Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced on Monday that she had appointed Chris Caldwell to the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission.Â
Caldwell is well established as a loyal foot soldier for Sanders.
He served as her campaign manager in 2022 and has been tapped for the same role in her 2026 re-election campaign.
Most recently, Caldwell was chairman of Stronger Arkansas, a ballot question committee with multiple ties to the governor that tried (unsuccessfully, so far) to defeat efforts to place the abortion and medical marijuana amendments on the November ballot. Stronger Arkansas did succeed in its efforts to defeat an education amendment that would have mandated free pre-K, improved special education services and accountability for private schools that accept public funding.
In 2018, President Donald Trump appointed Caldwell as federal co-chair of the Delta Regional Authority, and according to his LinkedIn page, he remained in that position until he got involved in Sanders’ gubernatorial run. In December, Caldwell announced he was forming Caldwell Consulting, a lobbying, government relations and political consulting firm.
“I know how much [Caldwell] loves Arkansas, how much he adores hunting and fishing and the Arkansas way of life, and how hard he will work every single day in this role,” Sanders said.
This appointment is eyebrow raising, if not particularly surprising given Sanders’ track record. There’s nothing preventing the appointment, and it’s not a particularly huge deal in the grand scheme of things. At the same time it raises a number of questions, including:
Why appoint someone to a commission when nothing in his resume relates to the commission’s purpose or gives him meaningful qualifications? Are we pretending like Caldwell has more hunting and fishing experience than the average Arkansan?
Isn’t Caldwell going to be busy with Sanders’ 2026 race, plus whatever other consulting clients he’s amassed since December? How does that square with Sanders’ claim that Caldwell will work hard “every single day in this role”?
Is this cronyism simply a reward for taking on the anti-democracy task of opposing ballot initiatives that the governor didn’t like?
Whatever the answers, Caldwell joins Sanders’ previous appointee to the commission, nursing home magnate Brandon Adams of Conway, as one of seven AGFC commissioners.