Moore: We begin this Tuesday conversation with Ozarks at Large from our friend Andrew DeMillo. He is the editor-in-chief of the Arkansas Advocate. He joins us from his office in Little Rock. Andrew, hello. Thanks for being with us today.
DeMillo: Thanks for having me.
Moore: We are going to start by talking about direct democracy. We're going to talk about two different stories revolving around this topic, one where direct democracy was put on halt, and another one where we seem to see some wins with direct democracy. Andrew, let's start by talking about the case that came to the Arkansas Supreme Court that, you know, eventually ended in a dismissal of a lawsuit.
DeMillo: Yeah. That's correct. The Arkansas Supreme Court last week dismissed the lawsuit that challenged the secretary of state's decision to reject the petitions that were submitted in favor of a proposed constitutional amendment that would have added new protections and essentially strengthened the initiative and referendum process.
As you remember, secretary of state's office had rejected the signatures, had rejected all the petitions, mainly kind of on a technicality, where basically the issue was that the popular name that was listed on the petitions was not the exact popular name of the ballot measure.
You know, state Supreme Court dismissed it. It was a very quick, you know, quick order, one-page order, did not elaborate on their reasons for dismissing it. But, you know, the Arkansas attorney general's office had made the argument saying that, you know, secretary of state's office had followed the law. And it also pointed to previous rulings from the state Supreme Court upholding this law that was used for rejecting these petitions.
So, you know, the end result of this is that this measure is not going to be on the ballot. We're actually not going to have any proposals that were referred to voters through the initiative process on the ballot this year. We'll have, you know, we'll have legislatively referred measures on the ballot, but not this one. So it's definitely a setback for supporters of direct democracy.
Moore: In a separate lane of the judicial world, instead of at the state level, we're moving to the federal level here. There was a different case also in line with direct democracy, where a federal judge late last week declared laws in Arkansas unconstitutional around the process of direct democracy.
DeMillo: Yeah. You know, U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks, he issued a ruling on Friday, basically declaring that some of the new restrictions on the state's initiative and referendum process unconstitutional, block the state from enforcing them. And these were, you know, among measures that we've seen in recent years really targeting and putting new restrictions on the ballot measure process, on the petition circulation process.
And the measures that he had focused on were ones that required all canvassers to be Arkansas residents and paid canvassers to be residents living in the state, saying that that violates the First Amendment of the Constitution. He also had struck down another measure that prohibited paying canvassers based on the number of signatures obtained. You know, this was measure that had been challenged by League of Women Voters and by two groups that were trying to put ballot measures, you know, before voters this year.
Attorney general's office has said that they are going to appeal the ruling, which that would go to 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is a heavily Republican appointed collection of judges there. But we'll have to see how that kind of plays out.
Moore: Now, when we think about direct democracy here in the state of Arkansas, one, we're pretty unique across the United States that we have this sort of process. And two, when we think about the kinds of roadblocks and detours that we have seen here with this sort of process over the last two or three election cycles, it's hard. If you were someone who is a supporter, we've seen a lot of these volunteers who have done a lot of legwork to sort of make these things happen, and to have really two or three election cycles in a row where we've seen some technicalities really bring this to a halt, it's got to be kind of frustrating, I imagine.
DeMillo: Yeah. And, you know, that's the criticism. And one of the reasons why you saw this effort to try to get this measure on the ballot, the one that the petitions were rejected, is because there was this feeling that the predominantly Republican legislature was putting these restrictions on the process, mainly in response to progressive efforts to change the Constitution and successes that they've seen in various areas over the years.
You know, Arkansas, you know, is very conservative state, but measures like raising the minimum wage have passed when they've gone before voters. We've seen casino gambling get approved. We've seen, you know, medical marijuana get approved.
But, you know, we've seen the legislature saying they want to protect this process, concerned about outside groups coming in, putting in these new restrictions. And this is something that you see in other Republican states as well, too. But yeah, we saw this two years ago with an effort to put an abortion rights measure on the ballot in Arkansas. You know, similar kind of stumbling block in getting its petitions rejected, and a similar outcome before the state Supreme Court.
Moore: Mhm. I want to shift gears here to talk about data centers. This is something we've been spending a lot of time to talk about over the last month or so here on Ozarks at Large. You've got some new reporting from your colleague Ainsley Platt talking about how more Arkansas communities are putting data centers on hold. We've seen here in Fayetteville, we've reported last week about the Fayetteville City Council putting a lot of measures in place to really make it hard for data centers to exist here. And this doesn't seem to be a partisan issue here.
DeMillo: No. Definitely not. And, you know, the politics of it, I think you and I have talked about this before, is really interesting, where the opposition to data centers really is becoming a bipartisan issue. You know, our neighbors in Texas, we're seeing the governor there, who's a Republican, you know, who's been speaking out against data centers and even more forcefully recently.
And, you know, what we're seeing here is the counties and the communities that are rejecting or imposing new limits on data centers is actually growing faster than the places that have announced projects right now. And it's happening in very rural, very conservative areas. You know, one of the places we focus on is Madison County, that passed a three-year moratorium and it doesn't have any known projects in development right now.
And you see some of the other areas where this is happening. For the most part, these communities are, you know, predominantly conservative areas where you're seeing this pushback right now, and areas where there may not be projects on the horizon, but they see what's happening in other parts of the country, and they really want to either say no thank you, or at least put as many limits as they can on it.
You know, I think this is an issue that we're seeing really, you know, stand out as a major issue in the midterms right now. And I think it's something that we're going to be watching very closely going into November and beyond, into next year's legislative session.
Moore: As we look at the map here in your reporting here, we see Madison County has a moratorium, Carroll County up here in Northwest Arkansas as well, Independence County, Polk County and Union County down in South Arkansas, too. There doesn't seem to be a ton of connective tissue between these other than they're all concerned about the future of data centers, and they want to make sure that they better understand what's going on before they dive into this.
DeMillo: Yeah. And the thing that's also interesting in the politics of it, too, is Pulaski County and Little Rock, which are considered, you know, more Democrat-leaning areas than the other places that have passed these moratoriums, has struggled to put any kind of moratoriums through or any serious restrictions through right now. And that kind of adds to the unique politics of this right now where it's not kind of a clear, you know, partisan dividing line on this as much that you see.
Moore: Finally here, I want to talk about your latest column that people can find at ArkansasAdvocate.com. You talk about childhood vaccinations and specifically the relationship between Betty Bumpers, who was the former first lady of Arkansas, and childhood vaccinations in the history here in the States.
DeMillo: Yeah. You know, this was pegged off of executive order that President Trump had, you know, just recently signed, that, you know, recommends, you know, a drastic change in the way childhood vaccinations are done right now. And basically recommending separate shots rather than the combination shots that we see right now.
And it's, you know, following, you know, some of the misinformation that we've seen coming from, you know, Secretary Kennedy with HHS over the years, trying to falsely link childhood vaccines to autism. And, you know, this latest one poses a lot of logistical challenges, would end up posing a lot of burdens to families and to doctors. But also, you know, really raises the danger of, you know, creating more confusion and misinformation about vaccines.
And this really contrasts the legacy that Arkansas has. When you look at, you know, Betty Bumpers, who was first lady when Dale Bumpers became governor, she saw Arkansas had one of the lowest vaccination rates. And she really, you know, took on this challenge of promoting childhood vaccinations and really helped Arkansas go from being one of the worst in terms of childhood vaccinations to a leader. And really, this ended up being a model for a national effort that she partnered with Rosalynn Carter on.
And, you know, one of the things that she talked about in an interview that she did with the LA Times was she talked about how she was motivated by anger, by, you know, anger that, you know, we know what to do to help protect children, and we're not doing it. And kind of the point I was making is, you know, Trump's order seems like a time where you need more of that type of anger right now to really battle what could end up undermining, you know, decades of progress that Arkansas has made.
Moore: There's a quote in here from a previous CDC director that says, because of Mrs. Bumpers' efforts, more than 95% of American children today are protected against what was once one of the most dreaded childhood diseases. It really just goes to show the impact and the power that people in charge can have to make a change, to create better health policies for children.
DeMillo: Yeah, absolutely. And we've seen this over the years. You know, Arkansas in 1916 was one of the first states to require vaccination of children entering school. We saw Asa Hutchinson during the COVID-19 pandemic actually went to areas that were very resistant about vaccines, had town halls and really kind of confronted those concerns, those questions head on. You know, even, you know, went to the extent of, you know, getting his COVID boosters on, you know, livestream so people could see that it was safe. And that was something that he felt that they needed to do.
And that's something that really, you know, elected officials need to find more areas to be able to do that right now. And there's a danger with moving in the other direction, you know, really, you know, undoing just a lot of, you know, success that Arkansas has had.
Moore: Yeah. If there's anything we can learn from this conversation, is that these sorts of issues don't have to be partisan, whether it's data centers, direct democracy or vaccinations.
DeMillo: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think, you know, we're seeing a lot of areas where there's common ground on a lot of these different areas right now, and where there's not kind of a solid party dividing line.
Moore: Absolutely. Well, you can keep up with all of the excellent reporting that Andrew DeMillo's team does when you go to ArkansasAdvocate.com. Andrew, thank you as always for your reporting and your time.
DeMillo: Thank you very much.
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