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Senate panel restores population-based test for party access, prompting objection from third-party leader
Summary
Senate Bill 163 would replace a fixed 10,000-signature test for qualifying political parties with a percentage tied to voter turnout; sponsor argued it returns to prior practice, while the Libertarian Party chair warned it would effectively raise the requirement to about 27,000 and might violate existing court precedent.
Senate Bill 163, presented Dec. 6 by Senator Gardner (District 27), would remove the fixed 10,000-signature threshold for new political parties and replace it with a formula tied to the state—s voting population, a move supporters say restores historical representation while critics call exclusionary.
Gardner told the committee SB 163 "would remove the artificially created low threshold of 10,000 signatures, instead returning to the true representation of our population in Arkansas," and said the change would apply only to political parties, not independent candidates.
Committee questions focused on the size of the signature requirement under the percentage test. Gardner referenced recent gubernatorial turnout, saying roughly 891,509 Arkansans voted in the last gubernatorial election and that "3% of that in total would be about 26,745" signatures.
After debate, the committee moved, seconded and passed a motion to advance SB 163. Later in the meeting the Libertarian Party of Arkansas chair, Dr. Michael Paco, used allotted public-comment time to oppose the change. Paco told the committee that raising the test from 10,000 to the percentage-based level "would obviously make it more difficult for third parties like the Libertarian Party to qualify to put its candidates on the ballot" and said the change was "blatantly unconstitutional," citing the federal Green Party of Arkansas v. Daniels decision (2006).
Paco urged lawmakers to pursue reforms that "open the political process, not to lock it down," and requested the committee or staff obtain a copy of the court decision he cited. Committee staff agreed to retrieve the referenced case.
The committee recorded passage of SB 163 in committee; the bill will proceed in the legislative process.
