# Wendell Griffen Wendell Griffen is a **retired Arkansas circuit judge** and the **2026 Democratic nominee for Pulaski County Judge**. He holds **no public office at present**. He defeated incumbent County Judge [[Barry Hyde]] in the 2026-03-03 Democratic primary and faces Republican Michael Rushin in the **November 2026 general election**; if he wins, he would take office 2027-01-01 as the county's chief executive officer and presiding officer of the [[Pulaski County Quorum Court]]. In Arkansas, "County Judge" is a county-**executive** role, not a judgeship. Griffen's prior service was judicial: he sat as a circuit judge of the Sixth Judicial Circuit of Arkansas (Pulaski and Perry counties), Division 5, until his retirement in 2022, and earlier as a judge of the Arkansas Court of Appeals — so "Judge Griffen" is a former/courtesy title, not a current sitting judgeship. > [!web-research-unresolved] > Griffen's electoral status (2026 primary win over Hyde; pending November general vs. Republican Michael Rushin) and his 2022 retirement from the circuit bench rest on May 2026 web research (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Ballotpedia, THV11, Arkansas Judiciary circuit-judge directory). A formal Tier-3 web-archive of the primary-result and candidate-filing sources is a pending lint item; until it is captured, these biographical facts are not yet anchored to an archived source per the wiki's web-research discipline. ## Role and affiliations - **2026 Democratic nominee for Pulaski County Judge** — won the 2026-03-03 Democratic primary against incumbent [[Barry Hyde]]; faces Republican Michael Rushin in the November 2026 general. If elected, would take office 2027-01-01 as chief executive officer of county government and presiding officer of the Quorum Court. The County Judge chairs the Court but is not one of its fifteen Justices of the Peace, and the office is a county-executive role, not a judgeship. - **Incumbent he would succeed (if elected):** [[Barry Hyde]] (term ends 2026-12-31). - **Prior public service:** Judge, Sixth Judicial Circuit of Arkansas (Pulaski and Perry counties), Division 5, until his retirement in 2022; earlier, Judge, Arkansas Court of Appeals. - **Party:** Democratic (won the 2026-03-03 primary against the incumbent Hyde). ## Contact Griffen does not currently hold a county office; the County Judge's institutional mailing address is 201 S. Broadway, Little Rock, AR 72203. ## Data center positions - **2026-05-26 Quorum Court moratorium vote.** As reported by *Arkansas Times*, Griffen — a County Judge candidate — characterized the as-reported moratorium ordinance as one that *"exempts AVAIO from any land-use regulations,"* a critique of the [[Phil Stowers|Stowers]] floor amendment grandfathering the AVAIO Project Leo site (Tier-3 *Arkansas Times*, 2026-05-27, [archive](../../web%20archive/2026-05-28/arktimes.com/2026-05-27-pulaski-county-data-center-moratorium.md)). He spoke as an observer and candidate; he held no Quorum Court vote and no county-executive role at the meeting. - **April 2026 agenda origin (Tier-1).** The April 28, 2026 Quorum Court minutes record that *"Mr. Wendell Griffen said he would be sending items regarding high-intensity digital infrastructure facilities to the Quorum Court members asking them to consider adding it to next month's agenda"* (see [[May 2026 Quorum Court Agenda Packet]]) — the documentary origin of the May data-center agenda, with Griffen acting as a private citizen/candidate, not a county official. - **Posture if elected (2027-01-01).** The Clerk's 2026-05-28 correction — that the moratorium did not pass — leaves the data-center regulatory posture of unincorporated Pulaski County unsettled at the moment Griffen would take office if he wins in November, with the AVAIO Project Leo site already operational. Whether his campaign framing translates into county-executive action is a corpus-relevant follow-on. - **2026-06 — Griffen drafted the refiled moratorium.** The refiled twelve-month ordinance is **"originally written by Wendell Griffen"** (Arkansas Times), covering "high-impact industrial and high-intensity digital infrastructure" by thresholds (≥5 MW demand or ≥100,000 gal/day water) rather than naming data centers — a drafting response to the Act 851 preemption objection. Sponsored by JPs [[Tina Ward]], [[Julie Blackwood]], and [[Rebekah L. Davis]]; Griffen personally defended it at the June 9 meeting, where the motion to advance was postponed 8–5 to July 14 (web research 2026-06-11, [Arkansas Times](../../web%20archive/2026-06-11/arktimes.com/data-center-moratorium-postponed-2026-06-09.md); see [[2026-06 Quorum Court Postpones the Refiled Data-Center Moratorium]]). The County Judge nominee authoring the county's flagship data-center measure binds the moratorium question directly to the November 3 race. ## Appearances in the corpus - [[2026-05 Pulaski County Quorum Court Vote on Data Center Moratorium]] — public commenter at the contested vote; quoted by *Arkansas Times*. - [[Pulaski County Government]] — would become chief executive if elected. - [[Pulaski County Quorum Court]] — would become presiding officer if elected County Judge in November 2026. ## Notes Griffen's judicial record on the Arkansas Court of Appeals and the Sixth Judicial Circuit is outside the scope of this corpus (Tier-3); his relevance here is as the 2026 County Judge nominee whose potential tenure would begin with the county's data-center regulatory posture unsettled.