In 2010, Post had been elected by default when the Republican candidate, Thomas Lile "Tom" Fite, was disqualified from the ballot by a judge in Pulaski County who declared that Fite's guilty plea in 1984 to Medicaid fraud constituted an "infamous crime." Though Tom Fite's name remained on the ballot, his votes were not counted. In 2012, Fite's wife, Republican Charlene Fite, an educator from Van Buren, won the reconfigured District 80 seat encompassing parts of Crawford and Washington counties. In 2012, he was unopposed for the Republican nomination in House District 82. The seat opened when Republican Lori Benedict ran for reelection in reconfigured District 61 but was defeated by the Democrat Scott Balz. Gossage himself unseated the previous representative from District 83, the Democrat Leslee Milam Post, 6,804 votes to 3,909. Gossage served on these House committees: Advanced Communications and Information Technology, Aging, Children and Youth, Legislative and Military Affairs, and Revenue and Taxation. He voted to override the vetoes of Democratic GovernorMike Beebe to enact legislation requiring photo identification for casting a ballot in Arkansas and to ban abortion after twenty weeks of gestation; he was a co-sponsor of both of these bills. Gossage supported other pro-life measures too: to ban abortion whenever fetal heartbeat is detected, to forbid the inclusion of abortion in the state insurance exchange, and to make the death of an unborn child a felony in certain cases. On Second Amendment matters, Gossage co-sponsored legislation to allow concealed carry firearms on church and university properties and to prevent the governor from regulating firearms in an emergency. He co-sponsored legislation to amend state income tax rates. He voted for a spending cap on the state budget, but the measure failed by two House votes. He voted to make the office of prosecuting attorney in Arkansas nonpartisan. He voted for the bill, signed by Governor Beebe, to permit the sale of up to five hundred gallons per month of unpasteurizedwhole milk directly from the farm to consumers. He backed a measure to prohibit the closure of public schools after a two-year enrollment decline, but the measure was defeated on the House floor. Gossage endorsed former U.S. Representative Asa Hutchinson for governor in the 2014 Republican primary. Hutchinson went on to win his nomination and then to defeat the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Mike Ross. He resigned from the Arkansas House of Representatives on August 30, 2016 to become Governor Hutchinson's deputy chief of staff for external operations.
