Senator Stephanie Flowers of Pine Bluff represents District 8, which includes
parts of Pine Bluff and Jefferson County, as well as parts of Arkansas, Desha,
Drew, Lincoln, Lonoke and Pulaski Counties.
Senator Flowers is a member of the Senate Education Committee, the Senate
Insurance and Commerce Committee, the Senate Efficiency Committee and the
Joint Budget Committee
She served in the House of Representatives from 2005 through 2010, when she
was elected to the Senate. She was sworn in as a State Senator on the first of
the 2011 Regular Session.
In past sessions Senator Flowers co-sponsored Act 154 of 2021, a tax cut for
people who lost their jobs due to the pandemic. Their unemployment benefits will
not be taxed by the state, saving them about $59 million in state income taxes.
Senator Flowers has sponsored legislation to foster community support for public
schools, such as Act 1507 of 2013 to expand the ability of schools to hold events.
She sponsored Act 1002 of 2011 and Act 1423 of 2013 to make parental
involvement plans more user-friendly and more effective. During each session,
she regularly sponsors bills to fund after-school programs, drug abuse treatment
and services for juveniles in the justice system.
She works consistently to update the terms, caseloads and jurisdictions of courts
and judicial districts.
Many of the measures that she sponsors are appropriations that flow through the
legislative process quietly, after Senator Flowers has reached a consensus with
other committee members.
Those appropriations fund the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Southeast
Arkansas College, the Southeast Arkansas Economic Development District, the
Rural Services Department, the Heritage Department, literacy programs and
senior citizens centers.
Another of Senator Flowers' priorities is to expand and improve re-entry training
of inmates to help them better prepare for a productive life outside prison. For
example, she was been instrumental in creating a program in which probationers
and parolees clear condemned properties.
In 2017, she co-sponsored a package of bills to strengthen ethics and campaign
finance laws. She also co-sponsored legislation to create a monument on the
state capitol grounds honoring Gold Star Families who have lost a loved one
during active military service. In 2019, she co-sponsored a major highway
program and legislation to set up a grant program for improvements at historically
black colleges and universities.
Senator Flowers is a native of Pine Bluff and a graduate of Philander Smith
College in Little Rock. She also graduated from the Thurgood Marshall School of
Law at Texas Southern University in Houston. She is a member of AME Church
and has one son |