Asa Hutchinson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Asa Hutchinson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: William Asa Hutchinson (born December 3, 1950) is a former U.S. Attorney for the Fort Smith-based Western District of Arkansas, U.S. Congressman from the Third District of Arkansas, Administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the first Undersecretary for Border & Transportation Security at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In 2006, Hutchinson was the Republican candidate for governor of Arkansas and lost to Democrat Mike Beebe, the outgoing state attorney general.

Beebe is term-limited, and Hutchinson is again the Republican gubernatorial nominee in the general election scheduled for November 4, 2014. He faces the Democrat former U.S. Representative Mike Ross of Arkansas's 4th congressional district.[1]

In 1986, Hutchinson ran against incumbent Democratic Senator (and former governor) Dale Bumpers. It was a nationally Democratic year, and Hutchinson fared worse than Bumpers' previous challenger in 1980, Little Rock investment banker William P. "Bill" Clark. In 1990, Hutchinson's race against Winston Bryant for Attorney General of Arkansas also ended in defeat, although the race was very tight. After losing that race, Hutchinson became the co-chairman, with Sheffield Nelson, of the Arkansas Republican Party, a position he would hold for five years. During that period, Hutchinson was credited with helping dramatically build the GOP organization in Arkansas by leading the effort to require the state to finance polling stations, which allowed more Republican voters to get to the polls and vote. Hutchinson considered a rematch with Bumpers in 1992 before he deferred to Mike Huckabee, who lost to Bumpers.

After being re-elected to his third term in Congress in November 2000, Hutchinson was appointed Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 2001. Washington Post columnist David Broder praised Hutchinson's appointment, writing: "The high esteem in which former Rep. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas is held by his colleagues was demonstrated by the 98-1 Senate vote confirming him last month as the new director of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Even more telling was the fact that Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and an ardent opponent of the impeachment of President Clinton, appeared at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to praise Hutchinson, who had been one of the Republican House managers presenting the case against Clinton to the full Senate. In his 4 1/2 years in the House, Hutchinson, a former U.S. Attorney, earned an estimable reputation as a thoughtful conservative and, as liberals like Conyers and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont affirmed, as a fair-minded advocate."

Broder, however, questioned the effectiveness of the traditional approach to the war on drugs and called for a new direction. During his tenure at the DEA, Hutchinson led a re-evaluation of the DEA's mission and resources, concluding that too many resources were focused on 1980s-era drug enforcement priorities. Hutchinson called greater attention to newly emergent drug threats such as methamphetamine in rural America, ecstasy among youth, and predatory drugs (also known as date rape drugs). He also lobbied for greater investments in prevention and treatment. He particularly focused on using drug treatment courts as a way to help non-violent drug offenders beat addiction. Despite the official position of the DEA, which raided numerous medical marijuana establishments during his tenure, in 2011, Hutchinson supported the right to use medical marijuana in a debate at the University of Arkansas when he said "I think that if there is a medical need and the doctors say you need a particular substance — whether it is Marinol or marijuana or whatever — if the doctor or medical community says that, then patients ought to be able to get that."

After the September 11 attacks, Congress created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). President George W. Bush tapped Hutchinson to lead the Border and Transportation Security Directorate, the largest division of the DHS, with more than 110,000 employees. Hutchinson was confirmed by unanimous consent by the Senate on 23 January 2003. Later, during his campaign for Governor of Arkansas, Hutchinson's opponent attempted to portray him as mishandling immigration issues. Hutchinson's critics particularly focused on his efforts to limit the Border Patrol to patrolling the border and stopping illegal immigrants from crossing the border, while giving Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents sole responsibility for removing aliens already in the country.

While serving as Undersecretary for Border and Transportation Security in the Bush Administration, Hutchinson supported Bush's proposals to provide more job opportunities for illegal aliens without criminal records, while tightening security on the border. In September 2004, he said: "Eliminating the fear of deportation will be an incentive." In his written response to Senate questions, Hutchinson also said "Undocumented aliens will tell you they often have trouble sleeping at night, and leaving for work each day, not knowing if they will make it home at the end of the day." Hutchinson also said that Americans are not willing to put in the resources that would be required to remove the estimated 12 million or more population of illegal immigrants.^[7] In that same testimony, Hutchinson emphasized that any debate over immigration reform must start first with enforcement of immigration laws and border security, asserting, "You have to start with the proposition that in order to be effective in the war against terrorism our nation must be able to secure its borders."

Hutchinson was also careful to temper his support for Bush's Temporary Worker Proposal with a call for strengthening security first. In his testimony, he asserted:

The necessary elements to tackle this enormous problem [of illegal immigration] effectively are: (1) Increasing the funding of technology and security personnel along the border, (2) Making it more difficult for illegal aliens to get jobs in this country, and (3) providing a workable and practical means for migrant workers to meet the job needs in this country when those jobs cannot be filled otherwise. When, and only when, these security measures are established then it is appropriate to begin a conversation on providing a temporary legal status to the eight million illegal workers already in this country. It is a significant security vulnerability to allow such a large population live and work anonymously in our communities, with no legal identities or other common connections to society. It is, in fact, a terrorist's dream. Moreover, any legal status should be a temporary work permit with a point of return to the alien's home country."

 In the wake of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the National Rifle Association (NRA) assembled a task force of experts in homeland security, law enforcement training, and school safety to review school security standards in select areas of the country. The goal of the task force was to come up with a comprehensive plan to address the safety of children in schools and to prevent such shootings in the future. Hutchinson served as the leader of the task force.

Hutchinson is a Republican candidate for governor of Arkansas in 2014. He has been supported by House Speaker Davy Carter. Asa champions over education policy and is has continually held the lead against opponent, Mike Ross, in the Real Clear Politics average.

Asa Hutchinson's older brother, Tim, preceded him as U.S. Representative from Arkansas's Third Congressional District and served one term as a United States Senator from Arkansas from 1997–2003, being defeated for a second term by then-Arkansas Attorney General Mark Pryor, a Democrat, in 2002. Asa and Tim Hutchinson are both graduates of Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina from the Class of 1972.

Bob Jones University (BJU) is a private, non-denominational Protestant university in Greenville, South Carolina, U.S. There are approximately 2,800 students, and the school is accredited by the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools. In 2008, the university estimated the number of its graduates at 35,000. The university's athletic teams compete in Division I of the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA) and are collectively known as the Bruins. Though the conservative religious, cultural, and political stances taken by the university have often generated controversy, they have also resulted in greater institutional influence than might have been anticipated from a college of its size.