By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — For the second time, state Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has rejected a constitutional amendment proposed for the Arkansas ballot that would prohibit residents of the state from being compelled to participate in a heath care system.
The grassroots group Secure Arkansas resubmitted the proposal after McDaniel rejected an earlier version, citing ambiguities in the wording. In an opinion issued today, McDaniel said that despite revisions, the proposal remained ambiguous.
The group can revise the proposal again and resubmit it, he said.
Secure Arkansas cannot begin collecting the signatures needed to place the measure on the November general election ballot until the measure is certified by the attorney general.
Jeannie Burlsworth, the group’s chairman, said Tuesday she was “very, very disappointed” by the attorney general’s rejection of the proposal. She did not immediately know whether the group would try again with the measure.
“I want to get our attorney’s advice on exactly what needs to happen here,” she said. “We need to weigh this out carefully.”
The proposed amendment seeks to block a provision in the new federal health care law that requires nearly all Americans to have health insurance. Secure Arkansas held a protest outside McDaniel’s office last month to urge him to certify its proposal and join in a multi-state lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law.
McDaniel has said Arkansas will not join in litigation that he considers politically motivated and is likely to fail.
In his opinion today, McDaniel said the ballot title, popular name and text of Secure Arkansas’ ballot proposal contained numerous terms that were not clearly defined and could be interpreted a variety of ways, such as “compel,” “participate” and “health care system.”
“Where the effects of a proposed measure on current law are unclear or ambiguous, it is impossible for me to perform my statutory duty to the satisfaction of the Arkansas Supreme Court without clarification of the ambiguities,” McDaniel said in the opinion.
The proposal also contained no language informing voters that the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution would prevent it from having any affect on the federal law if the federal law is found to be constitutional, McDaniel said.
If the federal law is found to be unconstitutional, it won’t be because of the ballot proposal, he said.
“Stated another way, your proposal will be either invalid or ineffective,” he said.
Burlsworth said McDaniel was “trying to shut the people down.”
“What’s wrong with giving the people an opportunity to put it on the ballot in November to vote for it? I don’t see what harm that does,” she said.
