On February 13, the Arkansas House passed SB 163, which makes ballot access for newly-qualifying parties more difficult. The old law requires 10,000 signatures, due in early January, to be collected in 90 days. Assuming Governor Asa Hutchinson signs the bill, the new law takes effect immediately, and requires 26,746 valid signatures (3% of the last gubernatorial vote), also due in early January of an election year.

The old law requiring a petition of 3% of the last gubernatorial vote, due in January, was struck down in 1996 in Citizens to Establish the Reform Party v Priest, 970 F Supp 690 (e.d.). The legislature in 1997 moved the deadline to July, but didn’t amend the number of signatures. In 2006 the Green Party sued and that same law was struck down again, in Green Party of Arkansas v Daniels, 445 F Supp 2d 1056. And in the 2006 case, the law had been amended to allow five months to collect the signatures, and also had a “cure” period so that if the petition was initially short of signatures, the group was allowed to file a supplemental petition.

The sponsor of SB 163, Senator Trent Garner, thinks that the 1996 and 2006 precedents are no longer good law because in 2011, the Eighth Circuit upheld the Arkansas law on how a party remains on the ballot. But the court in 2011 said that the challenged law did not prevent the Green Party from being on the ballot, and pointed out that it had been on in every election 2006 through 2010.

Here is the roll-call. The vote was 60-20, with 5 abstentions and 15 absent. The “No” votes included thirteen Democrats and seven Republicans. The seven Republicans who voted “no” are Jana Della Rosa, Justin Boyd, Dan Douglas, Richard Womack, Ken Bragg, Stu Smith, and Cameron Cooper. Four of the five abstainers were Republicans; they were Jimmy Gazaway, Justin Gonzales, Spencer Hawks, and Stephen Meeks.