Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Robin Wynne says he believes in maintaining distance from partisan politics when it comes to judicial races, while District Judge Chris Carnahan embraces his conservative values.
Wynne, of Little Rock, and Carnahan, of Conway, will face off for Position 2 on the Arkansas Supreme Court in the nonpartisan Nov. 8 runoff election. Early voting starts Monday.
Carnahan and Wynne were the two top vote-getters in the May 24 nonpartisan judicial election that included attorney David Sterling of Little Rock. Wynne, 53, has served as Position 2 associate justice since 2015 but just missed out on getting the 50% of votes needed to avoid a runoff.
"I was hopeful that I wouldn't go to a runoff, but anytime you have a three-person race there is a good chance that you are not going to win it outright, although I came about five-tenths of a percent from a win without a runoff," Wynne said. "My campaign was really a hands-on campaign and I think we did a lot of traveling. Don't think there was one group that asked me to speak to them that I didn't go."
Carnahan, 50, said he believes the dynamics of the race have changed now that it's down to two candidates.
"The electorate is going to be larger," he said. " ... Most folks do not know who the candidates for judicial offices are, and I have tried to do my best to make sure they know there is a conservative judicial candidate out there, and that has been very well-received by the people I have met and talked with."
While Arkansas Supreme Court candidates run under a nonpartisan label, the state's Republican Party has made it clear it would prefer to see Carnahan on the bench. The party formally endorsed him in June,a move described by one party official as a first for the organization for nonpartisan judicial elections.
Carnahan said he was asked to speak to the Republican Party on the day the party endorsed him, but he said he had no idea an endorsement was coming.
"That was unexpected, and when they started voting for it I exited the room," Carnahan said. "I don't think that is something that I necessarily needed to be there for. I fully support anyone's First Amendment right to endorse candidates, and I was very happy to have their endorsement and anyone else who wants to get on board."
The party had been involved in the state Supreme Court race before officially announcing its endorsement of Carnahan. In April, both Carnahan and Sterling reported receiving donations from the Republican Party.
Democratic Party of Arkansas Chair Grant Tennille told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in a written statement the Democratic Party doesn't take a position in nonpartisan judicial elections.
State Rep. David Ray, R-Maumelle, recently created a television ad in support of Carnahan and calls Wynne a "liberal" judge who is soft on crime and who ran as a Democrat.
"Although candidates for Supreme Court run under a non-partisan label, Justice Wynne has made it pretty transparent that his preferred partisan label is Democrat," Ray said in a news release in which he announced the television ad.
Wynne represented the 91st district of the Arkansas House of Representatives as a Democrat from 1985-1988. Carnahan was executive director of the state Republican Party from 1999-2001.
Wynne chose not to respond to the Republican Party's endorsement of Carnahan and declined to respond to criticism directed toward him.
"What I would say to the people of Arkansas is, you decide," he said. "If there is a movement in the future that Supreme Court justices can have party affiliations and legislators want to change the rules, then so be it. Unfortunately, now that is not true. I have not solicited any endorsements, and I don't plan on soliciting any endorsements because I think that gives the appearance of impropriety."
In 2000, voters approved a constitutional amendment shifting the state to nonpartisan judicial elections, beginning in 2002. The push resulted from concerns in national circles that judicial races had become too much like races for other public offices and threatened an independent judiciary.
However, the state Senate that year stripped out of the bill setting up the referendum a provision to prohibit nonpartisan judicial candidates from seeking the endorsement of a political party or purporting to have been endorsed by a party.
The state's current Judicial Code of Conduct found on the Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission's website states "except as permitted by law, a judicial candidate and judge-elect shall not seek, accept or use endorsements from a political organization or an elected official who was elected in partisan election; however nothing prevents a judicial candidate from speaking to a political organization or elected official concerning the judicial candidate's election."
Wynne emphasized the amendment as the key to the way he operates from the bench.
"Amendment 80 was passed in 2000, and the people of Arkansas said we want our judicial candidates, we want our prosecutors, to not be affiliated with any party at all," he said. "We don't want them to have any kind of philosophy that is tied to any political faction or otherwise.
"That is important and that is who I am, regardless of what I may have done in the past. I have been on the bench since 2003 as a district judge, a court of appeals judge and a Supreme Court justice, and being fair, impartial and independent is the most important thing to me."
Carnahan said he hopes that in the future state Supreme Court races are partisan.
"People are desperate to know -- 'Are you this party or that party?' -- and that is because they are trying to figure out, I guess, what the nature of your decisions and thought process would be," he said. "I do wish we could go back to partisan judicial elections."
Carnahan said when he was associated previously with the Republican Party the group spent around $125,000 in support of the amendment to shift to nonpartisan judicial elections, but in hindsight he said he feels it was the wrong move.
"I think it has been a way for people who do not exactly think like normal Arkansans to hide some more extreme views and get on the bench," he said. "I am not painting the entire judiciary with a broad brush, but there are certainly some that come to mind."
Wynne said Arkansans still want their justices to be nonpartisan.
"There are a lot of political pressures out there, particularly since we're elected officials, but once again I have maintained my independence and have done that for the past 17 years," he said.
"We know what the U.S. Supreme Court has done over the past three or four months, and you see the responses from a lot of people that have said our U.S. Supreme Court has become political," he said. "And in Arkansas our Supreme Court is a co-equal branch of government, and we've got to maintain our distance from the legislative and executive branches and do what our job is."
Despite differing on the concept of partisan judicial elections, both candidates said it's important to be impartial when ruling from the state's highest court.
"Women and men who are in the judicial system have to be ethical. They have to be willing to set aside any personal dislike of somebody or dislike of a cause and make rulings based on the law," Carnahan said. "If the judges and justices do that and base it solely on the law and the facts presented to them, then our justice system works."
Wynne said he took an oath to uphold the Constitution, the statutes and precedents of the court.
"Somebody that comes into court or files an appeal with the Supreme Court, they want the judge to apply the law. They don't want it to be anything else," he said.
Carnahan said he wants people to know he is a conservative jurist who will follow the law.
"I won't legislate from the bench," he said. "Basically, I will stay in my own lane. I will let the political branches handle the political controversies, but I will follow the law as it's passed by the General Assembly unless it violates people's constitutional rights."
Wynne said now more than ever people need to be wide-eyed about our democracy.
"Not just because of the things that are happening nationally, but you and I both pride ourselves on the freedoms and liberties that we have, and those are very frail and could be taken away, as we have seen, in almost in a minute's time," he said. "... That is a bigger question than just the Supreme Court and the authority of the Supreme Court, but people need to be aware of how precious democracy is, and the gridlock and hatred for each other, there is no place for that."