x
Breaking News
More () »

Midterms end, government moves on to the next big ballot battle

Minutes after the polls closed on the 2018 midterm election, some in government immediately began looking ahead to the next big election, and a familiar face is already gathering signatures for the next big ballot question.

Minutes after the polls closed on the 2018 midterm election, some in government immediately began looking ahead to the next big election, and a familiar face is already gathering signatures for the next big ballot question. It involves redistricting and the cumbersome effort to change that political process through the complicated petition process.

“Politicians draw districts to favor politicians,” said David Couch, the attorney who managed to deliver medical marijuana and steep increases in the minimum wage. “We want citizens to draw districts to favor citizens.”

Couch specializes in getting blue issues on the books that seem to run contrary to the resounding red streak Arkansas has right now.

Now he wants to create a citizens committee to draw the state's voting districts in the next decade.

“It has seven members on it,” he said “It has two Democrats and two Republicans and three independents and it takes a supermajority of five to approve any district.”

Couch added there will be public input meetings and three versions of proposed maps will have to be submitted. States like California have turned to this idea as a way to fight gerrymandering, the practice of drawing districts to favor incumbents. Since Republicans did it in many places back in 2011, it's become a talking point on the left along with voting rights.

Couch calls it a bipartisan problem here.

“Absolutely there's a gerrymandering problem,” he said. “It may not be as pronounced as you can see in for example Pennsylvania, because we're kind of a smaller state. And the Democrats have been in charge, so shame on them for what they've done."

Couch knew he needed to start early.

While he's been successful, the practice of getting petitions approved is tough. That's something that he and the conservative attorney general Leslie Rutledge can both agree on.

Rutledge and the state supreme court have clashed over her opinions that declare whether a ballot proposal is clear enough to go before voters.

“We just had two things that we determined were clear and they threw off the ballot,” Rutledge said after winning re-election to another four years in office Tuesday. “The same thing happened in 2016, so we've got to address this legislatively.”

There’s been no indication lawmakers will take up the issue when the session rolls around this winter.

Meanwhile Couch said he is already signing up volunteers to gather signatures.

Before You Leave, Check This Out