Terrified About the Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Race
I’m a little terrified about this Supreme Court Justices race, y’all. I’m sorry that this is an ever-evolving story, but as I learn more I can share more. If it helps me understand, hopefully, it will help others understand.
If Jay Martin wins the Chief Justice position on the court, we will be stuck with an anti-abortion bigot who believes gay and trans people need conversion therapy as the head of that court for the next 8 years.
Kelly Krout did a TikTok that appeared to endorse Jay Martin, who ran as a Democrat in 2022 but according to some sources who know him personally, he is a pro-life preacher who pushes conversion therapy for gay and trans people. I understand that that is not why she endorsed him. She may not have even known about that at the time. I didn’t know it until I heard it from several people who had experienced that. We can’t know everything. We’re learning as we go. Her thinking seemed to be that if he got elected, Sarah Huckabee Sanders (SHS) would not get to appoint a justice to an empty seat left by one of the other three justices running for Chief Justice. That TikTok had over 22,000 views with very many enthusiastic people saying they were going to vote for Martin.
To her credit, she ran another TikTok after that one that backpedaled off of that endorsement. She went on to endorse Justice Karen Baker, a justice who is moderate and has made rulings against sovereign immunity, or against the idea that you can’t sue the state. In other words, Justice Baker supports the right to sue the state. She is qualified to be Chief Justice even though it would leave a seat for SHS to fill for 2 years until the next election when that appointed justice would not be able to run for that seat. Unfortunately, the last time I looked at that TikTok, it only had 2,000 views compared to the 22,000 that Krout’s Martin endorsement had.
I also heard today that Nicole Clowney was endorsing Martin. I was sad about that too. I think these ladies were just looking at the possibility of keeping SHS from appointing a justice.
My concern is that the extremist right-wingers will consolidate behind Barbara Webb, and moderate centrists, and left-wing will split their votes among Martin, Baker, and Wood.
In retrospect, I wish I had known about the complexities of this race months ago so that I could be educated about it. I’m kind of mad at the Democratic Party for not getting this information out months ago. But maybe they did, and I just missed it. We all should have been consolidating around one candidate.
Ultimately, after all my scratching around to find out about these people, the most qualified candidates for the Chief Justice position, in my opinion, are Rhonda Wood and Karen Baker. Jay Martin, from what I have learned, is a pro-life religious bigot of a legislator—not a sitting justice with the experience to be Chief Justice. Justice Rhonda Wood is popular as a justice, although she considers herself an originalist and is part of the Federalist Society. Justice Karen Baker is a popular justice and has a good record as well.
Here are some possibilities:
1. There isn’t a majority vote for any one of the candidates, and we have to have a runoff in November.
2. Webb wins the extreme right-wing vote, becomes Chief Justice, and SHS can appoint another extremist in her vacated seat. (That’s one of the worst-case scenarios by the way.)
3. Wood or Baker wins the Chief Justice position, and SHS appoints a 2-year crazy right-wing justice who can’t run for the seat after they finish the term.
4. If Martin wins Chief Justice, we’re stuck with a pro-life bigot who believes gay people need conversion therapy as Chief Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court for the next 8 years. (This is the second worst-case scenario.)