Brookland AR– In an exclusive interview with Brookland News, Arkansas State Senator Dan Sullivan, District 20 talks about his re-election campaign, his opponent, and things he has done in his first term in the Arkansas State Senate.

District 20 represents a small part of Craighead County that hold Jonesboro and Bono. While District 20 does not represent Brookland, BN is still going to cover places where few of our viewers live.

Winning the Race

Sen. Sullivan said “we’ll get more votes” when asked about how he will beat his opponent, continuing to say “I think we’ve got a lot of people that will support us. I’ve met with a lot of people, talk with a lot of people, and I think our voters are very motivated and they’ll get out and vote,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan v. Erika

Erika Askeland, democratic candidate for Ark. State. Sen. District 20 called Sen. Sullivan “radical, the laughing stock of Arkansas, villainizes teachers, and has bullied private citizens. Sullivan responded  by saying “It’s just not true. Politics is tough. We’ve not bullied anybody. You know… we have, again voted our platform. She [Erika Askeland] doesn’t want to talk about what she’ll vote for. You know, I’ve run legislation, free speech on college campuses, back several years ago that was very popular. We’ve.. telehealth, I’ve led that telehealth vote for the whole state of Arkansas… for advance practice nurses, to practice to the full state of there licensure, a lot of bills like that are very popular with the people,” Sullivan said, continuing on by saying “I don’t know if Erika will talk about issues, instead of personal attacks, she’ll talk about what shes’s going to achieve.”

When Sen. Sullivan began talking about his opponent, he began to boast bills he has helped get passed, “In other words, we’ve passed legislation where boys can’t use the girls bathroom in elementary school, is she going to try to repeal that, and allow boys to use the girls bathrooms. We ended if you want to have a sex change operation, you can’t do that as a minor, a 13 year-old, is she going to repeal that. We’ve have legislation that says if your a child that’s trying to change their gender, gender ID. [Identification] the teacher has to tell the parent. is she opposed to that.” Sullivan said, he went on to target Askeland saying, “but she doesn’t want to talk about policy, she wants to talk about personal issues, I don’t think that will win.”

Sen. Sullivan’s First Term

Dan Sullivan served in the Arkansas State House of Reps. from 2015-2020 when he ran for the Arkansas State Senate and won the race for District 20, making this Sullivans first terms as a State Senator as he’s up for election and is hoping to win.

The Learns ACT

When asked about why he voted in favor of the controversial bill know as the Learns ACT, he said, “It’s a good bill,” and went on to talk about how switching schools should be the parents choice, and how Arkansans tax dollars are the peoples and not the governments.

SB 81

Senate Bill 81, a bill that is now in effect that amends the law concerning libraries and obscene material. In summary, this bill would give the distributer of “obscene material” a Class D Felony.

Sen. Dan Sullivan said the bill makes a level playing field, “just because your a librarian or a teacher you shouldn’t have a special exemption is what the bills says. You shouldn’t be exempted from distributing obscene material to children. So the bills says if you do that, if your a private citizen and you do it, your guilty of a crime. [The bill states you would be guilty of a Class D Felony] If your a teacher and you do it, your guilty of a crime. It just levels the playing field, is all it does.”

Brookland News has reached out to Sen. Sullivans democratic opponent, Erika Askeland but at this point have received no answer. Brookland News has spoken to her before when she was volunteering for a group known as CAPES. trying to get the Learns ACT on the ballot.