Governor Jim Pillen yesterday named former assistant Lancaster County Attorney Carolyn Bosn to the legislature to replace Lincoln Senator Suzanne Geist.
Geist announced Wednesday she was resigning her District 25 seat to focus on a run for mayor of Lincoln.
Bosn will finish out the final 20 months of Geist’s term and says she will run for the full 4-year term next year.
Bosn worked under Lt Gov Joe Kelly, then the Lancaster County Attorney, from 2010 to 2017 when she left to become a stay-at-home mother. She’s currently an adjunct professor in the University of Nebraska College of Law and coaches its mock trial team.
Geist, a Republican, finished 2nd in Tuesday’s Lincoln primary behind incumbent Democrat Leirion Gaylor Bair. Bosn promised at the news conference naming her that she would carry on Geist’s conservation positions.
Pillen was sharply criticized by Democrats for picking Bosn without even opening the position to applications, but he said he had anticipated Geist’s move ever since she announced for the mayor’s race last September
Pillen said he started a list of potential candidates before he was even elected and began interviewing from that list last week, adding that he’s known Bosn since she was a girl and that she has “an extraordinary public servant heart…as pure as gold.”
Pillen said it was vital to fill Geist’s seat with another conservative as quickly as possible in the face of Democrats filibustering every bill in an effort to stop a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors