Former state Rep. Garry Smith of Camden and Pine Bluff attorney Keidra Burrell are vying in the March 3 primary for the Democratic nomination for state Senate District 27, with the winner taking on the Republican incumbent in the fall election.
Sen. Trent Garner, R-El Dorado, has held the seat since 2017, after he ousted Sen. Bobby Pierce, D-Sheridan, in the 2016 general election. Garner is a former aide to Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Dardanelle.
Senate District 27 includes all of Calhoun and Union counties and parts of Cleveland, Grant, Jefferson and Ouachita counties.
Smith served in the state House of Representatives from 2009-13. He lost to Pierce in the 2012 Democratic primary and then lost in the Democratic primary for the House District 7 seat in 2016.
Smith, 68, owner of Garry’s Plumbing & Electric Inc., said voters should cast their ballots for him because he knows what it takes to get bills passed — based on his four years in the House and 14 years on the Ouachita County Quorum Court — and because, as a small-business owner, he has experienced the ups and downs of the economy.
“I am not a practicing attorney. I am a businessman,” he said. “I can relate to what businesses are dealing with.”
Smith also served eight years on the Harmony Grove School Board and taught at Southern Arkansas University Tech and Southern Arkansas University in Magnolia. His wife, Rebecca, also works at the business. They have three children.
Burrell, 40, said people should vote for her because “I think it is time for a fresh perspective in our Capitol for our district.”
She said she would bring a diverse perspective as a mother, attorney and small-business owner.
Burrell said she owns child development facilities, the Audubon School in Pine Bluff and Krescent City Kids in New Orleans, and real estate investment companies Jackson and Emerson LLC in Pine Bluff and SRAMG LLC in New Orleans. She said she also helps small businesses open, so she understands issues that they face.
She said she would work in a bipartisan fashion in the Legislature with the best interest of her district in mind.
Burrell, a native of New Orleans, previously served a year as assistant district counsel for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Little Rock District; as chief of staff and assistant to Pine Bluff Mayor Shirley Washington from 2016-18; and chief legal counsel for the Northwest Region of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality from 2009-14. Her husband is Roy Burrell, an orthopaedic surgeon at Jefferson Regional Medical Center. They have three children.
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TOP PRIORITIES
Smith, a self-described conservative, said his top priorities in the Senate include legislation to provide a short-term safety net for people who are injured on the job and not approved for Social Security disability payments, and encouraging volunteer fire departments to become part of the Arkansas Local Police and Fire Retirement System to provide a benefit to volunteer firefighters.
He said he also wants to create a property-tax credit of about $500 for each for active-duty and retired veterans, and to properly fund the public schools and public higher-education institutions.
Burrell said her top priorities in the Senate would include providing incentives for small businesses to employ more workers; determining ways to educate children in their own communities; adequately compensating teachers for their work; funding regional health clinics; and expanding workforce training to attract businesses.
MEDICAID EXPANSION
Smith said he supports the state’s Medicaid expansion program that provides health care coverage to about 246,000 low-income Arkansans because every person needs medical attention and it is cheaper to treat them before they are hit with a catastrophic disease.
Burrell said she supports the Medicaid expansion program.
This calendar year, the state’s share of the cost of the program is 10% under the federal law that allows Medicaid expansion. The cost was 7% last calendar year and 6% the year before. The program is called Arkansas Works under Gov. Asa Hutchinson. The initial program was called the private option and authorized by the Republican-controlled Legislature and then-Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat, in 2013.
In fiscal 2020, the state’s share of the cost of the program is projected at about $165.7 million, while the federal government’s share is at $1.78 billion, said Scott Hardin, a spokesman for the state Department of Finance and Administration.
Arkansas’ work requirement for some of its Medicaid expansion participants was struck down by U.S. District Judge James Boas-berg of Washington, D.C., in a March ruling that Arkansas and the federal government have appealed.
“On its face, the work requirement seems rational, but as it is now I can’t support it,” Burrell said. “There needs to be some leeway.”
HIGHWAY TAX
Smith said he is going to vote for the proposed constitutional amendment on the Nov. 3 ballot that would permanently extend the 0.5% sales tax for highways and roads.
Voters originally approved the tax in 2012 for a 10-year period. State officials project the proposal would raise about $205 million a year for state highways and about $44 million each for city and county roads.
“Our infrastructure is suffering and south Arkansas depends on timber and gravel and the oil industry,” he said. The 0.5% sales tax will allow the highways and roads to be adequately maintained for industry and their workers, he said.
Burrell said she supports the proposed constitutional amendment in part because the tax already exists.
“As a voter I support it, but as a senator I am going to want to have some accountability because we want to make sure that we are accountable to our citizens,” she said. She said she wants to be able to provide information about what was accomplished with tax proceeds and how the money would be spent in the future because “that way our citizens are not being taxed blindly.”
GUNS ON CAMPUS
Garner was the Senate sponsor of a 2017 law that allows people to carry guns on state college campuses and into some other public places if they have concealed-carry permits and take extra training.
Smith said he favors allowing the boards of trustees of the state’s two- and four-year colleges to decide whether people with these enhanced concealed-carry permits can carry their guns on campus.
Burrell said “we are a gun family” and her husband has guns that are stored safely, but she doesn’t see a need for guns to be on college campuses because “these are students.
“We have to create safe environments for our students,” she said. “When you add a gun to a situation like that it creates volatility that is not necessary.”
ABORTION STANCE
As for her position on abortion, Burrell said “in my personal life I am pro-life” and she wouldn’t have an abortion.
She said she opposes enacting further restrictions on abortion because “I don’t believe I can tell Sarah Smith or somebody else what they can do with their bodies.”
Asked about his position on abortion, Smith said, “I think it is wrong. The Bible says it is.”
He said he would probably vote for legislation to ban abortions except to save the life of the mother and in cases of rape or incest.
“In my opinion, I was raised ‘thou shall not kill.’ I can’t go against my raising,” Smith said.
Through Dec. 31, Burrell reported raising $22,525 in contributions, lending her campaign $3,000 and spending $15,370.56. Through Dec. 31, Smith reported raising about $5,610 in contributions and spending about $5,540.
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