uh, you want to sign our our petitions. You want to sign our petitions, and they were like, what's it about? Well, it's about women's health. Do get him free diapers and tampons, marijuana, and a casino. And they were like, well, what about that? And so they never showed them at that site, they were not shown any amendment other than the casino, and there was a few people that asked exactly what is that? And so, um, We, we had several other people that were around town, um, the same person that screamed in a team member's face blocked up one of my team members in with her vehicle at the laundromat, um, they were very aggressive and they were trying to provoke an altercation. So we, we realized why as we started, we spent a lot of time with these young ladies, and we tried to get to know them and understand, OK, well, well, what would make you spend your day collecting signatures on these petitions, um, and we were told. They were there for the money. One of them didn't even believe in abortions at all. Um They were like, well, wouldn't you come out here for $50 and I was like, it's July 2nd, probably not, um, and they were like, well, if we have an altercation like in Hamburg, we get $500 each. And I was like, well, why would you want to be in an altercation about this. I was like, why are you so passionate about killing babies. Like, explain that to me. And we had a really good conversation. They weren't rude, rude, um, they were passionate about what they felt, but yet sometimes they didn't know exactly why, why they were there or things like that. It was a little bit confusing to me. So what I witnessed is them giving their opinion on the abortion and marijuana amendment. Like I said earlier, it was not shown, it was not offered. Um, they could not answer questions. Um, you'll hear later from a pastor that was there that he asked questions and I witnessed that he was, he didn't get the answers, um. And they kept just going back and forth on their opinions and women's health diapers and tampons. Um, And again, the, the casino, I did see them offer that amendment to be read like 3 or 4 times. Um, they tried to rush people into signing things. There were several Hispanics, and they weren't able to speak Spanish. We have a very large Hispanic population down there, um. And so they, they let people sign with him and ask him for an ID and after they signed, they were like, Oh, you are registered to vote here, aren't you? And so like that was concerning to me. They were young, so, you know, I understand that. I just feel like, especially with the younger ones, they definitely need some serious training, um, before they go and and do something like that, um, you should have a copy of my team members voluntary statement. It goes online basically though with the same thing that I've testified, and it's notarized, so. It looks like this. Thank you, members, are there any questions from members of the committee? Right. See, Ms. Parker, thank you for testimony. Thank you for being here. OK. Um, next up, speaking against, we've got Miss Jen Waymax Tinderfer. And. again. OK And Ms. Senator, I'm just the same thing as others. I see you signed up on, on several, so if there's any specific comments you have on specific bills. And then if you want to tap that, can you turn that one off right next to you? That'll kind of help us. There you go. Thank you. And then if you're representing yourself or a specific organizations, so I am Jen Standifer. I'm representing Arkansas Appleseed organization. I'm also here in my personal capacity. Um, I served on Arkansas Citizens for Transparency on both the drafting committee and the ballot question committee. I also carried petitions for transparency. Those are the only petitions I carried this this round. They're the only petitions I've ever carried actually. Um, I also am an election lawyer. I've served this body in that capacity and served this committee in that capacity. And so as such, I am not just here testifying for Arkansas apple seed, but in my personal and professional capacity, um. Respectfully, Senator Hammer, I disagree with your opinion concerning the constitutionality of the bills, and I do believe that there are unconstitutional provisions throughout throughout them. Um, that being said, in the interest of time and brevity, I don't want to go through all the details of them. If you have specific questions, I'm happy to engage in that conversation. What I'd rather do is talk generally about all of the bills and what my primary underlying concern is. So when we talk about The INR process we oftentimes talk about sponsors and the sponsors have the least rights in all of the process. If you're looking at this in terms of a constitutional approach. The Arkansas Constitution gives registered voters the right to sign these petitions. The Arkansas Constitution gives Arkansas residents the right to carry those petitions, but even more fundamental than that is our federal free speech rights under the United States. It's Constitution. When you ask a person to sign a petition. When I say please sign my petition. That is speech. It is protected under the First Amendment. It is a solicitation, and I learned a little bit about solicitations over the last year. This is the same thing as when you go to a voter and say, please vote for me. And I don't say that as a moral argument or a position as a matter of law, the question, please sign my petition. Has the same protections as the question, please vote for me. So I ask you to think about these bills in terms of holding yourselves to the same standards you're holding the people. What if, before you asked someone in your church to vote for you, you had to say, I need to see your identification first. What if before asking them to vote for you, you had to read the ballot. You had to pull it out of your back pocket, show them what office you're running for and read through all of your opponents' names in addition to your own. These are not the sorts of restrictions we would ever put on campaign speech when we think of campaigns in terms of candidates, but under the law, Issue speech is also campaign speech. It has the same protections, and it should have the same protections because fundamentally, I mean, I think y'all know what it's like to knock on doors. And y'all know what it's like to have knocked on doors 20 years ago and to knock on doors today. It is the most fundamental grassroots speech that we have in our society today. It is one on one face to face citizen with citizens, reaching out because we all care about our community. The government has no business interrupting that speech. It doesn't have any business telling you that you can't ask for a vote face to face, and it doesn't have any business telling a citizen exercising their rights under INR that they can't ask you to sign a petition. Now I agree That it does need to be secure. I don't believe these bills make the process more secure. I agree. That the corporate influence In these is Just abominable. I would love to see a situation where we don't have the influence of money in our elections that we have today, but this corporate this corporate influence exists in in your candidacy and your campaigns as well. And we're not stopping that. We can't stop that. The United States Supreme Court has protected that influence. So, I understand because I feel it with you, the frustration about making sure these are secure. The frustration of the wrong people winning these. But we cannot take away the rights of the people. Because we're concerned about Those actors who the United States Constitution protects as well. My concern is that these bills at their core hold people to a higher standard than you hold yourself. And when it comes to free speech, we should celebrate individuals talking to each other about politics. We should celebrate that we had people on both sides of the abortion issue in the same place protesting each other, communicating with each other and and being active in the process. We should not make it harder for them to interact in this. And I'd be happy to take questions if you have any. Thank you so much, Senator Tucker. You were recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, Senator, I just have a specific question about SB 212 because I know. That you have also served as a prosecuting attorney and You may have some experience in offering immunity in exchange for testimony, and since that's So I was a prosecutor in Pulaski County for about 5 years. The majority of that time I was a gang unit prosecutor, prosecuting homicides and violent crimes. I never once in my entire tenure offered immunity ever. Um, at our position and what was the prevailing position at the time is that immunity incentivizes people to lie. And once you grant immunity to a witness, they are no longer credible to the jury. Because they got something really good in exchange for what they're testifying to. So I never once gave it. I preferred to give him a tough deal, put them in the penitentiary, maybe give them 25 years instead of 30 and condition that on testimony, but I never let them off the hook for their own crimes. I will also say, And Bob's not here, so you need to double check me with Bob on this one, but I believe that, uh, immunity is within the prosecutorial discretion and prosecutorial discretion is guaranteed by the Arkansas Constitution. So to For this body to enact a law that says prosecutor, you have to grant immunity. I don't think they have to follow that. I think they can just ignore it, and I think that's a greater problem in this because it's almost coercive because it leads the person testifying to believe that the prosecutor's going to give them immunity, but the prosecutor is not bound to abide by that because the Constitution's going to override this provision. OK. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am, excuse me, Senator Hammer, you ask your question. In your role as a prosecutor, did you ever plea bargain down once somebody shared information with you or they were agreeable to taking a lesser offense. Uh, I did. I don't think I ever did for a play. I don't think I ever plea bargained down for a lesser offense. Um, I would plea bargain down a term of years. Um, it was always ensuring that they were in a sufficient amount of time. It was rarely. I mean, I won't say never because I had tough cases, you know, when you're a gang unit prosecutor, your witnesses are oftentimes not wanting to testify and show up and so it was hard. The approach I took was when I, when I did that, um, I just told the jury I was the first one to tell the jury, and I was very clear with them that my witnesses had credibility issues and that they were going to be asked to judge credibility and I just, uh, I just Let them do their job. And, and they're pretty good at that. They're pretty good at that. I was also very careful to make sure I was able to corroborate that testimony. I never I never um I never brought a case where I relied solely on the testimony of co-defendant or someone who had gotten an offer. You, you always have to corroborate that. So there are other things that you do. I just, uh, my only concern is I think the testimony earlier was that it's common practice amongst prosecutors to grant immunity, and it was incredibly rare in my career. I, I never did it or saw anyone else in my office do it. Thank you members and our questions. Senator Sullivan, you're going to ask for a question. So you kind of compared my going to a door and asking for a vote with a with a petitioner doing that, you know, when I go to the door and I ask for a vote, I never got to carry that vote for the ballot box. That's right. So your analogy kind of plays out at some point. I understand it, but, but no one is challenging that vote either, right? Nobody is letting the Secretary of State come in and say, well, you know what, Senator, you didn't read them all of this stuff before they got there to vote. And so we're going to take their vote and throw it out. I understand that. I'm just saying you compared and you said it's very similar, free speech is very similar, and it is. I agree. However, the outcome of that free speech is very different. It is, OK, thank you. Senator Tucker, you ask for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to follow up on Senator Sullivan's question because it goes to a point that I made earlier, which is a mistake. I think the legislature has made generally over the last decade in this process, which is conflating the signature gathering process with the vote in November. So when you gather, when you, when you get someone to sign your petition, that is not the same as a yes vote on the ballot in November, correct? That's correct. Those are two separate parts of the process. Yes, and also I will going further to say that When we talk about bad actors in the petitioning process, we talk about bad sponsors. We talk about paid canvassing. We talk about people who aren't following the rules. We need to be talking about the voters who signed the petitions and the Arkansas residents who carry them, because those are free speech guarantees as well as INR guarantees, and that's whose rights we're infringing on. We're not infringing on the sponsors' rights. We're infringing on the rights of the people. No, Henry, we're gonna ask question. He's, I have one follow up. He's referring to me and this, this, this goes back to something we were talking about earlier. You might sign a petition for something to be on the ballot and then vote against it later, correct? And you might sign for a candidate to appear on the ballot and then vote for another candidate in November. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Senator, Senator Hammer, do you have a question? OK, you recognized for apologies. I was trying to direct you to the chair, sorry, um. You know, the comments you made about the individual that's signing. Uh, those people sign those in good faith that what has been represented to them is truthful, and yet testimony earlier was that the Secretary of State's office is having to answer hundreds of calls of people that are wanting their name removed, which, uh, quite honestly, I'm not sure that's allowable now, but I will tell you there's, there's potential for legislation to be introduced that if you want your name taken off because you've been misrepresented to that avenue will be made possible to Um, so I, I think it's important to emphasize that those people that signed the petitions. are vulnerable and that they are acting in good faith that the person that is presenting to have the signature gathered are operating within the law. Testimony has been given that that is not the case, not 100% of the time, but significant enough that we need to address it, so um I'll welcome you to give a response to that, but I just wanted to drive home the point, the people that sign are Acting in 100% good faith that the person taking that signature is operating within the law, so I don't, I don't think it's fair to characterize as it was presented by you, and I'll give you the opportunity to respond. Thank you, Senator. I would just say I don't necessarily disagree with you with regard to taking your name off of the petition. I mean, I have practical concerns about how that works for the Secretary of State's office, but I think that I'd be really interested to engage in a conversation about how to make that work. It doesn't offend me at all to allow people to do that. What was interesting is I was struck by that comment about hundreds of people calling in because that means tens and sometimes 100s of thousands of people don't call in and don't ask to have theirs disqualified or withdrawn, and and that I, I, I agree that we should protect those people who are who are fall victim to bad actors, but we also have to protect the people that did what they wanted to, and we can't assume that they were dumb or they didn't get it or they were misled. We have to assume voters are doing what they choose to do. Alright. Any more questions from the committee? All right. Oh, I'm sorry, Senator King, you do have one. Have we ever discussed election law before? Once or twice. So like my previous question about the boy, I won't go over everything the previous question about the foyer part, what's your interpretation of the FOIA, when would a request be made I have not dug in so the Secretary of State's office is not a law enforcement agency. I know that at some point they have had authority over law enforcement agencies. I'm not sure that the investigation is exempt from FOIA without There being a law enforcement component to that. It would kind of depend on where it's housed and frankly, I just haven't done the research on that. Um, I have the same question you do. I would like to go back and look for that answer and, and get back with you about it, if that's OK. And then as somebody that's been a prosecutor, you know, and I've talked about like the voter registrations, I mean to get that, find those, find those people, find out they actually is some substantial and then turn it over to a prosecutor, that it takes a lot of work to do that just. To find a few. I mean, so it's substantial to get it to that point and then even a prosecutor. Oh, it's a big job prosecuting the case would be takes a lot to prosecute. Yes, sir. It's a big job and it's also specialized, right? So, so as a prosecutor, a lot of times you're looking at just Title 5, which is where the criminal code is and all of this stuff in Title VII isn't in there, so they're not used to it, right? These are also not their specialty area. So it, it requires more investigation. It requires more specialization. It's always a it's always difficult for law enforcement to perform those investigations. So I do like this idea of being cooperative in that and using expertise from each of the groups, um, but yes, it will be a a significant endeavor. I would also note that some of the determinations that are being authorized of the Secretary of State's office in these bills, such as allowing them to make a determination by a preponderance of the evidence that as certain judicial, um, burden has been met and then disqualify that. That, uh, that signature on that basis, that raises a lot of red flags for me as a lawyer, constitutional red flags, um, these are judicial determinations typically, and we, we as the General Assembly can't take judicial powers and give them to the Secretary of State as an executive body. So, so I have some concerns there about whether or not it's defensible under the Constitution. I think we have separation of powers problems, um, I also I also just think the courts generally are doing a pretty good job, and I know a lot of the people in here are going to kind of roll their eyes because the courts have shifted in recent years, but I, I think that our Supreme Court does its job when it comes to this, when, when there is a violation, we investigate it, we prosecute it, we, we sue plaintiffs sue and by and large, our Supreme Court is giving very reasoned decisions on these issues, and I, I don't think we should preemptively assume that they're not going to continue to do that. and I appreciate your comments like today in ballot initiatives, unfortunately we're not even talking about problems with grassroots doing things that would be harder. I mean, I wish we were, but we've moved so far away, like I said, if you don't have $3 million. There's no sense almost, uh, uh, you know, it's very uphill battle, so anyway, I appreciate your questions. Thank you, Senator. Thanks, Senator King. Senator Tucker. Question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mrs. Senator, you, you said you've gathered signatures for a petition. You have experience doing this. Is the ballot measure required to be stapled to the petition? It is the ballot measures required to be stapled to it, and I believe That there's also language that says that it's a misdemeanor on the petition itself, um, but I'd have to go back and look at my petitions to confirm that. And is it the popular title or the ballot title or the entire measure that has to be stapled to the, it's all of them. They're all there. So if you're being solicited to sign. A petition You have the right currently. Under the law to review not just the title, but the entire measure before you sign, correct? Yes, you do. You have the right and it's there. And I'll also say as someone who carried petitions, um, I, I was not a high pressure salesperson ever. Um, I really, there were times when I said, hey, I have petitions here, but I waited for the person to say they wanted to talk to me. I wasn't following them around. I wasn't stopping them in parking lots. I went to places where I was invited to be sometimes I asked ahead of time. if I could have permission to be there and I don't have to do that in every case, but I'm not a jerk and so I like to do that. I like to interact with my community in a more positive way. And so, um, so it, it's To me, I've described this before is, you know, I grew up in an Arkansas, where we took care of our neighbors, where we went to the church potlucks and we knocked on each of each other's door and we had an iced tea on the front porch and when our neighbor needed something, we brought him a casserole, and we have moved away from that and how we communicate with each other. We have isolated each other into algorithms and text messages, and for me, Taking someone a petition and just making that conversation open to them is my casserole. This is me today telling my neighbors we can still talk about what we disagree on, and I want to because you're going to make me smarter and better and a more reasonable human if I'm listening to both of these perspectives. Thank you, Senator Sullivan, you're a question. So if you're a petitioner and someone walks up on the street and they signed their you think it's their name but they sign someone else's name. What protections are there for that individual who had their name signed without their agreement. Well, I mean, I think the verification process is probably going to resolve that. It's probably going to show that probably is a guess. I, I understand. I mean, it's not perfect, right? right? But also, I mean, someone could theoretically have a counterfeit license when they come in to vote. I mean, you're, you're never going to prevent all criminal actions. I'm just asking you, so you really that that happens. I don't know. I did not see it happen and I don't have a reason to believe it happened in my presence. I'm not familiar with specific allegations on that particular instance. So if also if we have petitioners who are allowing multiple signatures, so I'm going to sign up for myself and my mom and my cousin and my aunt, and I'm gonna sign 4 or 5 signatures. Is that illegal now? That is illegal. I can tell you I have, I have no knowledge of that actually happening. What I do have knowledge of, I trained canvassers on our measures and in that training we specifically were very careful to tell them no, and we didn't do it. That's a good thing. I appreciate that, but the fact is right now if you have to show an ID, it's going to prevent the petitioner from Allowing multiple signatures. No, because you can't require the canvasser to deny the person their right to sign. What you can require the petitioner to do is to review these ahead of time and to, to look at them and to communicate with the Secretary of State about them, but this bill cannot, it does not, nor can it require the canvasser to say no, you can't sign. It doesn't say that. So, so, no, I don't, I don't think it does what you're saying. Thank you. Alright. Thank you, Senator Senator Hammer. If we're going to ask you a question, a simple yes or no would be fine with me. That's hard, Senator. Yes. You can make it easy. You're sitting here saying that you believe these bills are unconstitutional, yet the Attorney General of the state of Arkansas and his staff have reviewed them and said they believe they are and that they can defend them and win. Do you agree or disagree with the Attorney General's position on these bills. I disagree and I'd prefer to elaborate if you'd let me. Cheers, chair's discretion. 3 points. Of course he's going to represent you because that's his job. That's what he's got to do. The Supreme Court does not work for him. And sometimes he's wrong. I'll take that as your answer, but there was no merit as far as the reason why, and I understand that you get two attorneys, 2 preachers, 2 to legislators in the room, they're not always going to agree. But I, I put full faith and confidence in our attorney general that he would not put himself or his staff in the position or the office in a position to win these and Thank you. Thank you, Senator Senator Dodson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um. The standard for you, you've collected signatures and as you stated, trained canvassers on how to collect all these things and what you've carried I think my, my question is somewhat simple, um, the It's been Discussed here today that a signature. Or someone who signs rather someone who's signing is in essence sponsoring legislation. I mean, if I was to be the sponsor in this case, Senator Hammer sponsoring this legislation. His name is at the top. Um Is there anything on the notification form that notifies the signature or the signer that they are in essence sponsoring whatever the measure is that is being petitioned and that their name will be Public once those signatures are turned in, because I believe all those are FOIable. They are liable and and that's, it's an interesting question. So, so practically speaking, I mean, but the short answer to your question is, No, there's not, that's not a direct discussion. I mean, you don't call them their sponsors as a matter of process, they're not the sponsor, the signer is not as a matter of process in the language we use in the process, the sponsor is the ballot question committee and whoever's put it forward. So yes, there's a certain endorsement or sponsorship by their signing, I suppose. I think that's a fair assessment, but it's not a part of the discussion. There was never, to my knowledge, that I'd never noticed any confusion about the signer's part in the process. Like this, the questions they had for me were about transparency, were about the act versus the amendment were about whether this was a for or against thing, the questions were never about just does this mean, um, Does this mean I'm, I'm sponsoring or endorsing this, um, that just didn't come up. I did have questions about FOIA. I did tell them it was foible, um, and, and obviously I may know more but I don't, I don't think that's required and I'm not sure whether it's on, on the content itself. I was just curious about that. I figured you know to my knowledge it's not on there, but I could be wrong. I don't know everything. Are there any more questions from members of the committee? All right, see you. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you. All the applause, please follow the applause, please. Members on him say that I don't know about the Constitution. I didn't know that the Senate rules are going to require us to be on the Senate floor for session in 45 minutes, so it is a chair's plan to break for, you know, to recess for lunch at at least 1:15 and I'm not expecting that we're going to get to the vote on this bill. We've got, I believe, about 4 pages of people to sign to speak on this bill. We're about 1/3 of the way through the first page. So, um, When Well, the chair would be happy to entertain a motion. I cannot make a motion from the chair, Senator. I move that we end debate at 5 after and move to a vote. All right, I got a motion from Senator Payton. Do I see a 2nd 2nd from Senator Sullivan. Discussion on the motion. Senator Tucker, we're going to ask for discussion. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As a matter of As a pragmatic concern, I understand the need that we can't be here all day and night. However, a lot of people have come here to testify for and against and, and I think it would be better if the if the first thing that that happened would be to limit the amount of time each person can testify rather than just cut the debate off at a particular time because we know a lot of people who came just won't be able to be heard at all if we, if we cut testimony off at a particular point. I think it's better to have everyone have the opportunity to testify, even if it's for a limited amount of time. to not testify at all. All right, is that a form of substitute motion center. Sure, yes, sir, Mr. Chair. I'll second his substitute, so do you have a time frame 33 minutes, 3 minutes, 3 minutes. Is that including questions or just for the the the the testimony not including questions, OK. Per person per person. OK. 3 minutes per person, not including questions. Senator Dodson discussion on that. Uh yes, I guess so just. Questioned the chair, how many you said pages, but how many people are signed up I mean I'm trying to go off and mark off who's gone through, signed up to speak on multiple bills. So I have 454 pages. I just kind of estimated about I guess I'm asking the question is the estimate, are we talking about? 15 people or are we talking about 50, closer to 50 closer to 50, so 3 minutes per person would be. Minimum 3 hours we're not going to get, get quite there. I don't know if you want to reduce that to. 2 hours or an hour worth of just a total time frame Senator Clark, would you be open to amending your substitute motion? Senator Clark's got the flu, Senator Flip up, but um it didn't remind you this is also, um, you know, per bill, so I've got people that are not signed up to speak on multiple just on a specific bill that we haven't gotten to so I would just say, you know, Senator Dotson can can make a substitute for my substitute. So I just wanna, since we're talking about 115 before the chair, I would, I guess, make a substitute substitute that we limit debate to 30 minutes, uh. Total. And And I mind you and remind you that we are still on Senate Bill 20, although we've had members, you know, that, you know, people so speaking to various bills, but we've got several that are not, you know, that are just not to speak on one bill only, I guess. Well, unless we're gonna have a motion to, you know, to take them all, you know, to take them all up and move to the vote on all six. OK, so we're, we're discussing Senate Bill 212 specifically. Well, we are discussing with, you know, the first thing is we're starting to speak on Senate Bill 210, but in the effort of Bareity, Senator Dodson, I've asked members that are responding not to speak on multiple bills to bring their comments on all of the bills on the agenda, you know, you know, sit around I'll withdraw my motion and let people continue to discuss Senator Tucker's motion. I got for Peyton, you're recognized. I'll make a substitute motion that we limit the debate to 3 minutes per person and that we stop debate. At 10 minutes after 1 o'clock. And move to a vote on all 6 bills. The second. OK, so Senator Payton, we can, we can limit the debate to 3 minutes per person on either side, and then at 110, you know, we can make a motion for immediate consideration on each, you know, on these six bills. There you go. Sounds like a motion that I'm willing to make. OK, so we got a we got a motion from Senator Payton. We have a 2nd, 2 from Senator Hammer. Discussion on the motion. Not OK, not available. Excuse me. All in favor say ay opposed. Motion carries. All right, so next up we've got Melissa Robin speaking for Mr. Robbins. Come on up. Mr. Sherry, I just want to thank the members of the public for testifying in this romantic lighting we have in here, this this afternoon and for Valentine's Week, so let me one question to chair right now. What is the sequence of bills that are we going to be voting on all, all of these and what is the sequence at one in which Senator Hammer represented him, so we're going to start with Senate Bill 210, go to Senate Bill 208. Can you slow down just one minute, please let me know. What's going on here? You just want to write them down, Senator. Or Carly, can you write them down for us and so I'm just gonna go through them. Yeah, we're out of sequence. I mean, he did, I'm I'm gonna have it where we're both. So start with Senate Bill 210 will be up first. Senate Bill 208 will be second. You, you got, yeah, she's writing it down for you. Perfect. All right, Mr. Robbins. your microphone. equal, is there gonna be ample time for for and against. I mean, not if we keep yeah there are plenty of people. There's plenty of people to speak for, right? Yeah, we've got, we've got people to speak for, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean we're running out of that time though. All right. Mr. Robbins, I think we are ready for you to introduce yourself and if you'll tell us who you're with and you'd be recognized proceed with your comments. You're speaking for the bills. I am speaking for Bill 210 specifically because my experience relates more to that one than the other ones. Um, I'm the director of Hope Place Fordice and I'm here as a citizen as well. I first encountered the canvassers in our local grocery store parking lot, um, I, I, they were out. And I had the time to be able to share my opposing viewpoint of the one of the amendment amendments ballot initiatives proposed, and So while I was out there, the canvasser approached one of my neighbors and um, hey, do you want to sign some of these initiatives and of course my neighbor replied, Well, sure, let me, let me see him. And the canvasser had 5 or 6 different clipboards in her arm, um, to share, and it was one after the other. There was no explanation, just as she was about to begin handing things to our my neighbor, the police officer, a police officer was called on us for breaking a city ordinance for being in the park. parking lot. Um, so she was talking with the police officer. He was trying to get clarity, make sure no one else was in town that needed to be notified of the city ordinance, and she lied, saying she was by herself, but um I had had that moment while she was speaking with the police officer to speak with my neighbor, and I asked her, I said, Hey, if you're not for this, please don't sign it. And that was all I said and um and after the canvasser was done speaking to the police officer, my neighbor, asked us if there was any uh clipboards as the canvasser had handed them to her, and the only one left was the one that I was advocating against and my neighbor chose not to sign that, and I wonder what would have happened had I not been there to say something because it was one clipboard after another that she was signing, not reading anything, and I think for the integrity of the signature, the for it to hold the weight that it should because our signatures have a very high importance every document, legal documents that we signed have very high importance that it should be authentic and if the person does not know what they're signing before they sign it, is it really authentic in what they're signing for. And so, um, and as a licensed educator, I, I, it's very important that you ask your students to read the instructions before they complete an assignment, and I think as human beings that is just natural that we hold that standard and a standard of ethical. see and um to be able to, the way that signatures are gathered in ensuring that whoever signs whatever that they know exactly what they're signing and that a more controversial, um, amendment or ballot initiative is not sandwiched between the less controversial ones, and they accidentally signed one that they do not support. All right. Thank you for your comments. All right. Shaved off 8 seconds there. Good job. All right, are there questions from members of the committee? Alright, see none. Thank you for your testimony. All right. Next up we have Mr. Joey McCutchen. Speaking for. I was just checking you, Joey. I was just For the record, he is paying attention. Gretchen, if you'll sit down and introduce yourself and tell us who you're you're here to speak for, for yourself, and you'd be recognized for seats, sir. Thank you, Joey McCutcheon as a citizen and also for the Arkansas Transparency and Government Group. I think there's no more, no more important mechanisms to hold government accountable, then number one, the freedom of Information Act and also the ballot initiative process, and that's why I'm here today. Uh, we can debate all day about whether it's cons constitutional. We know one thing, this hurts the people, and that's why I'm here today. Um, I want to talk about for a 2nd 2:10. My friends and family council put this document out. It says the marijuana amendment that passed in 2016 was over 10,000 words long. 10,000 words long, that's going to hurt the people. I stood on street corners over the summer and I collected signatures and uh you know, we're going to tell, we're gonna tell Bubba, we're gonna tell Bubba that we're gonna read him this this ballot title, and how long is that going to take and what do you think, Bubba, the Bubba that I'm familiar with, the conservative Bubba Bubba is gonna say, I read this thing. I don't want big brother government telling me. what to do, and I think that's what this is all about. Big brother government interfering with the rights of the people. I think it's a solution looking for a problem. And I think when I stood on street corners and I talked to Bubba, uh, in a free dialogue back and forth, uh, and I have to start the conversation with old Bubba, I have to read this to you, then I have to go and I have to tell Bubba that uh um, uh, by the way, Bubba. Petition fraud under ACA 79103 is a class A misdemeanor and Bubba tells me, what's a class A misdemeanor? Well, you can go to jail for it, and you can also face a $1000 fine. I don't think Bubba's going to like that process, and I don't think the citizens who passed this in 1910 would like that either. And I think it speaks against regnant populists, the people rule. This is our process. This our citizen legislators, and we don't need to be governed to any extent by this legislative body. And it's important. This is fundamental. This is fundamental to our republic, what we're doing here today, and it, it is a it's, it's meaningful. Um, and then for those who, who think you can create the document validity division to me that's kind of a scary, scary title. It's kind of Orwellian to me, um, and, and for those who think that that's not going to grow government. Now we're going to create That 3 minute mark, so I'll let you finish that. Thank you, Senator. Are there questions from members of the committee? Right. McCutchen, thank you for being here. All right. Next up, speaking for, we've got Mr. John Gaskin. John? If you want to introduce yourself and tell us who you're speaking for, if you're speaking for yourself, you'd be recognized for. All right, I'm John Gaskin. I am the pastor of First Baptist Church in Warren, Arkansas, but I am speaking for myself today. I was going to a Dollar General in Warren, and there were two young ladies at a table by the door. And as I was going in, they said, Would you like to sign we're collecting signatures for a ballot initiative on women's health, and I said, Well, I have a wife and a daughter. I'm interested. And then I asked them a series of questions trying to narrow down what this was about, and they kept trying to get around it. And finally I said, so if I'm hearing you, it's not women's health. You're talking about women's choice now we're talking about reproductive rights. I said this is a pro-abortion initiative, and they said, oh no, we personally. don't believe in abortion. I said, So what is this? And then they said, Well, we just think that this should be passed, and I said, OK, you've got me confused here. Is this something that is advancing abortion rights, and they said, well, And I said, look, I don't believe in abortion, so I'm not interested, and I thanked them for what they were doing, and I went into the store and as I walked around, I thought, That was just something wrong about this. When I came back out, I did buy them a couple of bottles of water cause it was really hot that day, but then I just stood back and watched people coming through, and they were all saying they were saying the same thing. Would you like to sign a signature here because we're trying to get an initiative for women's health, and it was, oh yeah, and they were signing it and they were signing it, and I thought after 5 people went through, I thought, I know my community, and I don't think that you would get 5 people in a row who would sign something if they knew that it was advancing abortion. Rights. And one of the people I kind of knew and I thought, I know they definitely wouldn't. And I just thought this is dishonest. They don't know what they're signing when I looked at with a signature sheet it just had blanks for signatures. There was nothing to tell them what they were signing. And the ladies were not really being forthcoming. And that's why I I like this 2 or the 210 at least having the title of the bill so that they can see what this is really about. All right, thank you for your call testimony, members or any questions to the committee? Right, Mr. Gaskin, thank you for being here, sir. Next up we've got Tobias Peoples speaking against. Mr. Pees, Good morning. Thanks for having me. And if you'll introduce yourself and then just tell us to hear whether you're representing yourself. Yeah, my name is Tobias Peoples. I'm here on my own volition. I don't work for any special group that does this. I had to ask off work and come in because I think this is a really important issue. Um, first off, I don't think the Secretary of State needs any more reasons to be able to pull something off of the bell. It seems like they've had a pretty good, uh, grasp of how to do that when they want to. Um Senator Hammer had mentioned that he was against anything that would intimidate or mislead citizens, uh, about these ballot initiatives. And I think that these laws that are being proposed right now have an adverse effect of intimidating citizens. From signing things when you tell them that If they sign it wrong, if their signature doesn't look quite right, that they are going to be committing a misdemeanor. I think it has the adverse effect of actually intimidating citizens rather than protecting them from intimidation, which I personally have never experienced signing petitions or Asking for signatures. Um, I think that all of this just makes it more expensive for the grassroots organizations who are putting forward these initiatives, um, no, it doesn't cost any more money to say something, but it costs a lot more time and if you're paying canvassers, you have to pay them for more time for less results, and if we want to have a system that works for the people, uh, regardless of their income or their Ability to fundraise, um, these, these laws stand in opposition to that. Not to mention the enhanced legal fees that may that the organization may have to account for. That's all. Right. Thank you for your comments, Mr. Peoples. Members are hearing questions from the committee. All right, say no further questions. You are excused. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Alright, next up we've got Ms. Dawn Shell speaking or speaking for excuse me. Please come on up. Thank you for being here and you've introduced yourself, and if you're here representing yourself or any organization, please let us know. My name is Dan Shell, and I'm here as a citizen, um, and my story, I'm just gonna tell you how I came about signing this and my opinion of it. Uh, so my husband is a pastor of a church in Sling County and we were doing a funeral for a friend of ours, a memorial service, and afterwards when the ladies at the funeral says, Hey, I've got these petitions. Would you sign them? And we were aware of one of the petitions that we had wanted to sign regarding the women's products for diapers and women's products. She said, well, I've got this signature sheet in my car and let me run and get it. She brought all the signature sheets in in separate manila folders. There was no initiative attached to it. All it was was a signature sheet. Um, and she started up home and she said this one is for this, and she said this one is for women's health. Nothing that's told us what it was for. Nothing, um, just, she said women's health, women's products, this is marijuana. That was all we were told. Um, and I signed the one that she stated was for women's health, being a woman, um, I am a mother of a daughter. I am also a grandmother raising my two year old granddaughter. And so absolutely me and my husband both signed it. Of course we were in the midst of a grieving family and trying to be with the family. She called us at a time that was busy. We were not at a polling place where they were out doing it in public. Um, and I went on and as I said, I'm a mother. My husband is also a law enforcement officer and ambassador. We stay busy and I'm often the single mother basically married, raising my granddaughter. So I went on and when it came on the ballot, obviously when I read it at the polls, I voted against it, uh, because of my belief. But at the time of signing the initiative did not understand because we were not explained there was nothing to read to tell us that. Um, I was not aware that, um, actually my name was on the initiative for that particular one until a friend who had gotten the foyer, called me and said, I know your stance. Did you know it's on that? My name is now permanently attached to something that I do not believe in. And so it's out there on where I had signed to put this on the ballot. Had I understood what I was signing, I would not have signed my name to be allow it to be put on the ballot for a vote. So I was deceived into believing that it was for just general women's health. Nothing to read that showed me what I was reading. All right, thank you for your testimony. Members are Senator Tucker, you're recognized for a question. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ma'am, did you, it was the ballot measure was right there where you signed that you asked to read it before you sign? There was no ballot measure. All it was, she went in and brought in 5 different manila folders with signature sheets only no ballot initiative. She went to her car, pulled in the 5 manila folders that only had signature sheets, so the ballot measure was not there when you signed, was not there. That's against the law currently. Um, and did you say you voted on this in November? I did vote on it and when I went to vote and read it and started studying more, I voted against the initiative because I did not believe in it, so I was not for it. I was, I'm pro-life and I do not believe in that, so we did vote against it at the time, but I would not have voted to or signed to even have it on the ballot because that was my personal belief and I do not want my name attached to that that is now out there for freedom of information that anybody may see my name. Thank you. Thank you, Centra. All right, are questions from members of the committee. All right, see none. Michel, thank you for being here. All right. Next up we'll take Miss Kristen Foster. Thank you. I didn't think I'd get a get a chance. Yeah, Ms. Foster, if you'll introduce yourself and if you're here on your own behalf, you're representing an organization, you'd be to proceed. Yeah, I'm Kristen Foster. I'm here on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Arkansas. A couple of concerns just in general on this, you know, one, we know that in Arkansas the people rule, and I would argue that's not just our state motto, but that it's fundamental to our identities as Arkansans often, and the way this is written is going to make it where for the ballot initiative process only paid Canvasser's rule because regular volunteer citizens are not going to want to subject themselves to this kind of risk, right, when you're making this, where it's obviously meant to make them feel intimidated to go out and carry a petition if you can't answer every single policy question. If you're on a policy expert, are you going to be able to go out and carry these petitions at all. And if all you can answer is this is for or against a very basic thing, but more specifically, I want to speak to um SB 212 around the document validity division. We've talked a lot about initiatives and referenda this morning, but I would argue that this also applies to voter registration applications and sets up a two-tiered system because right now a voter registration application can be submitted to the Secretary of State, or it can be submitted to the county clerk. And so if it is submitted to the Secretary of State. It's now under a different level of scrutiny that it can be held to versus if it's submitted to the county clerk. Right now those forms when they're submitted go just get shipped off to the county clerk for review, but this would change that process and I think that the way that this is set up and the way that it is written is it will have a chilling effect on nonprofit organizations who engage in voter registration at this at this point, because when I'm registering someone to vote, I don't. Verify their identity. I don't verify their criminal background. I don't know verify their citizenship, that's the responsibility of the county clerk. But if I'm turning in forms that are found out to be invalid. It opens the entire organization up to scrutiny, to investigation, to liability, civil or criminal liability, um, in a way that has not been the case, and we don't have a method as volunteers or organizations out registering people to vote. We don't have a method to verify all of those things. I can't check someone's background. I can't check that their identity is correct. If somebody registers as Mickey Mouse, I have to turn that form in, but it's not on me to make sure that correct, right? But then this will be opening me up to that kind of scrutiny and investigation if I turn in those forms to the Secretary of State's office versus to the to the county clerk. Um I also have major concerns about the fact that we would be opening up, you know, putting people in law enforcement positions that are not certified law enforcement officers that have not gone through the kind of training that our law enforcement officers go through, but we will be appointing them as law enforcement officers is very concerning. Also, just one other Point to make. Well, 2 more points to make. One, I've heard a lot about duplicate signatures when we've talked in here. Secretary of State already disqualifies duplicate signatures. They're not counted twice. And lastly, the last point I'll make is when we talk about why out of state people would be interested in this issue why out of state people would call Senator Hammer and talk about it. I would also wonder why out of state people would donate $14 million to our governor's campaign, but there's a lot of reasons people are interested in Arkansas. Thank you. Senator Payton, you're for the purpose of a motion. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and while I do appreciate the attendance and and the debate and the emails and the text messages, uh, we do have other responsibilities, and I think that uh it's time that we Move to a vote, so I would move Du pass on Senate Bill 210. I'd moved to end the debate first, OK, we got a motion by Senator Payton to end debate. Is there a second to that motion? OK, got a second center hammer all in discussion on the motion, Senator Tucker, for Again, I just want to reiterate people came here from all over the state. If we need to come back after the floor session, which I think will be brief today. I would, I would prefer giving the people an opportunity. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. Alright, got a motion, 2nd, all in favor say aye. Aye, opposed. All right, motion carries. All right, so first up, Senator Hammer, you can go to the end of the table and close for Senate Bill 210. Mr. Chair, I think a lot of discussion has been had, I think. Enough on either side has been said that we can move to the point that I will make a motion to adopt Senate Bill 210. All right, I got a motion Senator Hammer. I'll see a second. Second Senator Sullivan, all in favor, please say aye. I opposed. Alright. Bill 210 has been adopted. Same thing, Mr. Chairman, I would move to adopt Senate Bill 208. All right, we've got a motion for 22nder Sullivan, all in favor. Say aye. Po. right. Bill carries. Excuse me, um, Senate Bill 2207. Mr. Chairman, same thing, I would move adopt. Senate Bill 207. OK, we've got a motion to pass from Senator Hammer. Got a second Senator Sullivan. All in favor. Say aye, aye, oppose. All right, Senate Bill 207 do pass. All right, Senate Bill 212. Sure, I'm Just deferring, is it a member of the committee that's calling for roll call. Do you want a roll call one, OK. OK, so. No OK, proceed. It seems like there's. Let's roll call this one. All right, we got a motion, Senator Hammer Senate Bill 212 motion to pass. The motion to pass a Senator Sullivan. Uh, go ahead and Carly, if you want to call a roll on this one. Senator Clark, Senator Clark Senator Hammer, Senator Hammer, yes. Senator Sullivan, Senator Sullivan, yes. Senator Tucker, Senator Tucker, no. Senator King, Senator King, no. Senator Dodson. Senator Dodson. Senator Dodson, yes. Senator Payton, Senator Payton, yes. No, Senator Payton, no sorry, Senator Payton, no. All right, so, Chebo I, but it's still um Senate Bill 212 does not pass. Mr. Chair, remind me, do we need a motion to expunge the vote for it to be brought back up for consideration. It can be brought back up without you. Um You're ready to move forward? Senate Bill 211, 21 motion to pass. All right, we've got a motion to pass Senator Hammer got a second by Senator Sullivan. Senate Bill 211. All in favor, please say aye. I opposed. All right, Senate Bill 211 passes. Moving to Senate Bill 209. Senate Bill 209 motion do pass. We've got a motion to pass from Senator Hammer, a second Senator Sullivan, all in favor. Say aye, aye. Opposed. All right, Senate Bill 209 passes. Congratulations, Senator Hammer. All members see no further minutes come before this committee. We are adjourned. Senator Hammer, thanks for breaking these up and not doing an omnibus bill, noted. Senator King wanted to thank you. We are adjourned.