Arkansas voters didn't just put Republicans in power Tuesday. They made that power harder to challenge.
At least a third of the members of the state House of Representatives departed every election year from 1998 to 2014. That churn came from a limit of three terms in the House. The Republican takeover of the House in recent years is simply unimaginable without that churn. Democrats were entrenched before term limits.
Well, that churn just went from one-third to one-eighth. This happened at the precise moment the GOP won 64 state House seats, a gain of 13. Voters approved extending term limits from six years in the House to 16. That limit also applies to the Senate, or an aggregate of the two.
Sen. Bart Hester, R-Bentonville, is arguably the most conservative member of the state Legislature. He's now eligible to serve until 2028.
The greatest power of the incumbency isn't name recognition, campaign donor support or inertia. The greatest power of the incumbency is that any challenger must convince thousands of voters they made a mistake in the last election. That's never easy. That power is now on the side of a Republican super majority.
Democrats hope the Republican super majority will destroy itself. Even Republicans worry about that. I don't think it will happen, but spelling my reasons out will require another column. I'm saving that one for Sunday. Leaving out the possibility, though, makes the rest of today's column very grim if you're a Democrat.
All six members of the state Congressional delegation will be Republicans. If you have to be a Republican to get elected to Congress, then young, ambitious people will tend to run as Republicans. This further ensures Republican majorities in the Legislature, and will filter down to county races.
The GOP also swept the state's constitutional offices from governor on down. This gives them control of every county election commission. The majority party appoints two of the three members in each county. In Arkansas, the majority party is the one that holds most of the constitutional offices.
In theory, these commissions are manned by upstanding people whose party sympathies make no difference in the fair counting of the vote. In practice, there would be no "majority party" rule if the theory was true.
Therefore, the party of voter ID just took control of every county's election commission. They did this just in time for the presidential campaign of 2016. That's the campaign where former state first lady Hillary Clinton was supposed to sweep through and restore state Democrats to glory. Well, any reasonable hope that Hillary could make Arkansas a swing state again just died. The man who led the impeachment of Clinton's husband just got elected governor by a wide margin.
Speaking of presidential election years, constitutional officer elections are held in non-presidential years. This was set up by Democrats when they were the majority party to preserve their power. Arkansans tended to vote for GOP presidents. Back in 1980, Frank White rode a presidential wave into an upset win against Democratic golden boy Gov. Bill Clinton. So the state switched the governor from two-year terms to four years and put that election, along with the other state officers, in mid-term years.
Well, now the Democrats are caught in their own snare. Suppose Hillary runs in 2016. Her race and whatever boost it would give Democrats will be in the middle of Gov. Asa Hutchinson's term now.
Bureaucracy is the last recourse of liberal Democrats. The voters also gave the Legislature the final say on state regulations Tuesday. The thoroughly Republican state House and Senate now make up the Arkansas State Commission on Everything.
Voters also made it even harder to get an initiated act on the ballot. Democrats used a raise in the state minimum wage in an attempt to boost voter turnout this year. In the past, conservatives used marriage amendments and -- ironically -- term-limit initiatives to boost their turnout. Well, that tool is now a little harder to use. Republicans don't need it any more. Democrats do.
Things are rarely ever either as great or as hopeless as they appear. Partisans on both sides should remember that. In 2008, the Republican party was reeling from severe defeats here and everywhere else. So things can and will change from the way they are today. All I'm saying is that change in Arkansas won't come as easily or suddenly as before.
DOUG THOMPSON IS A POLITICAL REPORTER AND COLUMNIST FOR NWA MEDIA.
Commentary on 11/07/2014