Arkansas’ Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has decided her appointee for the state Supreme Court justice—a move she claims will ensure the first conservative majority in the state’s history.
Hiland was, until recently, chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party. He resigned from the party chairmanship on Monday before being appointed as the justice of the state Supreme Court. Hiland has worked on Sanders’s campaign for governor and was nominated as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas by former President Donald Trump in 2017.
Hiland’s appointment will result in all three branches of state government—the legislative, judiciary, and executive—having a conservative majority. This makes it easier for Sanders to push through her policies for Arkansas.
“This ridiculous appointment and her repeated attacks on judges in Arkansas confirm Governor Sanders considers only a compliant judiciary as legitimate,” he said, according to a July 3 news release.
Governor’s Stance
Sanders has been promoting a strong conservative agenda since assuming the Governor’s post in January this year.One top priority that Sanders has pointed to for this year’s legislative session is an education overhaul bill. A provision in the bill places restrictions on the teaching of gender identity and sexual orientation prior to the 5th grade.
The bill defines sex as the “physical condition of being male or female based on genetics and physiology” and directs schools to rely on a student’s original birth certificate to identify the person’s sex. It makes provisions for reasonable accommodations. Schools that violate the law will be subject to fines.
At the time, Alexa Henning, a spokesperson for Sanders, told Reuters that the schools are “no place for the radical left’s woke agenda” and that “Arkansas isn’t going to rewrite the rules of biology just to please a handful of far-left advocates.”