Veteran GOP operative joins staff of lieutenant governor

The former state director for the conservative Americans for Prosperity group, David Ray, started work Friday as the deputy chief of staff and communications director for Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin, Griffin said Friday.

Ray replaces Katie Grygar, who served as Griffin’s communications director-deputy legal counsel before she moved to Texas, where her husband got a new job, Griffin said. Ray will be paid the same $70,000-a-year salary that Grygar was paid, Griffin said.

“We still only have two paid employees down from the 4 of my predecessor,” Griffin said in a text message to this newspaper. His predecessor, Springdale Republican Mark Darr, resigned effective Feb. 1, 2014, after Darr was fined $11,000 by the state Ethics Commission for violations of state ethics rules and regulations.

Griffin, a Little Rock Republican, said Ray is “a solid conservative who brings extensive communications experience to the office, shares my goals for lowering taxes and reforming state government and will be an asset working with the Legislature.”

Ray said he worked as the state director for Americans for Prosperity from January 2015 until Thursday. The group lobbies against tax increases and increased government spending.

He previously served as a spokesman for Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton’s successful 2014 campaign and the state Republican Party. He also worked for the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 2008 and managed the campaigns of Republican former U.S. Reps. Tim Huelskamp of Kansas in 2010, Ann Marie Buerkle of New York in 2012 and Griffin in 2013 before Griffin decided to run for lieutenant governor instead.

Huelskamp served in Congress from 2011-17 and lost in a Republican primary last year. Buerkle was in Congress from 2011-13 and lost a rematch with former U.S. Rep. Dan Maffei in 2012.

Griffin has served as lieutenant governor since January 2015. He is a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and a former 2nd District congressman, former interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas and former aide to then-President George W. Bush.

In July, Griffin announced that he would seek re-election to a second four-year term as lieutenant governor in 2018.