What is going on in the races for the Arkansas Supreme Court?
A record amount is being raised and spent on both races, with more than $475,000 on the race between Judge Shawn Womack and Clark Mason and more than $1,600,000 on the race between Justice Courtney Goodson and Judge Dan Kemp. Although these races are non-partisan, a national group called the Republican State Leadership Committee's Judicial Fairness Initiative has spent $240,000 on ads opposing Clark Mason, who has spent more than $132,000 on his own. Meanwhile, Courtney Goodson has loaned her campaign $466,000 to supplement the $267,000 she has so far raised from donors. And a national group called the Judicial Crisis Network has spent $620,000 opposing her. All of this for a job that pays $180,000 a year? And for Courtney Goodson, who remains on the court until 2019 even if she loses, a raise of $14,000, from her current $166,000 salary to $180,000.
If Courtney Goodson doesn't have $466,000 to loan her campaign, we assume her lawyer husband, John Goodson, does. Or that if she is elected, other class action lawyers could donate enough to her campaign to pay off that debt, and in doing so keep their names off the donor list until after the election. John Goodson and his plaintiffs' attorney friends who initiate class action cases have a history of donating to other judges who have been elected to the Arkansas Supreme Court. And those judges have a record of favorable rulings in cases involving Mr. Goodson as an attorney.
So the current election comes down to trying to elect two more judges, Mrs. Goodson and Mr. Mason, who would be expected to be favorable to class action and other cases brought by the plaintiffs' bar. If successful, it looks like John Goodson will have been successful in buying a majority of the Arkansas Supreme Court.
To better understand this, it helps to know that Fortune magazine once wrote an article calling Miller County, Arkansas, the judicial hellhole of America. Miller County is home to Texarkana, Arkansas, and Texarkana, Arkansas, is home to John Goodson. It was bad enough to have one county in Arkansas receive that kind of notoriety. But think for a moment where cases out of Miller County will be appealed: eventually to the Arkansas Supreme Court. Arkansas could become the most favorable state in America for filing and winning class action cases. We shudder to think what that reputation would do to Arkansas' economic development.
One wonders who is donating to these national groups that are running ads against Courtney Goodson and Clark Mason, and their motives. Their donations are often called Dark Money, implying there is something nefarious about their intentions. But it is not hard to imagine that these donors could easily be Fortune 500 companies that fear being the target of class-action cases backed up by an Arkansas Supreme Court biased in favor of plaintiffs. These are the very Fortune 500 companies we need to invest in bringing plants and jobs to Arkansas. We can see those prospects disappearing for hard working Arkansans with a hostile, anti-business majority on the Arkansas Supreme Court.
For Arkansas's economic future, we urge voters to tell John Goodson, et al. no, and vote for Judge Shawn Womack and Judge Dan Kemp.
Editorial on 02/25/2016