CONWAY -- The attorney for four voters who sued to prevent Republican Margaret Darter from taking office as Faulkner County clerk, citing her recent misdemeanor conviction, said Monday that his clients will not pursue the case further.
Chris Burks, who is general counsel for the Arkansas Democratic Party, also said in a statement that county Republicans need to "rein in the [county's] renegade Election Commission."
Told of Burks' comments, the commission chairman, Republican Paul Foster, said, "I have no idea what he's talking about [regarding a] renegade commission."
Last week, Circuit Judge David Clark ruled that Darter was legally eligible to hold the public office to which she was re-elected on Nov. 8, despite her recent guilty plea to a Class C misdemeanor, obstruction of governmental operations. Darter entered the negotiated plea on Oct. 11, more than a year after she was charged with a felony, tampering with public records.
Clark's ruling came Wednesday, hours after unofficial election returns showed Darter had beaten Democrat Penny McClung in the clerk's race.
Darter has admitted dating some county officials' annual statements of financial interest to make it appear they had been filed on time even though they were not. She resigned from the clerk's office as part of the plea agreement, which did not take a position on whether she could hold office again.
Burks indicated last week that an appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court was likely. But when the written court order wasn't promptly filed, Burks became concerned that the commission would certify Darter's votes before he could appeal and that any appeal might lead to a special election rather than to McClung taking office.
Burks said he disagrees with part of Clark's ruling.
"However, the Faulkner County Election Commission has already decided who it wants to win the County Clerk race," Burks said in the statement emailed to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. "An Election Commission is only supposed to count the votes and not pick a candidate. Instead, the ... Commission has twice supported their preferred candidate: once before she even [pleaded] guilty and again after a lawsuit was filed."
Burks said he expected the commission to certify Darter's votes today, but Foster said certification will not take place until Thursday.
"We are taking the responsible step of stopping the lawsuit," Burks said. "We call on Faulkner County Republicans to do the same: responsibly rein in the renegade Election Commission and only select qualified nominees to be elected officials.
"County government shouldn't be partisan. Election Commissioners should just count the votes," Burks said.
Foster countered: "Everything we've done is according to the law. We've been fair and balanced with everybody, not only in this incident [but also] other ones in the past, too. We've not looked at Republican or Democrat. We've just looked at what the law says, and we do what the law says."
At an Oct. 27 meeting, the commission voted for the county's attorney, David Hogue, to argue in court that Darter should be allowed to stay in the race and to take office in January if she was elected.
During that meeting, Foster briefly stepped aside as chairman to make a motion to adopt the legal argument advanced by Darter's attorney, Frank Shaw, who said she was legally eligible to take office.
"This is political season," Foster said at the time. "When you start malicious electioneering, I am upset. And that's what this is."
State Desk on 11/15/2016