Gov. Jim Pillen (R-NE) of Nebraska chose his predecessor Pete Ricketts to replace Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), who stepped down to become the president of the University of Florida.
Ricketts was the governor of Nebraska from 2015 to 2023 and helped Pillen win the 2022 gubernatorial election since he was barred by state law from seeking a third term. Sasse announced his intention to resign in October and left his position last week.
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“I don’t believe in placeholders. My job … was to find the best person to represent us, and the process for me has been really, really important,” Pillen said in a press conference announcing his choice. “We took this process incredibly seriously. The criteria for me were really, really simple. The appointee needs to represent us as a people.”
Pillen’s choice is one of the first acts of his new administration.
Ricketts, who unsuccessfully ran for Senate in 2006, announced that he was applying for Sasse’s unexpired term last month. He will serve until 2024, when he will face a special election to fill the last two years of the term. Sasse was reelected for a second term in 2020, and his unfinished tenure ends in January 2027.
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Sasse said he wanted to be on the front lines of solving workforce challenges in explaining his decision to return to academia.
The University of Florida “is the most important institution in the nation’s most economically dynamic state. Washington partisanship isn’t going to solve these workforce challenges — new institutions and entrepreneurial communities are going to have to spearhead this work,” Sasse said in a statement in October.
