Arkansas Lawyer Common Tim Griffin (R) has signed off on proposed language for a poll referendum that seeks to amend the state structure and rescind a business on line casino license allotted for Pope County.
Arkansas Lawyer Common Tim Griffin speaks throughout a information convention on the Arkansas Capitol alongside Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R). Griffin this week accepted of proposed poll referendum language that will change how the state goes about issuing business on line casino licenses. (Picture: Arkansas Advocate)
A gaggle known as Native Voters in Cost is behind the citizen-led referendum initiative. The poll committee desires to vary how the state goes about figuring out the place business casinos can function.
Griffin’s workplace this week barely amended the proposed poll language submitted by Native Voters in Cost earlier than lending his blessing. The referendum seeks to change Modification 100 handed in 2018, which allowed the Arkansas Racing Fee to difficulty business on line casino licenses for Crittenden, Garland, Jefferson, and Pope counties.
Native Voters in Cost desires to mandate {that a} on line casino license solely be issued to a county after voters within the focused county approve of slot machines, desk video games, and sports activities betting via a particular election.
Pope in Focus
Three of the 4 county on line casino licenses have been issued and business gaming properties have since opened. Pope County is the outlier, as a fancy authorized scandal has stored the license with the state gaming company.
Pope County was certainly one of solely 11 counties amongst Arkansas’ 75 that voted in opposition to Modification 100 in 2018. Regardless of native opposition, the statewide referendum final result allowed the Arkansas Racing Fee to contemplate bids for a on line casino within the county.
Two bids had been introduced. Oklahoma-based Cherokee Nation Companies and Mississippi-based Gulfside On line casino Partnership every submitted pitches to construct a on line casino resort in Russellville. Regulatory and software errors, state courts dominated, have resulted within the license remaining unissued greater than 5 years after it was licensed.
Native Voters in Cost seeks to vary the on line casino licensing course of to incorporate native voters the place a on line casino is likely to be allotted. The casinos in Crittenden, Garland, and Jefferson — Southland On line casino, Oaklawn Racing On line casino Resort, and Saracen On line casino Resort — could be grandfathered in and be immune from the constitutional change.
The proposed referendum would require {that a} majority of voters endorse a introduced on line casino plan throughout a countywide particular election earlier than the Arkansas Racing Fee can grant a gaming license.
This measure will hold casinos out of communities that don’t need them and permit native voters to find out the character of their hometowns,” mentioned Hans Stiritz, a Native Voters in Cost spokesperson. “We sit up for bringing our proposal to the voters of Arkansas throughout this busy canvassing season, and in the end to the poll this fall.”
For the poll query to succeed in voters in November, Native Voters in Cost should receive and validate signatures from at the very least 90,704 registered voters in Arkansas. The canvassing should embody signatures from a minimal of fifty counties.
The Arkansas Secretary of State’s Workplace is answerable for validating the signatures introduced by citizen-initiated referendum campaigns.
The Arkansas Racing Fee plans to open its bidding interval for the Pope County on line casino license this summer season. It would mark the third bidding interval for the county concession.
Lottery Referendum
Arkansans will face at the very least one poll referendum involving gaming come November. State lawmakers have already handed a invoice that may ask voters in the event that they help amending the Arkansas Structure to permit the state to make use of lottery proceeds to fund vocational-technical faculty scholarships.
At the moment, the state structure permits lottery revenues to solely be used for scholarships and grants for Arkansas residents enrolled in “private and non-private nonprofit two-year and four-year faculties and universities.”
