Jay Richardson (born January 30, 1971) is an American politician who has been a member of the

Arkansas House of Representatives The Arkansas State House of Representatives is the lower house of the Arkansas General Assembly, the state legislature of the US state of Arkansas. The House is composed of 100 members elected from an equal amount of constituencies across the ...

from the 78th district in Sebastian County since 2019.

Political career

On January 15, 2019, shortly after taking office, Richardson and fellow newcomer state representative Megan Godfrey (D-Springdale), responded to Arkansas Governor

Asa Hutchinson William Asa Hutchinson II (, '' AY-sə''; born December 3, 1950) is an American attorney, businessman, and politician who is the 46th and current governor of Arkansas. A member of the Republican Party, he was the U.S. attorney for the Fort Smit ...

's State of the State address by issuing a statement urging him to not to go through with his proposed 5.9% tax cuts and instead allocate more taxpayer money for highways and expanding pre-kindergarten education. Speaking for the state Democrats, Richardson also urged Hutchinson to support the Democrats proposal for the creation of a Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which the Democrats believe would go further to help working families. He also stated that roads and pre-K education funding should come before top-end tax breaks. During the 2020

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, Richardson co-sponsored legislation which created a statewide COVID-19

Rainy Day Fund A rainy day or rainy day fund is a reserved amount of money to be used in times when regular income is disrupted or decreased in order for typical operations to continue. In the United States, the term is usually used to apply to the funds mainta ...

Elections

Richardson was elected unopposed in the

general election A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

on November 6, 2018. He also ran unopposed in the 2020 general election as well.

References

Richardson, Jay African-American state legislators in Arkansas Living people 21st-century American politicians 1971 births 21st-century African-American politicians 20th-century African-American people {{Arkansas-politician-stub