Charlotte Douglas (politician)

Charlotte Vining Douglas (born February 13, 1952), is a retired educator from Alma in Crawford County in northwestern Arkansas, who is a Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives. Her District 75, which she has represented since 2013, includes portions of Sebastian (Fort Smith) and Crawford counties.^[1]

Background

Douglas is a native of Georgia Ridge in White County, Arkansas.^[2] She graduated from Arkadelphia High School in Arkadelphia in Clark County in south Arkansas.^[1] She obtained a bachelor's degree in Science Education from Southern Baptist-affiliated Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia. She is a former teacher of anatomy and physics^[2]at West Memphis High School in West Memphis, Arkansas.^[2]

Douglas is a Baptist Sunday school teacher and is active in a charitable program providing dental care to countries of the Third World.^[1]

She is married to businessman Rick Frank Douglas (born 1950) of Alma and has three children, Cole, Jordan, and Molly.^[2]

Political life

In the 2012 general election, Douglas won the District 75 seat vacated by the incumbent Democrat Homer Lenderman, who was transferred to District 53 via redistricting. She defeated another Democrat, Steve Breedlove, 6,374 (58.1 percent) to 4,590 (41.9 percent).

^[3]

Douglas is a member of these House committee: (1) Education and (2) Agriculture, Forestry and Economic Development, (3) Legislative Joint Auditing, and (4) Advanced Communications and Information Technology.^[1][2]

Representative Douglas in 2013 joined the required majority 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. Douglas similarly supported related pro-life legislation to ban abortion whenever fetal heartbeat is detected, to forbid the inclusion of abortion in the state insurance exchange, and to make the death of an unborn child a felony in certain cases. She co-sponsored amending state income tax rates. She backed a spending cap in the state budget, but that measure failed to gain approval by two votes in the House. She co-sponsored the bill to empower officials of religious institutions to engage in concealed carry of firearms and supported a similar law for university administrations acting in the name of campus safety. She co-sponsored the measure to prohibit the governor from regulating firearms in an emergency. Douglas supported legislation to make the office of prosecuting attorney in Arkansas nonpartisan. She voted to allow the sale of up to five hundred gallons per month of unpasteurized whole milk directly from the farm to consumers. Douglas voted to prohibit the closure of public schools based on declining enrollments over a two-year period, but the measure failed in the House.^[4]

References