Linda Collins-Smith

Linda Collins-Smith is an incoming Republican member of the Arkansas State Senate. She formerly served in the Arkansas House of Representatives.

In 2008, Collins-Smith was appointed to the Arkansas Ethics Commission by Jack Critcher, the Senate Pro Tem. She ran for election to the Arkansas House in 2010, to represent the 80th district. She won her contest and served one term from 2011 through 2013. Though elected as a member of the Democratic Party in 2010, she switched parties in August 2011.

In redistricting, Collins-Smith was moved to the same district as Republican incumbent Lori Benedict. Collins-Smith chose to run for the Arkansas Senate in the 19th district rather than challenge Benedict. Incumbent Democratic Senator David Wyatt defeated Collins-Smith in the 2012 election. In the November 4, 2014 general election, Collins-Smith defeated James McLean to become the District 19 State Senator.

In 2017, Collins-Smith introduced Senate Bill 774, The Arkansas Physical Privacy and Safety Act. The bill would limit transgender individuals to using government facilities that correspond to the genders on their birth certificates. In a press release, Collins-Smith said the proposed bill protects the privacy, dignity, and well-being of all Arkansans.

"No child should have to worry that their school might change its policy to force them to shower or undress in front of a member of the opposite sex as has been the case around the country," Collins-Smith claimed.

She said the bills sets a baseline for privacy across the state and would shield public schools from lawsuits by organizations "seeking to impose their anti-privacy agenda on our children."

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson has stated his opposition to a "bathroom bill" law in Arkansas. A similar law in North Carolina garnered nationwide protests and boycotts that cost the state $650 million dollars in the first six months of implementation.

Arguments in favor of "bathroom bills" cite the general public's safety from sexual predators as a motivation for the legislation. Critics of the legislation cite the lack of evidence that transgender or gender non-conforming individuals are more likely to commit sexual assault. In stark contrast, a study of 2,325 transgender college graduates who responded to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey in 2009 demonstrates that discriminatory law has a profoundly negative effect on the mental health of transgender people. A quarter had been denied access to bathrooms in some way or another. Their suicide-attempt rate was also much higher than that of the general U.S. population—47 percent, compared to about 4 percent for all Americans. Those who had been denied access to bathrooms were 45 percent more likely to have tried to kill themselves, even when controlling for other types of victimization.

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