Census results in loss of two districts

Terrell chooses not to run

By Ethan Nahté

Filing for elected offices begins next Tuesday, Feb. 22, and this year will see a change due to a change in Polk County’s population according to the 2020 census. In all, four Arkansas counties will lose a total of eight justice of the peace positions beginning in 2023 because of a state law that bases the number of a county’s quorum court members on the county’s population. There are no counties gaining justice of the peace positions this decade.

Justices of the peace serve on quorum courts, the legislative body of counties. The county judge is a county’s top executive.

Shelby Johnson, geographic information officer for the Arkansas Geographic Information Systems Office, said Ashley, Crittenden, Phillips and Polk counties will reduce their justice of the peace districts by two each. The change will apply to justices of the peace elected this year.

“So, the current JP members will serve the remainder of their current term until the next election is held and new JPs are sworn into office,” Johnson said.

He said that because of the law, some citizens who have developed relationships with their justices of the peace over the past decade may lose them.

“Because if a County is moving from 11 JPs down to 9 JPs, then that means some of the existing members would have to be drawn into the same district,” he said. “Assuming both incumbents ran against each other, one of them will not be re-elected. The opposite would be true if a county jumped up in class.”

The other option is if the JP chooses not to run again.

The latter is the case of long-time justice of the peace Terry Terrell, of District 6. Terrell has been a justice in Polk County 24 years. What was once District 6, which mainly consisted of western Polk County around the Rocky area, has now been restructured, increasing size as the 11 Polk County districts are now nine. U.S. Hwy. 8W now divides Districts 4 and  6. North of the highway will be the Acorn district. South of the highway will run all the way to Hatfield.

The main problem Terrell foresees is that with the increased area, a JP in districts four through nine, for example, is not going to be very aware of issues or needs by their constituents in the northwest corner if they reside in the southeast. Terrell’s longevity has made him very aware of his district’s needs and many of the people. Instead of announcing his candidacy once more, Terrell wanted to let the public know he will not run for office in 2022.

Arkansas law states that the number of quorum court districts per county in Arkansas is based upon population ranges. Apportionment of those districts is the responsibility of the county board of election commissioners and is based on federal decennial census information.

The U.S. Constitution requires a census every 10 years. The most recent one took place in 2020, and the results were announced last year. Since then, U.S. House and state legislative districts have been redrawn based on how the population changed.

Josh Curtis, governmental affairs director for the Association of Arkansas Counties, said that while a multitude of counties saw a drop in population and might be dropped in classification, the drop must be pretty steep for a county to lose two justice of the peace positions.

The number of justices of the peace in a county falls in these population ranges:

• Nine positions in counties with populations up to 19,000.

• 11 positions for populations of 20,000 to 49,999.

• 13 positions for populations of 50,000 to 199,999.

• 15 positions when the population is more than 200,000.

This law means that Arkansas will have a total of 775 justice of the peace positions on the basis of the 2020 census, a decrease from the 783 positions after the 2010 census.

This, despite the fact that Arkansas’ population grew, from 2,915,918 in the 2010 census to 3,011,524 in 2020, an increase of 95,606.

Polk County’s population dropped from 20,662 in 2010 to 19,221 in 2020. Though the population loss is only 1,441, the county still fell below the 20,000 minimum to retain 11 JPs. That will affect the districts until the 2030 census results.

County Judge Brandon Ellison said Polk County hired an outside company to redraw the area from 11 to nine districts.

“That won’t go into effect until next year, but we have a primary in May, and that is when the nine new district seats will be vied for,” Ellison said.

The general election is Nov.8.

Ellison said like most of the counties that have lost justice of the peace positions, the decline in population in his county wasn’t a complete surprise.

“We were kind of on the bubble beforehand,” he said. “I will say that 2020-21 probably wasn’t a great year for the census, and most rural counties lost population. We lost 6%, and that put us under.”

The district changes will also have an effect on voters and polling places, which has the potential to make 2022 a confusing year for voting in Polk County.

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