Looking to the Court for Clarity (Editorial)

GOP Attorney General candidate Leslie Rutledge, Pulaski County Clerk Larry Crane

F. Scott Fitzgerald was wrong. There are second acts in American lives. America was founded by people looking for their second act. And because we’re all about the second acts in life, Americans are a forgiving people and that means that Arkansans are a forgiving people.

Steve Clark knows this. Clark is the former Arkansas attorney general who used a state credit card to charge fancy meals to the taxpayers though no official business was conducted at these fancy meals. For this he was convicted of felony theft. That was back in 1990. Clark has since paid restitution and Gov. Mike Huckabee pardoned him in 2004. Clark is now president of the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, and good for him.

So if state attorney general candidate Leslie Rutledge had simply said something to the effect of “I messed up on my voter registration. I should have canceled my Arkansas registration when I moved. I didn’t. Let me do what’s necessary to get right with the law,” there’s a better than even chance that many Arkansans would have given her the benefit of the doubt.

Instead, she and her fellow Republicans doubled down, accusing Pulaski County Clerk Larry Crane, who canceled Rutledge’s voter registration after learning of the multiple registrations, of “Chicago-style” politics.

Of course, the cancellation of her registration threatens to make Rutledge ineligible to run, but that’s what the courts are for.

And the Democrats do themselves no favors if their AG candidate, Nate Steel, wins by default. It doesn’t look good. Besides, they have plenty of ammunition fair and square: If Rutledge aims to be the top lawyer in the state, she, of all people, should have known the law.

With a heavy sigh, we say that this situation is now probably past salvaging. It’s time for a lawsuit.