Both candidates in the Republican attorney general's runoff election say they hope voters will head to the polls and support them before balloting ends Tuesday night.
The contest pits Leslie Rutledge, 37, a former Republican National Committee counsel and gubernatorial adviser, against David Sterling, 45, an attorney at Cox, Sterling & McClure PLLC.
The two Little Rock lawyers both received law degrees from the W.H. Bowen School of Law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and neither received a majority of the votes in a three-way primary race May 20. Rutledge received 79,126 votes (47.2 percent) compared with Sterling's 66,501 votes (39.1 percent), according to unofficial results provided by the secretary of state's office.
Since the primary, Rutledge has picked up the endorsement of former Republican attorney general candidate Patricia Nation, who received 14 percent of the May 20 vote, and Rutledge and Sterling have raised a combined $84,000 in contributions.
But their spending in the runoff period has been dwarfed by that of the Washington, D.C.-based Judicial Crisis Network, which is not required to disclose its donors, and has also run ads against Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and against President Barack Obama's judicial appointments.
Between 3 percent and 4 percent of the state's 1.62 million registered voters are expected to cast ballots in Tuesday's runoff, which has so far seen a low early voting turnout. Experts have said the campaign that can mobilize its voters will likely see its candidate win the party's nomination.
The winner of Tuesday's runoff will face Democrat Nate Steel in the November general election.
The attorney general is the chief law enforcement officer in the state and is in charge of all criminal appeals on behalf of the state. The annual salary is $72,408 for the current fiscal year and will increase to $73,132 in the fiscal year starting July 1.
Rutledge said in an interview that the Judicial Crisis Network has spent an estimated $1 million on television, radio and Internet advertising, phone calls to voters and mailers since the May 20 primary. The group is supporting Sterling. And Rutledge said the group's advertising has worked in her favor because people upset about the ads have become volunteers in her campaign.
"I just received my fourth piece of mail from the group today where they tell lies about my record as a lawyer," Rutledge said Thursday, referring to the group's claims that she handled only eight cases in Arkansas courts.
Officials with the Judicial Crisis Network declined to be interviewed for this article.
Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director for the group, said in a statement that "The Obama legal agenda is hyper-activist and has already proven detrimental to our country."
"It takes lawyers with the right philosophy and depth of experience to protect and defend the public from Obama's activist agenda. Wherever we can play a positive role in ensuring that Americans are educated about the records, the qualifications and the experience of the candidates for these jobs, we will do so."
Hal Bass, a political science professor at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, said it was unusual for an outside group to take an interest in the attorney general's race. But Bass said it was a sign of the times, with outside groups pouring "more and more money" into state elections.
"I think it's a function of outside groups seeing that their policy objectives can be advanced at the state and local level," Bass said.
Rutledge said she has been "raising money hand over fist" since the May 20 primary, in part because voters have been put off by the ads. The former prosecutor and counsel to former Gov. Mike Huckabee reported more than double the contributions Sterling had in that period, according to campaign-finance reports filed last week.
Rutledge raised $58,945 in contributions in the 10-day reporting period, compared with Sterling's $24,750.
Sterling said in an interview that he is not affiliated with the Judicial Crisis Network or involved in its advertising, but he is pleased that the group is "taking an interest" in the race to "get behind the most conservative candidate." He said he has not seen anything incorrect in any of the ads that he's viewed.
Sterling said he is also pleased with his own fundraising and that he has raised "plenty of money to get my message out."
"I'm really happy with the outpouring of support that I've received in the state. I'm not a Washington insider. I've had a real grass-roots effort," Sterling said.
Rutledge said the Judicial Crisis Network and American Future Fund -- a Des Moines, Iowa-based group that ran ads in support of Sterling's support of a stand-your-ground law -- are "attempting to control the issues" in the race. She said Sterling has been focused on things in his campaign that are outside the scope of the office, citing his support for reviving the use of the electric chair and passing a stand-your-ground law.
Stand-your-ground laws generally allow a person, who is lawfully in a place and is confronted by an attacker, to use deadly force against the assailant rather than requiring that the person first attempt to flee. Twenty-two states have some form of law that says there is no obligation to retreat from an attacker, and nine of them specifically say the person may "stand his or her ground," according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Rutledge says lawmaking is the province of the General Assembly, not the attorney general, who is in charge of upholding existing state statutes.
"If he wanted to make laws, he should have run for the Legislature," Rutledge said.
Sterling has said the law already establishes the electric chair as an alternative to lethal injection. Arkansas Code Annotated 5-4-617 states that the Arkansas Department of Correction "shall carry out the sentence of death by electrocution" if the state's Method of Execution Act is "invalidated by a final and unappealable court order."
Sterling said he has also called for the use of pentobarbital, an anesthetic used in other states, to get the death penalty process "back on track."
No execution has been carried out in the state since 2005, largely because of lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the Method of Execution Act, which was struck down by a Pulaski County judge in February.
Sterling said it is also customary for attorneys general in the state to "take the lead" on certain legislative efforts.
"Every attorney general in modern history has always come to the Legislature with a packet of legislative priorities and proposed bills on issues they feel are important," Sterling said.
SundayMonday on 06/08/2014