District 95 hopefuls to face off in election

BENTONVILLE — Voters in Bentonville’s state House District 95 have their first general election contest between a Republican and a Democrat since 2002.

Rep. Austin McCollum, the incumbent and a Republican, faces Democratic challenger Celeste Williams.

“We actually have a choice, and it is between two very different candidates,” McCollum said.

District 95 covers much

of north-central Benton County. It takes in a lot of eastern Bella Vista, all of Pea Ridge, much of Avoca, almost all of Little Flock and a portion of Rogers. Early voting begins Oct. 22. Election day is Nov. 6.

Williams is both a nurse practitioner professionally in Centerton and a foster parent personally. These experiences bring her into contact with the problems both adults and children face in the region, she said.

“Health care, education, job opportunities and infrastructure” are the district’s biggest needs, she said.

Much of the debate over health care in the Legislature has focused on who pays for it, Williams said, while the much more central problem of who’s available to provide it is often ignored.

“We don’t have enough health care professionals to meet our needs, and we’re cutting funding” to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Williams said. “We’re shooting ourselves in the foot.”

Besides meeting health care needs, training more workers in the heath field would go a long way to improving wages in the state, Williams said.

“Those are good paying jobs,” she said. “Improving health care has ripple effects.” Improved health would lead to more success in any field of endeavor, she said.

McCollum seeks a second term and is one of the conservative lawmakers who opposed renewal of the state health care plan accepting federal taxpayer Medicaid expansion money.

McCollum said he supports the work requirements Gov. Asa Hutchinson has added to the state health care package. He said a large expansion in health care spending cannot be done “without crowding out funding for other things, including highways and education.” Raising taxes, even for a priority issue such as paying for highways, would be his last choice, he said.

Improving access to health

care is needed, McCollum said. The challenge is doing it without busting the budget. He supported a major bill on telemedicine in part to serve the needs of rural residents of the district, he said.

“I’ve lived in the district long enough to know the conservative beliefs here match my conservative principles and voting record,” he said.

“The number one priority of this district is: Don’t raise my taxes,” McCollum said.

State House members serve two-year terms and have an annual salary of $39,400.