BENTON -- The Republican Party of Arkansas state committee elected its national committeewoman Jonelle Fulmer of Fort Smith as party chairman Saturday to succeed Doyle Webb of Benton, who had served in the post since December of 2008.
In a secret ballot, the committee selected Fulmer over Iverson Jackson, who is a pastor and businessman and led the party's African American Coalition of Arkansas.
The vote count among 206 committee members wasn't announced at the meeting, and the committee approved motions to declare the election unanimous and to destroy the ballots.
Fulmer, who will serve a two-year term, has been the GOP's national committeewoman for the past eight years. The committee later elected Rita Hamilton of Bella Vista to replace Fulmer as the national committeewoman through June 30.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Republicans wore masks and spread out in a meeting room Saturday morning for about four hours at the Benton Event Center.
U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Little Rock nominated Fulmer, calling her "one of the women who have been toiling in the vineyards for the Republican Party for many, many decades.
"She has been the backbone of the backbone in the Republican Party, our Republican women," he said.
Cotton said he was grateful to Fulmer for preparing "the ground for the last 12 years of great success in the Republican Party of Arkansas."
Fulmer said she never dreamed that she would one day ask to be elected party chairwoman, but about a year ago, several members began asking her to consider it.
"I finally came to the realization that if I am here to serve and this is where the party is calling me and needs me, then I need to be willing to offer myself for this service, so here I am," she said.
Fulmer said she started working on campaigns in 1995 for her Sunday School teacher Asa Hutchinson, who was running for Congress. Hutchinson, a former 3rd District congressman, has been governor since 2015.
She said she envisions a stronger Republican Party, starting with equipping and empowering the chairmen at the county level.
"I can offer you a vision of growth where the Republican Party of Arkansas reaches across every demographic, and every ethnic divide, and we give them the message that our party has history on our side, that we have the platform and the principles and the policies that represent the values of every Arkansan," she said. "It doesn't matter where they came from or where they are going, our party is their party. We need to also share that the Republican Party of Arkansas needs them and welcomes them."
Jackson told Republicans that in speaking with Fulmer, he had said the two were not running against each other for the chairman seat, but were running for the position. "We want to set the standard of how we should work together in this party," he said.
"We must expand ... the Republican message to other people, people who believe like us, live like us, raise their families like us," Jackson said. "They need to know they are welcome in the Republican Party. The Republican Party is actually the home of the African-American community. It is the home of civil rights. It is the party of freedom-loving people all across this great land."
The committee also elected John Parke as the state party's first vice chairman, Sharon Brooks as second vice chairman, Alisha Curtis as treasurer and Julie Harris as secretary.
Under Webb's leadership, the party grew from a minority position in Arkansas to the majority party. The GOP now controls all of the state's six seats in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, all seven of the constitutional offices, and more than three-fourths of the seats in the 100-member state House and 35-member Senate.
Webb said more than half of all partisan offices in Arkansas are now held by Republicans.
"I am proud of that," he said. "I was a justice of the peace, and I think that's where the action is. We have close to 400 Republican justices in peace in Arkansas today."
U.S. Sen. John Boozman of Rogers told the Republicans that "you all have been the movers and the shakers, and the people that gotten us into the situation we are in.
"We are the envy of the country right now in the sense of the gains that we have made," he said.
In brief remarks, Hutchinson praised Cotton for helping lead an effort in Georgia for Republicans to retain that states' two U.S. Senate seats in runoff elections next month.
"It is critical to us because there is going to be some big fights with the next administration on a whole host of issues, and we need the U.S. Senate in Republican hands," he said.
The state committee later narrowly defeated an attempt by Rep. Robin Lundstrum of Elm Springs, to suspend the committee's rules to consider a resolution in opposition to hate-crimes legislation. The party's rules require a 90% vote to suspend the rules because the matter wasn't submitted 20 days before the committee's meeting, Webb said.
The Legislature will convene in regular session starting Jan. 11. So far, Sen. Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs, has prefiled hate-crimes legislation.
Hutchinson said Saturday's vote "was a procedural question, so you really can't read into it as to the sentiment of the state committee on the merits of the issue.
"I think this should be a fair debate," said Hutchinson, who has been a proponent of hate-crimes legislation. "It is going to be a good debate in the Legislature, and it is a very important issue, and so I look forward to the full debate on it. It's just ... procedurally we could not bring that up today."
The state committee voted to approve a resolution calling for open and transparent votes in the General Assembly on the House and Senate floors, and for leadership positions in both chambers.
The resolution -- presented by Rep. Marcus Richmond of Gravelly -- called on Republicans in the General Assembly to elect a Republican nominee for Senate and House leadership in their caucuses before leadership elections. "This nominee shall be supported in whole, without exception, by the Republican caucus of the respective chamber in order to put forward a symbol of unity and exercise the full power that comes with being the majority party."
Richmond said Democrats have had more influence in selecting the House speaker than they deserve based on their numbers and with Republicans in control of the chamber, and the proposed resolution isn't an indictment of Speaker Matthew Shepherd of El Dorado.
This resolution "is about us choosing our speaker as a caucus, and then saying 'Democrats here is your choice' and then also when we vote we vote in public, put it right there up on the board and let everybody see how we vote," he said.
But Rep. Jana Della Rosa of Rogers, who opposed the resolution, said the problem is that the House speaker has too much power, and that's the fault of representatives, who need to change the chamber's rules.
"Bad things can happen when you put people in leadership, and they know exactly who put them there and who didn't, and, as it stands right now, they don't really know for sure who voted which way so that retribution can't really occur," she said. "And let me tell you there will be a lot of fear of that."