Top aide chosen to lead staff

Hutchinson chooses Alison Williams as his chief of staff

Alison R. Williams will be the new chief of staff for Gov. Asa Hutchinson starting June 1, the governor said Friday.

Hutchinson also defended his strategies for calling the Arkansas Legislature into special session.

Williams will replace Michael Lamoureux, who announced earlier this month he’s leaving the governor’s office at the end of May. Williams has worked in Washington, D.C., as the governor’s director of state and federal relations since May 2015 and has worked with Hutchinson in other offices.

Williams will be paid the same $113,212-a-year salary that Lamoureux makes, Hutchinson spokesman J.R. Davis said.

Hutchinson, who described himself as a fairly hands-on governor, said Williams worked for him when he served in Congress, worked at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and at the Department of Homeland Security.

“She fits in with the incredible team spirit that we have,” he told reporters.

“She has the same leadership style that I have. She understands the importance of process and building a team and having structure to it. She has a breadth of experience that I believe is important in that key role,” Hutchinson said.

He said his deputy chief of staff, Jon Gilmore, will remain in that role. “With Lamoureux going, with incredible legislative experience, we might have to supplement that along the way,” the governor said. Lamoureux previously was in the Senate.

Williams previously was director for The Chertoff Group in Washington; Transportation Security Administration representative to the U.S. Africa Command; associate for the Hutchinson Group; associate for Jay Grant & Associates; executive assistant for Venable LLP; special assistant at the Department of Homeland Security; program analyst at the Drug Enforcement Administration; and executive assistant for Hutchinson and then-U.S. Rep. John Boozman from 2000-2001, according to her professional profile on LinkedIn, a social media website for professionals.

She is an Arkansas native and a graduate of Cabot High School and the University of Arkansas. She holds a master’s of business administration from the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business, according to the governor’s office. She is married to Bob Kucheravy.

Lamoureux said Friday he expects to announce his new job on his last day in the governor’s office. Earlier this month, he declined to say whether he plans to be a lobbyist of Congress.

In this week’s special session on highway funding and other matters, some Democratic and Republican lawmakers and lobbyists have privately questioned why the governor didn’t have the votes lined up to pass his highway funding bill before he called the General Assembly into special session.

Hutchinson’s predecessor, Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe, was known for making sure he had enough votes lined up to pass legislation before he called lawmakers into session to consider approving the bills. Hutchinson took office in January 2015.

Asked why he didn’t make sure there were enough votes to pass certain bills in the past three special sessions before he called lawmakers into them, Hutchinson told reporters, “I think it’s the wrong standard.

“What’s the objective in life? Is it to accomplish significant legislative action? Or is to get things done in a cookie-cutter fashion, where the outcome is known before you start?”

“While you like to do all your homework in advance, the fact is if I would have insisted upon everybody signing onto the highway plan before we started, we would have never got it done,” Hutchinson said.

“The same thing with the workers’ comp bill. When I put that on the call, we didn’t have guaranteed support. We were still doing negotiations with the sides, but it was an urgent matter. And so to me that’s leadership, so we want to be prepared. We want to be able to have smooth processes, but I am interested in results,” Hutchinson said. The workers’ compensation bill would ultimately eliminate a fund in the future that pays some claims.

“If I would sit here as governor and say, ‘I want to make sure that I’ve got all the necessary votes before we begin,’ we wouldn’t have passed Arkansas Works. We wouldn’t have gotten funding for Arkansas Works [in the fiscal session],” he said. He was referring to the legislation for the state’s expanded Medicaid program.

“I am more interested in the ultimate result and sometimes we got to lay it out there and say this is what we got to do and trust that the Legislature will be responsive to it,” Hutchinson said.

Historically, the outcomes of Arkansas’ special sessions haven’t been guaranteed from the beginning of each session, he said.

“Sometimes they resulted in runaway difficult sessions. Sometimes, the governor got criticized for it. But they were people who were wanting to accomplish great things for the state. I think the last eight years you had a different leadership style [with Beebe as governor]. Everybody has got something different. But [if] you look historically, special sessions have not been cookie cutter by any means,” Hutchinson said.

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