Tucker was born in Oklahoma City and moved to Arkansas before school age. He attended public schools in Little Rock,[1] graduating from Hall High School in 1961.[2] He had his first taste of politics when he ran for and was elected vice-president of Key Club International (the largest and oldest high school service organization in the United States). He served in that organization from 1960 to 1961. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard University in 1963.
With one brief sojourn home,he remained in the war zone through 1967,personally participating in a number of engagements. Late that year,he published Arkansas Men at War,a compendium of interviews with troops from the state he had followed into combat.[3] The book received generally favorable reviews.
Tucker practiced as a junior associate with the Rose Law Firm,from which he ran for prosecuting attorney in 1970. He served as prosecutor for the Sixth Judicial District of Arkansas 1971–1972. In that office,he oversaw the prosecution of more than 1,000 backlogged felony cases inherited from previous administrations. He won convictions in several cases considered by local observers as "impossible" successfully to prosecute,including one kidnapping.
Twelve "guest" judges were temporarily reassigned from other circuits by the state supreme court at Tucker's request to clear the docket. He was appointed by the Governor to the Arkansas Criminal Code Revision Commission and served from 1973 to 1975,during which time he was credited with spearheading the group's broad revision of the state's criminal laws.
An investigation into police corruption he began was stymied by a county grand jury appointed by a circuit judge who was a political ally of the chief of police. However,the following year,a federal grand jury,building on Tucker's work,issued a scathing report which led to a shake-up of the department and the resignation of the chief,senior detectives and complicit city officials.
Tucker served two 2-year terms as attorney general,1973–1977. He and the state's chief justice served as co-chairmen of the Arkansas Criminal Code Revision Commission. This was the first effort at codification of the state's criminal code and was adopted by the State's General Assembly. Tucker also began intervening in utility rate cases before the Arkansas Public Service Commission and fought to require "scrubbers" on a large coal-fired generation plant. He served as co-chairman of the Consumer Protection Committee of the National Association of Attorneys General. Running from his post as attorney general,Tucker was elected as a Democrat to the Ninety-fifth Congress and served one term,January 3,1977 –January 3,1979. He served on the Ways &Means Committee,on the Sub-Committee on Social Security,and on a special committee on welfare reform.
He relinquished the seat to wage an unsuccessful campaign for the United States Senate in 1978. He was defeated in the Democratic primary by the sitting governor,David Pryor. In the same election,Bill Clinton,who had replaced Tucker in 1977 as attorney general,was elected governor.
In 1979,President Jimmy Carter appointed Tucker the chairman of the White House Conference on Families,in which capacity he served until the end of the administration in January 1981.[4]
Tucker resumed his law practice. A consistent intra-party rival of Clinton,he was defeated by Clinton when both sought the Democratic nomination for governor in 1982 following Clinton's defeat by Republican Frank White in 1980. He then became a partner in the firm of Mitchell,Williams,Selig &Tucker and served as lead trial counsel in complex litigation. Eight years later,Tucker announced his intention to run for the governor's office again against Clinton,who was seeking a fifth term and was expected to seek the Democratic nomination for president. However,he withdrew from the gubernatorial primary and ran instead for the post of lieutenant governor.
Tucker recognized that Clinton had his eyes on the presidency and might not serve a full term. Tucker,in accordance with a state constitutional provision barring a governor from executing duties while traveling outside of the state,served as acting governor on a near-constant basis between Clinton's campaign launch during the summer of 1991 and the election in November 1992,relinquishing gubernatorial powers and duties only on the few occasions when Clinton returned to the state,such as to oversee the execution of Ricky Ray Rector. Tucker succeeded to the governorship upon Clinton's resignation on December 12,1992,following the latter's election to the presidency.[5]
Tucker called a special session of the General Assembly that same week to solve a financial crisis for the state's Medicaid system. At his urging,the legislature adopted a soft drink tax,proceeds of which were placed in a trust account for Medicaid matching purposes. The soft drink industry obtained sufficient signatures to attempt a repeal. The soft drink tax prevailed with over 60% of the vote. Tucker won election in 1994 with over 59% of the vote against Republican Sheffield Nelson to a four-year term as governor and was sworn into a full four-year term on January 10,1995.[6]
Conviction and resignation
Tucker was convicted of one count of conspiracy and one count of mail fraud on May 28,1996,as part of Kenneth Starr's investigation of the Whitewater scandal. Tucker was tried with fellow defendants James B. McDougal and his wife Susan McDougal. The prosecution was conducted primarily by OIC prosecutor Ray Jahn. Tucker chose not to testify in his own defense upon the advice of his attorney. Tucker received a lenient sentence of four years' probation and house detention in part because of his poor health. He was placed on the Mayo Clinic liver transplant list in June 1996.[7]
Arkansas,like most other states,has a provision in its state constitution barring convicted felons from elective office. As a result,Tucker announced his intention to resign. As lieutenant governor,Mike Huckabee,a Republican,was preparing to be sworn in,Tucker announced he would delay his resignation[8] until the trial court hearing on several grounds,including the post-trial discovery that a juror in his trial was married to a man whose cocaine possession conviction Tucker had twice refused to commute. Furthermore,this juror was the niece of local activist Robert "Say" McIntosh,who had demonstrated against Tucker during the trial. He argued that his conviction was thus tainted,and that the Arkansas Constitution was vague about his status as a convicted felon until his post trial motions were ruled on. However,several hours later he did resign that same day,under the threat of impeachment by the legislature which had informally gathered to witness Huckabee's swearing in.[8]
Business
Beginning in the early 1980s,while practicing law,Tucker and his wife Betty began building cable television and pay per view systems in Central Arkansas,and later in the Dallas–Fort Worth corridor north of DFW Airport and in southern Florida. In the early 1990s,Tucker partnered with Insight Cable to purchase and expand cable television systems in London. That company later merged with others and was taken public in London. Beginning in the mid-1990s,Tucker and his wife,along with James Riady,established a cable television company in Indonesia. In 1998,in the midst of an Indonesian financial and political crisis,the company almost went bankrupt. Tucker traveled to Indonesia in January 1999 and with the Riady family created a new company called Kabelvision,and built and expanded systems in greater Jakarta ('Jabotabek'),in Surabaya,and in Bali. In 2000,the company was merged into new company called AcrossAsia Multimedia Ltd. It was listed on the Global Emerging Markets (GEM) Exchange in Hong Kong that same year. With AcrossAsia Multimedia,they built what was then the largest cable TV and Internet infrastructure in Indonesia.
Health problems and later life
Beginning during his college years at Harvard,Tucker suffered from an autoimmune disease,later diagnosed as primary sclerosing cholangitis. It created severe liver problems which seriously debilitated him and threatened his life (he had nearly died from gastrointestinal bleeding in 1994,and had steadily worsened since). On Christmas Day 1996,Tucker received a liver transplant at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester,Minnesota.
In 2012,Tucker donated the James Guy Tucker Jr. Papers,a collection of manuscripts and materials documenting his personal life and political career,to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.[9] The collection went on display and became open to the public in 2017.[10] A star in the Columba constellation was nicknamed after Tucker in the International Star Registry.[11]
The Whitewater controversy, Whitewater scandal, Whitewatergate, or simply Whitewater, was an American political controversy during the 1990s. It began with an investigation into the real estate investments of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their associates, Jim and Susan McDougal, in the Whitewater Development Corporation. This failed business venture was incorporated in 1979 with the purpose of developing vacation properties on land along the White River near Flippin, Arkansas.
Joe Edward Purcell was an American politician and attorney who served as Acting Governor of Arkansas for six days in 1979. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 45th Attorney General of Arkansas from 1967 to 1971 and the 13th Lieutenant Governor of Arkansas from 1975 to 1981.
Michael Dale Huckabee is an American political commentator, Baptist minister, and former politician who served as the 44th governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007. He was a candidate for the Republican Party presidential nomination in both 2008 and 2016.
Young Timothy Hutchinson is an American Republican politician, lobbyist, and former United States senator from the state of Arkansas.
Webster Lee "Webb" Hubbell is a former United States Associate Attorney General from 1993 to 1994 who as part of the Whitewater controversy pled guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of failing to disclose a conflict of interest, and was sentenced to 21 months in prison.
James Tjahaja Riady is an Indonesian businessman and the deputy chairman of the Lippo Group, a major Indonesian conglomerate. One of the most prominent Chinese Indonesian businessmen, he is the son of Mochtar Riady, who founded Lippo Group. Lippo ceded its control of Lippo Bank to Khazanah of Malaysia in 2005. Since his conversion to evangelical Christianity, James is now focusing on the study of theology.
Jimmie Lou Fisher was an American politician from Arkansas. A Democrat, she was the longest serving State Treasurer in Arkansas history.
The lieutenant governor of Arkansas presides over the Senate of the U.S. state of Arkansas with a tie-breaking vote, serves as acting governor of Arkansas when the governor is out of state and assumes the governorship in cases of impeachment, removal from office, death or inability to discharge the office's duties. The position is elected separately from the Arkansas Governor.
Wayne Eugene DuMond was an American criminal convicted of murder and rape.
Castle Grande was a real estate development in Arkansas about 10 miles south of Little Rock. It came into National news as a result of the Whitewater investigations. The project was a 1,050-acre (4.2 km2) lot where Jim McDougal hoped to build a microbrewery, shopping center, a trailer park and other future projects in 1985. The land was scrub pine forest that had failed already as an industrial development. The sales price was $1.75 million. State regulations prohibited Jim McDougal from investing more than 6% of his Madison Guaranty S&L assets. So, he put in $600,000 of Madison money and then for the difference had Seth Ward put in the remaining $1.15 million. This money Ward borrowed from Madison Guaranty on non-recourse, no personal obligation to repay. If federal regulators found out, McDougal's S&L could be shut down, since it had already been operating under orders to correct its lending practices.
Bill Clinton served as the 42nd president of the United States (1993–2001) and as the 40th and 42nd governor of Arkansas. A member of the Democratic Party, Clinton first ran for a public office in 1974, competing in the congressional election for Arkansas's 3rd congressional district. After narrowly losing to incumbent representative John Paul Hammerschmidt, he ran for the office of Arkansas Attorney General in 1976. He won the Democratic primary comfortably, receiving over 55% of the popular vote. Witnessing his strong support during the primaries, Republicans did not nominate a candidate to run against him. Clinton won the general election unopposed. His experience as the attorney general was considered a natural "stepping-stone" to the governorship.
The following table indicates the party of elected officials in the U.S. state of Arkansas:
The 1982 Arkansas gubernatorial election was held on November 2, 1982. Former Democratic governor Bill Clinton regained the position after having narrowly been defeated by Republican candidate Frank D. White at the previous election. Clinton held the position from January 1983 until he resigned after being elected president in 1992. As of 2024, this is the last time that an incumbent governor of Arkansas lost re-election.
Edward Sheffield Nelson is an American attorney, businessman and politician from the capital city of Little Rock, Arkansas. Originally a Democrat, Nelson in 1990 ran for governor of Arkansas as a Republican against then governor and future U.S. president Bill Clinton and in 1994 against another Democrat, the incumbent governor Jim Guy Tucker.
Mike Huckabee served as the third Republican governor of Arkansas since Reconstruction from 1996 to 2007.
The 1994 Arkansas gubernatorial election took place on November 8, 1994, as a part of the United States gubernatorial elections, 1994.
The 1996 United States Senate election in Arkansas was held on November 5, 1996. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator David Pryor decided to retire. Republican Tim Hutchinson won the open seat, becoming the first Republican to win a U.S. Senate seat in Arkansas since Reconstruction in 1872 and the first to ever be popularly elected in the state. He was the first to win this seat since 1870. Hutchinson lost re-election in 2002 to David Pryor's son Mark Pryor.
The 1998 Arkansas gubernatorial election took place on November 3, 1998 for the post of Governor of Arkansas. Incumbent Republican governor Mike Huckabee defeated Democratic nominee Bill Bristow to win a full term in office.
The 2022 Arkansas gubernatorial election took place on November 8, 2022, to elect the next governor of Arkansas. Incumbent Republican governor Asa Hutchinson was term-limited and could not seek a third term. Republican Sarah Huckabee Sanders, daughter of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, defeated Democrat Chris Jones to become the first woman ever elected to the office, and was sworn in on January 10, 2023.
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