Bob Ballinger

On March 6, 2019 Ballinger failed to get his "Stand Your Ground" bill (SB 484) out of the Senate Judiciary Committee after a three hour hearing, which included testimony against the bill from law enforcement agencies, Moms Demand Action, the NAACP and others.

In February 2015, Ballinger authored House Bill 1228, designed to prohibit government from imposing a burden on the free exercise of religion. The measure passed the House, seventy-two to twenty. One of the opponents, Representative Camille Bennett, a former city attorney for Lonoke, Arkansas, called for a reworking of the legislation.

Ballinger was the state co-chairman of the presidential campaign for U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, whom he hosted on a campaign swing through Arkansas in August 2015. Working with Ballinger on the campaign was former gubernatorial candidate Curtis Coleman, who was defeated in the 2014 primary election by Governor Hutchinson.

Ballinger won his second term in the House in the general election held on November 4, 2014, a strong year politically in Arkansas for Republican candidates. He defeated the Democratic choice, Charles "Sonny" Carter, 6,234 votes (65 percent) to 3,384 (35 percent).

In 2013, Ballinger co-sponsored amending state income tax rates. He co-sponsored a proposed spending cap on the state budget, but the measure failed by two votes on the House floor. He voted to override of the vetoes of Democratic then Governor Mike Beebe to enact legislation to require 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 those measures. He supported related legislation to forbid the inclusion of abortion in the state insurance exchange, to make the death of a fetus a felony in certain cases, and to forbid abortion whenever fetal heartbeat is detected.

In 2012, Ballinger won the Republican nomination for the District 97 House seat over Jeremy Miller, 1,362 (52.4 percent) to 1,238 (47.6 percent). He then defeated Democrat Robert D. Berry of Eureka Springs, 6,706 (56.2 percent) to 5,226 (43.8 percent). The position opened when the incumbent Republican Representative Jonathan Barnett was transferred to the reconfigured District 87.

Born in Bremerton in northwestern Washington, Ballinger was raised near Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he graduated from Daniel Webster High School. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Social Studies Education from Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. In 2004, he received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville.

From 1999 to 2002, Ballinger taught history in Sapulpa near Tulsa. From 2006 to 2011, he was director of operations of Kings River Title Company in Berryville, Arkansas. He has practised law since 2006 and is a former chairman of the Berryville Chamber of Commerce.

Robert Alan Ballinger (born January 31, 1974) is an American politician and lawyer, who is a Republican member of the Arkansas Senate. Ballinger has represented the 5th District, stretching from Missouri to Oklahoma across a rural section of the Ozark Mountains, since January 2019. He previously represented the 97th District in the Arkansas House of Representatives from 2013 to 2019.