Attorney General reject Indian group's ballot title again

LITTLE ROCK Supporters of an effort to declare the Lost Cherokee of Arkansas a state-recognized Indian tribe have lost a second try to get their measure on November's ballot.

Attorney General Mike Beebe today rejected the language of the group's revised proposal. He said it still does not get around the fact that neither the U-S nor the Arkansas constitution gives the state's voters power the power to recognize an Indian tribe.

Based in northern Arkansas, the Lost Cherokee of Arkansas and Missouri organized in April 1999, with an office in Clinton, where they say their ancestors once lived. The group claims to be descendants of those who refused to leave their homeland in the 1800s and move farther west. They proposed the constitutional amendment and wanted Arkansas voters to decide the issue in the November Seventh general election.

To make it to the ballot, the measure needed the attorney general's certification and 80-thousand, 570 signatures, which the secretary of state's office would have to verify.

Dub Maxwell, a representative of the tribe, wrote in a letter to Beebe that other states have procedures in place to recognize Indian tribes. Beebe wrote that the procedures of other states are not relevant to whether the group's proposal can go before Arkansas voters.