Preceded by Reginald Murdock Name John Hutchison Spouse(s) Karen Hutchison | Political party Republican Succeeded by Dwight Tosh | |
Children Three daughters, Alissa, Andria, and Emaly Residence Harrisburg, Poinsett County
Arkansas, USA | ||
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John Keith Hutchison (born 1959) is a Republican former member of the Arkansas House of Representatives, first elected in 2012 for District 52, which includes parts of Poinsett, Craighead, Jackson, and Independence counties in a farming area of eastern Arkansas.
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Hutchison himself is a farmer in Harrisburg in Poinsett County. He graduated from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.
Political life
To win his state House seat, Hutchison defeated by 45 votes the Democrat L. J. Bryant, 5,059 to 5,014. The incumbent Democrat Reginald Murdock was switched to District 48.
Hutchison served on the Arkansas Legislative Council and these House committees: (1) Energy, (2) Revenue and Taxation, and (3) State Agencies and Governmental Affairs. He was the vice chairman of the Subcommittee on House Elections.
In 2013, Representative Hutchison co-sponsored a proposed spending cap on the state budget, but the measure failed by two votes on the House floor. He voted to override the vetoes of Democratic Governor Mike Beebe to enact legislation to require photo identification for casting a ballot in Arkansas and to ban abortion after twenty weeks of gestation. He further supported related pro-life legislation to forbid the inclusion of abortion in the state insurance exchange, to make the death of an unborn child a felony in certain cases, and to forbid abortion whenever fetal heartbreat is detected.
Hutchison voted to empower university officials to engage in concealed carry of firearms for campus safety. He supported the bill to reduce the fees for obtaining a concealed-carry permit, but the measure failed to pass in the House. He supported the House-passed measure to prohibit the governor from regulating firearms during an emergency. He voted against approved legislation to make the office of prosecuting attorney in Arkansas nonpartisan. He supported failed legislation to prohibit the closure of public schools after a two-year period of declining enrollment. Hutchinson supported the bill, signed by Governor Beebe, to permit the sale of up to five hundred gallons per month of unpasteurized whole milk directly from the farm to consumers. He voted to establish a tiered system for lottery scholarships.
After less than a year and a half in the office, Hutchison was unseated in the Republican primary held on May 20, 2014, by his intra-party rival, Dwight Tosh. He was elected Poinsett County Tax Assessor in 2016, replacing the long-time incumbent Johnny Rye, who was elected to a seat in the Arkansas House.