Duggar runs for Springdale state Senate seat

**UPSyours2** · 03-30-2006, 12:57 PM

Duggar runs for Springdale state Senate seat

Wednesday, Mar 29, 2006

By Doug Thompson
Arkansas News Bureau

SPRINGDALE - Former state Rep. Jim Bob Duggar of Tontitown will run for the Republican nomination to the District 35 state Senate seat, he announced Tuesday.

District 35 covers much of north, east and west Washington County and a portion of Benton County in a crescent that stretches from the Oklahoma border in the west through Springdale and down to Elkins in the east.

Duggar, 40, faces opponent Rep. Bill Pritchard, R-Elkins, in the May 23 primary. They are the only announced Republican candidates so far. Filing for office ends Tuesday.

The winner will have a Democratic opponent, Lynn Carver of Springdale. Duggar said he plans to go to Little Rock today to file his candidacy at the Secretary of State's office.

Duggar and his wife, Michelle, are known worldwide for their family of 16 children. They have been featured in documentaries on the Discovery Channel and featured in newspapers in Europe and Asia.

As a lawmaker, Duggar is known for being one of only two members of the Arkansas House who voted against electric utility deregulation in 1999. After scandals in deregulated California in which energy provider Enron Inc. was accused of shutting down power plants to boost income to the company, the legislature put a hold on deregulation in the 2001 session.

"The same thing is going on today in natural gas and in fuel," Duggar said Tuesday. "Until and unless natural gas companies can curb their greed, there's a need for government regulation. Then there's gasoline prices. People can't pay three times what they used to pay for gasoline. When I went into the legislature in 1999, gas was 69 cents a gallon, and half of that was state and federal taxes. Now it's $2.50 a gallon, with oil companies making 20 times the profit."

Duggar was also known as an opponent of tax increases and a conservative vote on family values.

He introduced a bill to outlaw abortion in Arkansas during his first term. Fellow lawmakers rejected the bill as unconstitutional.

He also made repeated attempts to repeal the state sales tax on low-value used cars, saying it was wrong of the state to add hundreds of dollars of sales tax to vehicles needed by the working poor.

Duggar is a real estate developer who served two terms in the House before running against incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Hutchinson of Bella Vista in 2002. After that race, Duggar and his family built a new home in the Tontitown area.

Duggar's longtime friend and political ally, Sen. Jim Holt, R-Springdale, is not running for re-election to the District 35 seat. Instead, Holt is running for lieutenant governor. Duggar decided to re-enter politics, in part, because he wanted District 35 to continue to have conservative representation, he said.

Although the Duggar family is known for its size, it is not the largest family in Arkansas, according to the state Department of Health. At least one woman in Arkansas gave birth to a 17th child, and that child was born since 2001, according to a check with the department. The department would not release the name of the woman or other information, citing a state law that keeps such details confidential.

The Duggar family maintains a Web site at http://www.duggarfamily.com.