AMENDMENT PETITIONERS 'IN THE BLACK'

The committee working for a state constitutional ban on same-sex unions
overcame its immediate financial crisis but is in aggressive fund-raising
mode as it continues the campaign, the group's spokesman said Thursday.

John Thomas of the Arkansas Marriage Amendment Committee said the
organization was able to raise the approximately $5,100 needed by Thursday
afternoon to pay employees and payroll taxes on time. On Tuesday, that sum
wasn't on hand.

Thomas said the committee raised about $7,000 in two days. But he
acknowledged that the surplus won't last long with an ongoing campaign and
four full-time employees.

"We're just always fund-raising. That's the nature of this work," he said.

On Tuesday, the committee sent out an urgent e-mail plea for cash, citing a
bookkeeping error. Jerry Cox, the committee president, updated supporters
with another e-mail Thursday.

"Our bank account is in the black, but with little surplus," he said.

In its struggle for campaign contributions, the committee has something in
common with the Arkansas Alliance for Medical Marijuana, which wants to
legalize marijuana for medical use through a ballot initiative. The
alliance, too, is cash-poor.

"We have sent out a plea for any and all kinds of financial support that
anyone might be willing to make to us," Denele Campbell of West Fork, the
alliance treasurer, said Thursday.

Both committees are waiting to hear from Secretary of State Charlie Daniels
on whether they submitted enough signatures of registered voters to get
their proposals on the Nov. 2 ballot.

The marriage proposal is to amend the Arkansas Constitution to define
marriage as "consisting only of the union of one man and one woman." The
amendment would also ban same-sex civil unions.

The committee, as well as other organizations campaigning for or against
ballot initiatives, filed financial disclosures Thursday with the Arkansas
Ethics Commission.

The Marriage Amendment Committee reported that it raised $82,742 through
June 30 and spent $81,110. That left $1,632 on hand in the campaign account.

According to the report, the marriage amendment committee's biggest
contributors in June were Ed and Judy Ligon of Little Rock, who contributed
$10,000.

Ligon is the former owner of Orbit Valve International Inc., a manufacturer
of valves for the oil and gas industry.

Thomas said Ligon has been a longtime supporter of the Family Council, a
conservative research organization in Little Rock headed by Cox, the leader
of the marriage amendment committee.

Thomas said the ballot committee is a pretty lean operation, considering it
submitted more than 200,000 signatures on the petition it filed July 1 in
its effort to get the amendment on the ballot.

The marijuana alliance reported Thursday that it spent $337,023 through the
end of June and had less success gathering signatures on the petition for
its proposed initiated act.

Its proposal would legalize marijuana for people with "debilitating medical
conditions."

Almost all the money raised and spent by the alliance came from Peter B.
Lewis, a Cleveland billionaire who has supported similar causes in other
states.

The alliance paid a political consulting firm, the Southwest Group of Las
Vegas, to gather signatures by the July 2 deadline, but alliance organizers
say they expect to have to gather more signatures over the next month or so
in hopes of replacing those that might be declared invalid.

The alliance's report filed with the Ethics Commission showed that it paid
the Southwest Group another $42,500 in June, bringing the total amount paid
to the firm to $228,500.

Campbell executive director of the Alliance for Reform of Drug Policy in
Arkansas, which created the ballot committee, said Arkansas supporters
weren't pleased with the way the campaign was conducted.

"We were concerned that it looked like a large amount of money for what
seemed to be fairly poor results," Campbell said.

Once the Lewis donations came in, the Marijuana Policy Project of
Washington dictated how the money would be spent, Campbell said. The
Washington group has since announced that it's pulled out of the Arkansas
campaign in part because the signature gathering process wasn't as
successful as hoped.

The Southwest Group has referred questions regarding the Arkansas campaign
to the Marijuana Policy Project.

Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the project, said with roughly 70,000
signatures submitted, which is the alliance's revised estimate, the
alliance didn't spend an exorbitant amount.

"We paid almost exactly the going rate for professional signature gathering
operations, roughly $3 per signature," he said. "Given that Arkansas is a
difficult state, that was entirely within expectations."

In June, the alliance transferred most of its remaining money, $77,696, to
a newly created ballot committee called the Arkansas Coalition for
Compassionate Care. Campbell said that was done at the request of Marijuana
Policy Project.

The treasurer and spokesman for the coalition, Chloe Crater of El Dorado,
didn't return telephone messages Thursday seeking information about what
that money will be used for.