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Arkansas Legislative Term Limits Amendment (2016)
| Arkansas Legislative Term Limits Amendment | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | initiated constitutional amendment |
| Topic | Term limits |
| Status | Not on the ballot |
| Not on Ballot |
|---|
 |
| This measure was not put on an election ballot |
The Arkansas Legislative Term Limits Amendment was not on a 2016 election ballot in Arkansas as an initiated constitutional amendment.
If approved, the measure would have limited state lawmakers to serving a maximum of 10 years in the legislature, limited state representatives to six year terms, state senators to eight year terms, and prohibited the legislature from putting term limit measures on the ballot in the future.[1]
Text of measure
Ballot title
The ballot title would have appeared as:[2]
| “ |
A proposed amendment to the Arkansas Constitution concerning term limits for members of the Arkansas General Assembly; to provide that no person may be elected to more than three (3) two-year terms as a member of the House of Representatives, to more than two (2) four-year terms as a member of the Senate, or to any term that, if served, would cause the member to exceed a total of ten (10) years of service in the General Assembly; to repeal Section 2(c) of Amendment 73 that established a years-of-service limit on members of the General Assembly of sixteen (16) years; to provide that the ten-year service limit shall include all two (2) and four (4) year terms, along with full years of any partial term served as a result of a special election to fill a vacancy; to apply the limits to terms and service in the General Assembly on and after January 1, 1993; to provide that this amendment shall not cut short or invalidate a term to which a member of the General Assembly was elected in November 2016 or a term that a member of the Senate was serving immediately prior to the effective date of this amendment; to provide that notwithstanding the General Assembly's constitutional authority to propose amendments to the Constitution, the General Assembly shall not have the authority to propose an amendment to the Constitution regarding term limits for the House of Representatives or Senate, and to continue reserving that power to the people under Article 5, Section I, as amended by Amendment 7; and to declare that if any provision of this amendment should be held invalid, the remainder shall stand.[3] |
” |
Full text
The full text of the measure can be found here.
Support
The measure was supported by the group Restore Term Limits.[1]
Path to the ballot
Supporters of the measure, an initiated constitutional amendment, had until July 8, 2016, to submit 84,859 valid signatures. Furthermore, proponents were required to collect signatures equaling at least 5 percent of the previous gubernatorial votes in at least 15 of the state's counties. For example, if 1,000 people voted for governor in a county, the signatures of 50 qualified electors would be required.
Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge approved this initiative for circulation on August 6, 2015.[2]
Supporters withdrew their petition on the filing deadline of July 8, 2016, saying they only had about 50,000 signatures and would need another month to gather enough signatures.[1]
See also
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Arkansas Online, "Term-limit proposal falls short for November ballot," July 8, 2016
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Restore Term Limits, "Arkansas Term Limits Amendment of 2016," accessed July 8, 2016
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
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State of Arkansas Little Rock (capital) |
|---|---|
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