Hutchinson was first elected to the Arkansas House in March 2000, as representative of Arkansas District 31, Pulaski County. At the time he was the youngest member of the Arkansas House. He was re-elected three times and served on the House Judiciary and Insurance and Commerce committees. He was the vice-chair of the Joint Energy Committee and the assistant minority leader from 2002 to 2004. On August 4, 2009, Hutchinson announced his intent to run for the Arkansas State Senate from District 22, Pulaski County. On May 18, 2010, he defeated Dan Greenberg, son of the columnist Paul Greenberg, in the Republican primary, 58 to 42 percent. On November 2, 2010, Hutchinson defeated Democratic nominee Dawn Creekmore to claim the District 22 Senate seat. He was re-elected in 2013. Jeremy Hutchinson was named to Arkansas Business' "40 under 40" in 2002. He served on the board of the Arkansas Council on Economic Education. His biography states that in 2005, he was voted "Best Conservative" by readers of the Arkansas Times.
Conviction and Resignation
On August 31, 2018, the Department of Justice announced that Hutchinson was indicted by a federal grand jury on 12 wire and tax fraud charges. Hutchinson resigned his office the same day. He faces "eight counts of wire fraud for spending the campaign funds on personal expenses and falsifying campaign reports and four counts of filing false tax returns from 2011 to 2014." On June 25, 2019, Hutchinson pleaded guilty to "accepting multiple bribes and tax fraud in connection with a multi-district investigation spanning the Western and Eastern Districts of Arkansas and the Western District of Missouri."
Family and personal life
Hutchinson and his identical twin brotherTimothy Chad Hutchinson are the sons of former U.S. Senator Tim Hutchinson and nephews of the Governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson. Timothy Chad Hutchinson represented District 95, Benton County, from 2005 to 2011. Hutchinson is a nephew by marriage of former state senator Kim Hendren of Gravette, Benton County. Kim Hendren's son Jim Hendren, District 2 state senator from Benton County and the senate majority leader, is Hutchinson's cousin. In 2006, Hutchinson's mother, Donna Jean King Hutchinson of Bella Vista, Arkansas, was elected to the state House from District 98 in Benton County. She served four two-year terms. In 2013, Hutchinson participated in "active shooter" training and mistakenly shot a teacher with a rubber bullet who was confronting a so-called "bad guy". The experience gave Hutchinson "some pause" but failed to shake his confidence in the training plan.
