Judy Petty Wolf - Politics in The 1980s

Politics in The 1980s

In 1980, Petty was elected to the first of two two-years terms in the state legislature from a Little Rock district. She benefited from a GOP tide that year, with the election of Reagan as president and Frank D. White as governor, although she outpolled all other Republicans on the ballot.

In her 1982 reelection, Petty was targeted by the Arkansas Gazette, which termed the former Winthrop Rockefeller aide "an ultraconservative Republican whose record is her worst reference". (Gazette, October 27, 1982) However, Petty was endorsed for reelection by the United Transportation Union, which passed up the pro-labor choice, Democrat Jim Brandon, who accused Petty of having a negative record in regard to workers and employment issues. (Arkansas Gazette, October 5, 1982)

In 1984, Petty did not seek a third legislative term but instead ran once again for the Second Congressional District seat being then vacated by her fellow Republican Edwin R. Bethune of White County, north of Little Rock. Bethune ran instead, unsuccessfully as it developed, for the United States Senate. Incumbent Democrat David Hampton Pryor handily won his second term and ended Bethune's elective political career.

Petty faced the formidable challenge of the high-strung Democratic sheriff in Pulaski County, Tommy F. Robinson.

Robinson won the election based on his blue-collar appeal. Later he switched to the Republican Party, and in 1990, unsuccessfully sought the party's gubernatorial nomination, having lost to the favorite of business, Sheffield Nelson. Robinson's House seat also reverted to its traditional Democratic moorings with the election of former U.S. Representative Ray Thornton, who had served during the 1970s from the Fourth Congressional District in south Arkansas. The seat remained Democratic until 2010, when Tim Griffin defeated Democratic state senator Joyce Elliott.

After her legislative service, Petty was the director of public affairs for the bipartisan American Legislative Exchange Council and public affairs consultant to the U.S. Department of Transportation, all in Washington, D.C. She represented the United States at North Atlantic Treaty Organization conferences in France, Belgium, England, and Germany.