Arkansas State Capitol (Photo by John Sykes/Arkansas Advocate)
One of the enduring ideals of American democracy is the citizen representative, who drops his plow for a season to serve the public — like Cincinnatus or George Washington or the Mr. Smith who went to Washington — before returning home and handing the reins of power to a fellow citizen.
That ideal is mostly myth. Elected officials who gain power don’t generally like to give it up and find ingenious ways to get around barriers designed to keep them from perpetuating themselves in office — as we’re currently seeing in Arkansas with four sitting elected officials seeking different offices without surrendering the ones they have.
And come January, their office hopping will give Gov. Sarah Sanders, rather than voters, the power to fill as many as three vacancies, recasting the Supreme Court even more in her own image and possibly picking the official who will oversee her expected reelection race in 2026.
In 1992, Arkansas voters approved a constitutional amendment imposing term limits on legislators and executive offices with this preamble: “The people of Arkansas find and declare that elected officials who remain in office too long become preoccupied with reelection and ignore their duties as representatives of the people.”
Judges were not covered; however, under a separate state law, if they seek re-election after age 70, they forfeit their retirement benefits, which encourages most of them to go.
Yet, by creatively hopping from office to office, elected officials and judges can finesse these limits, complying with the letter of the law but not the spirit behind it.
Just two years ago, Secretary of State John Thurston asked the good people of Arkansas to elect him to a second four-year term. Due to term limits, Thurston — first elected to statewide office as land commissioner in 2010 — can’t seek a third term as secretary of state in 2026. So he would either have to retire from office or run for something else.
But in July 2023, State Treasurer Mark Lowery died after less than eight months in office. And the wheels started to turn.
Rather than appoint some ambitious Republican politician to the office who would run for the treasurer’s post in 2026, Sanders appointed Secretary of Finance and Administration Larry Walther, a veteran state employee with no elected experience. Walther didn’t run to fill the rest of Lowery’s term; Thurston did.
When Thurston discovered his newfound passion to be state treasurer — a mere two years after asking voters to indulge his previous passion to be secretary of state — he could have resigned to run. Sanders would have picked a temporary replacement, as she did for Lowery, and voters would be picking a permanent successor for secretary of state in November.
Thurston also could have served out the term to which voters had already elected him and then run for treasurer in 2026, against Lowery’s elected successor. But, of course, it is much easier to slide into an open seat than fight a contested election against an incumbent.
Neither of those things happened. Now if Thurston defeats Democrat John Pagan and Libertarian Michael Pakko in November, he will have to resign as secretary of state to serve the remainder of Lowery’s term and then can run for a full term in 2026. That would enable Thurston to serve in statewide office until at least 2030 — extending his stay in the Capitol to a total of 20 years.
The advantage for Sanders? She gets to appoint a new secretary of state to serve the rest of Thurston’s term — an office that will oversee the 2026 election in which she may be seeking reelection.
Meanwhile, across the street at the Supreme Court, the creativity of Thurston’s office hopping has been more than matched.
In the March primary, Associate Justice Courtney Hudson ran successfully for a different seat on the same court on which she already sits to avoid the possibility that the age limit for judges might force her off the bench in … 2040. Hudson’s switch was made possible by the death of Associate Justice Robin Wynne, whom Sanders replaced with former Republican Party chair Cody Hiland, who also opted not to run for the post.
Justices serve eight-year terms. In her new seat, the 52-year-old Hudson can run for reelection in 2032 and 2040 and serve until 2048, when she would be six years past the retirement age with 38 years on the court. Before winning the new post, Hudson could have sought reelection in 2026 and 2034, but would have hit the retirement-age ceiling in 2042, when she turns 70.
Once Hudson switches seats in January, Sanders will get to pick a replacement to serve until the next election — with Hiland one of the possibilities.
Sanders will get yet another pick for the high court because two sitting associate justices, Rhonda Wood and Karen Baker, are running against each other for chief justice in November, opening up the winner’s seat as associate justice. (Hudson made her own run for chief justice in 2016 and got to stay on the court after she lost.)
The presumption and sense of entitlement are barely concealed here, coupled with confidence that voters won’t notice or won’t care. In Thurston’s case, Republicans clearly believe their political dominance allows them to move the chess pieces on the board with impunity, although Pagan has been trying his best to make Thurston’s machinations an issue in the treasurer’s race.
But there is something voters could do to protect the intent behind limits on holding office: a resign-to-run law requiring officeholders to resign their current office to run for another one if the terms overlap.
Five states — Georgia, Texas, Arizona, Florida and Hawaii — have such laws. Had one been in place in Arkansas, Thurston, Hudson, Baker and Wood would have all been required to resign to seek different offices, and the voters of Arkansas would be picking their permanent replacements in November. Perhaps some of them might have decided to stay where they were.
A ballot initiative established term limits in Arkansas; the same path could be used to establish resign-to-run. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine legislators would approve it on their own.
As it stands now, Thurston, Hudson, Baker and Wood will still be in office no matter what happens in November..
They risked nothing with their office hopping. Regnat Populus and the citizen representative ideal, on the other hand, are taking a bit of a beating. And Sanders will get to open some late Christmas gifts come January.
Rich Shumate is a regular columnist for Arkansas Advocate. We also encourage Arkansans who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate to express their own opinions in our commentary section. Find information about submitting your own commentary here.