How to Change Policy Without Politicians
David Couch is a lawyer by profession, specializing in cases against Arkansas nursing homes accused of abuse. But in the state’s political circles, he’s better known as a ballot-initiative-writing machine. He has submitted more than 20 proposals to the state attorney general’s office, written three measures that eventually became law, and been involved in well over two dozen other initiatives, some of which have ended up on the ballot.
That’s quite the count for a man who told me that ballot initiatives are his “hobby,” something he’d dabbled in during his early days as a lawyer and only picked back up about a decade ago. But his interest in this civic mechanism—as well as his successes—reflect a broader pattern in Arkansas politics: a new enthusiasm for direct democracy that’s resurrected a latent populist streak in the state.
Because of direct-democracy aficionados like Couch, Arkansas politics in the past two decades, and especially recently, has started to look like it did 100 years ago. At the end of the 19th century, the Populist movement swept through the state. Voters organized to rip power away from a corrupt legislature and put it into their own hands. The dynamics in 2019 are somewhat different—special interests from in and out of state often influence what initiatives are written and why—but the overall effect is similar. Through ballot initiatives, Arkansas’ voters are supporting policies they may never have been able to get through the legislature.
The state took a decisive rightward turn in 2014, when control of the legislature flipped, its last Democrat in Congress, for example—voters have supported all manner of initiative and referendum, including measures typically described as progressive. (“Initiative and referendum” is a collective term used to describe the direct-democracy mechanisms.) In November, Arkansans passed an initiative, written by Couch, to raise the state’s minimum wage. But at the same time, they passed a voter-ID amendment, written by the legislature, with nearly 80 percent of the vote. “Arkansas is really a populist state,” said Couch, who isn’t registered with a political party. “Not necessarily a Republican state, not necessarily a Democratic state.”
