In Arkansas next month, two supreme court justices are seeking re-election, sort of—neither is running for the seat they currently hold, but rather for each other’s seat on the bench.
Nick Bronni and Cody Hiland were both appointed to the state supreme court in late 2024 by Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Technically, both were barred from running to keep their place on the court this year since the Arkansas constitution forbids officials who were appointed to fill a vacancy to then run for that position when it next appears on the ballot. But luckily for them, the timing of their appointments offered Bronni and Hiland a solution: Since they each faced this same predicament at the same time this year, they could just trade spots.
This game of musical chairs, while legal, has the effect of circumventing the constitution’s ban, which typically prevents gubernatorial appointees from reaping the benefits of incumbency before they’ve earned it from voters.
They’ve been doing this shit for years. Until you charge the people doing it with treason, convict them. And sentence them to life in prison, or as Arkansas believes in the death penalty, nothing will change. Send them both to the electric chair, and poof, people will say “maybe I shouldn’t do that.”
And a lot more conservatives will say, hey wait… The death penalty might not be fair. For all the wrong reasons. The death penalty is unfair because you may have charged someone innocent with murder. Intentionally subverting a democracy is 100% to treason. No doubts.
Did you run for a position you already have to manipulate the system set up by a democratic Republic. Yes. Guilty
