Pulaski County voters on Tuesday will choose between two familiar faces to fill a new judgeship — created as part of an ongoing reform of the judiciary — that melds two part-time positions into one.

Wrightsville and Cammack Village District Judge Rita Bailey and state Sen. David Johnson are vying for the position formed by the consolidation of part-time judgeships in Maumelle and Jacksonville. District judges earn $140,000 per year and serve a four-year term.

Johnson, who passed the bar in 1998, has spent 11 years in the Arkansas Legislature, entering as a representative in 2005 before winning election to the Senate in 2009.

Bailey has been an attorney since 1990. She has held the Wrightsville post, now a part-time position, since 2009 after defeating five other candidates. She was elected in 2012 for the Wrightsville and Cammack Village post. Bailey also maintains a private practice covering civil, domestic and criminal law, although ethics rules prohibit her from representing criminal clients in Pulaski County.

Bailey, 51, could not be reached for comment because of a scheduling conflict. Her Facebook page includes her experience as a district judge. She is also a former public defender who regularly volunteers with Arkansas Legal Services, the nonprofit organization that provides free assistance to low-income residents.

“I’ve just about done it all. I’ve practiced in every area,” she said in a 2010 interview. “I’m a little more uniquely qualified because I’ve got experience both on the bench and off.”

In that interview, conducted during her campaign for the Pulaski County Circuit judge post now held by Wendell Griffen, she said she has strived to develop a reputation for tenacity and hard work.

Her judgeship is being folded into a new Little Rock state district judge position that will be held by Mark Leverett, the city environmental court judge, who filed for the new position without opposition.

Johnson, 47, first entered public service as a legislative aide to former U.S. Sen. Dale Bumpers and worked as a deputy prosecutor in Pulaski County before being elected to the state House in 2004. He said he has operated a private practice and, most recently, he was a vice president for the Arkansas Community Foundation, which helps raise funding for nonprofit service agencies in the state.

Johnson said he will bring practical experience to the district judge position, describing the seat as a new opportunity to serve the public.

“Good judges are made from hard work and practicing attorneys,” he said.

A married father of three, he said he’s had “significant” courtroom experience, trying more than 50 jury trials and hundreds of bench trials. He’s also been an Arkansas Supreme Court appointee on a task force to develop procedural recommendations for state courts.

The district seat is a position that hears traffic offenses and small claims, Johnson said, calling the job, the “front line” of the judiciary because that’s where most people encounter judges.

“I’m motivated by the important role of the courts in our lives,” he said. “That’s the court where the bulk of people have contact with the judiciary.”

District courts are also where criminal defendants, whether charged with felonies or misdemeanors, make their first appearances.

The state district judges, created as part of an ongoing consolidation program, will have expanded authority to hear smaller civil cases that had been the sole province of the circuit courts, said Kay Palmer, the executive director of the Arkansas District Judges Council.

The positions were created to simultaneously decrease the number of district judges statewide and increase the number of full-time judges who will also be able to take some of the workload from circuit courts, with the goal of substantially reducing the length of time those lawsuits need to be resolved from years to months, Palmer said.

So far, the Legislature has created 54 of the positions, including the latest round of 16 who will be selected by voters on Tuesday, she said. The consolidations have reduced the number of district judges from 200 to 109, and the state will have less than 70 by the time the move is complete, she said.

In five years, all but just about a half-dozen judges will be classified as state district judges, with the goal to have all district judges classified as such by 2029, she said.