Republican Party of Arkansas Chairman Joseph Wood and Hot Spring County Republican leader Mike Shnaekel say they are vying to be elected as party chairman by the Republican Party of Arkansas’ State Committee during its meeting on Dec. 7.

Wood announced late Friday afternoon in an email to State Committee members that he’s running for reelection as party chairman. In August of 2023, Wood was elected as party chairman by the GOP’s State Committee over Sarah Dunklin, the party’s 1st Congressional District chair.

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday in a written statement that “Chairman Joseph Wood

has been a strong leader of the Republican Party of Arkansas, which led to President Trump winning the state by his largest margin ever, firmly retaining our supermajorities in the legislature, and almost every county in the state voting more Republican.

“We need Joseph’s continued leadership at RPA as we work with the Trump Administration to take Arkansas to the top,” the Republican governor said.

Shnaekel said he filed Friday to run for party chairman, and he believes that he is eligible to be the party’s chairman, though he said he pleaded guilty to violations of the state’s hot check law in 1995 for checks of about $6 and for about $12.

“I have not committed any felonies, never been convicted of a felony, never been charged with a felony,” he said Monday in an interview.

“While I was in the military, I was a geospatial engineer, which requires a top-secret security clearance,” said Shnaekel.

In his biography, he said he served in the U.S. Army from 2008-2018 when he retired due to injuries incurred while in service. He had previously served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1991-1995.

Shnaekel wrote that the highlight of his career was “being (Non-commissioned Officer in Charge) of Special Operations Intelligence Division for NATO forces with emphasis on target and raid packets.”

He said Monday in an interview that he was elected as constable of Gifford Township in 2022, and “about a year in” he received an email stating that he is ineligible to serve as an elected official as a result of his violations of the state’s hot check law.

“Within five minutes of me being notified that that disallowed me from being in an elected position … I resigned because that’s what the laws are to hold a constitutionally elected office,” Shnaekel said.

He said he also withdrew papers last year to run for the state House seat held by state Rep. Rick McClure, R-Malvern, in this year’s primary election, due to medical reasons at that time, and he later learned that his violations of the hot check law also made him ineligible for the state House seat.

Shnaekel said he is 52 years old and “I do have two hot checks from when I was 23, 24 years old.

“I was a young guy. I made a mistake. I am not going to make any excuses for it,” he said. “I have grown and learned a lot more since then.”

Shnaekel said he owned a business when he was in Arizona, and “the person that I designed the house for wanted me to build a swimming pool that I considered a friend at the time, and I helped build the swimming pool, and I got hit with contracting without a license.

“That case was dismissed (about 20 years ago), but I had to pay every dime back that was spent on that pool,” he said, adding he had to pay back about $38,000. “That pool is still in the ground today and being swam in.

“I am not going to hide from my past,” Shnaekel continued. “I have a past just like everyone else.”

He said he is now chairman of the Hot Spring County Republican Committee and that he took over after Scott Helberg resigned two months ago as the committee’s chairman. He said he has also served as district committeeman, state committeeman and vice chair of the committee.

Wood on Friday trumpeted what he described as historic Republican victories in Arkansas and across the country in an email to the party’s State Committee members.

“We have so many great days ahead of us as we take Arkansas to the top, and that is why I am announcing my re-election for Chairman of the Republican Party of Arkansas,” Wood wrote in his email.

Shnaekel said Monday that he is running to be party chairman because “I think (over) the last year the leadership within the RPA has not followed our rules and our guidelines that we have set forth, and that begins with the (state) convention.

“We had a (state) convention last year, which is the final authority of all party matters, and then Joseph Wood and the executive committee found fit themselves to disallow the elections and actions of the state convention, and they are in the process right now … of disbanding the Saline County Republican Committee,” he said. “I am not a fan of that.”

Late last month, attorneys for Wood and state election officials each submitted new motions seeking to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a group seeking to close the party’s primaries to non-Republican voters.

The briefs are in response to an amended complaint filed Oct. 7 by the plaintiffs in the Eastern District of Arkansas, who are convention leader Jennifer Lancaster of Benton and nearly two dozen other delegates to the party’s state convention.

The plaintiffs filed their initial complaint Aug. 26 against Wood and John Thurston “in his capacity as secretary of state and as chairman of the state board of election commissioners.” The amended complaint adds William Luther, Jamie Clemmer, Johnathan Williams, James Harmon Smith III and Sharon Brooks in their “official capacity as (members) of the state board of election commissioners.”

The lawsuit stems from a dispute that arose when the party closed its primaries in a voice vote at its state convention. In late July, the Republican Party of Arkansas’ Executive Committee voted to declare the vote null and void. The plaintiffs accused Wood and Thurston of depriving them of their civil rights by refusing to comply with the delegates’ votes. The plaintiffs asked the court to declare, among other things, “the RPA has the authority to close its primaries” and the delegates’ actions “were a proper change of RPA rules to close the primaries.”

On Sept. 30, U.S. District Judge Brian Miller denied a request for a preliminary injunction that asked the judge to require Wood and Thurston to close the party’s primaries to non-Republican voters, and to declare that its convention leader is authorized to certify its electors. In his text-only order, Miller said he found the request moot.

Lancaster said in a text message not long after Miller issued his order that “the dismissal of the preliminary injunction was agreed upon by both parties.”

Primaries to pick party nominees for elected office in Arkansas have historically been open. That has meant a voter could choose the party primary in which they wanted to vote, even if they were not a registered member of that party. The rule approved at the convention in June, however, would have required that voters “be registered as a Republican before being issued a Republican primary ballot to vote in a Republican Party primary election.”

When delegates to the state convention in July 2022 voted to declare state Republicans’ endorsement of closed primaries as part of the party’s platform, then-Arkansas Republican National Committee member Jonathan Barnett of Siloam Springs told delegates that Democrats were crossing party lines to vote in the Republican primary.

In December 2022, the party’s Rules Committee recommended against closing the primary, and the push fell short of the two-thirds vote of State Committee members needed for the committee to consider the changes. At the time, then-Committee Chairman Steve Lux said holding a closed primary would necessitate action by the state Legislature and governor.

In August 2023, Wood, then-secretary of the state Department of Transformation and Shared Services, was elected by the Republicans’ State Committee as the party chairman with Sanders’ support.

Wood was elected to the post after former chairman Cody Hiland resigned from the post in July 2023 and then Sanders appointed Hiland to the Arkansas Supreme Court to serve in place of Justice Robin Wynne, who died in June 2023, until January 2025. In December 2022, Hiland was elected chairman of the Republican Party of Arkansas to succeed Jonelle Fulmer, who had served in the post since December 2020, after Sanders signaled her support for Hiland to be the party chairman.

Before joining Sanders’ administration in January 2023, Wood served as Washington County judge. In 2022, he made an unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor. He previously served two terms as the state GOP’s treasurer. In 2008, he lost a bid for state party chair to Doyle Webb.