Tommy F. Robinson

Tommy Franklin Robinson (March 7, 1942 – July 10, 2024) was an American businessman, lobbyist, and politician who served as the U.S. representative for from 1985 to 1991. He was a member of the Republican Party. Before he was elected to Congress, Robinson was the sheriff of Pulaski County.

Early life and education Tommy Franklin Robinson was born in Little Rock, Arkansas and graduated from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He served in the United States Navy from 1959 to 1963.

Law enforcement career

Robinson had a career in law enforcement, in which he reached the position of sheriff of Pulaski County. He previously served as a North Little Rock city patrolman, Arkansas state trooper, director of campus police at the University of Arkansas, and the police chief in Jacksonville, Arkansas. In 1979, he was appointed by Governor Bill Clinton as director of the short-lived Department of Public Safety, which was abolished in 1981 by Clinton's successor, Republican Frank D. White. Robinson was elected sheriff of Pulaski County in 1980, having defeated the incumbent Ken Best in the Democratic primary. He was re-elected in 1982.

The 1982 murder of Little Rock socialite Alice McArthur resulted in Robinson conducting a sensational investigation of her husband, attorney William McArthur.

When his request for more money for his office was denied, he arrested County Judge Bill Beaumont and Comptroller Jo Growcock on charges of obstructing governmental operations. He released Beaumont and Growcock only when threatened with another contempt of court citation. the result was a 96 percent drop in armed robberies during his tenure.

U.S. House of Representatives Robinson was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1984 as a Democrat. He led a five-man field in the Democratic primary that included Secretary of State Paul Riviere, State Senator Stanley Russ of Conway, investment banker and former Senate aide Thedford Collins, and conservative former U.S. Representative Dale Alford. He bested Riviere in the runoff, and defeated Judy Petty, a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives and a former aide to the late Arkansas Governor Winthrop Rockefeller, and independent Jim Taylor, a liberal Democrat horrified by the more conservative Robinson. Petty ran as a Ronald Reagan Republican but lost to Robinson even though Reagan won her district. In the three-way race, Robinson polled 103,165 votes (47%) to Petty's 90,841 votes (41%), while the under-financed Taylor received 25,073 votes (11%). Robinson financed his race on almost $900,000 in unsecured bank loans, making his the most expensive congressional race in state history up to that time.

Robinson voted for the Abandoned Shipwrecks Act of 1987. The Act asserts United States title to certain abandoned shipwrecks located on or embedded in submerged lands under state jurisdiction, and transfers title to the respective state, thereby empowering states to manage these cultural and historical resources more efficiently, with the goal of preventing treasure hunters and salvagers from damaging them. President Ronald Reagan signed it into law on April 28, 1988.

While in Congress, Robinson was often at odds with the Democratic leadership of Tip O'Neill and Jim Wright, and identified closely with the Boll Weevil faction. On July 28, 1989, Robinson left the Democratic Party and joined the GOP, claiming that the Democratic Party had become too liberal.

In 1992, during the House banking scandal, Robinson, then an ex-representative, was found to have bounced 996 checks from the U.S. House bank, some of which were more than 16 months overdue. Robinson ran again for the U.S. House in 2002 after a twelve-year absence in a district in the northeastern part of the state, but lost to the Democratic incumbent, Marion Berry.