Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas
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Arkansas' Lieutenant Governor presides over the Senate with a tie-breaking vote, serves as governor when the governor is out of state, and serves as governor if the governor is impeached, removed from office, dies or is otherwise unable to discharge the office's duties.
The position of Lieutenant Governor is provided for by the state constitution and was created in 1914, though Arkansas did not have anyone serving as Lieutenant Governor until 1927.
Amendment 6 to the Arkansas Constitution was voted on by the general electorate in 1914, with returns showing 45,567 in favor of the amendment and 45,206 opposed. The Speaker of the House declared the measure lost because it did not receive a majority of the highest total vote, which was 135,517. In 1925, it was discovered that the Initiative and Referendum of 1910 amended this majority requirement so that only a majority of those voting on a specific question was required. So, in 1926, the 1914 initiative was declared to be valid and Harvey Parnell was elected Arkansas' first lieutenant governor.
In the 2006 election, Democrat Bill Halter defeated Republican Senator Jim Holt for the office, on November 7, 2006. Halter was sworn into office on January 9, 2007. The office itself had been vacant since July 16, 2006, due to the death of the most recent incumbent, Winthrop Paul Rockefeller.
Rockefeller and his two predecessors — Mike Huckabee and Jim Guy Tucker — began their respective tenures in the midst of regular term periods, due to resignation of certain governors. Tucker succeeded Bill Clinton as governor in December 1992, upon Clinton's resignation days before assuming his office as President of the United States, creating the need for a special election to fill the lieutenant governor's office. When Tucker was convicted of conspiracy and mail fraud charges in 1996, Huckabee succeeded him as governor, paving the way for the November 1996 special election of Rockefeller as lieutenant governor.
