Charles Blake (politician)

Charles Jamaal Blake (born April 18, 1983)^[1][2] is a Democratic member of the Arkansas House of Representatives for District 36 in the capital city of Little Rock in a portion of Pulaski County, Arkansas.^[3]

Background

An African-American, Blake is a graduate of Little Rock Central High School and Grinnell College, in Grinnell, Iowa, from which he holds a bachelor's degree in Political Science. He is a small businessman and the chairman of the South Main Street Board in Little Rock. He also chairs the holiday committee for Daisy Bates, the late civil rights activist from Little Rock who died in 1999. He is a director of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Central Arkansas.^[3]

Blake is affiliated with the Baptist Church, specific denomination unavailable.^[3] There is another Charles Blake, Charles Edward Blake, Sr. (born in Little Rock in 1940), the Presiding Bishop of the African-American Church of God in Christ, a Pentecostal denomination, and a pastor in Los Angeles, California. It is unclear if this bishop is related to Representative Blake.

Political life

In 2014, Blake won the Democratic nomination by 103 votes over two intra-party rivals, Sheena Lewis and Rodney Hall, for the House District 36 seat vacated by the term-limited Democrat, Darrin Williams.^[4] He sits on these committees: (1) Transportation Committee and (2) City, County, and Local Affairs.^[3]

In February 2015, Blake was among twenty legislators who opposed House Bill 1228, authored by Republican Bob Ballinger of Carroll County in northwestern Arkansas.^[5] The measure sought to prohibit government from imposing a burden on the free exercise of religion.^[6] Blake's colleague, Representative Camille Bennett, a Democrat from Lonoke, called for a reworking of the legislation^[7] on the theory that the Ballinger bill would establish a "type of religious litmus test" which could impact nearly any law under consideration by the legislature.^[5] The legislation was subsequently passed by a large margin in the House and signed into law in revised form, SB 975, by Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson.^[8]

In the 2015 legislative session, Blake joined with the Republican Nate Bell of Mena in an unsuccessful effort to sever Martin Luther King Day and the Robert E. Lee holiday, which are both observed in Arkansas on the third Monday of January. Bell proposed that Lee's holiday be transferred to November 30, a "Southern Heritage Day" to correspond with the birthday of a Confederate States Army general from eastern Arkansas, Patrick Cleburne, who was killed in the American Civil War in Franklin, Tennessee. Only two citizens spoke in a public hearing on the Blake-Bell measure; twenty-four signed to speak in opposition. Alabama and Mississippi also observe a combined King-Lee Day. Representative Trevor Drown of Dover said Arkansas should remain unique and not copy the majority of states on the issue because "it's our heritage."^[9]

References