Jim Hendren

Jim Hendren
President pro tempore of the Arkansas Senate
Incumbent
Assumed office January 14, 2019
Preceded by	Jonathan Dismang
Majority Leader of Arkansas Senate
In office January 13, 2015 – January 14, 2019
Preceded by	Eddie Joe Williams
Succeeded by	Bart Hester
Member of the Arkansas Senate from the 2nd district
Incumbent
Assumed office January 2013
Preceded by	Randy Laverty
Member of the Arkansas House of Representatives from the 1st district
In office January 1995 – January 8, 2001
Preceded by	Railey Steele
Succeeded by	Kim Hendren
Personal details
Born	(1963-08-12) August 12, 1963 Gravette, Arkansas, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Tammy Hendren
Children	4
Relatives	Kim Hendren (Father) Tim and Asa Hutchinson (maternal uncles)
Education	Bob Jones University University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (BS)
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch/service	United States Air Force
Rank	Lieutenant Colonel

James Paul Hendren, known as Jim Hendren (born August 12, 1963), is a Republican member of the Arkansas State Senate for District 2 and the current Senate Majority Leader. He resides in Sulphur Springs in Benton County in Northwest Arkansas.

Background

A native of Gravette in Benton County, Hendren spent a semester at Bob Jones University and graduated in 1984 with a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. From 1984 to 1992, he served in the United States Air Force. A former F-15 fighter pilot, he flew in six intercepts of planes of the former Soviet Union over the Bering Sea. Since 2003, he has been a senior offensive duty guard in the Arkansas Air National Guard. He owns Hendren Plastics Company. He and his wife, Tammy Claire Hendren (born 1964), have four children, Daniel, David, Nick, and Molly. He is a Baptist.

Hendren owns plastics manufacturer Hendren Plastics. In 2020 a Federal judge ordered Hendren Plastics and DARP Foundation to pay more than $1.1 million in back wages and damages to workers who were forced to work without pay at Hendren Plastics. District Judge Timothy Brooks wrote that “They were businesses that manipulated the labor market and skirted compliance with the labor laws for their own private ends,” The DARP Foundation was a work-based rehab in which many participants had their participation court ordered in lieu of incarceration. DARP supplied workers to Hendren’s Hendren Plastics who used them as a “captive workforce.” Not only was the misuse of rehab workers abusive but it also displaced private sector employees at Hendren Plastics who had enjoyed a significantly higher wage than the temporary laborers. Injuries to the workers at Hendren Plastics were commonplace with seriously injured workers being kicked out of the program and sent to prison, this created an incentive to massively underreport workplace injuries.

Political life

Hendren was elected to the Gravette School Board in 1992.

In 1994, Hendren defeated Representative Railey Steele in a race for the Arkansas House of Representatives. He remained a state representative until 2000. During this time, he worked for passage of several pro-life pieces of legislation, including a ban on partial birth abortions in 1996 and the Fetal Protection Law of 1999.

In 2001, Hendren ran unsuccessfully to succeed his uncles, Asa Hutchinson and Tim Hutchinson, representing Arkansas's 3rd congressional district in a special election campaign that was hampered by reports of an extramarital affair. Hendren finished a distant third in the Republican primary.

In 2003, Hendren returned to military service and joined the Missouri Air National Guard, of which he holds the rank of lieutenant colonel.

In 2012, Hendren ran unopposed for the state Senate; his initial four-year term expired on December 31, 2016. Re-elected in 2016 election, Hendren serves on the Education Facilities Oversight Committee and the Arkansas Legislative Council. He is a member of four other Senate committees: Budget, Children & Youth, Education, and Energy . Hendren passed legislation exempting All Active Duty and National Guard Personnel from State Income Tax in 2013. He was also appointed chairman of a Joint Task Force charged with reforming Public School and Arkansas State Employee Insurance programs.

His father, Kim Hendren, is also a former member of the Arkansas Senate and in a second stint in office a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives from at least 2015 to 2017. Through his mother, the former Marylea Hutchinson, his cousins include fellow State Senator Jeremy Hutchinson of Little Rock and former State Representative Timothy Chad Hutchinson, sons of former Senator Tim Hutchinson, and Hutchinson's first wife, Donna.