If you want to know just how outdated the office of constable is, go ask 10 people on the street to name the township they live in.
Chances are, most will be able to identify their town or even their community, but won’t be certain about the name of their townships. Some won’t even know there’s such a thing as townships.
Townships as political boundaries are barely used these days, and that use is mostly limited to election polling places. But townships are exactly from where constables are elected. They’re not county officers. They’re not town marshals or city police.
They are a constitutional relic of bygone days.
And so it is the 89th General Assembly will again have a chance to eliminate this anachronistic office.
House Joint Resolution 1006, filed by freshman Republican state Rep.
Dan Douglas of Benton County, is not titled “The Spit in the Wind Act of 2013” or the “Tilting At Windmills Act.”
But it could be.
Douglas is the latest lawmaker to take a shot at ridding Arkansas of the office of constable, and we salute him for it.
It is no simple task or it would have been accomplished years ago. The Arkansas Constitution, written in 1874, includes constables as law enforcement officers, back before most law enforcement needs were met by city police and county sheriffs and their deputized forces.
Douglas’ resolution would, if approved by the Legislature, put a constitutional amendment before the voting public at the next general election.
If the public agrees to the amendment as it is written, it would create a new power for the quorum court in each of Arkansas’ 75 counties.
That governing body would be allowed to refer to their voters the question of whether to abolish all township offices of constable within that county’s borders.
Our sense has long been the office is outdated and unnecessary, but the office has its advocates. Even new Benton County Sheriff Kelley Cradduck has expressed some support for involving constables in his office’s protection of the county.
We hear from time to time the claim that constables are important in certain counties, often the very rural ones where even the county sheriff doesn’t have an extensive force. At least with Douglas’ proposed amendment, each county would get to make a decision on its own. We’re confident Benton and Washington counties have grown to the point constables are a needless distraction to the real business of law enforcement. Both counties have respectable forces of county deputies and several cities with their own police forces. But if the voters of Newton County or Cleveland County want to embrace their constables, this measure would allow that continued practice.
It seems only right this idea arises from Benton County. In 2012, County Judge Bob Clinard took a step many county leaders didn’t even know was an option: He cut down the number of constables authorized in the county by reducing the number of townships within its borders from 15 to five.
Washington County, despite some talk of a similar move, still has 15 constables.
So why do we think Douglas’ measure won’t go anywhere even if we support the idea behind it?
Because the Legislature, by law, is allowed to submit only three constitutional amendments every two years to the voters for consideration. In the past, other issues have been viewed as more important to the state’s future. There’s little to suggest this year will be any different.
But one can always hope.
Opinion, Pages 5 on 02/20/2013