Sarah Huckabee Sanders says new nominee will create a first-time conservative majority for state Supreme Court

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) announced that she will nominate J. Cody Hiland as the next justice for the state Supreme Court, adding that his appointment would give the court a conservative majority for the first time ever.

“I am pleased to announce that I have selected another former prosecutor and a U.S. Attorney Cody Hiland for this role,” she announced Monday at the Arkansas State Capitol. “Cody brings a lifetime of legal experience to the job from his early days as a staff attorney in state government and an aide to my dad, who was also here today. He made service to Arkansas the centerpiece of his career.”

Hiland, who is also the chairman of  Arkansas Republican Party, was nominated by former President Trump in 2017 to be the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas and was confirmed by the Senate in September 2017. He later resigned from the role on Dec. 31, 2020, and then became the chief legal counsel for the Arkansas Department of Public Safety before stepping down to work for Sanders’s gubernatorial campaign, the governor said.

“Cody comes from the same mold as some of the finest jurors we have in the country today,” Sanders said. “The same legal minds who are finally bringing back strict originalism to our courts. This is the first time Arkansas Supreme Court will have a conservative majority. And I know it will have the same effect on our state as it has had on our country.”

Hiland is slated to fill the seat of state Supreme Court Justice Robin Wynne, who died last month. Wynne, 70, was a Democrat who was first elected to the state Supreme Court in 2014 after previously serving on the Arkansas Court of Appeals for four years, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

“Justice Wynne could have been anything — a pastor, a politician, a businessman — and chose instead to devote his life to Arkansans and the law,” Sanders said in a statement at the time. “For that, we are all eternally grateful. Our deepest condolences are with his family and all those who knew him.”

With Hiland’s nomination for the state Supreme Court, all three state branches of government in Arkansas will have a conservative majority. This could help pave the way for Sanders’s agenda for the state, including bills she has signed that include prohibiting transgender individuals at public schools from using the bathroom that matches their gender identity.