LONOKE -- After five elections to the Lonoke County Quorum Court as a Democrat during the past 10 years, businessman Roger Lynch of Lonoke is running as a Republican in his bid to beat Democratic state Rep. Camille Bennett of Scott in the Nov. 8 general election.
"She is not near as conservative as I am, and her voting record reflects that," Lynch said last week in an interview at a Lonoke restaurant.
He declined to cite any of Bennett's votes to prove his point.
"We will probably publish her voting record around some issues that are different from the way I believe," said Lynch, who is a 65-year-old owner of Lynch HVACR LLC -- a residential heating and air conditioning company -- and a retired operations manager at the Remington Ammunition Plant in Lonoke.
"I like Camille. She has lived here for a long time and I actually cut wood for her husband [Wayne Bennett]. I don't have a problem with the person," he added.
Camille Bennett is a 55-year-old attorney who has been an assistant attorney general, Lonoke district judge, Lonoke city attorney and a researcher for the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
"I don't know what he believes in," Bennett said, adding that she hasn't seen any campaign materials about Lynch's legislative issues or heard him give a speech about issues.
"Roger seems like a very nice guy," Bennett said in an interview at a Lonoke restaurant.
In 2014, Bennett won election to her first two-year term in House District 14 by 86 votes. She garnered 4,252 votes to Scott Republican Buddy Fisher's 4,166 votes.
House District 14 includes parts of Arkansas, Jefferson, Lonoke, Pulaski and Prairie counties. The rural district includes Lonoke and England.
The House now comprises 62 Republicans, 34 Democrats and an independent, Rep. Nate Bell of Mena.
Three state House seats are vacant. Flippin Republican Kelley Linck and Ozark Republican Bill Gossage resigned to take jobs with the Department of Human Services and Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson's office. Rep. Sheilla Lampkin of Monticello died in July.
Lynch said voters should cast their ballots for him because he is a conservative candidate who believes in small and effective government.
"I am just a normal, conservative, compassionate person that would like to see the government do the best job it can for the people it serves," he said.
"I want to see and get involved in the budgeting process. ... I think I can influence it and do what I can to make the government less expensive to operate and maybe more effective," Lynch said.
Bennett said voters should support her based on her experience in the Legislature and her broad range of experience working for city, state and federal government and in private legal practice.
"I work for our district. I don't work for a party," she said. "I am beginning to think partisan politics is killing our country."
Bennett said she wants to work on expanding access to cellphone service and broadband in her House district, increasing state funding for libraries and pre-kindergarten programs, more fairly distributing the state's tax burden and creating a state registry for lost dogs.
Both Lynch and Bennett said they support Hutchinson's Arkansas Works version of Medicaid expansion.
"That is another of those the lesser of two evils," Lynch said. "We couldn't to do without the money. At the same time, we didn't want to expand Medicaid, so I think Arkansas Works was a good compromise."
Bennett said: "Because of Arkansas Works, we have more local health clinics in my district. We have more access to doctors because they can get insured patients in.
"It has really improved access and cut down the cost in Arkansas."
First approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature and Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe in 2013, the expansion of the state's Medicaid program extended coverage to adults with incomes of up to 138 percent of the poverty level: $16,394 for an individual, for instance, or $33,534 for a family of four.
Most of those covered under the expanded part of the program receive the coverage through what is known as the private option, which uses Medicaid funds to buy coverage through private insurance plans.
Hutchinson's Arkansas Works program would continue the coverage while making changes that the governor has said would encourage enrollees to stay employed and take responsibility for their health care. The state is seeking a waiver from the federal government for the Arkansas Works program to start next year.
The federally financed program provides health insurance for more than 300,000 Arkansans. But the state will have to pay 5 percent of the cost of the program starting in 2017, and its share will gradually increase to 10 percent by 2020.
Lynch said he ran as a Democrat for the Lonoke County Quorum Court a decade ago because "this was predominantly a Democrat area [and] when you are running at the quorum court level you aren't running off anybody's platform."
He said he almost signed up to run as a Republican for the Quorum Court in the 2014 election before deciding to run as a Republican in this year's election.
"I have a lot of friends that are Democrats, and I had that emotional thing about switching parties. But my beliefs more closely align with the Republican platform than I did with the Democratic [platform]," Lynch said.
"I am a big proponent of the Second Amendment, and I am pro-life. I am very traditional in my beliefs. I am a Southern Baptist," Lynch said.
Asked to specify the circumstances under which he would allow for abortions, he said, "That is another one of those things where laws are only as effective as the certainty of punishment, if you break them.
"If you put a family in a position where if they abort a child, the mother winds up being forced with some kind of civil or criminal penalty, that just adds angst to an already bad situation," Lynch said. "So on the principle, I don't think that we should be killing babies. ... Now are there exceptions to that? I am sure there are, but they need to be argued on case-by-case basis.
"But a healthy person in normal circumstances that has the misfortune of an unwanted pregnancy, I don't think they should abort the child," he said.
As for her position on abortion, Bennett said, "I think all of us should do everything we can to avoid abortion.
"I think sex education is important. I think availability of birth control is critical, but I believe the choice should be between a woman, their minister, [and] their husband [or] their boyfriend," she said.
Bennett said that she supports "each amendment to our Constitution," including the Second Amendment.
"I have had guns my entire life and own them now, and we fight anyone who tries to come get 'em," she said.
Bennett said Lynch's decision to change parties "may be an issue for some people.
"As far as I can tell he currently sits on the Quorum Court as a Democrat, and I really don't know how you have a foot in both piles," she said.
Lynch later disputed Bennett's description of him "having a foot in both piles," though he counted himself as among the Democrats on the Lonoke County Quorum Court in an initial interview.
"She is definitely a Democrat. She has no toe in the Republican Party," he said.
Lynch voted in the Republican primary this year after voting in the Democratic primary in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2012 and 2014, according to records in the secretary of state's office. The records show Bennett voted in the Democratic primary during this period.
Metro on 09/06/2016