Max Brantley: Judges take center stage

[LiberalArkie]

Sure, 19 Republican and Democrats are on the Arkansas presidential primary ballot March 1. And some voters can participate in Republican bloodletting between ultra- and ultra-ultra-conservative legislative candidates over Obamacare.

But the real action will be the nonpartisan judicial races, particularly two contests for the Arkansas Supreme Court.

Associate Justice Courtney Goodson will face Circuit Judge Dan Kemp of Mountain View in a race for chief justice. It's a position that once had administrative authority over the court, but the power has been diminished by rump majority caucuses of the seven-member court. Now-retired Chief Justice Jim Hannah was too nice for his own good.

Goodson was Courtney Henry when she got elected to the Court of Appeals on scant law clerk experience. Her Democratically connected in-laws were critical in her reach for a seat on the Supreme Court. Shortly after her election, she shucked her husband. She remarried to a powerful lawyer, John Goodson, who'd gifted her with mounds of expensive purses. She'd later disclose that she and hubby enjoyed a $50,000 Mediterranean cruise on a private Tyson yacht, courtesy of a well-connected lawyer friend.

Read More At Arkansas Times

[Art_from_Ark]

1. Are these statewide contests?

I assume they are, but I can't take anything for granted.

[LiberalArkie]

2. Some are, the supreme court positions are state wide. I hate it being non partisan.

Because you can't tell what party they are.

[Art_from_Ark]

3. I guess we'll have to refer to their Wiki bios

It's too bad the Arkansas Gazette as a separate entity from the Democrat is defunct. The Gazette always provided a good guide to liberal candidates until it was taken over by Gannett.

[LiberalArkie]

4. Arkansas Times always has a guide before the election. Most of the Gazetters formed the

Times after the purchase. Max Brantley runs the Times.. Nice weekly paper that is free in the city. Find them and like them on Facebook and you will get their daily newscast.

[Art_from_Ark]

5. Thanks for the heads-up

I never knew the Times was formed by former Gazetters, but now that I think about it, it does make sense considering the resemblance between the two.

[LiberalArkie]

6. From Wiki

Arkansas Times, a weekly alternative newspaper based in Little Rock, Arkansas, is a publication that has circulated for nearly 40 years, originally as a magazine. Its current format stems from reaction to the Arkansas Democrat?? '​?s buyout of assets from Gannett's closure of the Arkansas Gazette in 1991, which had resulted in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Arkansas Times ' senior editor, Max Brantley, is among those former Gazette staffers who lost their jobs as a result of the merger. He was the first editor of the weekly edition in May 1992. The Gazette's editorial cartoonist, George Fisher, became the Times cartoonist until his death.

Billed as Arkansas's weekly newspaper of politics and culture (similarly styled as other regional publications like The Memphis Flyer), Arkansas Times is noted for its opinion columnists and feature articles that take a decidedly liberal stance in comparison to the larger, daily Democrat-Gazette.