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Lottery campaign spends more than $37,000 Saturday, Feb 16, 2008 By Rob Moritz Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Lt. Gov. Bill Halter's campaign for a constitutional amendment to create a state lottery paid a Michigan firm $37,000 last month for signatures it has collected to get the measure on the November general election ballot, a financial report filed Friday showed. Friday was the deadline for campaign committees working to get proposals - constitutional amendments or initiated acts - on the ballot to file monthly financial reports with the Arkansas Ethics Commission. Halter's campaign, the Hope for Arkansas Committee, raised $75,000 in January, all from John Bailey, owner of Bailey Properties in Little Rock, his wife, Patricia, and his father, Ted Bailey. The family has pledged $300,000 to the campaign and has donated $165,650 so far. The report also showed the committee spent $45,000, with most going to National Voter Outreach Inc., which was hired in October to collect the 78,000 signatures needed to get the measure on the November general election ballot. The deadline to collect signatures is July 7. "Within the past month, the lieutenant governor has continued to campaign on behalf of the scholarship lottery, we have hired a new campaign manager, trained more signature collectors and gathered more signatures," campaign spokesman Bud Jackson said. This week, the state AFL-CIO endorsed the proposal. Halter's proposed constitutional amendment would earmark lottery proceeds for college scholarships. He has said a lottery could generate $100 million annually for scholarships. Halter's campaign reported raising nearly $195,000 to date and spending $164,600, according to finance reports. The Family Council Action Committee, the political arm of the conservative Family Council, filed two reports. One was for its campaign against the proposed lottery and the other for a proposed initiated act that would ban unmarried, cohabiting couples from adopting children or becoming foster parents. The anti-lottery campaign reported raising $10 and spending $119 in January. Since the effort to oppose the lottery began last year, the committee has raised $1,415 and spent $1,251, according to reports. The campaign for the adoption and foster care initiative reported raising $135 in January and spending $3,825. The committee has raised $16,640 and spent $9,814 on its campaign. John Thomas, spokesman for the Family Council Action Committee, said Friday that both campaigns are going well. He said a grassroots campaign is being developed to fight the lottery, and signatures are currently being collected to get the adoption and foster care initiated act on the ballot. Supporters need to collect just over 62,000 by July 7 to get the measure on the ballot. Also filing a report Friday was the Arkansas Committee for Ethics Policy, which also is fighting the lottery proposal. That committee reported raising $10,000 in January and not spending any money. |
