Goodson, Sterling heading to runoff

Supreme Court Justice Courtney Goodson likely survived an initial round of voting Tuesday despite outof-state attack ads and advanced to a November runoff election where she will face David Sterling, the beneficiary of outside spending.

With most precincts reporting, Goodson led with about 37 percent of votes counted while Sterling had received 34 percent. Court of Appeals Judge Kenneth Hixson, who also had been the focus of attack ads, was in third place with 29 percent.

Supreme Court races go to a November runoff if no candidate receives a majority of the vote.

Speaking from her home in Fayetteville, Goodson called the results a “huge victory for honest people who are fed up with the lies dark money has spread about me.”

The justice, who is in the

last year of her first eightyear term, said she was prepared in a runoff to continue speaking out against the influence of outside groups. This campaign marked the second time in two years that out-of-state groups have targeted her. The first time was her race for chief justice in 2016.

Sterling held a campaign rally Tuesday night in downtown Little Rock, where he told supporters that most voters had sided with someone other than Goodson, and were “looking for a change in the highest court.”

Hixson, however, still held out hope and said he would await the final results to come in.

“I never give up until the jury comes back,” he said.

No sitting Arkansas Supreme Court justice has lost a re- election race since at least before 1976, the earliest year in which online election records are available from the secretary of state’s office.

Goodson’s share of the three-way vote was her lowest

showing in three races for the state’s highest court. In her 2016 bid for chief justice, Goodson earned 42 percent of the vote, and in 2010 she received 57 percent of the vote.

In circuit court last week, her lawyers pointed to the justice’s declining vote totals as they attempted to build a case about the influence of outside spending in Arkansas’ judicial elections. Since 2010, two other candidates for the high court have lost their election campaigns after being hit by ads funded by outof-state groups.

“The past is undeniable,” said Lauren Hoover, Goodson’s attorney. “In every race in which these folks from D.C. have been involved, run dark money, the candidate that had their support won.”

With three candidates on the Supreme Court ballot this year, the Judicial Crisis Network, based in Washington, D.C., decided to go after two of the candidates with ads that declared Hixson as “soft on crime” and Goodson a “rich insider.” The group isn’t required to disclose its donors.

Another Washington- based group, the Republican State Leadership Committee, spent more than $500,000 to support Sterling, though that group’s donors are disclosed on tax filings.

In total, the two groups spent more than $1 million

on Arkansas’ Supreme Court race, dwarfing the roughly $150,000 spent collectively by the candidates themselves.

Sterling, a 49- year- old chief attorney at the Department of Human Services, steadfastly denied any involvement in the ads, though he also never repudiated the message they delivered.

“We all say we hate negative ads, but the reality and the scholarship shows that we’re motivated by them,” said Janine Parry, a political scientist at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.

Hixson, 62, and Goodson, 45, took separate approaches in responding to the attacks.

At first, Goodson posted direct-to-voter pleas on her campaign social media accounts, but as the negative ads increased, she and her lawyers turned to the courts. A trio of lawsuits filed in Fayetteville, Fort Smith and Little Rock netted the justice temporary orders that halted the ads, at least for a bit, in Little Rock and Fayetteville.

But later intervention by Washington County Circuit Judge Doug Martin caused her campaign further trouble last week after it was reported that Martin’s wife had financial ties to the firm of Goodson’s husband, John Goodson. Martin had ordered negative ads against Justice Goodson taken off the air.

Goodson’s campaign asked Martin to recuse from the case, which he did. The case was appointed to a special circuit judge who normally works in Pulaski County. That judge reversed Martin’s order, finding that the ads were likely protected speech. But a circuit judge in Pulaski County assigned to the lawsuit filed in Little Rock put a stop to the ads there.

The result of the two orders meant that TV ads critical of Goodson were allowed to run in Northwest Arkansas in the final weekend of the campaign, but not in Little Rock.

As polls approached their 7:30 p.m. closing time Tuesday, cable company Comcast gave notice that it would appeal the injunction to the Arkansas Supreme Court, which would require Goodson to recuse if the case is heard.

Hixson chose to forgo any legal efforts, and he instead denounced the involvement of the outside groups. He spent his campaign cash on TV ads portraying his upbringing in rural Paris in Logan County.

Because the race is nonpartisan and governed by strict ethics rules limiting what candidates can say about their intentions once elected, all three hopefuls gave their pitches in broad terms throughout the campaign.

As one of the longest-serving current justices, Goodson touted her experience and the efforts of her and her colleagues to manage a backlog of cases.

But Hixson, who has more total years of experience practicing law, also claimed experience and promised to make the court less “political,” even though he could not point to examples of his claims regarding the court’s opinions.

Sterling espoused “judicial conservatism” and made his ties to groups such as the Christian Legal Society and the National Rifle Association known on campaign material.

Few issues actually dealing with Goodson’s work on the court — other than gifts and campaign contributions she received — ever became part of the campaign.

As a justice, Goodson has written several high-profile opinions, including one to uphold the state’s Method of Execution Act. She joined in a unanimous ruling by the court in 2016 to overturn a “tort reform” measure from the ballot, angering many Republicans and business groups.

In 2015, Goodson was one of four justices investigated and cleared of wrongdoing by the state Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission on allegations that they intentionally delayed ruling in a same-sex marriage case until after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled separately to legalize such marriages across the country.

In an interview during the campaign, Goodson denied that the justices had delayed the case for political purposes. None of her opponents in this race mentioned the matter to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Goodson

Sterling