Incumbent, 2 rivals vying for House seat

Rep. Jana Della Rosa, R-Rogers
Rep. Jana Della Rosa, R-Rogers

ROGERS -- Rep. Jana Della Rosa, R-Rogers, faces two Republican primary opponents in her re-election bid for House District 90.

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Former state Rep. Randy Alexander

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Arkansas Secretary Of State

Jana K. Starr of Springdale, candidate for the state House District 90 seat.

Former state Rep. Randy Alexander and first-time candidate Jana K. Starr both cited their opposition to the state's so-called "private option" health care plan for entering the race.

Della Rosa wasn't in the state Legislature when the plan was first approved in 2013, but she voted in 2015 to continue the plan until an alternative is found, as Gov. Asa Hutchinson requested. The plan accepts about $1 billion a year in federal taxpayer dollars for extending health insurance coverage to the working poor.

"Every time I'm asked why I didn't vote against the private option, I ask what the better alternative is," Della Rosa said. "I haven't gotten an answer yet."

The 2014 election was Della Rosa's first run for elective office. She won with no runoff.

If no candidate gets a clear majority in this year's March 1 primary, a runoff will be held March 22. The winner of the primary faces no major party opposition in November.

"Not a single person who's lived within my district filed against me. Only people who moved into my district to run did," Della Rosa said.

Both Starr and Alexander moved into the district within the past year. Both said their decisions to move there had more to do with choosing a place to live than any political considerations.

"If I just wanted to run for the Legislature, I could have moved to Justin Harris' or Micah Neal's district," Alexander said.

Reps. Justin Harris, R-West Fork, and Micah Neal, R-Springdale, announced months ago they were not running for re-election.

No matter who lived where, Starr said, neither of her opponents did enough to protect children while they were in office. She pointed to a report last year, commissioned by the governor, showing a badly overextended system for caring for the state's foster children.

Alexander represented Springdale's District 88 for one term. He was defeated in the 2014 primary by political newcomer Lance Eads. Alexander said he wanted to return to the Legislature, in part, to help provide the conservative representation that never would have supported private option.

"The biggest difference between us is the private option," Alexander said of Della Rosa. "I was against it before based on what we knew then. Based on what we know now, I'm even more against it."

Proponents have not answered how the state will pay for the program in the long term as federal money to the states tapers off under the plan, he said.

Alexander also objected to Della Rosa's vote against a bill that would have added churches to a list of buildings a convicted child sex offender cannot live near. There's a 2,000-foot distance prescribed already for schools, day-care centers and city parks. Della Rosa said current restrictions are adequate.

Alexander said he wasn't concerned about making it more difficult for sex offenders to find homes by adding churches to the list of restrictions.

"In my opinion, they should still be in prison," he said.

Starr moved to Northwest Arkansas from Bryant in central Arkansas and spent most of her adult life in Nashville in southwest Arkansas. She worked in schools in all those areas, giving her a statewide perspective on issues, particularly issues involving children, she said. She was active in Republican politics in Howard County when she lived in Nashville and in Northwest Arkansas, Starr said.

"I've been to a lot of the state Legislature's education committee meetings, and it's pretty clear a lot of people on those committees really don't quite understand what they're talking about," she said.

"There's a lot of times when I was a teacher, a librarian or an assistant principal and saw a child taken out of his home and thought, 'Why that one and not this one?'" Starr said.

"One of the things I'd like to see is more than one caseworker and that caseworker's supervisor deciding whether a child should be taken from the home. You want to be able to act quickly, but there's no need to have just two people making that decision. It could use another set of eyes.

"My business has been kids," Starr said. "They would be my priority."

Della Rosa said what the people in her district want most is a responsive, effective and conservative state representative.

"When people from my district call me, they want to talk about practical things," Della Rosa said. "They want you to listen to them. Most of all, if they leave you a message, they want you to call them back. They want you to be responsive."

Metro on 02/04/2016

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