Arkansas’ U.S. House Representative French Hill believes in the value of stability, something born of his status as a ninth-generation Arkansan, more than a decade advancing the state’s agenda in the halls of Congress, and 30 distinguished years in Arkansas’ banking and finance industry.
Seniority has its privileges, which, in Hill’s case, means influential committee seats, including chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, one of the most powerful standing committees in the chamber, having broad authority over the nation’s financial system and related economic sectors ranging from banking and finance to securities, housing, insurance and consumer protection.
Hill, a Republican, also serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, a key strategic body charged with oversight of intelligence and intelligence-related activities of 18 government programs, including the CIA, FBI and Department of Homeland Security, among others, as well as military intelligence within the U.S. Armed Forces.
Prior to being elected, Hill forged a stellar reputation in national politics through various roles. He served on the staff of then-U.S. Sen. John Tower, as well as on the staff of the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs. He then went on to serve then-President George H.W. Bush as deputy assistant secretary of the treasury for corporate finance from 1989 to 1991. In 1991, Bush appointed Hill, at the time only 34, to be executive secretary to the President’s Economic Policy Council, where he coordinated all White House economic policy.
Over his career in banking, Hill founded and served as chairman and CEO of Delta Trust & Banking Corp. from 1999 until 2014, ultimately merging the company with Simmons Bank.
Since first being elected to Congress, Hill has been an active lawmaker, enacting into law more than 20 bills in areas of drug enforcement, trafficking, wilderness preservation and foreign policy, including the Ukraine Reconstruction Act passed in the 188th Congress. His most recent win has been the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a landmark housing bill increasing supply and making home ownership more affordable. Hill crafted broad bipartisan support for the measure, which cruised through the Senate 85-14 and the House 358-32.
Passed in partnership with U.S. Sen Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the legislation is the first comprehensive federal housing overhaul in decades. The new law combines more than 40 measures aimed at encouraging home construction by expanding lending to homebuilders via nine community banking bills, as well as improving access to home financing, including modernizing programs of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Notably, the act also supports one of President Donald Trump’s priorities of placing a 350-unit cap on how many single-family homes that can be owned by deep-pocketed investors.
“This legislation strengthens community banks, modernizes building codes and cuts red tape,” Hill said in a press release. “More houses will be built, more families will enter the market, and homes across the country will be more affordable. The bill also delivers on one of the president’s goals by restricting institutional investors from outcompeting American families for homes.”
Another Hill measure, the Main Street Capital Access Act targeting local bank formation and community lending to revitalize Main Street, recently passed the House.
“As a former community banker in central Arkansas, I know how important our Main Street banks are to our local economy,” Hill said in a press release. “From growing cities like Conway to our smallest rural towns, community banks drive economic growth.
“Yet for decades, Washington has forced these local banks to operate under rules written for the nation’s largest institutions, stifling local lending, accelerating industry consolidation and making big banks even bigger. This bill fixes that. It rightsizes regulations for our community banks, freeing them up to lend so entrepreneurs can invest, businesses can grow and families can build wealth.”
Hill has proven a reliable, even dominant candidate during his runs to Congress. During six elections to the House, he has enjoyed an average margin of victory of 15 percent of the vote, including blowouts of 20-plus percent in 2016 and 2022. His narrowest wins, his inaugural run in 2014 and his 2018 reelection bid, saw him prevail by 8.3 and 6.3 percent, respectively. Most major aggregate polling sources, such as PollingSource and 270 to Win, favor Hill to handily defeat Chris Jones come November, continuing Arkansas’ deep red run over the past 12 years.
Arkansas Money & Politics caught up with Hill to discuss his record, current events and his vision for the future of the state.
Hill has been an active lawmaker, enacting into law more than 20 bills.
Arkansas Money & Politics: Let’s start with some of the major things going on right now. The U.S. has obviously won the war in Iran. What is your assessment of our progress in winning the peace?
Rep. French Hill: Well, first, since 1979, the theocracy in Tehran has been at war with the United States, taking our hostages, attacking our Marines throughout the Middle East, particularly in the 1983 Marine barracks bombing, funding their proxies of Hamas and Hezbollah principally but also the Houthis to harass American allies in the region and directly killing Americans in Iraq during the Iraq conflict. So we’ve been at war with Iran for 50 years.
Despite decades of diplomacy by the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations to try to end Iran’s nuclear weapons program and their export of terror through their proxies and stop their ballistic missiles, none of that diplomatic work has been successful. Obama’s [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action], in fact, was purely a path to a nuclear weapon.
I was supportive of President Trump’s effort to end Iran’s aggression in the region and their pursuit of a nuclear weapon. The timing was important because with the government in Damascus falling, this was one of the principle Iranian government partnerships in the region. When the Assad regime [in Syria] fell, it was the perfect opportunity for Israel and the U.S. to press Iran harder.
It is important that we block Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, block and neuter Iran’s ability to fund its proxy groups, which have created the chaos in Gaza, in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, and try to bring Iran once and for all into a regional partnership. Those are the things I want out of the peace process, and I view that as very much in process as opposed to remotely concluded.
AMP: Most of us in the West, when we consider the nations of the Middle East, I think it’s fair to say many of us picture these tribes that have been at each other’s throats for thousands of years. Do you think there is a feeling among those nations that now is the time to finally sit down and put aside these generational conflicts for the good of the region?
Hill: Well, I do believe the United States and others have been instrumental in trying to maintain a balance between the Gulf States, which are, for most purposes, Sunni Muslim kingdoms versus Shia Islam, which is a portion of Iraq and Kuwait. The Persians, 70 million people in Iran, of course, are, for the most part, Shia, and they’ve had an intra-Islamic fight over the predominance of that sect in the faith. The U.S. and the United Kingdom have been very involved in keeping them from being at war with each other, particularly since the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
President Trump, because of the work he did in his first term through the Abraham Accords, of having Islamic states recognize diplomatic relations with Israel and open up trade and economic ties, is one of the game-changing things that’s happened since Oslo during the Clinton administration. I have real hope for it, but as you point out, given thousands of years of volatility, nothing is for certain. We don’t have any historical precedent to say that we have a high likelihood of seeing this be successful, but I think there’s a chance to see the Abraham Accords expand, freedom of navigation in the Gulf return, and some level of detente between Tehran and the Sunni capitals across the Gulf.
AMP: Bring the focus back home. Walk me through the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.
Hill: You bet. This is the first major housing bill passed in the Congress in probably two decades. It directly focuses on increasing accessibility for all Americans to housing, both rental housing and housing ownership. It directly attacks how to reduce the cost per square foot of building new housing, and it holds HUD accountable. My views on what’s been happening in Little Rock is that I think HUD has not done a good job in being held accountable. This bill has some new accountability standards for HUD, which I think is very important.
The other component of it is it can really help the local Main Street community banks we have all over Arkansas by making them more competitive and offer more capital for lending, particularly in housing. Six out of 10 home construction loans in this country are made by banks under $10 billion, and that’s the target of what we have in this bill.
AMP: Shifting to November, what issues do the midterms turn on for the majority to remain in control of Congress?
Hill: President Trump was reelected in 2024 because he committed to fight back against big government bureaucracy and the big cost of government by right-sizing regulations and trying to reduce compliance burdens on the free enterprise of the country. Secondly, to end the open border, where some estimate between 10 and 20 million people entered the country during the Biden administration without any screening or questions asked. President Trump gave a firm commitment to closing the border and trying to deport serial felons or border violators. Finally, he said, ‘I want to make sure you don’t get a big tax hike,’ because the tax rates were going to expire and that he would work to make sure Americans don’t have a big tax increase.
My judgment is we should be campaigning on those results. I was with some wonderful young women from Arkansas the other day working at the Huddle House in Greenbrier who told me how big their tax refunds were. They’d never gotten a refund before, and it’s all because there’s no tax on tips. I’ve advocated for a better job done by the Federal Reserve; my bill, the Price Stability Act that I passed in committee, says the No. 1 thing that the Federal Reserve should do is fight inflation.
So when you think about this campaign question, the messaging is simple: We’ve stopped a major tax increase. We’ve reduced regulatory burden. We’ve secured the border. We’ve restarted American leadership and gotten Europe to do more in funding their own defense. We have lowered the cost of housing through our 21st Century Housing Act, and we’re fighting every day to rightsize and redirect federal spending that we hope will also help fight inflation in the future.
Hill’s Main Street Capital Access Act targets local bank formation and community lending.
AMP: Much has been said in recent years about qualified, competent people avoiding public office due to the divisiveness of having one’s name run through the mud, etc., yet here you stand looking for reelection. Why are you looking to come back for more?
Hill: Well, I love serving others. I grew up in Little Rock. I went to Catholic High School. I was very involved in scouting. I believe that we have a responsibility to serve our fellow man through public service. My dad and granddad were both Rotarians. I love Rotary, and the motto of Rotary is “Service Above Self.”
Now you don’t have to be in elected office to do that, and that’s why we have such a great country, because we’ve got people who volunteer in church, in civic organizations, in good causes every day to help their fellow citizens, but No. 1, I believe in service, and I believe public service is a high responsibility and fiduciary obligation.
Secondly, I’ve just been elected chairman of the Financial Services Committee, and I think I’m in a position to make a big difference for Main Street companies and Main Street families in changing our financial policies to allow us to keep more of what we earn and allow us to have more freedom to form businesses.
The work I’m doing in my district is so important to me; I’m passionate about growing the opportunities at Little Rock Air Force Base and Camp Robinson. We work on that in my office daily, on what we can do to advance the mission for Americans defense there. Also, how do we help our veterans? We have so many veterans that I’ve worked with over my years in Congress. We’ve gotten almost $100 million dollars back in earned benefits for veterans just by the persistent work of my great team in Little Rock.
The final area that I stay focused on is one I share with Gov. [Sarah Huckabee] Sanders, which is we live in the most beautiful state in the country, a great outdoor recreation state. I’m dedicated to continuing to enhance that through the work I do to improve our outdoor recreation experience, whether it’s in hunting and fishing or in backpacking, climbing, or the use of our national forests. That’s what gets me up every morning and why I love what I get to do.
AMP: What specific message do you have for the people of Arkansas as they head to the polls this fall?
Hill: Well, I would conclude by pointing to my years of starting and operating businesses in Arkansas; serving as a citizen volunteer in Rotary and scouting and the chamber of commerce; and my empathy and fellowship for what it takes to start a business, run a business, recruit employees, keep them happy, live the American dream. I just want voters to know how dedicated I am to making that successful for every Arkansas family and that I would really appreciate their support in the fall election.
Feature image: U.S. Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) chairs the House Financial Services Committee. (Photos courtesy of Rep. French Hill)
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