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.
An attorney, she is vice chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Flowers held the same position during the 2019 and 2021 legislative sessions.
Senator Flowers is a member of the Senate State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee, the Joint Energy Committee, the Senate Rules, Resolutions and Memorials Committee, the Senate Ethics 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 2021, Senator Flowers co-sponsored Act 154, 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 the African Methodist Episcopal Church and has one son.
