Attorney David Couch Wields Initiatives To Change the Law

If you don’t like what Little Rock lawyer David Couch does — suing nursing homes over patient care, wielding the initiated act as a way to liberalize Arkansas law — blame Jesus.
“I grew up in the Holden Avenue Church of Christ in Newport, Arkansas,” Couch said. “Jesus loves all the children, red and yellow, black and white. That’s it. That’s my politics.”
That conservative religious upbringing has expressed itself in decidedly non-conservative ways. Since 2012, his politics have led Couch to work to tighten ethics and campaign financing law in the state, legalize medical marijuana, raise the state’s minimum wage, open all of Arkansas to alcohol sales and enact laws prohibiting discrimination against people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity (see timeline below).
“Sure, I’m liberal,” Couch said in a recent interview at his office in the Prospect Building. “There’s nothing wrong with liberal. I’m for the underdog.”
And he has faith in Arkansans’ sense of fairness. “I have cases in every county and all this initiative work. I get so mad when they say we’re a red state or a blue state. We’re the most populist state,” he said.
That faith underlies Couch’s use of the initiative to persuade voters to change law. “The initiative is pure democracy,” he said.
Marsha Scott, a veteran of the Clinton White House, is a polit...

Source: Arkansas Business - Health Care - June 13, 2016 Category: American Health Source Type: news