Matt Campbell at Blue Hog Report has a report today about the amount of time Jennifer Lancaster is spending at the Capitol and on social media pitching into the battle against COVID-19 vaccinations.
Jennifer Lancaster? Why care?
Because she’s a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Barbara Webb, for whom Lancaster served as campaign treasurer. She’s the wife of former Republican Party chair Doyle Webb, who’s running for lieutenant governor.
Matt Campbell is a former Supreme Court clerk. Doyle Webb tried to get him fired in 2011 over the belief that he had done some blogging on court time and reiterated as much in an interview several years later. Campbell said he didn’t.
Justice Webb got elected on the now popular tactic of running for non-partisan Supreme Court seats on Republican ties, as opposed to a judicial record. She’s continued to sit on politically-tinged cases handled by the attorney general, for whom her husband worked for a time this year.
Lancaster’s politics are of interest. She helps the justice write opinions and she has opinions on such heavily litigated topics as abortion (she’s against) and “critical race theory,” now a subject of a controversial new state law. Writes Campbell:
I mention her views on abortion and CRT and the rest for a reason. During a July 3, 2021 episode of the Facebook-based “Kim Hammer Show,”
Lancaster and Justice Webb were both in studio with Sen. Hammer. Around the 15 minute mark, Justice Webb talked about how she reaches a decision in certain cases, and she noted that her law clerks “including Jennifer” are part of the discussion process and help her think through the issues.
Now we’re sitting here, with the Arkansas legislature passing a slew of anti-vaccination bills in a manner that all but guarantees that a lot of this stuff is likely to come before the Court in the future. How can Justice Webb meet the judicial standards of impartiality when her own law clerk is vehemently in support of these anti-vaccination measures, is encouraging people to contact legislators and push for these bills, and is literally attending sessions in the Capitol during the hours that she should be doing her actual job over in the Justice Building? (For that matter, how can Justice Webb ensure impartiality in the likely event of a lawsuit about the various voter-suppression bills that were passed in the spring when her law clerk literally worked for Donald Trump’s legal team in furthering the lie that the election was somehow tainted?)
Clerks don’t accrue leave time, the Supreme Court clerk told Campbell. Perhaps she’s been on vacation this week for legislative activity. Campbell hasn’t talked to her, but she apparently got word about his leave inquiry.
Since there were no leave records, there was no reason for anyone in the Administrative Office of the Court or the Clerk’s Office to mention that request to the actual law clerks. Yet, shortly after Ms. Pectol responded to my request, Lancaster either locked down or scrubbed her Facebook page of basically everything from 2021.
I’ve sent her messages by email and Facebook seeking a response.
Lancaster was hired for $85,000 in January but has since received a $5,000 raise.
You might remember her from the days when she and her husband were stirring national publicity representing the Arkansas woman seeking child support for a child fathered by Hunter Biden, son of the president.
Campbell concludes:
Back to the main point: Arkansas state policy states, “State employees are prohibited from engaging in partisan political activity during the hours they are performing work for, and being paid by an agency of State government.”
Is governmental lobbying partisan activity? In today’s legislature, it’s a rare issue that doesn’t break on partisan lines, though the anti-vax legislation had some Republican opposition. Campbell has his opinion:
“Partisan political activity.” “Normal work hours.” “Employee of the state.” “Illegal political activity.” Those are the things that Doyle Webb, as chair of the RPA, was so concerned about in 2011 that he reiterated them four years later when asked about it.
Now that he is running for Lt. Governor, I wonder if he is just as concerned about those things when an employee of his wife is blatantly doing exactly what he falsely accused me of a decade ago.
The Webb family is not known for careful attention to ethical guardrails. For example.
And another example. And another bunch of examples here.
Birds of a feather.