LINCOLN- Newly inaugurated Governor Pillen gathered with nearly every Republican in state government on Thursday morning to appoint former Governor Pete Ricketts to the U.S. Senate. Senator-designate Ricketts takes over for Senator Ben Sasse who has accepted the role as the next President of the University of Florida. It has only been a total of seven days since Ricketts left his post as Governor on January 5th.

Governor Pillen briefly spoke about the decision process used to fill the role. There were a total of 111 candidates that were boiled down to nine candidates that were then interviewed by Governor Pillen. The interview process began in early December and once the inauguration was complete, interviews were completed in a three-day span. Pillen added that it was important to him that whoever filled the role had seniority, but would also aid the state GOP in the 2024 and 2026 elections. "Only in the great state of Nebraska can you have a pool of 111 people and only be able to boil it down to nine," said Governor Pillen.

Senator-designate Ricketts thanked Governor Pillen and said he was happy to support him in his gubernatorial campaign process. He thanked Senator Sasse for his years of service and commitment to Nebraska in Washington D.C. and wished him the best of luck at the University of Florida. Senator-designate Ricketts said he looks forward to working alongside Senator Deb Fischer and all his new colleagues in D.C. Senator-designate Ricketts did confirm that he will absolutely run in 2024 and 2026 as that is what Governor Pillen was looking for in the interview process.

When asked how he will compare to Senator Sasse, Ricketts said, "Senator Sasse was a very conservative vote and focused on getting conservative judges on the bench. I will be very similar in that nature and really on a lot of other issues. Conservatives will disagree on different issues but I can't think of one off the top of my head that we will be opposites on." Ricketts said he wants to focus on making Washington D.C. work for the people and hold bad policies accountable. He acknowledged that he has a lot of learning to do, but joked that Senator Fischer will help mend that void.

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