Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Dec. 20, 2024, announces Arkansas’ new secretary of state and two Supreme Court justices. From left: Arkansas Solicitor General Nicholas Bronni and Supreme Court Justice Cody Hiland will assume seats on the state’s highest court. Cole Jester, the governor’s current deputy chief legal counsel, will be the next secretary of state. (Mary Hennigan/Arkansas Advocate)
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Friday filled three major state positions, which became vacant as a result of this year’s elections.
Sanders announced that her deputy chief legal counsel, Cole Jester, will become Arkansas’ next secretary of state, while Cody Hiland will return to the state Supreme Court in a new seat alongside newcomer Nicholas Bronni, the state’s solicitor general.
The appointments are effective Jan. 1, 2025, and Sanders noted each appointees’ conservative values throughout Friday’s announcement.
Jester has helped implement “bold conservative reform one after another,” while Hiland and Bronni will “serve in Arkansas’ freshly minted conservative Supreme Court majority,” she said.
Sanders said the state Supreme Court was liberal when she took office, but “not anymore.”
“Our Supreme Court is solidly conservative,” she said. “They’ll be there to call balls and strikes, interpreting laws as they were written — leaving the legislating to the legislators.”
Senate President Pro Tempore Bart Hester, R-Cave Springs, said after the announcement that he supported Sanders’ “liberty-minded” and intelligent appointments.
“Every aspect of the state of Arkansas is continuing to become more conservative, from the Legislature to constitutional offices, and now we are seeing the Supreme Court,” Hester said. “It just lagged a little bit behind, but now we are going to be undeniably a conservative court.”
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New secretary of state
Jester, 27, will complete the two remaining years in current Secretary of State John Thurston’s term.
Voters first elected Thurston to his current post in 2018, and he won another four-year term in 2022. Following the death of former state Treasurer Mark Lowery in 2023, Thurston switched gears and ran for that position in this year’s general election. He received 65% of the vote and defeated his two challengers, according to results from the secretary of state’s office.
On election night, Thurston told the Advocate that the possibility of leaving his current office “was the hardest thing” about running for treasurer, a role that oversees the state’s investment portfolio of more than $11 billion. Former state finance secretary Larry Walther is currently serving as the interim treasurer; Thurston will be sworn in in January.
Jester has served as Sanders’ deputy chief legal counsel for the last two years. He is a 2019 graduate of Ouachita Baptist University and the University of Virginia School of Law. He previously worked as an appellate clerk for Judge Lavenski Smith in the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
“I know Cole will do an excellent job defending our election integrity and ballot security,” Sanders said Friday. “And more importantly, I know that he is honest, hard working and a man of deep faith and character.”
Among the duties of secretary of state, Jester will serve as the chair of the Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission and the State Board of Election Commissioners. The secretary of state also serves as a member of the Board of Apportionment, which oversees the redistricting of state legislative districts after each dicennial census.
“As your secretary of state, I will fight to keep Arkansas the best state in the country by keeping our elections the most secure in the country,” Jester said. “When our elections are free, when they’re safe, when they’re fair and when they’re fast, the people rule. And when the people rule, we can protect that which is really more important, not government, but our freedoms, our faith in God and our family.”
Terms for the secretary of state last four years, and the next election will be held in 2026.
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Supreme Court appointments
Hiland and Bronni will replace Justice Courtney Rae Hudson and Justice Karen Baker on the Arkansas Supreme Court, respectively. The women will not be leaving the court, though.
In March, Hudson was elected to the Supreme Court’s second position, to which Hiland was previously appointed after the death of Justice Robin Wynne in June 2023. In November, Baker secured 52% of votes to become the first woman elected to serve as Arkansas’ chief justice. Former Chief Justice Betty Dickey was the first woman to lead Arkansas’ highest court when she was appointed to fill the chief justice position temporarily by former Gov. Mike Huckabee in 2003.
Sanders said Friday that during Hiland’s time on the court he has shown his intelligence, honesty and dedication to the state’s residents and constitution. Hiland will serve the remaining two years of Hudson’s Position 3 term.
“I’m blessed to have a governor that has trusted me and placed faith in me to continue serving the greatest people in this nation,” Hiland said.
Bronni has served as the state’s solicitor general since 2018, and he will now finish the remainder of Baker’s term, which ends in 2030.
Following Bronni’s appointment to the state Supreme Court, Attorney General Tim Griffin released a supportive statement and named Deputy Solicitor General Dylan Jacobs as interim solicitor general.
“I want to offer my sincere and heartfelt congratulations to Nick Bronni on his appointment to the Arkansas Supreme Court,” Griffin said. “It is obvious to anyone who has observed Nick’s work that he is one of the best legal minds in Arkansas and is indisputably a national-caliber talent as evidenced by his two successful arguments before the United States Supreme Court. I know he will serve the people of Arkansas well on our state’s highest court.”
On Friday, Bronni thanked the governor and his family. He said he was the grandson of a German immigrant “who taught me at a very early age just how lucky I am to be an American.”
In his new role, Bronni vowed that he will apply the law as written.
“I come to the bench recognizing that a judge serves an important but limited role in our constitutional system,” Bronni said. “That is, it’s the role of the judge to say what the law is, not what they want it to be.”
Justices are elected to serve eight-year terms. The nonpartisan elections are staggered.
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