Almost two months before voters statewide head to the polls for primary and judicial elections, a special primary Tuesday in Little Rock’s House District 34 will decide the Democratic nominee seeking to finish the term of state Rep. John Walker, who died in October.
Four Democrats are vying in the special primary, each touting community ties and organizing efforts in the district that Walker, a civil-rights leader and attorney, represented for nearly a decade.
The Democrats running in Tuesday’s primary are Joy Springer, Ryan Davis, Lee Miller and H. “Otis” Tyler.
No Republican filed to run in the reliably Democratic district. The winner of the Democratic primary, however, will face general election opposition from independent candidate Roderick Talley, an advocate for an overhaul of police policies who faces criminal charges in three cases. Talley lost his race in another House special election last fall, and then claimed a change of address to run in District 34.
The early primary is likely to have low turnout, similar to other recent special elections to fill legislative seats. Early voting in House District 34 began Jan. 7, and 122 ballots were cast by the end of Friday. Early voting ends Monday and will be conducted only at the Pulaski County Regional Building, 501 W. Markham St. in Little Rock from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
GOVERNING STYLES
Without much in the way of policy disagreements to differentiate the candidates — all said they supported a return of the Little Rock School District to local control and they highlighted criminal justice as another top area of concern — the four Democrats each pitched a different style of governing in interviews last week with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Springer, a 63-year-old office manager at Walker’s Little Rock law firm, declared herself as the chosen successor to carry on her former boss’s work, and knocked the other candidates as having “unrealistic plans” for getting things done in the Republican-controlled Legislature.
She recalled years of watching Walker win courtroom arguments by compiling facts and figures, and suggested she would take a similar approach to legislating.
“I don’t want to make any promises to people that I can’t keep,” Springer said. “What I say is, we need to make sure that we collect data, in order to show evidence of what the problems are.”
Springer has led the way in fundraising over the truncated campaign period, taking in $13,140, as of her most recent report filed last week.
Behind her, Ryan Davis, the director of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Children International nonprofit organization, has raised $6,287.
Davis, 41, said he had already been considering a primary challenge against Walker before the lawmaker’s passing. Nonetheless, he heaped praise on Walker.
“We’re very different people,” Davis said. “John Walker was John Walker before he even stepped into the Legislature. He was an iconic civil rights warrior nationally, before he made any waves in the state Legislature. … I’m all-together a different person than Mr. Walker.”
Davis said he believed Democrats would pick up at least two seats in the House during this year’s elections, thus breaking the Republican supermajority and increasing the minority party’s clout.
“That means District 34 needs somebody who can walk in, who is familiar with the legislative process, who can hit the ground running day one,” Davis said.
As a board member of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families and the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center, Davis said he was experienced enough in advocacy at the Capitol to push for his objectives, which include a moratorium on charter school expansions and the death penalty.
YOUNGEST IN RACE
The youngest candidate in the race, 34-year-old attorney Miller, argued, however, that he had the best experience for the job, pointing to his years of working as an organizer on political campaigns and grassroots movements.
Miller said his objectives, if elected to the Legislature, would be to force businesses to give preference to “locals” in hiring and to organize the state’s higher-education institutions in Little Rock to establish a food co-op in the 12th Street corridor, where the last supermarket closed in 2018.
Miller, who reported raising $1,350 for his campaign in addition to an $8,500 loan, also cast aspersions about the other candidates’ fundraising and personal incomes, noting that he is self-employed.
“Nobody else is signing my checks. I work for the community,” Miller said. “As a public servant, you have to be mindful of who is writing the big checks and who is really supporting our politics.”
Asked to follow up on whether he believed any of his opponents were beholden to outside interests, Miller backed off, adding, “I wasn’t saying it like that.”
Tyler is making his second run for the House 34 seat after finishing third in the 2004 Democratic primary, with around 12% of the vote.
“It didn’t work out,” Tyler said of his previous campaign. “But I have always been engaged in my community, I deeply feel that community involvement is a requirement.”
Tyler, a 73-year-old Marine veteran and retired assistant dean at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences’ College of Pharmacy, said that while he agreed with the other candidates on the need for local control of the school district, he said it should be done with a “higher level of expectations and responsibility.”
Tyler reported Friday that he had not raised any money, but had lent his campaign $12,500.
Voting Tuesday will be the first round of a series of elections this year in House District 34, which stretches along an area south and west of Interstate 630 in Little Rock and includes Central High School, UALR and areas around Chenal Parkway.
If none of the four candidates receives a majority of votes Tuesday, a runoff primary will be held Feb. 11. The winner of the primary will face Talley in a special general election March 3, the same day as the party primaries.
While the winner of the special election will serve the remainder of Walker’s current term, all four Democrats will be competing in the March 3 primary, which could trigger the need for a runoff. The general election for the next term is Nov. 3.
The winner of that vote also will have to face Talley in November, in an election for a new term.
