Incumbent faces primary challenge

Two square off for state House seat

Kendon Underwood (left) and State Rep. Jana Della Rosa
Kendon Underwood (left) and State Rep. Jana Della Rosa

Voters in Lowell and surrounding cities will choose their Republican candidate for Arkansas House District 90 this month.

photo

Rep. Jana Della Rosa

photo

Kendon Underwood

State Rep. Jana Della Rosa seeks a third, two-year term in the position and said she brings a careful and pragmatic perspective to the Legislature. Her challenger, political newcomer and attorney Kendon Underwood, said he’s the more conservative choice.

The district runs from the Benton-Washington county line north into Cave Springs, Lowell and Rogers. Early voting for the May 22 primary starts today. Whoever wins will face Democrat Kati Mc-Farland for the seat this fall.

Della Rosa, a homemaker in Rogers, has focused much of her time in state government on education.

She successfully pushed to change the state’s A-F school grading system so it takes multiple measures into account, rather than students’ raw test scores alone, and doesn’t financially punish struggling schools, she said. She helped create a grant program last year for students in two-year programs at community colleges or schools like Northwest Technical Institute, she said.

“I try to think through all of it and not run anything that could cause more problems than it solves,” Della Rosa said, adding she plans to keep an eye on how well the new grading system works toward the goal of improving schools.

She told a small crowd at a Northwest Arkansas Community College candidate forum Thursday her votes might not be perfect, but she votes honestly and always with constituents in mind.

Underwood criticized Della Rosa’s voting record on education and other issues.

Arkansas legislators earlier this year voted to allow families to use income tax-exempt college savings accounts for education-related expenses for primary and secondary school, matching a similar change made in Congress last year.

Della Rosa voted for the change in order to match the federal rules, but said she opposed the principle of it because the savings accounts were created with college in mind. Underwood wholeheartedly supported the change, saying it’s important to give parents as many education options as possible.

“I think that’s about as limited-government as you can get,” he said at the candidate forum.

Underwood said he also saw Della Rosa as too willing to vote for increases in spending and taxes. The state should take care of roads and highways, for instance, but should do so without raising taxes, he said. At the forum, Della Rosa mocked this approach as like waving a magic wand.

In a later interview, Underwood responded: “I don’t think we need magic to make conservative ideas work. I just think you need courage.”

Underwood called his work in family law, contracts and other legal issues at Bentonville’s Woodard Law Group good practice for the Legislature.

“I’m reading laws every single day,” he said, adding he often finds unclear or overlooked details in state laws that could have benefited from having a lawyer on hand.

Della Rosa said she’s a genuine conservative, but can acknowledge the state needs more revenue to adequately take care of its roads or pay its teachers. Having too few caseworkers for the foster care system or too few probation officers only means people linger in those systems longer and cost the state more over time, she said.

“We just have situations like that where we spend dollars to save pennies,” Della Rosa said.

“I’m going to support whatever is going to be financially best for Arkansas,” she added. “It’s real easy to gripe. It’s a whole lot different when you’re trying to come up with a program everyone will agree to.”

Republican primary

ARKANSAS HOUSE DISTRICT 90

Jana Della Rosa (Incumbent) Age: 41 Residency: Rogers Employment: Homemaker Education: Bachelor’s degree, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

Experience: Arkansas House since 2015

Kendon Underwood Age: 29 Residency: Cave Springs Employment: Attorney at Woodard Law Group Education: Doctorate, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Political Experience: None

Upcoming Events