Arkansas Attorney General Opinions
Free plain-English summaries of attorney general opinions issued in Arkansas, with full citations and the original source on every page.
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Did the Arkansas AG approve a ballot measure to exempt feminine hygiene products and diapers from state sales and use tax?
Yes, with a substituted ballot title. The AG certified David Couch's popular name 'An Act to Exempt Feminine Hygiene Products and Diapers from Sales and Use Tax' as submitted, and certified a substitu…
Did the Arkansas AG certify a 2024 ballot title to lower the antique-tag eligibility age for vehicles from 45 years to 25 years?
After rejecting five prior versions, the AG substituted and certified a workable popular name ('The Arkansas Historic or Special Interest Vehicle Act of 2024') and ballot title for an initiated act th…
Did the Arkansas AG certify the ballot title for the Arkansas Government Disclosure Act of 2024?
Yes. The AG substituted and certified the popular name 'The Arkansas Government Disclosure Act of 2024' and a substantially rewritten ballot title. The certification followed the rejections in Opinion…
Why did the Arkansas AG reject the second version of the Arkansas Government Transparency Act ballot title?
Same rejection as Opinions 2024-009/2024-010/2024-011/2024-012. The text included the same preemptive-repeal clause and added a new 'substantial personal privacy interest' provision that the sponsors …
Why did the Arkansas AG reject the Arkansas Government Openness Act ballot title in January 2024?
Same rejection as Opinions 2024-009 and 2024-011: the act contained a preemptive-repeal clause that the AG concluded was unconstitutional and violated the full-text requirement. The submitted popular …
Why did the Arkansas AG reject the Arkansas Government Disclosure Act ballot title in January 2024?
The AG rejected this submission for the same reason as Opinion 2024-009: the act contained a preemptive-repeal clause that the AG concluded was unconstitutional and violated the full-text requirement.…
Why did the Arkansas AG reject the Open Meetings and Open Records in State and Local Government Act ballot title?
Same rejection as Opinions 2024-009, 2024-011, and 2024-012: the act contained a preemptive-repeal clause that the AG concluded was unconstitutional and violated the full-text requirement. The submitt…
Why did the Arkansas AG reject the Arkansas Government Transparency Act ballot title in January 2024?
The AG rejected the proposed popular name and ballot title because the act contained a 'preemptive repeal' clause: it would automatically repeal any future legislation enacted after January 1, 2024 th…
Why did the Arkansas AG reject the citizen-initiated act lowering the antique-vehicle-tag age threshold from 45 to 25 years?
The AG rejected the proposed popular name and ballot title because the text wrongly described existing law as a 'requirement to obtain Antique Tags.' Antique tags are discretionary, not required. The …
Why did the Arkansas AG reject the December 2023 Government Transparency Act ballot title?
The AG rejected the popular name and ballot title because the proposed text would have radically curtailed existing FOIA notification rights for public employees while the ballot title summarized the …
Why did the Arkansas AG reject the December 2023 first version of the Arkansas Government Transparency Act?
The AG rejected the December 2023 first submission of the proposed Arkansas Government Transparency Act because it contained provisions that were clearly unconstitutional (e.g., procedural rules contr…
Why did the Arkansas AG reject the December 2023 Government Openness Act ballot title (BT-4)?
Same rejection as Opinion 2023-127. BT-4 parallel submission under 'The Arkansas Government Openness Act.' Eventually certified in Opinion 2024-020 after redrafting.
Why did the Arkansas AG reject the December 2023 Government Disclosure Act ballot title (BT-3)?
Same rejection as Opinion 2023-127. BT-3 parallel submission under 'The Arkansas Government Disclosure Act.' Eventually certified in Opinion 2024-020.
Why did the Arkansas AG reject the December 2023 Open Meetings and Open Records Act ballot title (BT-2)?
Same rejection as Opinion 2023-127, incorporated by reference. BT-2 parallel submission under 'The Arkansas Open Meetings and Open Records in State and Local Government Act.' The personnel-records car…
Did Arkansas's AG certify Dinwiddie's fourth attempt at an initiated act lowering the antique vehicle registration age from 45 to 25 years?
Rejected. Dinwiddie's fourth attempt to lower the antique-vehicle threshold from 45 to 25 years had two new defects: the popular name and ballot title used 'automobile' (a broader term) while the amen…
Did the Arkansas AG certify Dinwiddie's third attempt at a ballot title for an initiated act lowering the antique-vehicle registration age from 45 to 25 years?
Rejected. Dinwiddie's third version of his initiated act to allow 25-year-old vehicles (down from 45) to register as antique still had unresolved drafting defects: a misused enacting clause followed b…
Can the AG certify a ballot title when the proposed initiated act is written as a narrative explanation rather than as legislation?
Rejected. The revised text included an enacting clause but used it before a narrative description and partial statute quotations, leaving the AG unable to determine what was actually being enacted. Sp…
What does the Arkansas AG look for when reviewing a popular name and ballot title for a citizen-initiated act?
Rejected. The submitted ballot title was identical to the popular name and made no attempt to summarize the measure's text. The proposed measure also lacked the constitutionally required enacting clau…
Did the Arkansas AG approve the ballot title for an initiated act exempting feminine hygiene products and diapers from sales tax?
Approved with substitution. The popular name 'An Act to Exempt Feminine Hygiene Products and Diapers from Sales and Use Tax' was certified as submitted. The AG substituted a more suitable ballot title…
Why did the Arkansas AG reject a proposed ballot title for an initiated act exempting feminine hygiene products from sales tax?
Rejected. The text of the proposed initiated act was ambiguous about whether Arkansas would remain in compliance with the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement, a multi-state compact requiring unifo…
Why did Arkansas reject the 2018 marijuana initiated act that would have removed marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act?
The AG rejected the entire submission. The proposed amendments to current law were essentially hidden in the measure's drafting (requiring side-by-side comparison with existing statutes), and the ball…
Why did Arkansas reject the 2018 'Arkansas Rank Voting Initiative' as a proposed initiated act?
The AG rejected the entire submission. The same fundamental ambiguities as the prior submission (Op. 2018-112) remained: the proposed initiated act would dramatically change election law without clear…
Why did the Arkansas Attorney General reject a 2018 marijuana initiated act submission that used a blacklined statute draft?
The AG rejected the submission at the threshold. Section 7-9-107 requires the sponsor to submit an 'original draft' of the proposed measure, but the submission was a blacklined working document showin…
Why did the Arkansas AG certify the 2018 minimum-wage ballot title submitted by David Couch?
AG Rutledge certified, after the Arkansas Supreme Court's intervening decision in *Couch v. Rutledge*, the popular name and ballot title for an initiated act raising the Arkansas state minimum wage fr…
Why did the Arkansas AG reject the 2018 minimum wage increase ballot title even though the underlying policy was simple?
The AG rejected the title because the sponsor copy-pasted the entire statutory definitions of 'employer' and 'employee' into the ballot, producing a 967-word title packed with technical terms that vot…
Why did the Arkansas AG reject the 2018 minimum wage proposal that would have let cities and counties set higher local minimum wages?
AG Rutledge rejected the proposal both because the title omitted significant aspects of the underlying measure and because the local-option provision itself was ambiguous about how cities and counties…
Why did the Arkansas AG reject David Couch's first April 2018 minimum wage ballot title?
AG Rutledge rejected the April 26, 2018 first draft for ambiguities in how it would affect existing Arkansas wage law. The reviewer required Couch to clarify how the proposal interacted with current s…
Why did the Arkansas Attorney General reject David Couch's 2016 proposed 'On Premise Local Option Election Alcohol Act'?
The AG rejected the ballot title because the proposal still had ambiguities the AG could not draft around. The proposed act would let the ABC Director issue permits for festivals, hotels, restaurants,…
Can Arkansas voters use an initiated act to bar state colleges from requiring students to live in dorms or buy meal plans?
Not on this proposal. The AG rejected the popular name and ballot title because the draft lacked a constitutional enacting clause, used 'cafeteria plan' ambiguously, and did not define key terms like …
Can Arkansas voters approve a dry-county local option to permit on-premise alcohol sales at hotels, restaurants, microbreweries, and festivals?
Not on this proposal. The AG rejected the popular name and ballot title for the second time because the underlying draft was internally inconsistent on rulemaking authority, used an undefined 'wet' te…
Can Arkansas voters approve a constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana through a state-licensed dispensary system?
Yes. The AG certified the popular name 'The Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment of 2016' as submitted and substituted her own polished ballot title. The version voters considered in November 2016 was…
Can Arkansas voters approve a local-option election in dry counties allowing on-premise alcohol sales at hotels, restaurants, microbreweries, and festivals?
Not on this draft. The AG rejected the popular name and ballot title for a dry-county on-premise alcohol initiated act, finding the underlying proposal had multiple ambiguities that no substituted bal…
Can the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment qualify for the 2016 ballot if the proposal text is ambiguous?
Not on this draft. The AG rejected David Couch's proposed Medical Marijuana Amendment because of ambiguities in the underlying text. Couch later resubmitted a cleaner version that the AG certified in …
Did the Arkansas Attorney General certify the popular name and ballot title for the Campaign Finance Act of 2016, a proposed initiated act on disclosure of independent expenditures and donors?
The AG certified the popular name 'The Campaign Finance Act of 2016' as submitted. The AG rejected the proposed ballot title as too technical and substituted a new ballot title written in plain langua…
Did the Arkansas Attorney General certify the popular name and ballot title for the proposed Campaign Finance Act of 2016 covering independent-expenditure disclosure?
No. The AG rejected the ballot title in May 2015 for two specific misleading aspects. First, the title used the undefined word 'sponsors' for the disclosure-subject group, even though the underlying t…
Did the AG certify the popular name and ballot title for an earlier version of the Campaign Finance Act of 2016 covering independent-expenditure disclosure?
No. The AG rejected this version (an earlier submission from Op. 2015-052) for three reasons: (1) the ballot title hid the central change, a redefinition of 'independent expenditure' to absorb the fed…
Did the Arkansas AG certify the popular name and ballot title for a revised proposal to add age, veteran or military status, sexual orientation, and gender identity to the Civil Rights Act?
No. The AG rejected both the popular name and the ballot title. The popular name was identical to one already certified for a different measure (2015-029), and the ballot title used the ambiguous phra…
Did the Arkansas AG certify a proposed initiated act to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the Arkansas Civil Rights Act's protected classes?
Yes, but with a substituted ballot title. The AG accepted the popular name 'An Act Amending the Arkansas Civil Rights Act of 1993' as submitted, but substituted a cleaner ballot title that fixed spell…
Did the Arkansas AG certify an initiated act to lower the signature threshold for calling a local wet-dry alcohol election from 38% to 20% of qualified electors?
Yes. The AG approved the popular name 'An Act Concerning Local Option (Wet-Dry) Elections' as submitted, but substituted a tighter ballot title. The substitute reframed the change as reducing the sign…
Did the Arkansas AG certify a revised initiated act that would lower the wet-dry election petition threshold from 38% of registered voters to 25% of votes cast in the last governor's race?
No. The AG rejected the ballot title because it failed to highlight the change in the basis for computing signature requirements. A voter quickly scanning the title would see '38% to 25%' and assume t…
Did the Arkansas AG certify an initiated act that would lower the wet-dry election signature threshold from 38% of qualified electors to 25% of legal voters?
No. The AG rejected the ballot title because the term 'legal voters' in the proposed measure was undefined and ambiguous. The current Arkansas wet-dry statute uses 'qualified electors,' a defined term…
Did the Arkansas AG certify the Campaign Finance Act of 2016 ballot title, requiring disclosure of campaign spending and donors above certain thresholds?
No. The AG rejected the proposed Campaign Finance Act of 2016 because the sponsor did not fix two critical problems flagged in the earlier rejection (Op. Att'y Gen. 2014-135). The term 'electioneering…
Why did the Arkansas AG reject the ballot title for the Arkansas Privacy Protection Act?
The AG rejected the proposal because the ballot title did not summarize the act's provisions, and the act itself was riddled with ambiguities and grammatical errors. The proposal also lacked the const…
Why did the Arkansas AG reject the Campaign Finance Act of 2016 ballot title?
The AG rejected it because the ballot title failed to summarize entire sections of the proposal, used 'electioneering communication' in a way that contradicts the term's standard meaning, and used par…
Did Arkansas's 2014 ballot push to legalize medical marijuana clear the AG's ballot-title gatekeeper?
Yes, for the popular name (certified as submitted); the AG substituted a refined ballot title and certified that. The measure cleared this stage with a cautionary note about ballot-title litigation ri…
Why did the AG reject the July 2014 version of the Arkansas Medical Cannabis Act before later certifying a refined version in Opinion 2014-086?
Because the underlying text had multiple ambiguities: missing punctuation, incoherent sentences, undefined terms, internal definition conflicts, and a 'test all' rule that would make all cannabis unav…
Why did the Arkansas AG reject 'The Campaign Finance and Lobbying Act of 2014' ballot title?
AG Dustin McDaniel rejected Regnat Populus's combined campaign-finance, lobbyist cooling-off, and gift-ban initiative because Section 4's call for a U.S. constitutional amendment misstated federal law…
Did the Arkansas Attorney General approve the ballot title for the 2013 medical marijuana initiative?
Mostly yes. Attorney General Dustin McDaniel found the popular name, 'The Arkansas Medical Cannabis Act,' sufficient as submitted, but concluded the sponsor's proposed ballot title needed work. Rather…
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Attorney general opinions in Arkansas are written by the Arkansas Attorney General's office in response to questions from state agencies, legislators, and prosecutors. They are not binding like court decisions, but courts and agencies treat them as persuasive guidance on how state law applies. Every opinion above has a plain-English question and short answer, plus a link to the full original text.