By Steven Brawner, © 2019 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

We’re getting a pretty good idea of some of the choices you’ll have on your ballot in 2020: definitely a sales tax extension for highways, and potentially legislative term limits and a proposal to make it harder to amend Arkansas’ Constitution.

Let’s start with the highway tax.

When the legislative session began, Gov. Asa Hutchinson made highway funding a priority. One relatively easy way to do that is to ask voters to continue paying a tax they’re already paying. In this case, it would be a half-cent sales tax voters approved in 2012 to fund the Connecting Arkansas Program for highways.

It’s due to expire in 2023. Voters can make it permanent next November through a constitutional amendment referred by the Legislature. It would provide about $205 million a year for the state’s highways and another $88 million for city and county roadways.

Legislators have already passed a bill increasing gasoline prices by 3 cents per gallon and diesel prices by 6 cents, and also raising registration fees on hybrid and electric cars. That package will raise $95 million for highways and about $26 million for cities and counties.

The constitutional amendment has the support of powerful entities, including the Chamber of Commerce, which says businesses need good roads. Also working in its favor will be Arkansans’ everyday experiences driving on potholed pavement. But Arkansans also have everyday experiences paying taxes.

So the question for voters will be: What’s a higher priority, better roads or lower taxes?

The Legislature can refer up to three constitutional amendments to voters. The highway tax will be one. Dozens of others have been proposed. Senate President Pro Tempore Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs, told me two are in the lead.

One is a proposal by Sen. Alan Clark, R-Lonsdale, to change the state’s term limits law. Clark’s proposal, after it’s amended, would reduce the current 16-year legislative term limits to 12, with lawmakers eligible for office again after sitting out four years. Judges would serve 16 years before having to sit out four.

This is a case of “Do unto yourself before others do it unto you.” Voters in 1992 passed one of the nation’s strictest term limits laws. Then they voted to increase the number of terms in 2014 as part of a sprawling “ethics” amendment with the term limits provision sneakily buried inside. In 2018, the group Arkansas Term Limits responded with a proposal that was even tougher than the 1992 version. However, the Supreme Court kept it off the ballot because it supposedly didn’t have enough signatures.

They’ll be back, so this is a way for legislators to get in front of the issue.

Another frontrunner is a proposal by Sen. Mat Pitsch, R-Fort Smith, that would make it harder to amend the Constitution. For citizen-led amendments, it would increase the number of counties where the minimum signatures must be collected from 15 to 45, and it would require signatures to be submitted by Jan. 15 of an election year. (Now it’s four months before the election.) It also would require a three-fifths majority of legislators to refer amendments to voters.

Pitsch said the Constitution is “supposed to be written in granite,” but it’s been amended 20 times in the last seven election cycles. By comparison, the U.S. Constitution has been amended 17 times since the Bill of Rights was added in 1791. Laws that should be enacted through legislation instead are being inscribed in the Constitution. Also, the process is vulnerable to special interest groups who can write themselves a permanent place in state law, as occurred with the casino amendment voters passed in 2018.

Much can happen between now and when legislators make their final decisions. This is a snapshot of where things stand, not an ironclad prediction.

Still, if you want to bet on what will join the highway plan on the ballot, you’d probably at least break even picking term limits and constitutional amendment reform.

You’d have better odds than you would at the casinos.