Bob Johnson (Arkansas state representative)

Robert Johnson, known as Bob Johnson, is a Certified Public Accountant from Jacksonville, Arkansas, who is a Democratic member of the Arkansas House of Representatives for District 42 in a portion of Pulaski County outside the capital city of Little Rock.^[1]

Background

Johnson's full name, age, place of birth, high school, and names of parents and any siblings are unavailable. There is another Bob Johnson, a Democrat who served in both the Arkansas House from 1995 to 2000, including a term as House Speaker, and the Arkansas State Senate from 2001 to 2011.

Johnson received a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from the University of Central Arkansas in Conway in Faulkner County and a Master of Science in accounting at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Since 1990, he has maintained an accounting practice in Jacksonville, where he resides with his wife, Laurie Anne Johnson (born c. 1963),^[2] and their five children. He is affiliated with Rotary International, Boys and Girls Clubs, the Chamber of Commerce, and Ducks Unlimited. He is a Baptist.^[1]

Political life

Johnson was a lifelong Republican and a justice of the peace in the Pulaski County Quorum Court until 2013, when he switched parties to seek the state legislative seat being vacated by the term-limited Mark W. Perry. He was unopposed for the Democratic nomination and in the November 4, 2014 general election for the House race.^[3]

Johnson calls himself a Moderate Republican turned Conservative Democrat. He criticized the majority of Arkansas legislative Republicans for their conservative positions on issues. Johnson said that his father had been a supporter of former Governor Winthrop Rockefeller, a two-term Moderate Republican who was unseated in 1970 by the Democrat Dale Bumpers. In making his party switch, Johnson gained the backing of Will Bond, the Democratic state chairman who had preceded Mark Perry in the District 42 House seat.^[4]

Representative Johnson holds these committee assignments: (1) Public Transportation (2) Aging, Children, and Youth, Legislative and Military Affairs, and (3) Joint Committee on Public Retirement and Social Security Programs.^[1] In the 2015 legislative session, Johnson supported an increase in public school teacher pay but did not vote on the religious freedom legislation, House Bill 1228, offered by Republican Bob Ballinger of Carroll County.^[5] The measure was subsequently passed by a large margin in the House and signed into law in revised form, SB 975, by Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson.^[6]

References