Former Arkansas state senator Jason Rapert, a Conway Republican who runs a national organization promoting conservative Christian public policies, became one of the newest members of the Arkansas State Library Board on Friday.
A bipartisan group of 10 senators opposed Rapert’s appointment, which Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced in November. Twenty-two Senate Republicans voted to confirm the divisive ex-lawmaker’s appointment in a separate roll call vote after dozens of other gubernatorial appointments to state board and commissions passed with no dissent.
Rapert served in the Senate from 2011 to January of this year. He did not run for reelection in 2022 and instead unsuccessfully sought the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor.
Four members of his own party joined all six Senate Democrats in voting against his appointment.
“It’s not just that I don’t like him,” Sen. Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana, who was Senate President Pro Tempore during Rapert’s final two years in the Legislature, told the Arkansas Advocate after the vote. “It’s that I don’t trust him, I don’t respect him and I don’t think he’s the man for the job.”
Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, said last month on X (formerly Twitter) that he would vote against Rapert’s appointment, and he followed through on Friday.
Republican Sens. Breanne Davis of Russellville and Jane English of North Little Rock joined Hickey and King in voting against the appointment.
“Based on my experiences with him, I could not in good conscience vote for him and sleep well at night,” Davis said in an interview.
Last year, a legal settlement required Rapert and the state to pay an atheist group $16,291 in legal fees. Rapert had previously blocked several people on social media accounts, prompting the lawsuit from American Atheists that made national headlines.
“[State] boards and commissions ought to be doing their business quietly,” English said in an interview explaining her vote. “I don’t expect to see them on the front page of the newspaper all the time.”
Rapert sponsored the 2015 Arkansas law creating a monument to the Ten Commandments that has been on display on Capitol grounds since 2018. Several groups filed federal lawsuits for the removal of the monument, citing the First Amendment clause that prohibits the government from favoring an establishment of religion.
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The lawsuits were combined into one case, and all parties agreed in November to dismiss the lawsuit’s state claim, rendering the issue moot after five years in legal limbo but allowing it to move forward in federal court.
In 2019, Rapert founded the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, a group that has been responsible for model legislation introduced in several statehouses nationwide, including bans on abortion and gender-affirming medical care.
Part of library content debate
Rapert’s appointment to the seven-member library board comes during a conservative-led push to keep children from obtaining or even seeing certain books, especially those with LGBTQ+ topics.
Hot Springs real estate agent Shari Bales was confirmed to the library board Friday with no discussion among lawmakers. The Senate also confirmed 89 other gubernatorial appointments.
Rapert’s term on the library board will last until Oct. 18, 2029, and Bales’ term will last until a year later.
The two new members join the board while the state is being sued over a law that would alter Arkansas libraries’ processes for reconsidering material and create criminal liability for librarians who distribute content that some consider “obscene” or “harmful to minors.” A federal judge temporarily blocked portions of Act 372 of 2023 in July before it went into effect, and the case is scheduled for trial in October 2024.
Supporters of Act 372, both in public and in the Legislature, have said it should keep books about LGBTQ+ people, sex education and systemic racism out of minors’ reach. Opponents of the law and related efforts have said the content in question reflects the community as a whole and restricting access to it is censorship.
Earlier on Friday, the Senate Rules Committee advanced the wave of gubernatorial appointments to the Senate floor. Again all appointments but Rapert’s passed unanimously; the committee’s two Democrats, Stephanie Flowers of Pine Bluff and vice chair Fredrick Love of Mabelvale, voted no on Rapert.
Seven Republican committee members voted for Rapert during the meeting and again on the Senate floor. Sen. David Wallace, R-Leachville, was the only absent committee member.
GOP Sens. Missy Irvin of Mountain View and Steve Crowell of Magnolia were also absent Friday.
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