Senator Stephanie Flowers is the seventh of nine children of the late attorney, W. Harold Flowers, and educator, Margaret Brown Flowers.
She was born on August 8, 1953, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. She graduated from Pine Bluff High School, Philander Smith College and the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas. While in law school she served as the Research Editor for the law review journal.
Senator Flowers is a lawyer. She was first licensed to practice law in Texas in 1982 and in Arkansas in 1991. She has been in private practice since 1982, nine years in Houston and 34 years in Pine Bluff. She is a member of the Jefferson County Bar Association and several law associations, including the W. Harold Flowers Law Society that is named in honor of her father.
Senator Flowers served as deputy prosecutor in juvenile court in Jefferson County, Arkansas, for one year, in 1994. She ran for Juvenile Judge in Jefferson County in 1994 as an independent. That was prior to the passage of a state law that made all judicial races nonpartisan. She lost to the incumbent Democrat.
In 2004 she successfully ran for the Arkansas state House of Representatives from District 17 and served three terms. In 2010 she successfully ran for the state Senate, District 5, and has continued service in the State Senate. Senator Flowers is currently in her final four-year term. She represents Senate District 8, which covers parts of Jefferson, Lincoln, Desha, Arkansas, Lonoke, and Pulaski Counties.
As a state senator she has served as an Assistant President Pro Tempore of the Arkansas Senate. In the current 95th Arkansas General Assembly she serves on the Senate Education Committee and the Senate Insurance and Commerce Committee.
Senator Flowers is a strong supporter of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, and in 2025 sponsored an appropriation to enable UAPB to build a new police station. Also during the 2025 session she co-sponsored legislation to provide a free breakfast to every Arkansas public school child. Senator Flowers also co-sponsored legislation to increase the Homestead Property Tax Credit.
Senator Flowers co-sponsored Act 154 of 2021, a tax cut for people who lost their jobs due to the pandemic. Because their unemployment benefits were not taxed by the state, they saved $59 million in state income taxes.
Senator Flowers has sponsored legislation to foster community support for public schools, such as Act 1507 of 2013 to expand the ability of schools to hold events. She sponsored Act 1002 of 2011 and Act 1423 of 2013 to make parental involvement plans more user-friendly and more effective. During each session, she consistently sponsors bills to fund after-school programs, drug abuse treatment and services for juveniles in the justice system.
Many of the measures that she sponsors are appropriations that flow through the legislative process quietly, after Senator Flowers has reached a consensus with other committee members.
Those appropriations set funding levels for the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Southeast Arkansas College, the Southeast Arkansas Economic Development District, the Rural Services Department, the Heritage Department, literacy programs and senior citizens centers.
Another of Senator Flowers’ priorities is to expand and improve re-entry training of inmates to help them better prepare for a productive life outside prison. For example, she was instrumental in creating a program in which probationers and parolees clear condemned properties.
In 2017, she co-sponsored a package of bills to strengthen ethics and campaign finance laws. She also co-sponsored legislation to create a monument on the state capitol grounds honoring Gold Star Families who lost a loved one during active military service. In 2019, she co-sponsored a major highway program and legislation to set up a grant program for improvements at historically black colleges and universities.
She was honored to serve as a member of the Executive Committee of the Arkansas state Democratic Party under the late chairman, Bill Gwatney.
She was elected as a delegate to the Democratic National Committee in 2008 in support of Barack Obama. She is a member of the National Association of University Women and the Jefferson County Democratic Women.
Senator Flowers is active in her community and supports projects that make a difference in the lives of young people, adults and seniors of her district. Her perspective is not limited to Senate District 8, however. She appreciates the concerns of all Arkansas residents and supports initiatives that benefit the entire state.
Senator Flowers has one son, William Zeri. She is a member of the Mount Pleasant A.M.E. Church.
