Kim Hammer

Kim David Hammer (born August 11, 1958) is a pastor and hospice chaplain in Benton, Arkansas, who is a Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives from District 28 in Saline County near the capital city of Little Rock.^[1]

Background

A native of Rockford, Illinois, Hammer was reared in the community of Damascus, Arkansas, which straddles Van Buren and Faulkner counties near Little Rock. He graduated from South Side High School in Bee Branch in Van Buren County. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biblical Counseling from Trinity College of the Bible, an institution in Newburgh, Indiana. He has been a Baptist pastor since 1979 and chaplain of the Saline Memorial Hospice in Benton since 2006. He is a member of the First Baptist Church of Benton, Arkansas.^[2]

Political life

Hammer ran unsuccessfully for the state House in 2006 but in 2010 unseated the Democratic incumbent, Barbara Nix. He received 5,531 votes (55.4 percent) to Nix's 4,451 (44.6 percent).^[3] In a 2012 rematch, Hammer again defeated Nix, 6,161 (57.9 percent) to 4,485 (42.1 percent).^[4]

Hammer serves on the Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee, the City, County and Local Affairs Committee and is chairman of the Legislative Joint Auditing Committee.^[2]

Hammer has a strongly conservative voting record in the state House. He joined the needed two-thirds majority to override the vetoes of Democratic Governor Mike Beebe to enact legislation requiring photo identification for casting a ballot in Arkansas and to ban abortion after twenty weeks of gestation; he was the co-sponsor of both of these measures. He voted to ban abortion whenever fetal heartbeat is detected, to forbid the inclusion of abortion in state insurance plans, and to make the death of an unborn child a felony in certain cases. He voted for curriculum standards for Bible instruction in public schools. Hammer backed legislation to allow handguns on church properties. He co-sponsored legislation to empower university officials to carry weapons in the name of campus safety. He voted against the law to make the office of prosecuting attorney in Arkansas nonpartisan. He voted to permit the sale of up to five hundred gallons per month of unpasteurized whole milk directly from the farm to consumers.^[5]

In 2011, Representative Hammer voted for school dress codes and for the prohibition of cell phones in school zones. He supported legislation that allows only English as the language available for driver's license tests. He voted to reduce capital gains taxes in Arkansas.^[5]

References