The leadership of the state of Arkansas is a model for the rest of the country. That’s what the Richard Nixon Foundation concluded this year in honoring Arkansas Gov. Sarah Sanders with its Champion of the American Dream Award.
The award acknowledges Sanders’ “courage, clarity, and deep commitment to American values,” both as governor of Arkansas and as White House press secretary during the first Trump administration.
In January 2023, at the age of 40, Sanders became the youngest governor in the country and the first woman to hold the highest executive position in the state government of Arkansas. Before running for office herself, Sanders worked on Republican political campaigns, including those of her father, Mike Huckabee, who also served as governor of Arkansas.
In particular, the Nixon Foundation commended Sanders for championing the LEARNS Act, which expanded school choice, while also emphasizing civics education and raising teacher pay. The foundation has its own national campaign to improve civics education
Sanders, who will turn 43 on Aug. 13, has been at the forefront in addressing many of the critical issues Americans face today. She has sought to make America healthy again by ending the use of food stamps in Arkansas to purchase soft drinks and candy, banning businesses owned by foreign entities from operating crypto mines in the state, and significantly improving the state’s election system, according to The Heritage Foundation’s Election Integrity Scorecard.
In June, the Arkansan joined other conservative critics of an artificial intelligence provision in the One Big, Beautiful Bill that would have stripped away individual state regulations of the emerging technology already in place and prohibited further state regulations of AI for 10 years.
The governor pointed out that Arkansas had already passed laws protecting its residents from the use of AI to generate nonconsensual uses of their likeness as well as AI-generated pornography of real people. Sanders noted that there was no guarantee Congress would be able to pass laws replicating what Arkansas and other states had already enacted. Her criticism proved prescient, as the AI provision was ultimately removed from the bill in the Senate by a near-unanimous vote before the legislation was enacted into law.
The Nixon Foundation, in concert with the National Archives and Records Administration, operates the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, which seeks to preserve the memories of the 37th president of the United States, whose rise from humble beginnings is cited as an example of the American dream.
Sanders will be formally feted at an awards luncheon hosted at the library and museum, located in Yorba Linda, California, on Sept. 3.