Matthew Moore: There are currently two vacancies in the Arkansas Legislature, which means there will also be two special elections. The first vacancy happened when state Senator Gary Stubblefield passed away in September. The second happened earlier this month, when state Representative Carlton Wing resigned from his position to take the role as executive director of Arkansas PBS.
John C. Davis is an associate professor of political science at the University of Arkansas. He says the Arkansas Constitution lays out a plan for what the state is obligated to do when there is a vacancy in the Legislature.
John C. Davis: There’s some process in between this, that when a vacancy is certified, both parties have an opportunity to select the mechanism by which they might nominate someone for those offices that are being replaced. And then the governor has 150 days to hold that general election. And so sometimes we lose sight of that. There’s a bit of a nomination or primary process. If there’s a primary, then there could be a runoff election. So the calendar gets pretty crowded pretty fast. And then you have to have the general election, the special election, within 150 days of the vacancy according to statute, unless that timeline is impractical or too burdensome to do so. And I’m borrowing some language from the statute itself.
Matthew Moore: Let’s talk about historically — we’re seeing two examples of it currently. How common is this in Arkansas?
John C. Davis: These vacancies do happen. Offhand, more than a handful of times in the last decade to 15 years. It does happen. Unfortunately, we have had some folks die in office and then they’ve been replaced. And then we’ve had a few with jobs or other issues that propelled them to leave office. So it’s not uncommon. It’s unusual enough that we typically all have to dust off the rules and remember exactly how we do this again.
I think what’s unusual about Senator Stubblefield’s departure and the debate about his vacancy election is the timing in two ways. One is Franklin County, which KUAF and others have done well to report — I think exceptionally well in keeping the public informed on the matter — seemed to, and I don’t want to put words in the deceased senator’s mouth, but he seemed to be questioning on behalf of constituents in Franklin County the idea of a large prison in that area, a prison that a sizable and loud opposition group has begun to oppose in that county.
So Senator Stubblefield’s position on that seemed to suggest a voice of opposition in the General Assembly for this prison. That’s a policy issue that is further complicated by Gary Stubblefield’s death.
The other problem, potentially, is the question of 150 days from the certification of the vacancy to the general election, and in between, of course, there could be primaries. I think to date, there are two Republicans, I believe, and a Democrat who have expressed interest in running. So there’s going to be a primary. And then there would be a general election.
The date that the governor set originally — I hesitate to say it was historically further out from the 150-day range, because there could be some exceptions — but it was an outlier date range, several months beyond the 150 days. After some blowback, the governor and the secretary of state’s office came out and said that we can move it up, still outside of the 150 days, and in both statements they seem to talk about the idea of impracticality or burdensome aspects of moving it up.
They basically said, well, we’re having it on this, this original date, because it would be too impractical or burdensome to have it within the 150-day range. After feedback from, I think, really bipartisan feedback that was largely in opposition of that original date, they moved the date up, but they still are well outside of the 150-day range.
So you have two issues there. You have the question of just the way that we replace these individuals, and are we doing it in a timely enough manner. And then you’ve got this prison debate that further complicates the situation.
Matthew Moore: We talked a little bit before we hit record here about how there can be some — you know, when we think of 150 days, that sounds like a long time. But when you think about the mechanics and the logistics and everything it takes to put on an election, I’ve had multiple conversations with Washington County’s election commissioner and talking about with Jennifer Price, there’s a lot that goes into making an election happen. And especially when you consider a Senate seat, that’s a lot of folks who are eligible to vote in an election like that. One hundred and fifty days might sound shorter than, than you think about because of all of the work that it takes to, to make that sort of thing happen on a logistical level.
John C. Davis: Absolutely. The administration of any election, done correctly and carefully and by law, is, is complicated. And it’s a laborious task for all those involved, especially when it’s outside of the general election calendar. I think elections administrators, elections commissioners, the secretary of state, county clerks, so on and so forth, you know, they can plan ahead for midterm elections or general elections or primary elections. But when these elections pop up, they’re, they’re unanticipated just by the nature of these vacancy seats. So I am sympathetic to the idea that there is a carve out there for, in the case of an impractical or burdensome process, you know, there’s some wiggle room there. So it’s 150 days unless the governor deems it impractical or burdensome.
Now it’s, I think it’s a judgment call. And since we first set up this discussion, we’ve seen a lawsuit filed out of Franklin County voters who are demanding that the governor make sure that the election falls within the 150-day limit by statute. And they’re probably going to have to find a compelling way to convince the court that it is, in fact, not impractical or too burdensome to do so.
But yeah, I think it’s fair to say that elections are complicated, and 150 days seems like a lot of time unless you’re having to plan. And it’s really not just one election, right? It’s potentially three.
Matthew Moore: Potentially three.
John C. Davis: You could have a primary. You could have runoff. And so yeah, to your point, Matthew, you’re looking at potentially three different elections within 150 days.
Matthew Moore: When we think about the main reason for having a state senator or having a state representative going into a fiscal session of the Legislature is obviously this element of representation, right. And I think what we have seen and what we’ve heard from folks in, in both of these districts is a concern that they are not being represented in these conversations that are happening at the legislative level. We often use the terminology of thinking about the Legislature as a part-time Legislature. But the more that we think about it, it seems less and less correct to call this a part-time Legislature.
John C. Davis: I think that’s, that’s a great point, Matthew. So thinking of specifically of Senator Stubblefield, you know, he was in Little Rock serving in some capacity almost weekly, if not weekly. And that was in between the General Assembly session and the fiscal session. So over the last decade, we have gone from a state with, you might even say amateur status, an amateur Legislature status, where it was considered not only part-time but, you know, something you did every two years in the spring to a far more rigid schedule with the addition of every late-winter, early-spring fiscal session, in those years when you were not having a General Assembly session.
So now they’re meeting every year. They are also meeting quite frequently in between those two sessions. And so absolutely, the question of representation is not only sort of a theoretical or philosophical notion, but it’s a very practical, you know, feet-on-the-ground real concern here, because you’re looking at a fiscal session where key votes are made on the state’s budget and appropriations, which could very well include the prison establishment being advanced in Franklin County.
So to Franklin County area voters, Senator Stubblefield’s absence is, is especially felt, but also his involvement in myriad other things representing his constituents when he was alive, and he was a very active legislator. Representative Wing, the same thing. Senator Stubblefield’s district was, was rural. It’s a Senate district. It had its own unique needs and concerns. Representative Wing’s district in the House was, you know, more compact, smaller, just by the nature of being a House district. And it was more of a metro, suburban, urban district with its own unique needs and concerns. And so these folks, I think it’s fair to say, will be left without a voice until those elections are conducted and the votes are cast and someone’s replacing these two gentlemen.
Matthew Moore: If we can, let’s have you put on your political science professor hat for just a moment here. When you’re talking about this with students, you’re talking about this in the classroom. What do the conversations sound like from your students? What questions are they asking? What things are they raising that are worth talking about?
John C. Davis: Well, I think a lot of it has back to this, this conversation we’ve been having about representation and just the notion of a, you know, a person in an area, a taxpayer in Arkansas not having Senate representation or House representation in the General Assembly is the thing that I hear the most from students.
I will say students, again, become pretty sympathetic to the idea of the time window being rather tight, even though 150 days seems like a lot of time, pretty tight when you have the potential for up to three elections. But again, students typically, when they think about the fiscal session coming up and this sort of thing, I think like a lot of us, their concerns go to those two districts, regardless of their views on any, you know, more immediate policy question, whether it’s a prison in Franklin County or something else. It seems to be go back to the idea of representation.
You know, I should mention, too, you know, nothing mathematically really changes with the absence of these two seats in the fiscal session in terms of the Republican Party supermajorities. So from a state aspect, if you’re just counting votes, you could argue that that this is less substantive just in the grand scheme of things as far as key votes and things and issues.
But at the end of the day, I think it goes back again to tens of thousands of constituents in both this House district in central Arkansas and then this one in the River Valley, sort of central northwest Arkansas region. And the question is whether or not, you know, the 150-day range can be achieved. And if not now, because there’s a lawsuit, the governor will be tasked with explaining and sort of fleshing out the, the issues with the logistical challenges that I do think exist. I just don’t think that we’ve, at least in recent memory, had those challenges articulated.
And so, as a political scientist, I am interested in hearing that discussion and learning more about that and some of the, the issues that may lead to what may be a justified or unjustified delay.
Matthew Moore: John C. Davis is an associate professor of political science at the University of Arkansas. He joined me yesterday in the Bruce and Applegate News Studio Two.
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