Tommy F. Robinson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (March 2008)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Tommy Franklin Robinson (born March 7, 1942) is a politician from the state of Arkansas.

Robinson was born in Little Rock and graduated from University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He served in the United States Navy from 1959 to 1963. Robinson had a career in law enforcement, rising to the position of Pulaski County sheriff.

Robinson was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1984 as a Democrat. He defeated the Republican Judy Petty, a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives and a former aide to the late Arkansas Governor Winthrop Rockefeller. Petty ran as a Ronald W. Reagan Republican but lost to Robinson even though Reagan won her district. She had also been defeated a decade earlier in the same district by the legendary Democrat Wilbur Daigh Mills of Kensett, former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. While in congress, Robinson once told a group of Arkansas school administrators, "you can't buy me, but you sure can rent me," alluding to his efforts to retire his substantial campaign debt he incurred during the 1984 campaign against Petty.

On July 28, 1989, Robinson left the Democratic party and joined the GOP. Robinson ran for Governor of Arkansas in 1990 but he lost in the primary election to the favorite of the business establishment, Sheffield Nelson. Soon after he left the House, it was revealed that Robinson bounced 996 checks in 16 months. He ran again for the U.S. House 2002 but lost to the Democratic incumbent, Marion Berry.

As sheriff, Robinson is alleged to have used torture to extract a rape and murder confession from Barry Lee Fairchild. Fairchild was executed in 1995 even though his blood type did not match that of the seminal fluid found in the victim.

In 1992, during the house banking scandal, Robinson was found to have bounced 996 checks from the US House bank, some of which were over 16 months overdue.