2 tout their skills in run for office

Gazaway, Gilliam in bid for House District 57 seat

Map showing the location of House District 57
Map showing the location of House District 57

Republican Jimmy Gazaway is touting his legal experience while his Democratic opponent, Frankie Gilliam, is emphasizing her economic development experience in their bids for the state House seat held by departing Rep. Mary Broadaway, a Democrat.

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Special to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Jimmy Gazaway

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Special to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette

Frankie Gilliam

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Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Information about the Top contributors to House District 57 race

The candidates and Broadaway are from Paragould.

Gazaway, 35, is an attorney who is a parttime deputy prosecutor and contract attorney for the cities of Harrisburg, Lepanto, Trumann and Weiner.

Gilliam, 56, is a community and economic development specialist at Arkansas State University’s Delta Center for Economic Development and a farmer.

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They are vying to represent House District 57, which includes Paragould and part of Oak Grove in Greene County. The election is Nov.

  1. The job pays an annual salary of $39,400, plus per diem and mileage for attending legislative meetings.

The House now includes 62 Republicans, 34 Democrats, and independent state Rep. Nate Bell of Mena. There are three vacant seats held by former Reps. Bill Gossage, R-Ozark, and Rep. Kelley Linck, R-Flippin, who resigned to take state jobs, and the late Rep. Sheilla Lampkin, D-Monticello, who died in July.

Gazaway, who won a three-way Republican primary on March 1, said voters should cast their ballots for him because his varying legal experience, ranging from trying murder cases to handling family law matters, will allow him to be an effective representative.

He said he would be a “conservative voice” in representing House District 57 and there won’t be any question about where he stands.

Gilliam, a self-described moderate Democrat, said voters should elect her because she would bring a wealth of knowledge about helping businesses expand and recruiting industry to help create jobs.

She said she has 27 years of experience in economic development, including helping bring in industry with the Paragould Chamber of Commerce from 1989-2001, and she wants to work to ensure that Arkansas gets its share of the jobs returning to the United States from overseas.

Gazaway — who said before the March 1 primary that he doesn’t support the Medicaid expansion in its current form — said he considers Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s Arkansas Works program to be “the best alternative,” and he supports the program.

He said he couldn’t vote for anything that would put in peril the Arkansas Methodist Medical Center in Paragould. Ending the Medicaid expansion would make the hospital struggle financially, he said.

Gazaway said he opposes Obamacare — which is the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act through which Arkansas receives funding for Arkansas’ version of Medicaid expansion — but his responsibility is to the people who elect him in House District 57.

First approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature and then-Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat, 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. About 300,000 Arkansans are enrolled in the federally financed program. But the state will have to pay 5 percent of the cost of the program starting in 2017, and its share gradually will increase to 10 percent by 2020.

Gilliam said Hutchinson made “the right choices” in this year’s special session to change the Medicaid expansion and in this year’s fiscal session to authorize the use of state and federal funds for the program in the current fiscal 2017, which started July 1.

“I think there is much more work to do with that particular program,” she said. She said she wants to help people who face rising health insurance premiums and are not eligible for health insurance coverage under the program.

“We cannot lose our hospital. We must do what we need to do to keep our hospital intact,” Gilliam said. She said she doesn’t know whether ending Arkansas’ Medicaid expansion would mean the closure of the hospital.

Gazaway said he wants to work on changing the criminal justice system to reduce the number of people in prison for nonviolent crimes by pressing for more drug courts, seeking more probation officers and giving probation officers more authority to sanction ex-inmates who violate the terms of their probation.

He said he wants to create a better environment in the state to create jobs by lowering taxes, decreasing government regulations and encouraging cooperation among local, state and federal leaders. He said he wants to work with Hutchinson and Arkansas Economic Development Commission Director Mike Preston to help existing businesses and recruit new industry to the area.

Gazaway said he favors increased state funding for public schools and increased pay for teachers.

He said he strongly disagreed with the Republicans’ State Committee’s decision this summer to delete mention of pre-kindergarten education from the party’s platform, and he supports increasing state funding for pre-kindergarten programs by $10 million.

Gilliam said she wants to work on improving workforce development and making sure young people are educated and understand their opportunities.

“To me, education would be the first priority,” she said.

“I am a moderate Democrat, so I understand trying to put money back into the pockets of Arkansans [through tax cuts], but not at the expense of funding education and not at the expense of funding our pre-K program,” Gilliam said.

She said she supports increasing state funding for the public schools and pre-kindergarten programs and higher teacher salaries. She said she doesn’t know how much of an increase in pre-kindergarten funding that she would support.

Gazaway said he opposes abortion except to save the life of the mother.

“With rape and incest, you could have a child who had no say in its conception. Therefore, it should have the opportunity to be born and live out its life,” he said. He said he would have “great sympathy” for women who become pregnant through rape or incest, but there are other options such adoption for their children.

Gilliam said, “I am against abortion personally.”

“If a woman has been assaulted or in case of incest and rape, I think that a woman should have that choice” about an abortion, she said.

In cases besides to save the life of a mother and in cases of rape and incest, “that is a personal decision between a woman, her family and God,” Gilliam said, adding that she doesn’t believe she’ll ever see the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Roe vs. Wade be overturned.

Both Gazaway and Gilliam said they oppose the proposed constitutional amendment and the proposed initiated act that would allow the use of medical marijuana recommended by doctors for their patients.

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