And hello again, everyone, and thanks very much for joining us.

With the autumn elections only weeks away.

Now, what's the aggregate attitude of the Arkansas electorate?

Will we turn out, or are we profoundly turned off in a few minutes and thoughts on that?

From an observer with a serious interest in civic involvement?

First, a tradition for us, an examination of those policy questions that Arkansas voters will find on their November ballot.

Four of them this year, including a couple that involve or could involve hundreds of millions of dollars.

As always, we turn to the pros from the Public Policy Center of the University of Arkansas Agriculture Division.

They are universally respected for their straight down the middle, just the facts analysis of ballot questions.

And they're old friends as well.

So we welcome back, Doctor Stacy McCullough, director of the center, and program associate Kristen Netter.

Strom Higgins, thank you both, as always, for coming back aboard for questions this year.

And, Kristen, we'll start with you.

The first one.

Question one or issue one is about who can vote in Arkansas voter eligibility in Arkansas.

Right.

So the Arkansas Constitution includes information, and they're about who can vote in Arkansas.

And in 2008, voters approved the text that is there now.

And the text that's there now has categories of of being a citizen of the United States, being a resident of Arkansas, being at least 18 and being lawfully registered to vote in an election.

And so what issue one is asking is to change that language that's in there from anyone who meets these categories, may vote to a more restrictive language of only U.S.

citizens may vote, and only people who meet these criteria can vote in state and local elections.

As I practical matter does.

This is it does it tend to restrict?

Can we say that?

Well, there's a change substantive, right.

There's already a requirement in the Constitution to be a citizen.

And so it's changing it in a way that is, like I mentioned, permissive.

Like you may vote to restrictive.

And so when the sponsors were talking about this, they said that this would provide more of a of a limitation or strength.

But right now when you go register to vote, you have to be a citizen.

Yeah.

Is there a announced opposition to this?

There's actually not any group that's registered to support or oppose the measure, but there has been some criticism of the issue from legislators who voted against referring it, saying that there might not be any significant changes or that it might make people who are here who are immigrants feel less welcome.

Yeah, the and the advocates of the measure, though, their position, their position is that they want the constitutional language to be more strict to to be more direct, saying, you know, instead of may vote.

Only those who are citizens shall vote in local and state elections.

So the Constitution right now doesn't mention local elections or state elections.

It just says here's who can vote.

So it does add that local component.

And they point to other cities in other states where there have been some ability for non-citizens to vote in, like school board elections or city elections.

And they say that they don't want that to be an option here.

Yeah.

And it would become effective the first of 2027.

So in the next election cycle.

Correct.

All right.

The second issue and that would involve what would seem to be or to a lot of people, a moot point.

And that's the constitutional in Arkansas, the keep and bear arms.

Right.

So just like that first issue, the second issue, it's the right to keep and bear arms is in our state constitution along with the US Constitution.

But the wording in there right now is like a very short sentence that says that you have the right to keep and bear arms for common defense.

And then this proposal would add to that.

It would add for hunting, for recreational use and for any other lawful use.

It would also add to that definition of the right to bear and keep arms, ammunition, the possession and use of ammunition and firearm accessories.

And then I say that the right to bear and keep arms is a fundamental and individual right.

Interesting in that I seem to recall a few years back we enshrined in the Constitution a right to hunt.

You're right.

Yeah.

So is this in some ways duplicative?

To some extent anyway?

Well, I mean, the language might be repetitive, but the sponsors of this look to other states where there have been court cases and say that this by adding to the language of the Constitution, it provides some additional context.

So if there ever is a lawsuit or a court decision that there's language there guiding the court, okay.

And has there been opposition to this?

There is not any registered opposition for this issue.

That's actually, you know, something this year that there's not any opposition groups registered with the Arkansas Ethics Commission for any of them.

Okay.

In that sense, then, has there been any anecdotal that that we can measure opposition when this proposal was in front of the legislature to refer to voters there, there were some people who spoke out against it and saying that, you know, that this didn't address issues within Arkansas dealing with gun violence, but then also, you know, adding that language could possibly cause some potential confusion or more confusion.

So the sponsors are saying it strengthens it, and the opponents say, well, it could add some vagueness or confusion.

Yeah.

And again, it would become effective the first of the year.

All right.

Very good.

A third issue now before economic development is at the as at the core of this one.

Number three.

Yeah.

So issue three again referred by the legislature, one of the three that they are allowed to do by the Constitution.

And it deals generally with economic development.

It provides some additional explanation about the authority of the legislature to create programs, loans or grants in support of economic development, but also for the creation of economic development districts and those economic districts we have in our state.

Some people might be aware that we have planning and development districts.

Some of them are actually called economic.

They have economic development in their name.

Those are different than these economic districts.

Those are associated with the US economic development, and they administer programs that relate to that.

These are economic development districts that would be designated in an area within a city, a county or a cooperative area, that are specifically designed to promote economic development.

So there's this this proposal or this proposed amendment is really more of an overarching framework for this economic development activity.

And the economic development districts there would be required if this were to be passed by voters.

The legislature would then go back and really feel in the details of how all of this would work.

That said, this framework does have some parameters in place to define that.

So when it's thinking about, programs, loans or grants, they, they have for specific purposes that they've identified.

So one is development and diversification of the state's economy makes sense.

It's economic development.

And the second one deals with elimination or prevention of unemployment or under deployment underemployment.

So sort of those workforce components of economic development.

And then the the last two purposes are are more about the infrastructure to support economic development.

So it specifically includes development and or expansion of transportation or commerce, as well as property that contributes to economic development in the state.

Yeah.

How did this one originate?

So Senator Jonathan Dismaying was the sponsor within the legislature for this one?

And it was a, a joint resolution, a Senate joint resolution, as J.R.

15.

Is that the right one?

Okay.

Just making sure sometimes those numbers bleed together.

There are a few other parts of this.

And so they do put some parameters around the economic development districts as well.

I talked about the definition earlier, what these economic development districts would have the ability to do there.

They would have bonding authority.

Right.

So that's something that is used to finance projects that would come up to support the purposes of economic development.

Those are things that that bonding authority, if those bonds were issued, they could be repaid by any funding that is available to the district.

So it could be revenues or money generated within the district, but it could also be things that were allocated to the district by the state or other entities.

State general revenues, for example, potentially, if the legislature were to authorize that.

Again, state revenues, there are processes for how you appropriate monies and how that money flows through to different things.

But yes, that could be a potential source of that as well.

The bonds that would be issued by these districts are not subject to or they're separate from bonds that cities or counties or other entities would be issuing.

So, any restrictions, these don't impact any limitations on that type of bond debt either.

And they're also not subject necessarily to the same restrictions that that bond debt would have.

Like they don't count toward the city's debt or the county's debt, or requirements that that they have to be voted on, unless it's a bond issue that the city or county is doing with the economic development district.

Yeah.

From a from a local perspective.

Any properties that would be in the district.

And again, these districts would have to be created by the legislature.

That's part of the authority that's given in this proposed amendment.

But those properties would be exempt from property taxes, but the district would be allowed to create other revenue raising streams so they could levy taxes, taxes, do assessment, have other charges that they would use to pay the bonds or any other expenses that would operate in that.

Would it be fair to characterize this as an enabling mechanism?

It's opening the doors to further legislative or action in the civic marketplace would have to occur.

Yes.

So this, again, it creates a framework of some new tools for economic development that aren't currently available within the state.

But again, the mechanics of how all that would work.

The specifics of what could qualify, what couldn't qualify, really any of the detail about how to operationalize this would have to be voted on by the legislature in future sessions.

Okay.

Do we have any formal opposition or announced opposition?

So there's not any formal opposition again, to any of the issues?

We are we do continue to monitor that.

So with any of these issues, if you go to our website, if something comes up, if there are other groups that come out and support or oppose any of these things that file with the state, we'll we'll provide that information on our website.

But right now there's not any organized opposition.

Obviously there are supporters and there is organized support for this.

Obviously, there are some opponents that are concerned about the lack of detail within the proposal.

And they're also a little bit concerned about just the tax ramifications for cities or counties or school districts, that sort of thing.

But, you know, the opponents or the supporters, on the other hand, there focused on the economic development potential of this, the the tools that it would give local areas to facilitate economic development within those regions of the state.

Sounds like what opposition, however minor it might be, that has surfaced this far.

Sounds like the concern is largely who who gets the bill if things go south.

Is that fair?

Yeah.

And just the fact that there are the details would have to be decided later.

So it's it's, you know, some people ought to know exactly how everything's going to work before they vote on that.

They're not going to have that with this.

They're going to have this, again, overarching framework.

There's one other thing in this, proposed amendment that, They've been very clear and I think intentional about just based on previous things that have happened with other amendments in the Constitution, and that is that this would take precedence over any other constitutional provisions, amendments, laws, judicial interpretation.

So anything that would come up that is currently in conflict or in the future would be in conflict would be voided.

Those wouldn't.

Yes.

This takes priority over all of those things.

Okay.

Fourth and final issue also involves money also involves bonded debt.

Yes.

So this one is a little different.

This is not an amendment to the Constitution.

The Constitution already gives, the legislature the ability to refer bond issues to the voters.

And so this one is called the Arkansas Water Waste Disposal and Pollution Abatement Facilities Financing Act of 2025.

And basically, it's going to authorize the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission, which is part of the Department of Agriculture, to issue up to $500 million in general obligation bonds to fund various projects related to water, waste disposal, pollution, drainage, irrigation, flood control, wetlands and aquatic resource projects.

There's some limitations on the money.

So, for example, it specifically designates that if it's an irrigation project or for any irrigation projects, you know, more than 165 million of the $500 million in bonds could be used for that.

It does require that A and C provide a proposal to the governor for her to approve before any bond issues were to happen.

It provides some limitations.

So there's a $60 million cap for a two year period on the amount of bonds that could be issued.

And the exception would be if the legislature came back and voted to extend that and allow more than that $60 million.

So that's sort of, I guess, a control mechanism to make sure that this is kind of a gradual, assumption of bonds for that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the bonds would be retired out so they could be retired.

I mean, from anyway, these are general obligation bonds.

So any funds that are available from the state to repay those bonds, the bonds could be refinanced.

And so if interest rates were to change and the state could get better rates, they might choose to refinance the bonds to use some of that money to pay back the existing bonds.

So, there's a lot of different ways that that could be used.

A couple other things about how the bonds could be used in addition to just projects that are happening.

These these bonds are typically used also to provide loans or grants to local entities for water projects.

So sometimes you'll see A and RC will announce, you know, all these projects in 30 different cities or counties for their water systems or whatever.

So this is a source of funds for that.

The funds could also be used as matching funds.

So obviously, well, not obviously I guess to a lot of people, but water infrastructure, wastewater infrastructure, pollution control, these are expensive, right?

But they are also basic infrastructures.

And so, we get money to finance these from revenues.

So when you pay your water bill, obviously that's helping to support that from bonds and things like this from the state but also from the federal government and even private sector.

And so these money from these bonds could be used as matching funds to help leverage, to bring in more resources to support.

There's some existing state programs that A and C uses as matches.

And so the funding from the previous bond issue is used as their match right now for federal EPA and then also for a state fund that exists right now.

And again, not much opposition, if any, has been recorded.

Yeah.

I mean, so we have been able to gather some concerns that have been raised.

I think the the bulk of those deal with just the concerns about extra cost of borrowing money.

Right.

Because that's essentially what they're doing.

Yeah.

Well, you're you're issuing bonds, but you're having to pay not just the bond, back.

You're also having to pay the interest associated with that.

So that's would be the biggest concern that the opponents, people that were opposed to this might have.

On the flip side, the supporters are going to tell this is a benefit to the entire state.

If you look through history about how the revenue has been used, it has benefited every single county in the state.

And it's worth mentioning that this year the ballot is the statewide ballot is bereft of any citizen initiatives.

Right.

But so there there was there were a couple of groups collecting signatures, and then one group submitted signatures, but then those signatures were not counted.

And so this is the first time since 2020 that there's not a citizen initiative on the ballot for voters to decide.

Yeah.

And how did that one what happened there?

Give us a bit of background.

Sure.

So that proposal, when they the sponsor submitted it to the attorney General's office to certify their ballot title, it was certified as the Arkansas Ballot Measure Rights Amendment.

And when it was circulated among voters, it was the ballot measure.

Right.

Amendment of 2026.

So when they turned in those 118,000, give or take signatures.

The Secretary of State's office saw that the petitions had a ballot, a popular name, a description for the ballot issue that was different than what was approved by the attorney general's office.

And so the secretary of state said these can't be counted under state law because the petition itself did not have the correct name.

Man, a bit about the operation.

How long have you guys been doing this now?

So we have done statewide ballot issues, education for every election since 2004.

And that's when the Public Policy Center was created.

And this is, you know, one of the mainstays that it was created to do.

We're not about how voters vote.

We want Arkansans to have all the information that they need to make an informed decision.

Now, we can't provide probably everything they need, but we at least try to explain the issues in a way that's a little more understandable than the legal language that has to appear by law in some of these proposals.

So, yeah, we've done it every statewide elections.

So every other year in the general election.

And then there's been some special elections sprinkled out throughout the years that how do you go about doing this?

Kristen has a lot of work.

Yeah.

I mean, it's it's not, you know, just pick it up and go within a month or two months before the election.

It's, you know, watching what's happening in communities.

Because we also do offer this for local elections as well by request.

And so just paying attention, what is the legislature doing?

Because they are the ones who file the proposals.

They had about 45 different constitutions, constitutional amendment proposals to go through.

And then they narrow that down to three.

So we're watching we know what they're doing at the legislature.

And then also who out in the community is talking about issues and wants to to to undertake the effort to go and collect signatures across the state because it is a big, big project for the citizens to do that.

So it's not if not a constant, it's a near-constant monitoring, if you will.

Right, right.

So there's already there have already been proposals submitted to the Attorney General's office for the next election.

Then you're building a file.

Yes, she is building a file.

And and I don't want to diminish the work that she does because she's monitoring all these things.

And then as we hone in on what they're going to be, Kristen spends a lot of time researching, really trying to think through how to explain these in a way that's logical.

And that would make sense to people that really care to try to understand what's going on.

She writes it up, then I'll spend a lot of time reviewing it, adding additional things, asking questions.

We go back and forth quite a bit for a few months.

Yes.

Yeah.

And then once we're happy with it, then we send it out to subject matter experts so that they can weigh in and say, oh, well, this isn't exactly how this bonds work or, or constitutional law experts.

So law school professors and supporters and opponents.

And I think that's what is unique about our information, is that supporters and opponents review it before we share it with the public, so that they have the opportunity to correct us or to offer additional context.

Well, in terms of additional information for Mr.

and Mrs.

Arkansas, who weren't fortunate enough to watch this edition of our broadcast.

Where can they go for additional.

We've talked about a website and somebody help us out there.

Right.

We have all of our information on our website which is UAE x dot you ada.edu.

And you can find our voter guide, their individual websites about all four proposals on the ballot this year as well as our archive.

And then we'll have videos on YouTube as well through our Division of Agriculture YouTube site.

And I will say we are distributing about 40,000 paper copies of the voter guide.

Those go out through our county extension offices.

If someone wants a presentation within their county, maybe a community group, church group, civic organization, they can reach out to the county agent and get something scheduled.

We'll have display boards and other things available as well.

And then, always we're going to continue to monitor if there's something that comes up, like we talked about, if there's new groups that come out opposing or supporting, we will continue updating our website.

And so if you want the the latest on what's going on, always go to the website in addition to our printed materials.

But I will say at least this year there are no pending lawsuits.

So the four issues, the four issues are the four issues.

None will be taken off point.

Right.

There is not any lawsuits filed.

There are no pending court decisions on any of the four proposals.

Well done as always.

So, Stacy, Kristen, thank you very much for bringing these insights to us.

This information.

Thank you very much.

And I guess we'll see in a couple of years, unless of course, there's a special election in between.

Oh, okay.

Well thank you, thank you.

Thanks.

As thanks as always.

And we'll be right back.

And we are back.

Statewide and congressional district offices are up for reelection as our state legislators and their challengers, if any, along with county and municipal candidates, the incumbents and the aspirational question.

Is there any local left in local or state politics, or has public policy and the pursuit of public office become thoroughly nationalized, with gas at $4 a gallon and ground beef up 10% from last year?

Arkansans would seem uneasy at best.

More on the Arkansas mindset now from Doctor Gayle.

Choate sees the executive director of the Arkansas Civic Action Network.

Thanks for coming aboard.

Thanks for having me today.

Here we are a few weeks away from Election Day.

What?

How do you read the Arkansas electorate is that is is that.

Do we need a finer brush than that?

Well, I think you brought up in your introduction a really interesting paradox.

People are hearing so much on the national level.

Every time you get on social media or traditional media, they're talking about what's happening nationally.

But yet Arkansans are really beginning to feel local issues hitting close to home, and they're suddenly taking a real interest in that difference between what happens at a city level as county level and a state level, and, of course, the federal level.

So I think this election cycle is going to be really interesting to see how people react.

And do they take up that local mantle a little bit more than they have in the past?

Well, in just in terms of turnout, is there a way to measure it?

I mean, one would think that, well, the August consumer price index I think was almost well, 3.4 to be exact.

Now does that energize a voter or does that depress he or she.

Well it's hard to tell.

And I think in Arkansas we're a little bit lack of data and ways of measuring some of that.

There's not a lot of money that pours into the state to look at what voter responses are.

So we're forced to kind of look at things on a little bit more aggregate basis.

And I think there's a lot of that.

That's positioning for an example.

You mentioned voter turnout.

The state has been spending a lot of energy registering new voters, both young people as well as just people who haven't registered in the past.

But one of the things that my organization is concerned with is, are those voter registrations turning into people going to the polls.

So one of the things that we're doing is we're actually measuring that we we are looking at whether or not there is an increase based upon efforts that are being made to educate and to motivate people to turn out to vote.

Can we really make a difference?

Can we really shift and get more people who are registered actually to turn up on Election Day?

How do you measure that?

Well, the way we do it is we've developed a data set that it starts with people when they first register to vote.

We get information from the state on registration.

We then are able to track that through their election behavior.

So did they vote in a primary?

Did they vote in this election?

ET cetera.

What we've done then is we've kind of layered on to that, which is public data.

Exactly.

It's all public data.

And we've layered on to that information, such as the petitions that were talked about earlier on your show.

We've looked at whether or not people signed petitions in the past.

Did they carry petitions as canvassers so that were able to begin to develop an idea of individuals as well as geographically, where there might be more or less participation happening?

And that gives us an opportunity then to track whether or not some of these efforts that are being made are helping.

It's axiomatic, I suppose, that if you've got a candidate, a hot race for sheriff in your county, you're a little more likely to turn out than not.

Absolutely.

So, like one of the things that Arkansas Civic Action Network that we focus on is trying to take those places where people are motivated because of one issue or another and make sure that they're educated on the whole ballot and what the process is, because one of the things that we've discovered in our research is that oftentimes the reason people don't vote, it's not because of apathy, it's because they're lacking the confidence to actually go to the poll.

They're afraid they're going to get there and somebody is going to ask them a question they don't know the answer to, or they don't have the right ID with them, or they don't know what's on the ballot.

So one of the things that we do is try to provide information about where can you get all that information?

How can you go confidently in.

And so that for an example, you're concerned about the sheriff.

Well, you might walk in and see the sheriff on your ballot, but what the heck is a constable?

Right.

And that might be showing up as well.

So asking that for years.

But anyway, so talking to people about how to find your sample ballot, how to research it in advance, how to find reliable news sources.

All of that is part of what we do.

Well, the public dialog, public and private, over the last several years anyway has not has done very little to to to ease that apprehension, that anxiety about what happens if I show up and I want to vote, but I'm not legally qualified.

I don't have the documents.

I don't have the photo ID or whatever.

And you're absolutely right.

That is a concern in a growing concern.

And what we're trying to get out the word on for this election cycle is that in this election cycle, the state law is very clear about the idea that you need to show.

You need to show a driver's license.

You need to show a state issued ID like from a university.

For example, you could show your concealed permit, a carry permit, if that's something that you happen to have.

And even if you walk into the pool without an ID, you can still vote a provisional ballot.

If, for example, you forgot it at home.

Right.

There's a lot of checks and balances that are in the system already.

And so we want people to feel confident that that if they've registered and their registration is valid and current and they haven't been purged.

So check it before registration date right in the beginning of October.

But it provided that that's the case, they can walk in confidently and cast their vote.

And we should note that this is not an ideological or a partizan undertaking.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Our organization is completely nonpartisan.

We believe that we are there to help empower our Kansans to become active members of the community.

We always say we don't care how they vote.

We just want them to vote.

Because if the elections that are being held, if the votes that are cast, the decisions that are being made represent the desires and the views of Arkansans, well, then that's that's the best we can hope for.

Right.

Is there a concern that has been expressed in some quarters that to encourage individuals to vote, who have no hard feelings or have no keen interest in public affairs, is that necessarily wise?

Well, I think you can go back to our founding documents, right.

And there's concern about the uneducated or the uninformed somehow about it.

Right.

And they're concerned about them like voting without knowledge and somehow that skewing things.

But the reality is we have a responsibility to tell people what they're voting for and to do it in a way that's clear and concise and that people can understand.

Candidates have that responsibility.

So do we, as members of the civic community here in the state or any place else?

Yeah.

Are you making progress?

I think so.

I think so.

We have, for example, one of the things that we've been doing the last few years is what we call a confident voter workshop.

And we're seeing that increase dramatically in terms of requests coming in from local communities.

Whereas in the past, a lot of work has been done in the urban centers, say, in central Arkansas or maybe northwest Arkansas.

Now the requests are coming from the Delta.

They're coming from northeast Arkansas.

People who want to be involved and want to have a better understanding.

I'm really excited about it because as an educator, nothing is better than a motivated audience.

So I think there is more interest, and I think that we're able to, as a result of that, get people more engaged and more informed.

Follow up on an earlier question.

The overall tenor, anyway, of the public dialog in the last several decades, it would seem, has not necessarily encouraged civic involvement.

I think that that's true.

There's been this understanding that the representative side of our government is the most important, but we are representative democracy, which means that we need to be involved.

So we're finding that lately, especially in the last year or so, that there's been a greater interest because of issues that are facing local communities.

On getting more involved, they're starting to see the impact.

There are certainly things that are happening throughout the state right now.

Kristen Higgins has talked in the past about how local initiatives are important.

So, for example, there's a local initiative right now in Jacksonville or in Fort Smith to change their form of city government.

There are local initiatives about wet counties versus dry counties.

Those are people on a local level wanting to get involved.

And once that happens on an issue basis, then it becomes easy to understand why who you vote for matters.

Can that be sustained though?

Suppose there's a wet, dry and a whatever count County acts or a Sunday sales referendum in Fulton County.

And that would energize certainly the local election.

But can that be sustained?

Well, I think it can be sustained if the county and the city governments and the state governments work harder at making sure that they're passing on information to people.

Plus, the other piece of it is getting young people involved in educated in the system.

So like one of the things that we do is we have a program specifically for high school students.

It's called Civic Academy, and it's designed to give students, young people an opportunity to see how their government works, but how they are supposed to be interacting with it.

Right.

Our government was not ever designed to be static, or to have a bunch of folks thousand miles away making decisions.

It's always been a two way street.

And so as a result of that, young people seeing how they can make their voices heard and how they can interact gives them the opportunity to learn that behavior so that it can be sustainable.

Because you're right.

Otherwise, it's just a drop in the pan.

Okay.

And it's probably not less interject here.

You and the organization with I think the with the ag people at the university.

You got a guide to canvassers.

Yeah, absolutely.

How to do it?

You know how you know.

Absolutely.

Which can't do.

We think that that's important, especially after the 2024 legislative session, when there were a number of laws passed that were going to make it more particular about how signatures were gathered.

The individual canvasser was being held criminally responsible if fraud occurred.

They were being criminally held responsible if they didn't read the title.

There was a lot of rules placed on them.

So Arkansas Civic Action Network and the Public Policy Center, Kristen Higgins and I felt that it was really important that people have information that was reliable and that they could count on, so they could again be confident going in and exercising their right to petition the state.

So we worked with the Secretaries of State office to develop a volunteer campus or guide that was used and won an award.

So we're pretty proud of it.

Okay.

And to get one little late this season.

But it is.

But they're available on our website.

They're available on the Public Policy Center's website as well.

And of course, we have a legislative session coming up and there may be some additional.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

You talked about motivating young people to vote or getting them that spark anyway, nodding that spark anyway.

Can that be sustained because a lot of candidates are archly disappointed on on the Wednesday?

Or matter of fact, on the Tuesday night of the election that their younger supporters simply did not turn out.

Well, I think there's a there's a couple of things that are at play.

One is that we have to start listening to young people, not just asking them to do something right.

So there is this tendency that we keep saying, oh, the the onus is on the young people.

It's their future.

They're the ones who are going to correct things.

They're the ones who are going to take us forward, but we don't let them do it in a way that makes sense for them or that again, amplifies their voices.

So I think that's an important part of it.

For example, here in Arkansas, we mandate civic education in the ninth grade.

So students in the ninth grade receive one semester of civic education.

But it's basically the levels of government, the checks and balances.

It doesn't teach them how to participate.

It doesn't teach them how they can get involved.

It doesn't teach them they can go to a city council meeting or they can testify at our state legislature.

So those are important pieces that we have to do a better job at.

Yeah.

Is there a special concern?

I suspect there is among voters of color, ethnic voters who may be new to the process, new to the state, for that matter, of the country?

Absolutely.

I mean, there's there is a hesitancy on behalf of voters if they haven't seen the government be supportive of them or see them and hear them on a daily basis.

Part of what we label as apathy is really mistrust, right?

And it's it.

If you hear, quiet down, don't speak up, we'll take care of it enough.

Eventually you just quit speaking up.

Right.

And so that's part of what happened.

So what we need to do is we need to find more ways for folks to get involved.

You know, one of the things that I think in my research, I have found over and over again, is that civic action is much more than voting.

We talk about it as if it's only elections, but it is every day being involved in our communities and finding civic spaces, places that we can have these conversations is really important too.

Well, an extent.

Does it not extend beyond, say, the City council?

It would involve the Rotary Club or the Lions Club or houses of worship?

Absolutely.

All of those whole social fabric?

Absolutely.

It's one of the things, for example, schools have traditionally been a place where conversations can happen, right?

When you have a neighborhood school and all the kids in the neighborhood go to the same school, it means that all the moms and dads go to the same football games, and they go to the same PTA meetings, and you start to have conversations about the things that are important to you and your community just in passing.

Right.

It doesn't always have to be a formalized event, and we've lost some of that because we've become disconnected.

I mean, our schools with school choice now are scattered.

You know, in a single city block, you could have six students going to six different schools.

Right.

And mom and dad will never meet each other.

So we have to find more ways of bringing us together.

And like you mentioned, community organizations like the rotary or the Lions Club.

Our churches are certainly a place where that could be happening.

And we had Girl Scouts for each.

There are other places, but we need to make sure that we plug into them.

Is that that social fabric has it frayed visibly?

Oh, absolutely.

In recent years?

Absolutely.

I mean, Robert Putnam starts writing about it in his famous book, Bowling Alone, right?

About the deterioration of that social fabric.

But we've seen more and more of it.

And as a result of that, we've also seen people turn to social media as an alternative.

That was Monaco.

It's I'm reading your mind, but in social media, of course, doesn't doesn't fit the bill because it's not that informal and it's not that diverse.

Right?

Group of group of people because social media feeds us through algorithms.

People that think like us, that have the same opinions we do.

And so we begin to take on this distorted view that everybody thinks the same way we do when the reality is, if we step outside of that echo chamber, we find out there's a whole diversity of opinions and ideas and ways of doing things.

An individual on a college professor, when the pandemic occurred, began to teach from the waist up.

From the kitchen table.

And a friend remarked to her well you know this is neat for you, I mean you just all you do your hair being pajama bottoms or whatever.

And she replied I hate it.

I hate it.

At first it was fun.

But now I'm not with my students and you know they need me, but they need to be together.

They need to see each other, touch each other.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, I teach at the university also, so I have that same experience.

And it's horrible because they lose the opportunity to actually have discussions with each other and to see what's going on.

And I mentioned our Engaged Civic Academy and how we train high school students about how the government works.

One of the things we ask them to do is to attend a city council or quorum court meeting, or a school board meeting.

And we tell them it's not the same to watch it on TV, because on TV you're going to see only one point of view.

But when you're in the room, you see all the side conversations.

You see all the facial reactions that are happening.

And you have to have that total picture.

If you're really going to understand how people in your community are feeling about things.

The broader issue here seems to be just human contact, and we're losing so much of that.

I mean, people staring at their phones and pecking at the keyboard or the little mini keyboard all day long.

And it seems to some extent to have isolated us.

And that has that has a negative impact on civic participation.

Absolutely.

It does.

And I think one of the other things that it we've done is we've developed this rhetoric of us and them, right?

Putting people into camps or corners, depending upon whether or not we think that they're going to agree or disagree with us.

And we've we've developed this like overreliance on those kinds of labels.

I get concerned every time.

For an example, I'm on social media and I see somebody say, does anybody know a liberal grocer because I want to buy my groceries from them?

I want to, you know, you know, a conservative pharmacist.

Like those kinds of conversations are very, very scary to me as a researcher, because it begins to set up this idea that we need to, number one, be afraid of each other.

And that, number two, that we're we're not willing to have conversations about.

Why do you feel the way you do?

Because oftentimes the solutions are right below those those those firm beliefs and they're they're rooted in a problem.

For example, if I might the the voter identification issue.

Right.

People I hear all the time saying, what's the big concern about showing an ID to vote?

Right.

We all should have ID if we're a U.S.

citizen.

What's the problem?

And we when we start to have the conversation about it, about what could be the problem, we begin to peel back the layers where it's not necessarily the issue of the ID that's the problem.

It's the issue that some folks in our communities don't have access to getting an ID they ride three busses to get to work, the DMV or the state.

Issuance is not available.

When they are, they don't have a way to get there or they grew up in a were born in a rural community where maybe their birth records aren't accessible.

So it's not about what we argue about.

It's below that surface.

And as you mentioned, it's at the people level.

Is there the concern, though, that the voiced concern among those who are are so vigorously advocating for, say, voter ID or stricter requirements for voting at the polling place, is that the absence of such opens the door to election fraud, or I would have one.

I would argue that if election fraud were such a huge issue in this country.

Why are we not prosecuting those who are committing it?

Where is the list of people who have committed fraud?

And if those lists exist, and if we have, we have prosecuted it, then I could stand by that argument.

But I'm concerned.

The same thing happened with canvasing, right?

There was this big talk, a lot of rhetoric about the fact we have to pass these additional regulations on the petition process in Arkansas because of fraud, yet we have never prosecuted someone for committing petition fraud.

Does that dampened enthusiasm?

Absolutely.

It's a factor in any way.

Absolutely.

It does.

Because who wants to do something that they're going to be potentially right, harassed about or or prosecuted, prosecuted, prosecuted for even worse, right.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

All those things dampen it.

And it's that kind of thing.

It's because we've lost sight, as you mentioned, of the people.

Right.

The fact that we're just all neighbors trying to build the best communities that we can.

Yeah.

The your network and the other organization mechanisms, as it were, for encouraging and citizen involvement.

What's the next step?

Well, the next step, I think, is to just try to duplicate and get get more word out.

So for example, the way that we develop our training programs, I mentioned we have a confident voter training program.

We've just recently redone our website to make it even easier for people to get information.

You sign on and and it says, do you want to be a confident voter?

Here's what you have to know to register.

Here's what you have to know to show up to vote.

Here's what you need to know about who is representing you today, that sort of thing.

But those programs need to be brought out into the the diverse reaches of our state.

So we use a train the trainer approach.

So we're always looking for people who are concerned citizens, concerned community members, those groups, community groups like you mentioned earlier, that might want to be involved in helping their folks become more confident.

And we'll give them materials in the training and we'll teach them how to do it.

Yeah.

In terms of public policy, though, legislation, if you were.

Assuming that the political climate would permit it, what can we do?

What what could be done with the governmental level, I think, to to move this along.

I think at a governmental level, number one is to really stop and look at creating some bipartisan commissions and bipartisan agreement.

Right.

It's very difficult in Arkansas right now, with a supermajority in place and a trifecta government to get good conversation going.

But there are some really good legislators all the way around who try to make that happen.

And we need to be able to encourage that by bringing more bipartisan things to the to the, to the floor.

I think the other thing is for all of us to really think about who we are and how we identify ourselves, rather than saying, I'm a Republican or I'm a Democrat, maybe it's I support these issues.

I am concerned about these issues instead, and get rid of some of that labeling that we put on each other, and instead start talking to each other like neighbors.

Yeah.

You have a wish list.

Oh, gosh.

Yeah.

I wish that there was more coming.

Christmas is coming.

Yeah, I wish that there was more opportunities to talk to high school kids, kids that are in our school systems about how they can get involved.

I wish there was more opportunities for people who are in our communities, doing the work every day to mentor and to provide guidance.

I wish there was more ways for us to bring voices together and amplify them in a positive way.

And I wish there was more times for me to come and visit you and talk about these kinds of issues.

Well, we'll try, but, you know, we talked earlier in the program about the the state mandated formal instruction anyway in civic involvement as not necessarily missing the mark, but it would be nice if there were more of it.

Absolutely.

It's one of the things that we've been talking to both members of our legislature as well as teachers and for example, the Arkansas Education Association, about whether or not it would make sense for civics to be taught maybe at 11th grade instead of at ninth grade, when when students are closer to reaching adulthood and being adult active members of civic society, that might be something that could change.

I think also just more funding for, again, this kind of practicum approach right now when they take a civics class.

The end result is they have to take an exam, a multiple choice kind of exam, to show that they're literate in civics.

I'd like to see them be able to develop a portfolio so that they can demonstrate how they've actually gotten involved in their communities, as a way to show that they've understood how civics should work in our state.

Well, we trust that their hearts are in the right place, but I can hear classroom teachers now saying, oh gosh, not more.

Well that's true.

That is true.

We always have to work through that.

Right?

And that's where private and public partnerships come into play.

I think that's the other thing.

We could be doing a better job at all right.

Take a look at these ballot.

We got four ballot questions.

Okay.

Your thoughts.

Well, my thoughts are that rather than looking at them individually, let me just as a whole, what I'm hearing from people, what I'm hearing as we're out traveling the state and talking to Arkansans, is that there's a concern that some of the ballot initiatives are kind of taking over local governance.

They're very worried about the state coming in, for example, with amendment three, the one about the economic development zones.

They're concerned about the state being able to decide where economic development zones are without there being local involvement or with it somehow local involvement.

So I think we're seeing that as an overarching theme, whether we're talking about the amendments that are coming up or we're talking about data centers or we're talking about flock cameras, or we're talking about solar farms, right.

There is a concern at a very ground level that there perhaps is not enough opportunity for the local governments to take care of their own, to take care of their own areas, and that there's this kind of on high look that's happening.

And so there's a there's a concern about that.

Yeah.

Well, the reaction not just in Arkansas is not peculiar to Arkansas, but nationwide, the react public reaction to data centers in particular, would seem to illustrate now what the ultimate outcome will be.

I mean, no one knows, but I mean, it would seem to straight that citizens can be heard.

Oh, absolutely.

And data centers are probably was our best advertisement right this last year because suddenly everybody cares about what happens at a local level, a county level, a state level and a federal level, because all four of those levels of government have something to do with the data center issue.

So suddenly people are in order to be able to voice their concerns to the right.

People are needing to understand where those jurisdictions are and how they work together.

Yeah.

And that can be sustained.

I think so, I think so I think it's a, you know, opening a little portal right into the greater civic involvement.

I think if we were there once and we've, we've, we've maybe gotten to a point where we're not quite as much.

I believe in history and cycles.

Right.

So maybe we're the pendulum is swinging back.

Gayle Choate, Arkansas Civic Action Network, thank you for coming in.

It was my pleasure.

Will you come back?

Absolutely.

I'd love to.

It's a date.

Thank you.

And that does it for us for this week.

As always, we thank you for watching.

And we'll see you next week.