Plans unveiled for GOP judicial PAC

A political action committee will be created soon to contribute to and endorse judicial candidates, the co-chairman of the state Republican Party Judicial Review Committee said Saturday.

Americans for Judicial Excellence will operate separately from the state Republican Party, said Johnny Rhoda of Clinton.

Republicans have a majority of the seats in the Arkansas House of Representatives and Senate, “yet with this success we are still in need of more focused work,” he told more than 150 people attending a meeting of the GOP’s State Committee.

Party members hold51 seats in the 100-member House, 21 seats in the 35-member Senate and three of the state’s seven constitutional offices - lieutenant governor, secretary of state and land commissioner.

“The Arkansas judicial establishment is today dominated by judges who do not reflect nor represent the views and values of Arkansas voters,” Rhoda said.

“As we have seen in our federal courts and with increasing frequency in our state courts, good legislation is sometimes overturned by our judicial branch, which seems to substitute the judgment of judges for that of our Legislature or our people,” he said, without citing examples.

Arkansas judges are elected in nonpartisan races, andit is difficult for voters “to know how they stand in regards to their judicial office,” he said.

Rhoda said state GOP Chairman Doyle Webb of Benton recognized this problem and formed the Judicial Review Committee last fall to develop a plan to elect “better and more qualified judges whose philosophy is more in line with the historic principle of judicial restraint.”

The GOP’s Judicial Review Committee will be changed into Americans for Judicial Excellence during the next few days. The new group’s detailed plan will be disseminated to the chairmen of the GOP’s district committees soon, and they will be asked to implement the plan in each county, he said.

“We suggest that you not allow any judicial candidate to speak to your county or district committee until you receive this full report and guidelines from Americans for Judicial Excellence,” Rhoda said. “We must exercise caution particularly in the light of some judicial candidates who assure us that he or she agrees with our principles, but rules from the bench contrary to our principles after their election to the bench.

“It is our collective responsibility … to shoulder this task of electing a more constitutionally oriented and conservative judiciary within the state of Arkansas,” he said.

Afterward, Rhoda said, thereview committee will be interviewing and selecting officers for Americans for Judicial Excellence in the next few weeks. He said he doesn’t know whether he’ll be an officer for the group.

He declined to say how much the political committee would raise and spend, calling such information “confidential.”

Rhoda said Americans for Judicial Excellence is preparing a list of questions for judicial candidates that wouldn’t violate their judicial ethics and canon, but “would give us an indication of their judicial interpretation of law. It would give us an idea of how they view the Constitution, how they view their position as a judge.

“If they answer the questions adequately, then we will probably grant them the opportunity to speak,” said Rhoda, who is also the GOP’s chairman in the 2nd Congressional District.

Webb said in an interview that it’s appropriate for such a political action committee to be created separately from the state Republican Party to focus on judicial races.

“This will help bring in not just Republicans, but independents or Democrats into that process of being involved in playing a more active role in judicial elections,” he said.

Asked about the group developing guidelines to send to party committees to help determine which judicial candidates speak to them, Webb said, “It’s still all in the planning stages.

“I think anyone has the right to speak,” he said. “I think this is a group that will help research judicial candidates to know their history as a jurist and then to report that to the groups that are interested in knowing how somehow might rule on a particular issue or not.

“I am going to wait until the committee makes its recommendation and then we’ll go from there,” added Webb, an attorney.

A spokesman for the state Democratic Party declined to comment Saturday afternoon about the PAC plans.

At the GOP’s State Committee meeting was Louisiana state Sen. Elbert Guillory, who switched from the Democratic Party to the GOP this year to become the first black Republican state lawmaker in Louisianasince Reconstruction.

Guillory said he “escaped the government plantation” to join the party of freedom and progress.

However, the Republican Party spends too much time “cowering behind closed doors permitting the Democrats to define us,” he said.

“They have painted us as rich, white corporate men who hate women, hate the environment, hate progress and hate minorities,” said Guillory.

“We don’t need to to spend any more time cowering behind closed doors and acting ashamed of the values that have made this the greatest nation on the earth.

“We need to articulate our values. We need to get our message out. We need to shout it from the mountain tops. We need to take it to the burial. We need to take it to the ’hood,” he said, adding that Republicans need to talk about prayer, families, limited government, lower taxes, privacy for citizens, free markets, a free press and gun ownership.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 15 on 06/30/2013

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