The Need for Partisanship in Judicial Races: HJR1015 and SJR13

John Brummett, my favorite liberal columnist with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, recently disparaged the notion of forcing judicial candidates to identify with a political party or as an independent.  Mr. Brummett’s belief is that doing such a thing would erode the premise that justice is determined without regard to political affiliation.  Additionally, Mr. Brummett expressed a concern that a Republican before a court would get a more favorable result from a Republican judge.

Unfortunately, the concept of a politically blind justice system is an unachievable ideology.  Higher education at the undergraduate level instills concepts of social justice, progressive change, and preservation of rights in soon-to-be lawyers. These instillments become a catalyst for action in law school, where from the first day of the first year, the concepts and theories of what the law is, should be, and should accomplish are engrained into a legal practice. 

Because our legal system primarily creates or interprets laws based on our values related to economic and societal norms, legal policy and practice develops along political lines because it is the law which allows and advances economic and social policy.

I know that a progressive Democrat judge, Justice Ketanji Jackson on SCOTUS for example, will gut the values of conservative monetary principles to advance progressive policies like DEI and trans-rights.

I know that a blue dog Democrat, a la Judge Robert Herzfeld of Saline County, will align with traditional ideologies of higher taxation and the reasonable redistribution of wealth. As such, I would expect Judge Herzfeld to uphold a high punitive damages award from a jury rather than reduce it.

I know that a Republican will be a textualist who, like Justice Shawn Womack, interprets the constitution as it was written by the original authors. For Justice Womack, the constitution literally means what it says and that is the genesis for his many dissents on sovereign immunity.  But I also know where he will come down on hard issues.

However, I know these things because I am an attorney and avid follower of judicial opinions and environs. Don’t you think the average Arkansan should have the ability to see those values that are not of political affiliation but of political ideology? 

Your average Arkansan does not have the ability to read the tea leaves to determine judicial temperament. Allowing for partisan hacks of both varieties to hide behind a veil of feigned invisibility is a disservice to the people and the system. In fact, the only flaw from HJR1015 and SJR13 will be if we cannot hold primaries for judicial candidates.

Finally, as to Mr. Brummett’s concern about Republican attorneys or litigants getting more favorable treatment from Republican judges, I can tell you from personal experience that these fears are unjustified. I, personally, had my lunch eaten by a “conservative” Arkansas Supreme Court twice in the past two years. Once in a voting machine case that was near and dear to the heart of President Trump and again in an original jurisdiction case over a ballot measure that advanced an America First and RNC platform issue of voting by secure, hand marked paper ballots.

And both travesties of justice were shortly after my wife and I visited Mar-a-Lago and long before the Republican Party of Arkansas kicked us both out of the party for being too conservative.

Clinton W. Lancaster

Attorney. America First. Sued Hunter Biden for child support. Represented President Trump in the 2020 Wisconsin election challenge. Former attorney for the Wisconsin Special Counsel. An official “Tough Cookie” per President Trump.