Malvern pastor Rick McClure and Hot Springs Realtor Lorna Nobles are vying in the March 3 Republican primary for the state House seat held by Nobles’ daughter, state Rep. Laurie Rushing of Hot Springs.
The race has been spiced by two Arkansas Realtors’ political action committees contributing a total of $5,600 to McClure for the primary election, which has irked Nobles.
House District 26 includes parts of Garland and Hot Spring counties, including Bismarck, Malvern and the south side of Hot Springs. Rushing, who also is a Realtor, isn’t seeking reelection to the seat she has held since 2015.
Both McClure and Nobles declined to take positions on two major issues. One is the state’s Medicaid expansion program that provides health care coverage to about 246,000 low-income Arkansans. The other is a proposed constitutional amendment on the general election ballot to permanently extend the 0.5% sales tax that provides funding for highways and roads. The tax was approved by voters in November 2012 for a 10-year period.
Asked why people should vote for her, Nobles, 70, owner of Trademark Real Estate in Hot Springs, said, “I feel like that I have proven myself to be a leader and I feel like I can be a leader and I can listen, and I understand maybe some of the problems that they have on a daily basis and some of the concerns with health care and different things.
“My husband was sick for a long time, so I understand what they probably are going through,” she said. Johnny Nobles died at age 57 in 2006.
McClure, 61, pastor at Lifepoint Community Church in Malvern, said voters should cast their ballots for him because “I really am a firm believer that I can represent the voices of the people in District 26, so it will be heard in Little Rock.
“Many people feel that they have not been represented,” he said in an interview.
Asked if he is criticizing Rushing, McClure said, “I will just be mute on it. … You can go back and look at the last election and the things … the suits that were filed about residency and being present, those types of things.”
In November 2018, a Hot Spring County circuit judge dismissed a lawsuit in which five voters in Hot Spring and Garland counties claimed Rushing was violating the state constitution’s residency requirement for state representatives. Rushing testified that she shared her residence with her mother in Hot Springs, but the plaintiffs maintained that she lived in Little Rock in the Capitol Hill apartment building. The latter, on the Capitol grounds, is where some lawmakers rent apartments from the secretary of state’s office.
“I don’t have a beef with Laurie,” McClure said in a subsequent interview, but “the people don’t feel like that they have been represented. That is their perception.”
In response, Nobles said, “You know how many people like Laurie? He doesn’t know anything about me. She beat her last opponent very well. Laurie never had anything bad to say about Mr. McClure.”
In the 2018 general election, Rushing defeated Bismarck Democrat Alan Hughes by a 61% to 39% margin, after beating Hot Springs Republican Ernie Hinz by a 64% to 36% margin in the primary.
REALTORS PAC
Nobles said she was “devastated” to learn last week of the donations from the Realtors political action committees to McClure for the primary, despite her participation in the Arkansas Realtors Association for more than 40 years.
McClure reported receiving the two committees’ contributions of $2,800 each in December.
“I have no idea why,” Nobles said. “It really is unfair what the association did. They never interviewed me or interviewed him. I am mad at the association.”
Through Dec. 31, Nobles reported raising $6,650 in contributions, lending $20,000 to her campaign and spending $17,389.50.
McClure reported raising $12,250 in contributions, lending $2,450 to his campaign and spending $12,342.10 through Dec. 31.
But Nobles said she suspects the Arkansas Realtors Association supports McClure because it is blaming her over its disagreements with her daughter in the Legislature.
Rushing said the dispute with the association results from her sponsoring a 2015 law to increase the annual continuing education requirement for a real estate broker or salesperson, and then sponsoring a 2017 law changing them again.
Act 390 of 2015 changed the annual licensing requirement from six hours of continuing education to between six and nine hours.
In 2016, the Arkansas Real Estate Commission changed its rules to require one hour of safety training, in addition to requiring six hours of continuing education, said Gary Isom, director of the Arkansas Real Estate Commission.
Act 496 of 2017 changed the annual licensing requirement to mirror the commission’s rules for continuing education and allowed the commission to require more hours of continuing education, effective Sept. 30, 2019, with no limit.
Miki Bass, chief executive officer for the Arkansas Realtors Association, declined to comment last week about the group’s relationship with Rushing.
Ronald B. Stinchcomb of Fayetteville, chairman of the Arkansas Realtors political action committee trustees, declined to comment last week on the contribution to McClure.
“That decision is made in an ARPAC committee meeting. It is a closed door meeting with the trustees,” he said. “Any part of that meeting is held in confidence.”
McClure said he assumes the two PACs contributed to his campaign “because of my work in economic development.” He has been board chairman of the Hot Spring County Economic Development Corp. since 2016.
CONSERVATIVES
Both McClure and Nobles said they are conservative and will protect Second Amendment gun rights.
McClure voted in Democratic primaries in 2012 and 2014 before voting in Republican primaries in 2016 and 2018, according to voter history information from the secretary of state’s office.
Nobles voted in Republican primaries in all four of these years. That information shows that Nobles voted in Democratic primaries in 1996, 1998, 2006, 2008 and 2010.
McClure moved to Malvern in 2008 from central Texas, where he spent 20 years in the wireless communications business. He began working at Lifepoint Community Church in January 2009. He served on the College of the Ouachitas board of trustees from 2015-19. His wife, Cindy McClure, is a retired Bismarck teacher. They have four children.
Nobles, who has lived in Hot Springs for most of her life, has owned Trademark Real Estate since 2001. She has been a Realtor since 1977, after she was a secretary for a real estate firm for four years. She has two daughters.
She said she is “100% pro-life” and doesn’t believe there should be any exceptions for a woman to have an abortion, including saving the mother’s life or in case of rape or incest.
“It is a terrible thing that somebody would have those circumstances in rape or incest … and then they’ve had to come back and make that choice that they are going to have this child or if they are even thinking about abortion, and I think they need to have the child and I hate that. The mother that’s her life that is in jeopardy, I think a lot of mothers choose to save the life of their child also,” she said.
McClure said, “I would make sure that abortions would be banned except for endangering the mother and I would be undecided on the rape and incest [cases] because it would have to be in the details of how that [law] is written out.”
He said he wants to help pregnant mothers make “pro-life decisions” with the help of state and private agencies by streamlining the adoption process.
The winner of the March 3 Republican primary in House District 26 will vie with Bismarck social worker Joyce Schimenti in the Nov. 3 general election. The winner will serve a two-year term beginning in January 2021.