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Legislative leaders are both small businessmen Sunday, Dec 31, 2006 By Doug Thompson Arkansas News Bureau FAYETTEVILLE - Sen. Jack Critcher, D-Batesville, the incoming Senate president pro tem, was the seventh of 10 siblings and only the second to be born in a hospital. Incoming House Speaker Benny Petrus' career was chosen, in part, because of a serious auto accident. The two will be sworn in as leaders of their respective chambers when the 86th Arkansas General Assembly convenes Jan. 8. Petrus, D-Stuttgart, is the son of a former machine-shop owner. His father went into auto sales after a serious car accident left him physically unable to carry on his former career, Petrus said in a recent interview, and he followed his father into the business. Critcher's family moved to Jackson County in 1957 and 20 years later began running a family-owned general store in Grubbs that had operated there since the 1920s. The family later opened a restaurant next door. Critcher and the family sold the store in 1996 but kept operating the Southern Grill restaurant until it, too, was sold in 2005. "When we bought the store, we still sold groceries, hardware and kerosene," Critcher said in a recent interview. "It was a general store where people would come do their shopping for the week. It's still there, although now it's more of a convenience store." Critcher now owns an insurance agency. He began in the business in 1994, the year he was first elected to the Legislature. "I was never interested in it until I ran for the House," Critcher said. "Then I realized I can't do this and run the store, too. And I sure couldn't live on the $12,500 or whatever it was being a legislator, so I decided that insurance was flexible enough to allow me to be a legislator. I went and got my license, and discovered I liked the business." "Ironically, this will be my first year on the Insurance and Commerce Committee," said Critcher, who served on the House Revenue and Taxation Committee during four years in that chamber and on the Public Health Committee during his first four years in the Senate. Critcher, who chairs the public health panel, said the "worst day in Public Health is better than the best day in Revenue and Tax." "Medicaid has really interested me a lot because it's such a complicated issue that involves so many people," he said. Medicaid, a state-administered health program for the poor that is largely financed by federal taxpayer dollars, "is one of the fastest-growing segments of the budget, and one of the fastest growing sectors of it is prescription drugs," Critcher said. "The budget for prisons, for instance, is peanuts compared to the Medicaid budget," Critcher said. "Yet if the Legislature wants to change the way it funds prisons, it just does it. Everything in Medicaid has to get federal approval. It's not as easy to control." Critcher, 49, considers his prime legislative accomplishment to date to be passage of the first bill restricting the sale of cold medicines with ingredients such as pseudoephedrine that are used in the production of illegal methamphetamine in 1999. "This was before this type of legislation was cool," Critcher said. A more restrictive bill was passed in the last legislative session with little opposition, and supporters cited Critcher's early legislation in its success. Critcher said he became involved in the fight against methamphetamine because of efforts by his wife, Vickie, to start neighborhood watch programs and other anti-crime efforts. "She realized that the reason for burglaries was so people could pay for methamphetamine," Critcher said. The Critchers have three children. Petrus, 50, owns car dealerships in Stuttgart, Hazen and DeWitt. He said he tried investing in the stock market but got out of that and became an investor in farm land in eastern Arkansas. He makes a close study of irrigation and has installed underground piping and water recovery systems on land which he leases out to farmers, he said. "Frankly, I bought it as a safe investment, something for retirement," he said of farm land. "Now I've become a conservation nut on water. It's one of my big issues." Petrus' last political race before running for the state House in 2002 was for senior class president of Stuttgart High School, which he also won. He decided to run for the House after the seat became open and he looked at the district. "I couldn't have drawn a better district for myself if they'd given me the pencil," he said. "I'm from Stuttgart, my mother is from Des Arc, I grew up in Slovak and have done business with people everywhere in the district." Petrus says he agrees with Gov.-elect Mike Beebe on almost every issue, but has a major disagreement with Beebe's proposed phase-out of the state sales tax on food. A cut in the state income tax for low-income Arkansans would provide more direct benefit, he said. Petrus and his wife, Tammy, have two children. |
