Lamoureux says political bug bit early

— The 36-year-old attorney who will assume the top post in the Arkansas Senate on Monday is described by his colleagues as a pragmatic conservative who is open-minded and a tad shy.

And with Republicans in control of the state Senate for the first time in 138 years, Republican Sen. Michael Lamoureux of Russellville says he’s become more conservative on state financial issues during the past decade.

“I was probably more of a social conservative when first elected than a fiscal conservative comparatively,” he said in a recent interview at his office in Russellville.

Lamoureux said he still considers himself a social conservative, which stems from his Baptist faith.

“I would like to think I don’t get stirred up,” he said when asked if any particular issue does that.

Lamoureux “is a solid conservative who wants to get things done and that’s a rare commodity,” said departing state Sen. Gilbert Baker, R-Conway.

Lamoureux has been described by some senators “as a little bit shy,” but “he is also smart enough to know he’s not supposed to be moving his mouth all the time,” said Baker.

State Sen. Joyce Elliott, DLittle Rock, said Lamoureux has always struck her as a thoughtful and open-minded person.

But Elliott added, “I would be rather Pollyannish to suggest that there are not pressures on him to move more to the right. That is just the reality.”

Lamoureux, who in 2004 voted for a sales-tax increase projected to raise $360 million a year, last year signed the Washington, D.C.-based Americans for Tax Reform’s pledge not to vote for any tax increases.

“I didn’t mind signing a pledge in which I promised not to do something that in my heart I know I am not going to do,” he said.

In 2004, Lamoureux was one of 11 House Republicans to vote for the sales-tax increase, after the state Supreme Court ruled in 2002 that the state’s school-funding system was unconstitutional because of funding inadequacy and funding inequities between rich and poor districts.

“Would I do the same thing now? It is hard to answer that,” he said. “The tax vote, I regret more than anything probably.”

Last year, Lamoureux was one of 58 Republican state lawmakers in Arkansas to sign a friend-of-the-court brief to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that the federal health-care law enacted under President Barack Obama was unconstitutional.

“I am not a big fan of the federal health-care law, but it is what it is at this point,” he said in a recent interview at his Russellville office. “I am a graceful loser.”

Lamoureux said the legislative effort to add 250,000 more Arkansans to the Medicaid rolls “is not dead.”

“But if [federal government officials] really mean what they say when they say there is no room for compromise [on the size of the expansion], I think it gets very difficult” to win legislative approval for the expansion, he said.

MISSOURIAN UNTIL 5

Born in Springfield, Mo., Lamoureux moved with his parents to Dover when he was 5. His father was a truck driver for Tyson Foods and his mother ran a day care.

A self-described average student, he said he focused almost completely on sports in his youth.

The 6-foot-4-inch Lamoureux wanted to be a high school basketball coach after playing basketball at Dover High School, where he graduated from in 1994.

But he started working for local political campaigns, and the more he did so, “the more I decided being a high school coach was what I didn’t want to do,” he said. “I wanted to be a lawyer.”

Nearly two decades later, Phil Carruth said he still remembers Lamoureux doing “yard-sign duty” — pounding lawn signs into front yards across Russellville — for Carruth’s successful 1994 campaign for mayor in Russellville.

The young volunteer, a high-school senior, worked tirelessly, Carruth said.

As a student at Arkansas Tech University from 1994-97, Lamoureux said he took school “a lot more serious” because “I had a purpose, to go to law school.”

He graduated in three years with a bachelor’s degree in history and political science by taking a lot of summer classes.

Lamoureux married his high school girlfriend, the former Kristi Story, over the summer, and then enrolled at the W.H. Bowen School of Law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, graduating in 1999.

He said it normally takes seven years to get a college degree and law degree, but he did that in five years because he wanted to get to work.

“There wasn’t anyone else paying the bills but me,” said Lamoureux.

After graduating from law school, he went to work for former Democratic state Sen. Tom Kennedy’s law firm, Phillips & Douthit, when Kennedy left the firm and the state Senate to work as a lobbyist for Entergy Corp.

Lamoureux started working part time for the state Public Defenders Commission in the fall of 2000 and became a partner in River Valley Title & Closing in 2010.

He initially considered challenging then-state Rep. Olin Cook, D-Russellville, in 2000.

But Lamoureux said Lu Hardin, a former state senator who at the time was director of the Department of Higher Education, advised him that “it was terrible idea” to run against Cook, who was barred from seeking re-election under the state’s term-limits amendment in 2002.

He followed Hardin’s advice and won the open House seat in 2002.

Lamoureux was one of 30 Republicans in the 100-member House in 2003 and 2004.

In 2003, he was one of only three House Republicans — all lawyers — who voted against tort-law overhaul legislation backed by business and medical groups and enacted into law.

“I have not flipped my position, but watching places like Texas doing really well in recruiting jobs and crediting a lot of that to their tort environment, I can understand why the business community and the medical community were eager [for the law],” Lamoureux said.

The state Supreme Court has ruled in recent years that parts of the 2003 tort-law changers were unconstitutional, including a $1 million limit on punitive-damages awards. To respond to the court’s rulings, the Legislature will consider referring a proposed constitutional amendment to voters in the 2014 general election.

Lamoureux, who served in the House through 2008, was handily elected to the state Senate in a special election in December 2009, after the resignation of state Sen. Sharon Trusty, R-Russellville.

As Senate leader, he said his goals are to have a good relationship with the state House of Representatives and Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe, and have the Senate operate effectively.

But Lamoureux said he has no desire to run for any federal or statewide office.

“I may be one of the few people who think being a state senator is a good job,” he said. “I feel like I am lucky because I am getting to do exactly what I want to do.”

Lamoureux added that living about an hour’s drive away from the Capitol isn’t much of a burden.

“The only tough time for my family is when we are in session,” he said, referring to his wife, son and daughter.

“When we are not in session, I can drop my kids off at school at eight o’clock and be at an all-day meeting [in Little Rock] and be back at home for dinner. I get to do the work I like to do without torturing myself and my family as much as others.”

Michael Lamoureux (R) Age: 36 Date of Birth: June 2, 1976 Birthplace: Springÿ eld, Mo. Current town of residence: Russellville Education: Dover High School, 1994; Arkansas Tech University, bachelor’s degree in history and political science, 1997; University of Arkansas at Little Rock W.H. Bowen School of Law, 1999.

Religious affiliation: Baptist Legislative post: Senate president pro tempore

Business/political experience: An attorney, who has worked part time for the state Public Defenders Commission since 2000 and has been a partner in River Valley Title and Closing since 2010. He previously worked for the Phillips and Douthit law ÿ rm in Russellvile from 2000-2003 and was a contract lobbyist for several months in 2009.

Family: Wife, Kristi, two children.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/13/2013

Upcoming Events