Judicial Reform

In Arkansas, conservative Supreme Court makes major difference

September 9, 2024

Ray Carter

In July 2023, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders appointed Cody Hiland to serve as a justice on the Arkansas Supreme Court, replacing a justice who died in office.

Because members of the Arkansas Supreme Court are typically selected through direct elections, the appointment was unusual for that reason alone. But Sanders noted at the time that Hiland’s appointment was significant for another, much more important reason.

“This is the first time Arkansas’ Supreme Court will have a conservative majority,” Sanders said.

Nic Horton, founder and CEO of Opportunity Arkansas, says having a conservative majority on the court has real-world impact when it comes to policymaking and addressing major state challenges.

“You can have all the conservative policymakers in the world, but if you’ve got an activist supreme court that’s just going to throw out everything that they don’t like because they think they’re policymakers, then you’re not going to get very far,” Horton said. “For us, it’s been a huge shift and it’s opened up a whole world of new policy possibilities.”

Hiland’s appointment was the culmination of several years of effort. Through Arkansas’ system of judicial elections, conservative jurists had gradually won seats on the state supreme court. When Hiland replaced a liberal justice who died midterm, it tipped the balance of the court.

Horton noted several recent lawsuits have highlighted the difference made when a state has a conservative court majority that adheres to the law and the constitution rather than legislating from the bench.

When Arkansas lawmakers passed a major education-reform law that included statewide school choice opportunity, opponents responded with a “crazy frivolous lawsuit,” Horton noted.

The Arkansas Supreme Court upheld the law.

“The left was clearly hoping that the Supreme Court was going to save them,” Horton said. “And I think if we had not had a conservative supreme court that was willing to just say, ‘Here’s what the law says and here’s how the law has always been applied because this is what the law says,’ we could have had a very different outcome.”

Another recent high-profile case involved a proposed “very radical, pro-abortion” state constitutional amendment. Backers circulated an initiative petition to place the proposed amendment on the ballot but failed to adhere to state law requirements for signature collection. The Arkansas secretary of state found the filing was invalid and short of the signature threshold, and the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld that action.

A third case involved a challenge to an Arkansas law that required an individual’s actual sex to be listed on his or her driver’s license, rather than self-proclaimed “gender identity.” The Arkansas Supreme Court also upheld that law.

Knowing that the court will not be legislating from the bench means state officials can now tackle many issues that might have been derailed in the past due to justices’ personal political inclinations, Horton noted.

He believes Arkansas may now be poised to supercharge its current positive momentum.

“We’re headed in a great direction economically,” Horton said. “We’ve had three rounds of income-tax cuts in the last 18 months. We’re creating all sorts of new jobs. We’ve got employers coming in from all over the country and region and even the world that are investing here. We’re really starting to see Arkansas’ economy start to turn a corner.”

Horton said state policymakers can now act with confidence so long as they abide by the state constitution and state law.

“Policymakers now have certainty to take on really big things and big changes that are long overdue,” Horton said.