A group of public education advocates hoping to repeal the far-reaching Arkansas LEARNS Act got sent back to the drawing board again Thursday when Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin rejected their second stab at crafting a ballot title.
The attorney general has to approve ballot titles as they will appear before citizens or groups can collect the required signatures. The group CAPES (Citizens for Arkansas Public Education and Students) got its first rejection in April, when Griffin said their title and summary were insufficient. This time, Griffin said the small font they used to capture more information was too small, and that they had again failed to fully summarize the entirety of the 145-page law they’re hoping to repeal.
Summarizing 145 pages of legislation succinctly enough to fit on a ballot seems impossible, but that is not Griffin’s problem. “Arkansas law requires that you adequately summarize the entire act,” he explains in his May 11 opinion.
You can read his full rejection here.
Griffin, a staunch Republican and ally of Gov. Sarah Sanders, noted in his letter that this rejection of the ballot title had nothing to do with his own personal feelings about LEARNS. Opponents of the hyper-conservative legislative package that includes “don’t say gay” and anti-critical race theory components are not unconvinced.
No surprise. AG Tim Griffin rejects the title for the referendum on LEARNS for the 2nd time.
It takes his office 10 business days for each review & claims the 10 days is needed, yet 40 hrs was enough for the public to review LEARNS for public comment???https://t.co/nxG0Ipo6iL
— Trevor McGarrah (@Mr_McGarrah) May 11, 2023
While this is the second time Griffin has turned them down, CAPES has other irons in the fire as they work to repeal the massive education rework bill that will morph public money into vouchers covering tuition for private, church and home schools. Arkansas LEARNS also seeks to expand charter schools, both by removing caps on how many can open and by allowing struggling traditional public school districts in danger of state takeover to turn over the reins to charter companies.
Lawmakers adopted the LEARNS Act with an emergency clause attached, meaning it went into effect with the stroke of the governor’s pen. But both houses failed to vote on the emergency clause separately as is required by the state constitution, prompting a lawsuit to declare the emergency clause invalid and moving the start date on LEARNS to the end of July. Supporters of the universal voucher bill say we’ve always done emergency clause votes like this, no big deal.
If LEARNS is not yet in effect, a “transformation contract” between Marvell-Elaine School District and a charter company is not valid, the court filing argues.
