Patricia Nation and Drew County resident Levi Davis at a Southeast Arkansas TEA Party meeting where Nation talked about her candidacy for Arkansas Attorney General.

One might wonder how a little girl who grew up Dumas, Arkansas in “abject poverty”, as Patricia Nation puts it, comes to the point that she wants to be elected to the office of Arkansas Attorney General.

Nation, a managing member of the Nation Law Firm in Little Rock, explained her reasons for doing just that.

At the April 14 meeting of the Southeast Arkansas TEA Party, Nation said she has always loved watching presidential debates on television and always “lined up” with the conservative candidates.

Laughing, she tells the story of how she was once punished for being a Republican. “I grew up in a family of Democrats, but one day I told my mother, ‘Mama, I think I am a Republican.’ She spanked me and sent me to my room, but I have to say that today my mother is my biggest supporter out on the campaign trail.”

Nation went on to graduate with honors from Dumas High School, did her undergraduate studies at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and received her law degree from the University of Arkansas Law School. She is also a graduate of Agape Bible College, where she has served as a board member of the college as the head of the Education Committee.

Nation believes she is the most qualified candidate for the office of Arkansas Attorney General. She has been a trial and civil rights lawyer for over 18 years and a member of the Trial Lawyers’ Association and the Arkansas Bar Association. She is licensed to practice law in the Supreme Court of Arkansas and in U. S. District Court for the Eastern and Western Divisions. The Nation Law Firm, of which she is a managing member, is a federal law firm which emphasizes Constitutional Law and Appellate Advocacy. Nation has practiced in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, Louisiana; the Eighth District Court of Appeals in Saint Louis, Missouri; the District Court of Texas and the Federal Circuit Court in Washington, D.C. Her state law practice focuses mainly on criminal defense and real estate.

Showing her sense of humor while describing herself, Nation said on a good day she is Rush Limbaugh in a skirt, and on a not-so-good day she is Mark Levin yelling at all the things the media is getting away with. “I am an Arkansas girl with Arkansas values,” she said. “My values are Constitutional values of faith, family and freedom. These are the values I grew up with and that formed me. Those values pulled me out of the abject poverty I grew up in, and those values in practice can pull our state into success.”

“When I started out as a Republican in Central Arkansas, we were a small group; and it was not very popular to be a Republican,” Patricia said. “But, I had the opportunity in 2008 to work for the McCain-Palin ticket in Arkansas and Missouri as an attorney and poll watcher. I was privileged to work for Romney and Ryan in 2012, and was selected to be a delegate to the Republican National Convention. At the convention, I watched the National Debt Clock just running and running; and I thought that with all we have in America and with our Constitution, this should not be happening. I believe that the Constitution is the best and greatest legal document in history. It has kept us safe, and as long as we stick to it our country will prosper. I want to uphold the Constitution and defend it. Our liberties and freedoms are wrapped up in it. I have been fighting for the rights of Arkansans for 20 years, and it has been a privilege to have the Constitution as a tool.”

Nation described some of the problems she sees in the nation and in Arkansas: “Our country and state can do better in taking care of our veterans. I know about that because my husband is a veteran, and I take care of him every day. It is shameful that we don’t do a better job for our veterans,” she said. “I also want to see the Affordable Care Act repealed. I am for affordable and available health care, but I believe the Supreme Court violated the basic principle of free enterprise when they ruled the Affordable Care Act to be constitutional. If we lower the prices of health care in America, it would be affordable.”

Nation believes the Private Option in Arkansas should be defunded.

“When our Arkansas Legislators passed the Private Option, they did not consider things like mental health, dental care among other things,” Nation said. “What is going to happen when the bill for these things I have mentioned comes in and it does not fit into the mold of the Private Option? It was not well thought out before it was passed. It was voted on over and over again until it passed because some in the State Legislature had an agenda to get it passed, and they had not thought it through. It is like the Affordable Care Act. It is still being written, and nobody knows what the final outcome of such a law will be. We are a great nation, a superpower, and we can do better than this to help people who are truly mentally ill or disabled. We can solve the health care problem, but we need Attorneys General in this nation who understand the Constitution. Some do, but when a group of Attorneys General went to Washington, D.C. to show they were against the Affordable Care Act, Arkansas was silent.”

Nation said she is very much in favor of local school districts having control over the programs such as Common Core Curriculum. The Common Core, like Obamacare and the Private Option, was not researched before it was implemented. It is only now being seen as a big government intrusion into our local school districts. The standards were not tested before they were used. We are the test case now; and by the time we see the flaws in the program, the education of many children may have been harmed. “My plan is to push for Arkansas to opt out of the Common Core State Standards program,” she said. “Many parents are now speaking out against the standards, and with that kind of groundswell we can help give our legislators the ability to help Arkansas opt out. Our children are most important; and now that this program is in the light, we can’t give up. If we work together from the heart we can do this. We need a chance for our children to go to public schools and not have to go to private schools to escape these government programs.”

Concluding, Nation said she wants to serve the people of Arkansas. “The people of Arkansas are good people,” she said. “I love God and my country, and I want the chance to serve the people of Arkansas. I love the law and our Constitution, and those could be our last line of defense in saving our country. With constitutional principles, we can take our country back to greatness.”