Serious groundwork for a 2018 Arkansas ballot issue has begun.
That’s when the Arkansas Bar Association hopes to sell a proposal to state voters for the appointment, rather than election of justices to the state Supreme Court.
Mind you, Arkansans have been electing Supreme Court justices and others in the state’s judiciary since the 1800s. Voters may or may not be in the mood to make such dramatic change.
The general idea of selecting rather than electing judges has been unsuccessfully floated before, but the effort got new impetus when a lot of “dark money” was poured into a few recent races for the state’s highest court.
That parallel issue — a campaign finance system that allows unlimited spending from unidentified sources to influence elections — is tangled up in the current argument to change how Arkansas chooses its Supreme Court.
As some have pointed out, in the last two elections cycles dark money is 3-0, undefeated in its influence on Arkansas Supreme Court election outcomes. It is a serious concern, just as dark money presents problems in other elections.
Arguably, there are better ways to address that influence, including new laws to shed light on the people and the organizations that shovel dark money into the electoral system.
Nevertheless, the state bar has also seized the opportunity to try to get at least part of the judiciary appointed.
Back in June, the Arkansas Bar Association’s House of Delegates, its governing body, endorsed the idea of merit selection of Supreme Court justices.
A task force of bar members had studied the issue and presented general conclusions that, to their credit, also included required public disclosure of the identities of those behind dark money in all elections.
But their key recommendation was for merit selection of the state’s highest court, which the House of Delegates accepted.
It was not a unanimous vote but it did propel development of specific language for a proposed constitutional amendment.
That specific proposal is now being aired in a series of public forums around the state, the last of which will be this week in Little Rock. The others were in Pine Bluff, El Dorado, Jonesboro and Fayetteville.
The Little Rock session will be at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Clinton School of Public Service. It will be live streamed at www.clintonschool.uasys.edu and recorded for viewing later on the site.
The Bar Association itself is supposed to take up the issue again on Friday at a meeting in Little Rock to determine how to proceed.
Details of the proposal are online at www.arkbar.com.
This is a lengthy amendment but here are a few of its key provisions:
The governor would appoint Supreme Court justices, as vacancies occur, to nonrenewable 14-year terms. He would choose a new justice from among a list of three candidates chosen by a nine-member selection commission. Potential candidates would apply to the commission.
The commission would include three members chosen by the Arkansas Bar Association, two members each chosen by the governor and the Supreme Court and one member each chosen by the speaker of the House of Representatives and the Senate president pro tempore. At least five of the nine must be lawyers
Voters now choose the justices, electing them to eight-year terms. Justices may seek and serve unlimited terms, although backers of the amendment say most are defeated or retire after 15 years on the highest bench.
Current justices and any justice elected in 2018 would complete their full, elected terms, under provisions of the amendment. The first appointed terms would begin in 2020, with new justices appointed to staggered terms. Only one seat would be open every two years.
So you know, the forums have produced a variety of reactions to these proposals. Lawyers disagree on the issue and on the details, as do plenty of others. Even Gov. Asa Hutchinson, himself a lawyer who leans toward selection of the justices, has said he might offer an alternative proposal.
What that means is that the bar may or may not stick with this plan.
The bar could choose to make changes in its draft, abandon it altogether or move ahead to ask state lawmakers to put this specific proposal on the 2018 ballot.
They want something that will pass muster with the Legislature and, ultimately, with the electorate.
This, like many other proposed questions, will necessarily compete for one of the few the Legislature may refer to voters in each general election.
If the bar isn’t successful in securing one of those referred slots, backers of the proposal could still decide to petition to place it on the ballot.
The easier, and preferred, route for constitutional change of any sort is to win legislative support to refer a question to voters.
That process of persuasion effectively began with these public forums and looks to continue well into next year’s legislative session.
—––––– v –––––—
Brenda Blagg is a freelance columnist. E-mail comments or questions to brendajblagg@gmail . com .