The new majority party in the state Legislature will find its most experienced leaders among Northwest Arkansas lawmakers, said political observers on both sides of the partisan divide Wednesday.
Benton County and portions of Washington County have sent minority party Republicans to the Legislature for years.
“When I started as Gov. David Pryor’s chief of staff in 1976, we had one Republican in the Senate and two in the House,” said Steve Clark, Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce president. “We used to joke ‘I like Republicans. I know one.’”
Clark is a former Democratic state attorney general.
As of Wednesday, Republicans had won a clear majority in the Senate elections and a slim majority in the House in the upcoming legislative session.
“The working majority party will be the Republicans, and this region sent back Republicans and Democrats with seniority: Charlie Collins and Uvalde Lindsey, for instance,” Clark said. “These people are in line for chairmanships and vice chairmanships. They will have a great deal to say in those committee rooms.”
Collins is an incumbent Republican representative from Fayetteville. Lindsey is a Democratic state representative from Fayetteville who won unopposed election to the state Senate.
No incumbent Northwest Arkansas legislator was defeated in Tuesday’s elections. Sen. Bill Pritchard, R-Elkins, lost the Republican primary in May but even his opponent has legislative experience. Sen.-elect Jon Woods, R-Springdale, has served three terms in the House.
Three of the top five returning members of the state House, in terms of seniority, are Northwest Arkansas Republicans: Duncan Baird, R-Lowell, Debra Hobbs, R-Rogers, and Les Carnine, R-Rogers. Baird will be first in seniority and Hobbs second.
Sen. Cecile Bledsoe, R-Rogers, will be the longest-serving Republican member of the state Senate. Sen.-elect Jim Hendren of Gravette was first elected to the state House of Representatives in 1994. He served three terms in the House and was minority leader in his last term. He was unopposed in his election as a state Senator for western Benton County.
Hendren’s father was one of the last Democratic state lawmakers from Benton County. Sen. Kim Hendren, R-Gravette, later switched to the Republican Party and is his son’s predecessor in the Senate, forced to retire because of term limits.
“I think there’s a real feeling that we need to serve the people of Arkansas rather than get caught up on the partisanship thing,” Kim Hendren said. “I think the delegation from here, Democrat and Republican, is a pretty level-headed bunch. Uvalde Lindsey worked for the Northwest Arkansas Council for years and goes a long way back in developing a Northwest Arkansas that works together.”
The council is a nonpartisan group of business and community leaders who cooperate on regional issues.
“I’d remind the lawmakers going in that Democrats in the Senate could have shut us out of committee chairmanships over the years, but shared that power when they didn’t have to,” Kim Hendren said. “I would suggest they should be careful.”
The “corner caucus,” as the Northwest Arkansas delegation is called, has a good record of working together for the region despite a partisan divide, Clark said. The region is part of the 3rd District Legislative Caucus, one of four legislative caucuses based on Arkansas’ four congressional districts. Area chambers of commerce will host a 3rd District caucus conference at the Chancellor Hotel in Fayetteville on Nov. 16 and 17, Clark said.
Clark also expressed doubt the shift in the Arkansas Legislature will be as dramatic as partisans on either side have assumed.
“Arkansas Democrats have been fiscally conservative all of my life,” he said. “I don’t think Arkansas Republicans are going to follow a national or state agenda as much as they are going to adhere to the same common core values of honesty, hard work and obtaining what you can pay for, not what you can borrow for. Our Legislature’s always been frugal, always sticking to essential services.”