Associated Press

Proposed ballot measures that would affect North Dakota's child custody laws and the qualifications for state school superintendent have fallen short of qualifying for a statewide vote.

Once a proposed initiative petition is approved for circulation, advocates have one year to gather the minimum number of signatures they need, Secretary of State Al Jaeger said. If they cannot do so, the petition fails, and supporters of the idea must start over.

Backers of a North Dakota constitutional amendment to require the state superintendent of public instruction to be a licensed teacher were unable to collect the 25,688 signatures that they needed within a year, Jaeger said Friday.

The initiative began circulating after Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem, in a February 2007 legal opinion, concluded that the North Dakota Legislature could not require the state school superintendent to be a teacher.

Paul Wilkins II, a Mandan businessman and former Democratic candidate for the North Dakota House, responded by organizing a campaign to change the North Dakota Constitution.

His proposed amendment specified that the superintendent of public instruction had to be a certified teacher, and spend at least 40 hours each year teaching in a classroom while in office.

Jaeger approved Wilkins' petition for circulation Aug. 14, 2007. The signatures needed to be submitted by midnight Thursday to beat the year deadline, and Jaeger said Friday nothing was turned in.

Repeated attempts to reach Wilkins for comment over the last two weeks have been unsuccessful. Jaeger said he had also been unable to reach Wilkins.

The year's deadline for the child custody initiative arrives at midnight Monday. Mitch Sanderson, of Grand Forks, an organizer for the campaign, said the petition would not be submitted. Advocates of the measure stopped collecting signatures weeks ago, Sanderson said.

Debora Vaagen of West Fargo, the chairman of the child custody campaign, referred questions about the measure to Sanderson.

Two other proposals are still pending. One, which would regulate the placement of new oil pipelines, must get at least 12,844 signatures by May 11, 2009, to qualify for the ballot. The deadline for the second measure, which seeks to limit state and local government spending increases, arrives Jan. 22, 2009.

The spending initiative is a proposed constitutional amendment, and its petition needs at least 25,688 signatures to have a chance for a statewide vote. Its chairman, Ron Almquist, of Minot, said advocates of the measure would press to meet the goal.

Backers of the spending measure had hoped to qualify for a vote this November, but they could not meet an Aug. 5 deadline for turning in their petitions, Almquist said.

"We are not giving up on this," he said. "We are going to go forward."