06/27/2026
This is Arkansas politics, folks. Remember this at election time!
When Attorney General Tim Griffin announced today that state Sen. Ben Gilmore would join his office as a senior advisor on July 1, the press release used the language of public service. Gilmore is a “trusted friend,” and a “steadfast public servant.” His experience will be “a force multiplier for the office.”
When asked for further comment, Gilmore directed the Arkansas Advocate to the AG’s press release, where he seemed to offer a defense of his character:
“I have worked diligently to honor Christ through my service... I have tried to live in a way that’s worthy of His calling to serve... with integrity.”
It is the kind of language a politician uses when they sense their reputation is under scrutiny. What the statement does not explain is why a sitting state senator with a safe seat, two years of remaining tenure, and the co-chairmanship of the Arkansas Legislative Council would give all of that up for a staff job, or what he might be leaving behind.
What He’s Leaving
Gilmore has spent the last several years as one of the most visible faces of the machine’s most contested projects: the stalled Franklin County prison. That visibility has a cost.
He wrote the sentencing law that made the prison politically necessary and handed the governor the statutory tool she used to take constitutional authority away from the BOC. He voted to confirm Jamie Barker, his brother Jon’s business partner at the lobbying firm Gilmore Davis Barker Group, to the BOC without disclosing the conflict. He voted for the governor’s other three appointments to the BOC, which created a 4-3 majority that further undermined the board’s independence.
Voters are making the connections and have previously shown their disapproval of the machine’s candidates.
Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders mounted primary challenges against Sen. Bryan King and Sen. Ronald Caldwell, the leading legislative opponents of the prison that Gilmore’s law made necessary. Both challenges failed. Then Senate Majority Leader Blake Johnson — Sanders’s own pick — lost his race. The machine spent heavily on three key races and came up empty, and the Franklin County prison was the common denominator. Gilmore sponsored the policy that started the chain that became the machine’s biggest electoral liability in the Senate.
The PAC network has added to the statewide heat. Griffin’s Jobs and Growth (JAG) PAC is the financial backbone of Gilmore’s Base Point PAC, and there’s a pattern across multiple cycles: negligible balance, large JAG PAC infusion, and maximum contributions to Griffin’s preferred candidates. We filed ethics complaints documenting this network, and while the commission dismissed our complaint for lack of probable cause, the negative public sentiment surrounding the issue has persisted.
Gilmore is not being forced out, but he is leaving a Senate seat that has become increasingly associated with the machine’s most exposed operations, at a moment when that exposure is not receding. The exit, framed as service, is also a strategic retreat to prepare for a potential statewide race.
Where He’s Going
A likely endgame is lieutenant governor in 2030. Leslie Rutledge will be termed out by then, coinciding with Griffin’s run for governor.
Griffin entered the 2022 gubernatorial primary before Sanders made it noncompetitive and pivoted to AG. His gubernatorial ambitions were never abandoned, just deferred. Gilmore, four years seasoned as Griffin’s senior advisor with a statewide profile and Griffin’s full institutional backing, runs for lieutenant governor as Griffin’s designated right hand and chosen successor.
It follows their established playbook. Gilmore launched his first Senate campaign out of Griffin’s Lieutenant Governor’s office in 2020, where he served as deputy chief of staff and communications director.
Four years in the AG’s office gives Gilmore exactly what he needs and none of what he doesn’t. He keeps the political machinery running: the donor relationships, the PAC network, the statewide name recognition, without accumulating new legislative votes to defend. The Protect Arkansas Act, the Barker confirmation: those belong to the Senate record he just closed. What accumulates in the AG’s office is a senior staff title, a statewide platform, and Griffin’s continued sponsorship.
There is also a concrete personal financial incentive that the public service narrative obscures entirely. Arkansas public employee pensions are calculated based on the average of the highest-paid five-year period in an enrollee’s career. Gilmore’s Senate salary does not approach the $175,000 precedent set by Carl Vogelpohl, the AG’s other senior advisor. If Gilmore lands at a comparable salary and remains for five years, that period becomes his pensionable base. The longer he stays, the more his lifetime retirement benefit reflects AG office compensation rather than legislative compensation.
The Template
Gilmore is not the first Griffin loyalist to execute this move. He is the most recent iteration of a structure Griffin has been building since January 2023.
Vogelpohl served as Griffin’s chief of staff in the Lieutenant Governor’s office from January 2021 through January 2023. When Griffin moved to the AG’s office, Vogelpohl moved with him. He has also collected campaign consulting fees from the Griffin campaign while on the state payroll, a dual arrangement we documented in previous reporting.
The Parking Lot Pattern
Vogelpohl and Gilmore are not anomalies. They are the most visible examples of a recurring structure.
Boyce Hamlet was Arkansas’s state drug director before joining Griffin’s AG office in March 2023 at a starting salary of $58,493, a cut of more than $56,000 from his prior salary of $114,637. Personnel records obtained through FOIA show Griffin gave him five raises over the next three years: to $65,000 six weeks after hiring, $69,999 two months after that, $80,000 seven months later, $83,000 five months after that, and $85,500 a year later. A 46 percent increase.
Then Sanders appointed him chair of the Post-Prison Transfer Board and, by extension, to the Board of Corrections, where he now makes $152,981.50.
Less than a month after leaving the AG’s office, Hamlet voted with three other Sanders appointees to fire the BOC’s independent counsel. He did not disclose that his wife, Lydia, is a senior assistant attorney general in Griffin’s office, making $135,000 a year. State law prohibits board members from voting on matters where they have a financial interest. Then on March 30, he cast the deciding vote to accept Griffin’s settlement terms, declaring Acts 185 and 659 constitutional and admitting FOIA violations that no court had ever found. He did not disclose his conflict on that vote, either. Had he recused on either vote, they would have failed 3-3.
What Comes Next
Sanders will set a special election to replace Gilmore.
Gilmore’s statement closes with an invocation of integrity, but integrity is not a magic word. It is a claim that must survive scrutiny.
He is leaving a Senate seat that has become a liability for the machine that elevated him, taking a staff position that will substantially increase his pension, and potentially positioning himself for a statewide run in 2030 under Griffin’s sponsorship. In the meantime, we expect the money to continue to flow from Griffin’s PAC to Gilmore’s and out to chosen candidates.
Gilmore can call that integrity if he wants. We’ll keep watching what it actually looks like.
https://trackingarkansas.substack.com/p/the-arkanas-machine-part-11-the-ags
