Monticello Live

The Democratic Party of Arkansas (DPA) has announced it has called the local party committees of Ashley and Drew Counties to host a special district convention to fill the party’s vacancy in nomination as a result of the resignation of House District 9 Representative Shellia Lampkin.

Last Wednesday, Representative Lampkin, who was seeking her fourth term representing portions of Ashley and Drew Counties, informed party and house leadership she would be resigning her party’s nomination in the upcoming Nov 8 general election, due to a serious illness. Since her resignation, Lampkin passed away Saturday night.

State party rules guide the procedure for the special district convention called by DPA Chair Vincent Insalaco. Each county committee is apportioned a number of delegates equal to 1 per every 400 votes cast within the district for the democratic nominee in the last gubernatorial election. Late Monday evening, the party released Ashley County’s 1982 votes in the 9th House District for 2014 democratic nominee Mike Ross will apportion the county 5 delegates to the special district convention; while Drew County’s 2343 votes cast within the district for Ross will grant it 6 delegates.

Each of the counties’ democratic committees will be required to elect its delegates at a special meeting this week.

The Drew County Democratic Committee will host a meeting to select its delegates to the district convention Thursday, July 28th at 6:00pm at the Drew County Courthouse.

The special district convention is set for 6:00pm on Thursday, August 4th in the Fine Art Center’s Spencer Gallery on the campus of the University of Arkansas at Monticello.

A list of certified delegates is expected to be made public early next week.

Candidates seeking to fill Representative Lampkin’s place on the Nov ballot, must be nominated from the floor of the convention by the delegates, and receive a majority vote of the total delegates present. Although the final convention rules have to adopted by the delegates during the convention, nominees are expected to be provided an opportunity to present candidacy speeches at the convention.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 28th, 2016 at 11:10 am and is filed under Site. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.