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A referendum regarding whether Pope County, Arkansas, will continue to be among the state’s casino sites will appear on the ballots for voters in November 2024. Until this week, though, there was a question as to whether election officials would actually count the votes on the issue.
Those votes will count after the Arkansas Supreme Court rejected two challenges to Issue 2, which is on the ballot for voters across the state. If they approve the measure, it will have both immediate and far-reaching effects.
Arkansas Supreme Court rejects challenges
The justices of the Arkansas Supreme Court and their clerks have been busy this week. On Monday, the state’s highest court issued a ruling on one challenge to Issue 2.
Monday’s decision from the court rejected the grounds for the challenge to Issue 2’s legitimacy. That challenge focused on how signatures ing the ballot measure were collected.
The complaint alleged that canvassers violated state law by failing to correctly. The challenge also claimed that canvassers were offered financial incentives to amass signatures, another potential violation.
The justices unanimously found that the claimants failed to provide adequate evidence to their arguments. On Thursday, the justices issued a similar ruling but by a smaller margin.
According to Daniel Breen and Josie Lenora of KUAR, the Court rejected a second challenge to Issue 2 on Thursday by a 6-5 vote. That complaint argued that the language of the ballot measure was misleading, but a majority of the justices disagreed.
The ironic thing is that this might not be the last time the Arkansas Supreme Court weighs in on the matter of brick-and-mortar casinos in Arkansas.
Casino litigation could continue
Issue 2 has two components. The first would be to repeal the license for a casino in Pope County that voters authorized in 2018.
The second would be to require a local referendum for any future casino considerations within the county or counties that would act as hosts to such gaming. However, that situation is currently unfeasible.
The 2018 amendment authorized four casinos in Arkansas and specified locations for each. While Pope County remains vacant in of actually having a casino up and running, the other three licenses were executed and casinos are operational there.
That language would need further adjustments to add to Arkansas’ existing casino landscape. Issue 2 could raise that bar even further but not prevent such a change in the future.
Whether that will be a consideration for casino developers in the future remains uncertain, though. Issue 2’s fate remains murky despite surviving the court challenges.
Voter sentiment on Issue 2 is hard to read
Polling on Issue 2 in Arkansas for 2024 has been light. A Talk Business & Politics poll shows that 42% of respondents expressed for Issue 2 while 30% were undecided and another 28% expressed disapproval.
With almost a third of the people who responded to the survey expressing that they could vote either way, Issue 2 seems to still have a strong chance of being defeated. Should that prove to be the case, the licensed party could move forward with development of a casino in Pope County.
In theory, that is. More litigation is likely to be ahead in that situation.
Challenge to Pope County license looming
If a license to operate a casino in Pope County still exists after Election Day 2024, that will become the new focus of litigation on the matter. The Arkansas Supreme Court would be likely to have to get involved again.
In July, the Arkansas Racing Commission (ARC) issued a license for a casino in Pope County to Cherokee Nation Entertainment (CNE). One bidder for that license, Gulfside Casino Partnership, already has a history of filing legal challenges in this exact circumstance and one such matter is already pending.
The history of the litigation over a casino in Pope County is already years-long in Arkansas, involving the state’s highest court multiple times. Should Issue 2 fail at the ballot box, it seems probable that Gulfside will move forward with its challenge to the ARC’s award of the license for Pope County to CNE.
That probability is strong considering that one of the parties involved in Gulfside, the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, has also been a major donor for the organization ing Issue 2. Opponents of Issue 2 have argued that the Choctaw Nation is trying to protect the business interests of its casinos across the state border in Oklahoma.
If Issue 2 fails, the justices probably won’t have seen the last of Pope County casino litigation. An expensive and prolonged legal battle will endure.
