Arkansas Attorney General Rejects Push For Casinos

The state of Arkansas still opposes the initiatives for authorizing casino gambling. State Attorney General, Leslie Rutledge, has recently turned down yet another cry for a statewide referendum on the matter. A group of citizens under the name of, “Driving Arkansas Forward,” submitted a proposal for building three new casinos in the state. It was their vision that 65% of casino taxes could be used for funding public roads and highways. This was, however, dismissed by Rutledge, who is said to be backed by the like-minded governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, believed to be one of the most popular governors in the USA.

According to the state’s laws, before a group can start collecting signatures when pushing for a referendum, the attorney general must sign the proposal. Rutledge questions the group’s true motives for this initiative and has openly itted issues with the ambiguous definition of “casino gambling.”

She commented, “In my opinion, there may be some question whether the words ‘Highway Funding Amendment’ in your proposed name fairly represent that feature of the proposed constitutional amendment. I cannot confidently predict whether the Court would say this language … is fatally misleading. Based on what has been submitted, my statutory duty is to reject your proposed ballot title.”

Arkansas is only among 11 US states that do not have casinos, either tribal nor commercial. Rutledge is well-known for refusing the casino building efforts by a certain Bruce Emigh, whose two decades of attempts produced nothing. However, she did allow the Cherokee Nation tribe to proceed with legalization of three of their casinos. Despite the fact that Cherokee did obtain enough signatures to reach the ballot, the state’s Supreme Court said that the referendum included “dishonest wording,” so the referendum never happened.

Source:

“Arkansas attorney general rejects wording of casino-highway funding proposal”, katv.com, January 25, 2018.