Jim L. Smithson

Jimmy Lee "Jim" Smithson (born September 15, 1943) is a former conservative Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives who is remembered for cosponsoring legislation in his state to allow generic substitution of prescription medications. A registered pharmacist from Marshall, the seat of Searcy County, he served in the House from December 31, 1974, to December 31, 1984. He represented then District 43, created in 1970, which included his own Searcy, Marion, and a part of Baxter counties in northwestern Arkansas. Later the district was numbered 40 and then 39.

Smithson also cosponsored the bill to allow optometrists to use diagnostic drugs to dilate the pupils of patients' eyes. Ophthalmologists strongly objected, but the measure passed.

Smithson was born in Marshall to Jack Smithson (1908-1973) and the former Ola Francis (1912-2003). He graduated from Marshall High School in 1960. In 1971, he obtained his pharmacy degree from the University of Louisiana at Monroe (then Northeastern Louisiana University). For a time in the early 1970s he had a pharmacy in Marshall. From 1981-2006), he was a pharmacist at Jefferson Regional Hospital in Pine Bluff. Divorced from Beverly Smithson (born ca. 1950), he is semiretired in Marshall. Smithson has two daughters and four grandchildren.

Never a runaway winner in his House district, Smithson in his first election in 1974 only narrowly unseated the Democratic incumbent Claude M. Wade (January 7, 1918 - December 13, 2001) of Yellville, the seat of Marion County. His closest contest was in 1982, when he defeated -- by forty-three votes -- Billy Joe Purdom (born ca. 1948), a Democrat also from Yellville, who would ultimately succeed him in the seat. Purdom was strongly supported by future U.S. President William Jefferson Blythe "Bill" Clinton, who staged a gubernatorial comeback that year. Smithson did not seek a sixth term in the legislature in 1984; instead he ran unsuccessfully for county judge of Searcy County. Purdom was subsequently term-limited, and the seat went to the Republican Roy Ragland of Marshall.

Smithson once made an issue of the legitimacy of the Federal Reserve Board, established by the United States Congress in 1913. At the request of several conservative organizations in his district, Smithson called a committee hearing to allow opponents of the Federal Reserve to air their objections. However, he lacked the votes to take the matter to the House floor.

Smithson also tried to prevent law enforcement officers from establishing "speed traps" during the era of the 55-mile-per-hour speed limit. He introduced a bill, borrowing from the example of Nevada, to allow citations beyond 55 m.p.h. to be given for "wasting energy", rather than for actual "speeding". The distinction would have kept speeding violations off insurance records. Arkansas newspapers editorialized against Smithson's bill by claiming that it would cause motorists not to take speed limits seriously.

Smithson's GOP colleagues included Carolyn Pollan of Fort Smith, C. W. Melson of Johnson County, Richard L. Barclay of Rogers, Jerry King of Greenwood, Jerry E. Hinshaw of Springdale, and Judy Petty Wolf of Little Rock.