Entries - Entry Category: Government and Politics - Starting with V

Representative Paul Van Dalsem—with his cigars, his aggressive style, and his fiscal conservatism—came to represent the classic southern politician. He was a master of the legislative process and parliamentary procedure. This mastery served him well, allowing him to serve on and off for thirty years in the Arkansas House of Representatives. Paul Van Dalsem was born in Aplin (Perry County) in 1907 to Pyke Van Dalsem and May Thompson Van Dalsem. He had one sister. He attended public school in Perryville (Perry County) and began college at what is now Arkansas Tech University before transferring to Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, Louisiana, where he earned his degree. He later attended the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville (Washington County), earning a …

Representing Iowa in the U.S. House of Representatives, William Vandever led Union troops at three major Civil War battles in Arkansas. His war service concluded with a promotion to brevet major general and service after the war included a second stint in the House representing California and a term as United States Indian Inspector. Born on March 31, 1817, in Baltimore, Maryland, Vandever was the son of William Vandever and Margaret Denike Vandever. Attending schools in Baltimore and Philadelphia, Vandever moved to Rock Island, Illinois, in 1839. Trained as a surveyor, he worked in Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin, while also operating the Rock Island Advertiser newspaper. He married Jane Williams in 1847, and the couple moved to Dubuque, Iowa, in …

Buddy Villines was a longtime public official in central Arkansas. Following service on the Little Rock Board of Directors, he became the city’s mayor before serving for over two decades as Pulaski County judge. Over that time, he oversaw a significant transformation of Arkansas’s capital city. Floyd G. “Buddy” Villines III was born on June 23, 1947, in Roxboro, North Carolina. Nicknamed Buddy at an early age due to his pleasant demeanor, he was one of three children born to Floyd Villines and Hazel Villines. As his father was a Methodist minister who served numerous counties all over the state, the family led a nomadic existence, moving frequently during Villines’s youth. In 1969, he graduated from Hendrix College, having majored …

Voting rights in Arkansas have evolved from an initial narrow limitation to today’s near-comprehensive voting rights. 1836 Original State Constitution In 1836, when Arkansas became a state, it had neither a property requirement nor a taxpaying requirement for voting eligibility—unlike seven of the twenty-five states of the Union at the time. This was in keeping with Jacksonian democratic principles and was somewhat advanced for the South, where many states had these types of restrictive requirements. To vote, a person had to be male, of the white race, a U.S. citizen, and a citizen of the state for at least six months. Some twenty of the twenty-five states then had some type of race exclusion, including all of the South. Most …