Ray Thornton

Raymond Hoyt "Ray" Thornton Jr. (July 16, 1928 – April 13, 2016) was an American attorney and politician. He was a Democratic U.S. Representative for Arkansas' 4th congressional district from 1973 to 1979 and the 2nd district from 1991 to 1997.

Life and career
Thornton was born in Conway, Arkansas. A graduate of Sheridan High School, Thornton earned a degree in political science from Yale University and, later, a Juris Doctorate from the University of Arkansas School of Law at Fayetteville, Arkansas. He served in the United States Navy during the Korean War, during which he reached the rank of lieutenant.

Thornton returned to law school after returning from Korea and obtained his law degree in 1956. After election as Arkansas Attorney General in 1970, he was elected two years later to Congress. He defeated fellow Democrat Richard S. Arnold of Texarkana in the primary. Thornton went on to serve three terms in the House. He served as a member of the Judiciary Committee and considered articles of impeachment against U.S. President Richard Nixon. He was among three southern Democrats and four moderate Republicans who drafted the articles adopted by the committee.

Thornton did not run for a fourth term in the House. Instead, he ran for the Senate, but narrowly lost a runoff berth in the Democratic primary to his colleague from the Second District, Jim Guy Tucker, who was then defeated in the runoff by outgoing Governor David Pryor. Pryor then defeated a liberal Republican, William T. Kelly Jr. in the general election.

After his defeat in the Senate race, Thornton became involved in education, serving as President of Arkansas State University and then the University of Arkansas System from 1984 to 1990. In 1990, Thornton ran for Congress in the Little Rock-based district and won by a comfortable margin over the Republican nominee, Jim Keet, then a state representative and the subsequent unsuccessful 2010 GOP gubernatorial nominee against Mike Beebe. Thornton left Congress after another three terms until his retirement in January 1997.

Thornton served as a justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court from 1997 to 2005. After retiring from the court, he became the first public service fellow for the William H. Bowen School of Law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. In 2009, he became the first chairman of the Arkansas Lottery Commission, which operates the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery. Thornton died in Little Rock on April 13, 2016 from lung cancer.