A Little Rock Democrat announced Thursday that she will seek to unseat one of the few Republicans representing the capital city in the statehouse.
Attorney Jess Mallett is seeking the Democratic nomination in House District 32, an asymmetrical district in west Little Rock that's been represented by Republican Rep. Jim Sorvillo since 2015.
The first-time office seeker said in an interview that she will focus her campaign on educational issues, as well as opposing a proposed constitutional amendment set to go before voters in 2018 that she described as "tort reform."
The Legislature-backed amendment, which Sorvillo co-sponsored, would place caps on punitive and "non-economic" damages in lawsuits, as well as on attorneys' fees.
It also would give the Legislature more authority over the rules of the judicial branch of state government.
"That is one of the big determining factors that encouraged me to run," said Mallett, the managing partner at the Peter Miller Law Firm, a personal-injury firm in Little Rock.
Mallett said she also supports revising state workers' compensation laws and returning the Little Rock School District to local control. Support for public education will attract more businesses and jobs to the city, she said.
In addition, Mallett said she would oppose attempts to roll back Arkansas' private-option Medicaid expansion, which has provided health insurance to more than 300,000 Arkansans who each earn up to 138 percent of the poverty level.
Sorvillo voted earlier this year for a law that will retain the private option and seek permission from the federal government to impose work requirements and lower the income eligibility maximum to 100 percent of the poverty level. The changes would remove about 60,000 people from the rolls.
Mallett said she would have voted against the new requirements, calling Sorvillo's voting record "very, very conservative." But she said she did not think the Medicaid expansion program would be a top concern in her largely wealthy district.
Improving the state's image to attract business is something the Legislature needs to work better at, she said.
"We are a great state but we keep ranking near the bottom of any national ranking," she said. "We need to move up."
In 2016, Democratic challenger Susan Inman lost to Sorvillo, who earned 56 percent of the vote.
Inman had released mailers trying to tie Sorvillo to Donald Trump's successful presidential campaign. Sorvillo did not publicly reveal his presidential vote.
Reached Thursday, Sorvillo said he wasn't surprised to learn that Democrats were mounting a challenge for his seat in a city known to lean more left than most of the state.
"We're ready for a campaign," Sorvillo said.
While declining to predict how the amendment on lawsuit damage limits -- also known as Senate Joint Resolution 8 -- would fare in his district, Sorvillo said his constituents tend to be "business-minded people."
The representative said limiting the potential for certain damages in lawsuits was the way to lure businesses and create jobs.
In one of his most recent campaign filings with the secretary of state's office, Sorvillo had $36,106 cash on hand in mid-July. Mallett has yet to file her first campaign-finance report.
The state representative job pays a salary of $40,188 a year, plus per diem and mileage expenses for attending legislative meetings. The term for a representative is two years. The primary election is May 22. The general election Nov. 6, 2018.
Before her work at the Peter Miller Law Firm, Mallett clerked for then-Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, a Democrat, and Pulaski County Circuit Judge Chris Piazza, as well as in the Pulaski County prosecutor's office, according to a news release from her campaign consultant, Michael Cook.
Mallett is a graduate of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William Bowen H. School of Law. Her father, Bart Virden, is an Arkansas Court of Appeals judge.
Mallett and her husband, Trey, have one daughter.
Metro on 07/28/2017