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GOP Lawmaker Says He’ll Challenge Senate President

2 min read

LITTLE ROCK – 

A Republican state senator said Friday he’s challenging the election of the chamber’s incoming leader, highlighting a rift within the GOP-led Arkansas Legislature after the party’s massive gains in the midterm election.

State Sen. Gary Stubblefield of Branch said he’ll challenge fellow Republican Sen. Jonathan Dismang’s election as Senate president for the 90th General Assembly, which begins in January. Dismang, R-Beebe, was elected last year to lead the chamber. Stubblefield said he’ll ask the Senate GOP caucus to back his bid for Senate president when it meets at the Capitol on Thursday, and hoped for a full vote before the full Senate the following day.

“I feel like we need a little more conservative representation, and that’s why I decided to do it,” Stubblefield said.

The challenge is the latest sign of divisions among Republicans in the Legislature after growing their ranks in Tuesday’s election. The GOP went from 21 to 24 seats in the 35-member Senate, and from 51 to 64 posts in the 100-member House.

Dismang was one of the architects of the state’s “private option” Medicaid expansion, which uses federal funds to purchase private insurance for the poor. The program has sharply divided Republicans in the Legislature and faces an uphill fight to be reauthorized next year.

Stubblefield is an opponent of the private option, but said the program didn’t factor into his decision to challenge Dismang. He criticized Dismang’s decision to hire a former aide to Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe as his assistant and also said he disagreed with Dismang’s decisions regarding committee appointments.

Stubblefield declined to elaborate on the appointments. Dismang said Stubblefield a day earlier had objected to his support for keeping Democratic Sen. Larry Teague as co-chairman of the Joint Budget Committee. Dismang said he believes he’ll have the support to continue on as the chamber’s incoming president, and said he wasn’t criticizing Stubblefield for mounting the challenge.

“We have a requirement to represent our constituents and I think that’s what he’s trying to do. I respect his decision either way,” he said.

Dismang and other legislative leaders said they don’t expect Stubblefield’s challenge to signal deeper divisions among Senate Republicans, especially over the private option. The program will need three-fourths support in both chambers to win reauthorization next year, and several legislative candidates who ran against it won in Tuesday’s election.

“As soon as it’s over, we’ll press forward to work together and I think we’ll be fine,” said Senate Majority Leader Jim Hendren, R-Gravette.

(Follow Andrew DeMillo on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ademillo)

(Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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