FAYETTEVILLE — Rep. Greg Leding, D-Fayetteville, let the voters of District 86 down in a partisan redistricting fight, said Brian Scott, Republican challenger.

Leding, the incumbent, is confident voters in his district disagree, he said.

District 86 is one of the most solidly Democratic in the state, both candidates said. The majority of Democrats in the House tried to put Fayetteville’s large body of Democrats into south Arkansas’ 4th Congressional District to shore up the party’s chances of keeping that congressional seat, Scott said. Leding voted in favor of the plan. The measure passed the Arkansas House, but failed in the Senate in the last legislative session.

Leding said there was much more local support for the move than detractors like to admit, and there were solid reasons for Fayetteville voters to support the idea.

“I’m still genuinely convinced that having two congressional representatives interested in this area would have been of benefit to the community,” he said.

Fayetteville residents vote mostly for Democrats, Leding said, yet they remain in a 3rd Congressional District with a strong Republican majority. The 3rd District representative in Congress would have still been an advocate for the overall region, he said, while the 4th District representative would have been directly involved.

The redistricting effort convinced him to get into the race against Leding, Scott said.

“Eighty-six percent of the people in the district were against it, according to one poll at the time,” he said of the redistricting. “That included me.”

The issue is in the past, Leding said. Leding is much more closely aligned to the interests of the district’s voters, he said. Also, he is an incumbent who serves on the House Public Health Committee and related subcommittees. Leading said he will be far better placed to represent Fayetteville in the next legislative session. Leding will still be an experienced lawmaker among many freshmen if the House majority passes to the Republicans, he said.

Leding is House co-chairman of the subcommittee that oversees Medicaid and hospitals. Two of the biggest issues coming before the Legislature in 2013 are an expected shortfall in money for Medicaid and the proposed federally financed expansion of the program, he said.

Leding will support the expansion of Medicaid, a state-run health care program that is financed mostly with federal dollars, to include an estimated 250,000 working Arkansans, he said. The health and the economic benefits are simply too enormous to ignore, he said.

The state should look before it leaps into a Medicaid expansion that the federal government is promising to pay for but that is realistically beyond its means, Scott said.

“I want to look at every option, but I don’t want to sell Arkansans down the river in three years because we can’t afford it,” he said.

Leding is also chairman of the legislative task force on sustainable building design and practices. The issue of energy efficiency is of great interest to members of his district, he said.

This will be Leding’s second term if he is re-elected. House members are only allowed three under the state’s term limit law. Leding will be a veteran by House experience standards and is in a position to lead, he said.

Scott has not held elective office as of yet, but has more private sector experience as a small-business man, he said. A Republican who will listen to his constituents would represent the district better than a Democrat who doesn’t, Scott said.

“Isn’t that what ‘representative’ means?” Scott said. “Isn’t ‘represent’ the core of that title? I’m a Republican who’s fiscally conservative and socially moderate. I’ll work for Fayetteville and I’m not extreme.

“For instance, on Arkansas ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment, I would be willing to look into that and talk to anybody who has an opinion. I am pro-life, but believe there should be exemptions for the health of the mother or in cases of rape or incest.”