Bettina Ellen Brownstein, a California native, has made Arkansas her home. A life-long feminist, civil rights lawyer, and activist, she has long fought for reproductive justice and First Amendment rights and is now dedicated to making Arkansas a better place by helping elect more progressive women to state and local offices. She loves her daughter, her new grandson, politics, the piano, and French — in that order.
Originally from Santa Monica, California, she graduated from UCLA and later attended law school in California and Texas. In 1985, she moved to Arkansas. For 30 years, she was a civil ligation lawyer with the Wright, Lindsey & Jennings law firm and also did pro bono legal work for the ACLU and Planned Parenthood, concentrating on reproductive rights, the First Amendment, and the intersection between mental illness and the criminal justice system. Some of the cases she is most proud of include the constitutional rights of panhandlers, jail inmates, freethinkers, librarians, and students.
In 2011, after her daughter became economically self-sufficient, she left Wright, Lindsey & Jennings to open her own firm, which has one fabulous employee – herself. She now devotes herself to work for ProArkansasWomen PAC (“PAWPAC”), Democratic candidates (male and female), and legal work for the ACLU and other organizations working to preserve direct democracy.
Bettina is one of the founders of PAWPAC, which is an Arkansas grassroots organization with a mission to increase the number of women in office in Arkansas who will advocate for reproductive, social, economic, and environmental justice. PAWPAC recruits, mentors, advises, and provides financial support to women running for state and local offices in Arkansas. Since its beginning in 2016 in a back alley in Little Rock, it has grown from endorsing and contributing to eight candidates to endorsing over 80 candidates and contributing over $100,000 to their races in 2024. PAWPAC continues to grow and make a difference in the Arkansas political landscape.
Photos courtesy of Brian Chilson/Arkansas Times, John Lyon/Arkansas News Bureau, and PAWPAC.