On July 23, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt named John O’Connor, 66, to the post of attorney general. O’Connor replaces Dawn Cash, who served as acting attorney general following Mike Hunter’s resignation at the end of May for personal reasons.

O’Connor will serve until the end of Hunter’s term in January 2023 and has confirmed that he already plans to run to retain the seat in a statewide election in 2022.

O’Connor has decades of experience as an attorney, most recently focusing on complex commercial and general civil litigation with the Tulsa-based regional law firm of Hall Estill. In April 2018, then-President Trump nominated O’Connor to serve as a U.S. district judge, but O’Connor later withdrew his name from consideration in March 2019.

O’Connor earned his Bachelor of Arts in political science from Oklahoma State University and his Juris Doctor from the University of Tulsa College of Law. He was awarded a Rotary International Fellowship, enabling him to study law at Friedreich Wilhelm Rheinische Universitat (University of Bonn) in Bonn, Germany. A Tulsa native, O’Connor and his wife Lucia have four children and 10 grandchildren.