March 25, 2020 - U.S. Senate Runoff Moved to July
The GOP contest for who sits in our number two U.S. Senate seat has been delated until July 14, 2020 due to the coronavirus. The winner of the battle between Jeff Sessions and Tommy Tuberville will more than likely be our junior US. Senator for six years.
Neither are spring chickens. Sessions will be 74 and Tuberville will be 66, when the winner takes office. This is not the optimum age to be a freshman U.S. Senator because seniority equates to superiority in the U.S. Senate. Given their age of arrival neither will be given much deference or have much influence. Sessions’ 20 years goes for naught. He does not get his seniority back. Instead, he goes to the back of the line as would Tuberville.
Sessions really does not want to be influential. During his tenure he wanted to be the choir boy and Eagle Scout of the Senate. He was the most honest and conservative member of the Senate. He wore that badge proudly and would again.
Tuberville is planning to be Trump’s bodyguard and valet. He will not know where the bathroom is, what committees he has been placed on, or where to sit, much less how to pass a bill or get anything accomplished for Alabama. After about six years he will realize he is a Senator from Alabama, not Arkansas or Florida. His only mission as a campaigner appears to be that he can shoot a gun and wants to be Donald Trump’s pawn.
The irony with this Trump love affair is legitimate polling that points to a Tuberville victory also reveals a Trump loss. Trump probably is not going to be president when either Tuberville or Sessions takes office. Anybody with a cursory knowledge of how our president is elected under the Electoral College System realizes that if Trump loses any of the key pivotal battleground states of Ohio, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota or Pennsylvania, he loses the Whitehouse. If Joe Biden is the Democratic nominee, current polling clearly has him favored to carry all of those states. He is pretty much a lock to win his home state of Pennsylvania.
The winner of the Tuberville-Sessions contest will be our junior senator. Either one will beat our anomaly, Democratic interloper Doug Jones, probably 60 to 40. Being the Republican nominee for a U.S. Senate Seat in the Heart of Dixie is tantamount to election, especially in a presidential election year with Donald Trump atop the ticket.
It really does not matter which one is elected, they both will vote conservatively and look at their roles as being a reactionary ideologue. Neither will garner much power. However, that does not matter when you have Senator Richard Shelby as your senior Senator. He has enough power that we really do not need a second senator.
Most pundits were saying Tuberville had momentum and was heading towards a victory, especially with Trump’s endorsement. However, with 15 weeks to prepare rather than 10 days it is a new ballgame.
Allow me to share two cardinal caveats I have shared with you over the years, and which I have recently shared with national media people who have asked for my insight on this race. First, Alabamians have shown a unique but overwhelming aversion to one politician endorsing another for another office. I was taught this rule of Alabama politics when I was a young legislator.
It is a cardinal rule in Alabama politics that you do not get involved in other races. Alabamians have a very dim view of this practice. They seem to inherently say, “We elected you to your office. You ought to be thankful for that and not show an arrogance that you are so good and anointed that you want to tell us who to vote to place in another office.”
George Wallace, in his hey-day, when he was at the height of his popularity, would endorse someone and invariably they would lose. Less y’all forget, Trump endorsed Luther Strange for this same seat. He then lost to Roy Moore. Then Trump endorsed Roy Moore and he immediately lost to Doug Jones. Alabamians do not think much of endorsements, in fact they resent them.
The second caveat is Alabamians will universally, overwhelmingly vote for someone from their neck of the woods. It is called “Friends and Neighbors” politics. Jeff Sessions lives in and is from Mobile. The voter turnout in Mobile-Baldwin is going to be the highest in the State because there is a tossup runoff race between Jerry Carl and Bill Hightower to fill Bradley Byrne’s 1st Congressional District seat.
We will see in mid-July week.
March 18, 2020 - U.S. Senate Race Decided in Runoff
We have a great race for the U.S. Senate. When the votes from the first primary were counted Jeff Sessions and Tommy Tuberville were in a virtual tie at 32% and 33%, respectively.
Mobile-Baldwin Congressman Bradley Byrne garnered 25% of the vote which is significant and Judge Roy Moore’s 7% is nothing to sneeze at. Tuberville and Sessions will be fighting to convince Byrne and Moore voters to come to their aid. However, the most important quotient of Sessions’ and Tuberville’s missions will be to get their voters back to the polls.
Turn out is the key to a political victory. They only count the votes of those folks who go to the polls and vote. The most important ingredient to amassing your voters back to the polls is money. Campaign money is the mother’s milk of politics. The two runoff contenders are not overflowing with campaign cash. Sessions has about $1 million to spend and Tuberville has even less.
There is no question that President Donald Trump is very popular among Republican primary voters in the Heart of Dixie. It was apparent by just a cursory observation of the ads that all three of the frontrunners, Sessions, Tuberville and Byrne, were determined to say they loved Trump the most, and their negative ads insinuated that one of the others was not going to cozy up to Trump. The loser in the Trump best friend campaign was Jeff Sessions. Trump’s vitriolic tweets toward Sessions, during his three years as Attorney General, were easy ammunition.
This seat was held by Jeff Sessions for 20 years. Therefore, when he entered the fray late, most pundits expected him to waltz to victory even though there were some thoroughbreds in the race. With the likes of Tuberville, Byrne and Moore, it was doubtful that he could win without a runoff. Polling indicated 10 days out that Tuberville had caught him and that they would wind up in a dead heat. Conventional wisdom suggests that with Sessions being the quasi incumbent and Tuberville being the anti-Washington establishment outsider that Tuberville is favored to win. Tuberville was given an early boost from Trump when the tweeting president sent out a negative tweet towards Sessions, the day after the March 3 primary. The next day, Trump bombshelled Sessions again and endorsed the coach.
The non-politician, pro-Trump campaign of Coach Tuberville has been effective. He ran well in rural Alabama where he campaigned hard one-on-one and having the Alabama Farmers Federation Association (ALFA) endorsement helped him immensely.
Tuberville’s vulnerability is his lack of knowledge of the issues and the fact that he was a Florida resident up until the time he decided to run for the Senate in Alabama. Sessions’ vulnerability is obviously Trump’s displeasure with him as U.S. Attorney General for not bending the law.
Therefore, my advice to each of the campaigns is this – for Tuberville, I would firmly say I could choose to live anywhere in the country. I chose to live in Alabama. In Sessions case, I would tell a story that might resonate with Alabama voters similar to the following:
We had a very popular president in the 1930s and 1940s named Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR was beloved all over the country, especially throughout the south. He was idolized in Georgia where he lived a good bit of the time at Warm Springs.
FDR was attempting a bold move to add six seats to the U.S. Supreme Court in order to keep the older conservative jurists from blocking some of his New Deal programs. History calls it the FDR Court Packing Plan.
The veteran Georgia Senator, Walter George, opposed FDR’s court packing legislation. Senator George was up for reelection. There was a monumental event in the Peach State where every dignitary was there. President Roosevelt came to the event and with Senator George on the stage FDR lambasted and ridiculed him and asked Georgia voters to vote him out of office.
When it got time for Senator George to speak, the old veteran Georgian quietly and humbly said,
“Mr. President we appreciate you being here. We in Georgia love and respect you. You’re the greatest president this country has ever had, but Mr. President the people of Georgia will elect their senator.” He quietly sat down and was reelected two weeks later.
See you next week.
March 11, 2020 - March 3rd Primary Analysis
Allow me to Share some thoughts and analysis on the March 3rd Primary results.
The Primary is referred to as the Presidential Preference Primary. Voters choose which Party Primary they want to vote in and which presidential candidate they prefer to be their Party’s nominee.
The turnout was amazingly high, despite rain and inclement weather over the State. 1,168,000 Alabamians voted. 753,000 voted in the Republican Primary and 444,000 voted in the Democratic Primary. That equates to 62% Republican and 38% Democratic voters.
It is my assessment that the same percentage is exactly what the outcome of the Presidential Race will look like in November. President Donald Trump carried Alabama with 63% in 2016 and that is about what the numbers will look like in the fall General Election. Trump will match his 2016 victory in the State.
It is my opinion that Trump’s popularity among Republican voters is what accounted for the large voter turnout last Tuesday. Conservative Alabama voters came out in droves to display their approval and loyalty to the Don.
This 62% to 38% GOP advantage seems to be the benchmark for a Republican versus Democratic contest in the State. This does not bode well for our liberal anomaly Democratic U.S. Senator Doug Jones who, over his two-year tenure, has voted to impeach Trump and sports a voting record identical to Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. I will be surprised if Jones gets 40%, which is considered the ceiling for a Democrat in a statewide race in Alabama.
Joe Biden had a spectacular day in our state in the Democratic presidential contest. Biden received 63%. His closest challenger was Bernie Sanders who got 16%.
Alabama was an integral part of the building block for Biden’s Super Victory Day on Super Tuesday. Along with Alabama, the southern states of Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina all fell in line to give Biden a pivotal southern impetus that has propelled him into becoming the Democratic frontrunner. He is the only semi-moderate candidate left standing in the Democratic field. It is now Joe Biden versus Bernie Sanders in the Democratic race. The socialist Sanders will probably arrive at the Democratic Convention with the most delegates, but a brokered convention will probably render Biden as the nominee to face Trump.
The race for the GOP nomination for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Doug Jones was the marquee event in the state races. This seat was held by Senator Jeff Sessions for 20 years. He is probably very sorry he accepted the U.S. Attorney role. He entered the contest late and it is apparent that Trump’s vitriolic tweets over those three years was devastating to Sessions run to recapture his old seat. He received 31% of the Primary vote and will face former Auburn football coach, Tommy Tuberville, who actually bested Sessions with 32%.
Tuberville ran as a non-politician outsider and categorized Sessions and third place finisher Bradley Byrne as Washington establishment insiders. Byrne who garnered 27% of the vote may have made the runoff if a Super PAC called the “Club for Growth” had not spent over $600,000 on negative ads against him. Judge Roy Moore got 7%, and this probably ends the 73-year-old’s political career. However, Byrne’s good showing allows him the opportunity to make another race.
Incumbent Supreme Court Justice Greg Shaw defeated challenger State Senator Cam Ward by a 59 to 41 margin, in no small part to having the best designed television ad of the campaign season, which ran the last week of the campaign.
State Representative Matt Fridy outdistanced Phillip Bahakel 66% to 34% in an open race for the Court of Criminal Appeals.
The two biggest winners in the GOP Primary were PSC President Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh and Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Mary Windom. Twinkle got 74% against her opponent, and Mary Windom bested her challenger 70% to 30%.
The two open congressional races are headed for a March 31 runoff. In the 1st District, Mobile County Commissioner Jerry Carl led former State Senator Bill Hightower, narrowly, 39% to 37%. In the 2nd District Dothan businessman, Jeff Coleman, received 39% to former Coffee County State Representative Barry Moore’s 21%. These two contests will be interesting to watch on March 31. However, the big contest will be the runoff between Jeff Sessions and Tommy Tuberville for the U.S. Senate race.
See you next week.
March 4, 2020 - Chancellor Finis St. John and the University of Alabama System
Our 1901 Alabama Constitution has been rightfully criticized as being archaic. However, it was simply a reflection of the times. The authors and crafters of our document were well educated gentry. Therefore they appreciated and realized the importance of having a prized capstone university.
The University of Alabama was founded in 1831 and had become one of the premier southern universities by the time of the Civil War. It was not by coincidence that one of the primary missions of the northern Union invasion of the South was to burn and raze the University of Alabama campus. They knew the importance of a state having an exemplary institution of higher learning.
Therefore, when the authors of our Constitution crafted their document, they chose to place the University of Alabama above politics and keep the institution in the auspices of high-minded individuals who would be above reproach and petty politics.
The Constitution created a self-appointing, perpetual Board of Trustees to guide and govern the university. This concept has played out magnificently throughout the years. The Board of Trustees has been made up of men and women over the past two centuries who have been leaders of our state. These board members have not only been the most distinguished, erudite people in Alabama, but also those known for their integrity and humility.
Thus it was a unique and yet brilliant decision to choose someone from the Board of Trustees to head the University of Alabama System. In July 2018, Finis E. St. John IV, who had served 17 years on the University System Board was named Chancellor.
He became the Chief Executive Officer of what would be comparable to a Fortune 500 company. The University of Alabama System is not only Alabama’s largest higher education enterprise, it is Alabama’s largest employer with over 45,000 employees and an economic impact of over $10 billion per year.
The Alabama System is comprised of three dynamic institutions: The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, University of Alabama at Huntsville and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, which comprises our world renowned UAB Health System. UAB alone is by far Jefferson County’s largest employer and economic engine, it is indeed the State of Alabama’s number one employer and economic ingredient.
It would have been an easy choice for the Board to choose to bring in an academician from an Ivy League school to head this prestigious institution. The choice of Finis St. John reflects the collective wisdom of this austere body. Why not select someone who has been an integral part of the governing and spearheading of the unparalleled growth of our state’s crown jewel and most significant financial and educational and research institution.
Finis St. John IV, better known by colleagues and older acquaintances as Fess, is widely respected. He knows Alabama, its history, and its attributes. His family settled in Alabama in 1838 and have been leaders in our state throughout the state’s history.
Chancellor Finis “Fess” St. John was the most outstanding leader on campus during his four years at the University of Alabama in the 1970s. He graduated magna cum laude and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and ODK and graduated with honors.
After his undergraduate process at the Capstone, he was accepted and proceeded to the prestigious University of Virginia School of Law. He graduated at the top of his law school class in 1982 and clerked for a federal judge for a while before coming home to Cullman to join his family law firm.
The St. John law firm in Cullman, that Fess joined 36 years ago, is one of Alabama’s oldest law firms. The St. John family has a long and distinguished history of service. His father, grandfather and great grandfather served in the Alabama Legislature. His mother was the first female attorney in Cullman and his great great grandfather, who arrived in Cullman in 1838 and was soon elected to the Alabama General Assembly, was instrumental in creating our state’s public education system.
Chancellor St. John understands and knows the history and potential of our state in a very unique way. This, coupled with his brilliant intellect, makes him ideal. If anyone was ever born to lead the current University of Alabama System, it is Finis “Fess” St. John, IV.
See you next week.
February 26, 2020 - Primaries Next Week
Folks, our primaries are next week! On the Democratic side, the Presidential Preference Primary will be the big show and will be interesting to watch. On the right, the Republican Primary for the U.S. Senate Seat will be the marquee event.
In addition to the Senate Race, you have two open Republican Congressional Seats in the First and Second Districts. You also have some important statewide Supreme Court and Appellate Court races on the ballot.
Incumbent Supreme Court Justice Greg Shaw and Shelby County State Senator Cam Ward, are both running to be the Republican nominee for the Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, place number one.
Shaw is one of the most introverted, dignified people that ever ran for statewide office. He takes his role as a monk-like nontalking judge to heart. He has not and will not campaign. He thinks it is beneath the jurist to talk to people, much less campaign or shake hands.
On the other hand, Senator Cam Ward is the ultimate people person and campaigner. Ward has worked the state from one end to the other, campaigning in every nook and cranny and county. He has outworked Shaw 20 to 1. However, ultimately in today’s statewide politics, it all boils down to money.
Ninety-five percent of the people who vote next Tuesday will not decide or think about who they are going to vote for until next week. Then after they vote and elect one of them, they will not be able to tell you who they voted for or for that matter who is on the Supreme Court. This one will be interesting and probably close. Whoever gets the most votes Tuesday will be sworn in for a six-year term in January. Winning the GOP nomination for a judgeship in Alabama is tantamount to election in the Heart of Dixie.
Two Jefferson/Shelby metro candidates are vying for a seat on the Court of Civil Appeals. State Representative Matt Fridy and Phillip Bahakel are vying for place number 2 on the Civil Appeals Court.
The presiding Judge of the Court of Criminal Appeals, Mary Windom, should waltz to re-election. However, Criminal Appeals Judge Beth Kellum, who has done an excellent job, could have a tougher race with two opponents.
PSC President Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh has an also-ran liberal candidate in her race.
The winners of the March 3 GOP Primary or runoff on March 31 will win the 1st and 2nd congressional districts and go to Washington for 2 years.
The fist district Mobile/Baldwin race is the best and most up in the air. It is a three man race between former State Senator Bill Hightower, Mobile County Commissioner Jerry Carl, and Mobile State Representative Chris Pringle. It will be interesting to see which two make the March 31 runoff.
Dothan businessman Jeff Coleman is the front runner to win the open 2nd Congressional district seat. The question is can he win without a runoff. It may be difficult with seven people in the race. He will ultimately win.
As earlier stated the GOP contest for the U.S. Senate is the marquee event on the scene next week. Jeff Sessions is the favorite to win back his seat. However, it will not be a cakewalk. It is doubtful he can win without a runoff. It is a spirited and close race between Coach Tommy Tuberville and Congressman Bradley Byrne to get into the runoff with Sessions. Former Chief Justice Roy Moore has done very little campaigning and will probably get less than 10% of the vote.
All indications point to former Vice President Joe Biden winning our Democratic Presidential Primary. Over 75% of the votes cast in our Alabama Democratic Primary will be by African American voters, and Biden has received overwhelming endorsements from almost all of the African American hierarchy and leadership groups in the State. In addition, the two leading African American Democratic Leaders, Congresswoman Terri Sewell and Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin, have endorsed Biden.
However, Joe Reed’s powerful Alabama Democratic Conference has endorsed former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg. It will be interesting to see how Bloomberg fares in Alabama next Tuesday. He has spent a lot of money.
You will see an initiative on the ballot that will ask you if you want to make the State School Board appointed rather than elected. Gov. Kay Ivey is promoting a “yes” vote. She believes an appointed Board is better for education. She would appoint the State School Board, if approved.
Y’all don’t forget to vote.
February 19, 2020 - Open Seat for the 2nd Congressional District will be decided in March
Over the course of history, the second congressional district has been referred to and considered a Montgomery congressional district because the Capital City has comprised the bulk of the population. In recent years a good many Montgomerians have migrated to the suburban counties of Autauga and Elmore. Therefore, the district has been refigured to reflect this trend. Today there are more Republican votes cast in this congressional district in these two counties than from Montgomery.
Nevertheless the bulk of the population is in what is now referred to as the River Region. This Montgomery region is coupled with Southeast Alabama and the Wiregrass, which makes it a very conservative Congressional district. It is a Republican seat and has been since Bill Dickinson won it in the southern Republican Goldwater landslide of 1964.
Bill Dickinson beat longtime sitting Congressman George Grant in 1964, and became the first Republican to be elected since Reconstruction. Congressman Dickinson stayed in the seat for 28 years. He rose to be the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee. Through his influence, not only were the vital military bases – Maxwell/Gunter in Montgomery and Ft. Rucker in the Wiregrass – enhanced, he was also instrumental in bringing Lockheed and Sikorsky plants to the district. Over the past 100 years, Dickinson has had the most profound effect for the district.
Businessman Terry Everett won the seat in 1992 upon Dickinson’s retirement. He was the first and only Wiregrass person to hold that seat. Everett served with distinction for 16 years, through 2008. He was a stalwart Republican and very conservative.
The current Congressional person is Martha Roby, a Republican from Montgomery. After 10 years in Congress, she said she had enough and chose to not run for reelection this year which leaves the open seat up for grabs. It is a Republican seat, therefore, the winner of the March 3rd primary and probable March 31 GOP runoff, will go to Washington for at least two years.
The probable winner of that congressional seat will be Dothan businessman, Jeff Coleman. He is 53 and has not only been successful running his family’s worldwide moving business, he has been active civically in the Wiregrass. He is at the right time in life to serve in Washington. His profile is the prototypical scenario for being elected to a Republican Congressional or Senate seat. Congressional campaign fundraising limits coupled with the fact that Washington PACs do not get involved in primaries but wait until the General Election to place their bets, favors a wealthy candidate.
Coleman has his own money and dedicated $2 million to the race. He has followed through on his promise to spend that amount. Amazingly, he has raised another $1 million. When all is said and done, he will probably have spent close to $3 million to win this seat in Congress. Just outspending his challengers by a 10 to 1 amount would be sufficient to win. However, he has not only spent more than all the others combined, he has outworked them. He is affable and confident in an unassuming way. People seem to like him. He will win.
If Coleman had not entered the race, former Attorney General Troy King would have been favored to win. Having run several times and being a native of the Wiregrass, King had some inherent name identification. He has been hampered in this race by lack of fundraising. However, if there is a runoff, King will more than likely be Coleman’s opponent in the March 31 GOP runoff.
Former Enterprise State Representative Barry Moore ran a gallant race against Martha Roby a couple of years ago and got a good vote, most of which came out of Coffee County. He may not do as well in the Wiregrass this time.
There is a dashing young candidate named Jessica Taylor, who is running a good campaign focused on getting free publicity on Fox News as a youthful female candidate.
Whichever candidate wins the seat, there is no question as to which congressional committees they should aspire – Agriculture and Armed Services because this district is highly dependent on military spending and farming.
Sadly, the winner will probably not have a long tenure in Congress. Alabama is probably going to lose a Congressional seat after this year’s census count. The logical seat to be altered and probably merged with the current third and first district is the second district.
Folks, the primary election is less than two weeks away.
See you next week.
February 12, 2020 - Legislative Session Begins – Priority Will Be Resolving Prison Problems
The 2020 Legislative Session, which began last week, will be the second session of Governor Kay Ivey’s administration. For the second straight year, she and the legislature will be facing a major obstacle.
The prison problem is the paramount issue for the year. The state must address and resolve this dilemma or the federal authorities will take over our prisons.
The U.S. Justice Department has decreed that the constitutional rights of inmates are being violated because they are in overcrowded conditions which can lead to extreme violence. The federal justice officials say overcrowding and excess violence is caused by a shortage of staff and beds for inmates.
Our men’s prisons are at 170 percent of the system’s capacity. In the past few weeks it has gone from bad to worse with a forced transfer of more than 600 inmates from Holman Prison. Our Holman correctional facility is generally where our most hardened criminals are housed.
Gov. Ivey and this legislature did not cause this problem. It has been building up and festering for years. The chickens have just come home to roost under her watch but she is attempting to handle the problem adroitly.
The Governor and her administration have worked openly and pragmatically with the Justice Department in clearly defined negotiations. It might be added that the Justice Department has worked congruently and candidly with the Ivey administration and given them clear guidelines in order to avoid federal intervention.
Gov. Ivey and the Justice Department are taking a harmonious approach, which is a far cry from the Gov. George Wallace versus Judge Frank Johnson demagogic rhubarb of past years. In that case, the state lost and we lost in a big way. When the federal courts take over a state’s prison system, they dictate and enforce their edicts and simply give the state the bill. It is a pretty large, unpredictable price tag. The feds always win.
Gov. Ivey will take information from a study group she appointed, led by former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Champ Lyons as well as negotiate with the Justice Department and offer proposals they need from the legislature along with administrative decisions to remedy the prison problem.
Leading the legislative efforts will be State Senator Cam Ward who has been the lead dog in the prison reform efforts. The problem hopefully will be resolved during this session.
Gov. Ivey will not use the approach she did last year with rebuild Alabama when she adjourned the Regular Session and placed the legislature in Special Session to address the issue on a solo stand-alone platform. It will be tackled within the confines of the Regular Session. If the solution is to build three new, modern men’s prisons the state will be faced with some heavy lifting because the big question becomes, how do we pay for them?
The answer may be in a lottery. For the umpteenth year, a proposal to let Alabamians vote to keep the money from lottery tickets in our state coffers. We are one of only four states in America who derive no money from lottery proceeds. We are surrounded on all four sides of our state by sister southern states that reap the benefits of our citizens’ purchase of lottery tickets. This could be the year that the legislature votes to allow their constituents the right to vote yes or no to keep our own money.
You can bet your bottom dollar that if it gets on the ballot, it will pass. Alabamians, both Democratic and Republican, will vote for passage. Even if they do not have any interest in purchasing a lottery ticket. They are tired of seeing their money go to Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi or Florida. Those that like to buy them are tired of driving to our neighboring states to give them money for their school children and roads.
It also may have a better chance of getting to the voters this year because the sponsor, Rep. Steve Clouse (R-Ozark) is a respected veteran and Chairman of the House Ways and Means General Fund Committee. His proposal is also a very simple paper lottery.
However, for the first time Gov. Ivey addressed the issue in her State of the State Address. She is calling for a study commission on the subject which could further delay our having a lottery.
See you next week.
February 5, 2020 - Legislative Session Begins This Week. Legislator Abolishes His Own County
The 2020 Legislative Session begins this week. It will be an interesting three and a-half months. There are a myriad of important issues that legislators have to address this year, as always. However, standing in the way of substantive state issues each year is the necessity to address local bills.
Our 1901 Constitution is archaic in many aspects. One of which is that those men who drafted the act were reluctant to give home rule to local counties for various reasons. Therefore, county governments and county commissions must come with hat in hand to their legislator to even take care of mundane matters.
Many of you have asked with dismay, after journeying to the legislature for a view of the House and Senate in action, what is happening? They are astounded and oftentimes outraged at the scene on the floor. It appears that one legislator is at the microphone and nobody is paying attention to him. The other 100 legislators are milling around visiting with each other laughing, eating, talking on cell phones, doing everything under the sun but paying attention to the pertinent issue being introduced. In the other chamber they may see or hear a clerk reading a bill aloud and no senator is even present on the floor. This display of disorganization, disarray and lack of decorum is difficult to explain to school children who come to the Capitol for the day.
The reason is that the issue up front for debate and passage is whether Fayette County can buy a tractor or Walker County wants to change the number of seats on a local water board. The bill does not affect but one county and the local legislative delegation is the only one that needs to vote on it.
This brings me to a pertinent point – the Legislature is not a good steppingstone to higher elective office. First, legislators get no statewide name identification. Second, legislators have a very extensive record of casting hundreds of votes. These votes can be scrutinized and distorted.
If a legislator takes the position that they choose to abstain from voting on the other counties’ local bills, then they are recorded as not voting on over 100 votes in a Session. An opponent can run an ad accusing them of going to Montgomery and not even showing up to vote. On the other hand, a good number of these local bills are not as benign as just buying a tractor. A county commission may be asking for local legislation to raise the local fuel tax to buy a fleet of tractors. Therefore, if you vote a complimentary yes as a courtesy to your legislative colleague, you are recorded as voting for millions of dollars in taxes. Then you have to run on that record.
There has been a lot of trickery over the years with local legislation. Therefore, legislators need to be aware of what may be hidden in these innocuous local acts their fellow legislators ask then to vote for. A legendary, masterful act of deceit played on a legislator by a fellow legislator still reverberates almost 60 years later. It occurred during the second Big Jim Folsom administration during the late 1950s. Legislators Emmett Oden of Franklin County and Jack Huddleston of Colbert County despised each other. These two counties adjoin each other in Northwest Alabama. These two men were constantly at odds.
Oden introduced a local bill for Franklin County that repealed another local bill passed in December of 1869. His brief explanation to the House of Representatives when the measure came up for a vote was that it was simply a housekeeping bill, “It corrects an error when the original bill was passed.”
Through the custom of local courtesy, the local bill passed unanimously. Even Representative Jack Huddleston voted for the bill. After passage of the measure, Representative Oden told the press what his local bill actually did.
The 1869 law, which he was repealing, was the law that had created Colbert County out of Franklin County. Representative Huddleston had just voted to abolish his own county. That one vote ended Huddleston’s political career. His constituents in Colbert County could not forgive that he had voted to abolish his own county.
See you next week.
January 29, 2020 - 1st District Seat Open. Great Three-Man Race to Replace Bryne. Senate Race in Full Gear.
The first district Congressional race is probably the best race in the state in this year’s March 3rd Primary. The winner of the March 31st GOP Primary runoff will go to Congress. The famous first district is a Republican congressional seat and has been since Jack Edwards won the seat in the Southern Goldwater landslide in 1964.
The bulk of the district population is in the two county gulf coast counties of Baldwin and Mobile. It being the only gulf coast district in the state, they do have some local issues like red snapper fishing, and their infamous Bay 10 bridge and Bayway project. However, for the most part the candidates are focusing on national issues like international affairs, gun control, health care, the environment, immigration and abortion. As is apropos for Republican Congressional candidates, there are all trying to tie themselves to Donald Trump.
There are three clear frontrunners, Mobile County Commissioner Jerry Carl, State Representative Chris Pringle and former State Senator Bill Hightower, all from Mobile. Commissioner Carl has been a Mobile County Commissioner since 2012. Pringle is a state legislator from Mobile. Bill Hightower served one term in the Alabama State Senate, then made an unsuccessful bid for governor in 2018. The three seem to be knotted in a close three-man race. It will be interesting to see which of the three make the two-man March 31st primary.
The seat is open because Bradley Bryne is running for the U.S. Senate. Byrne had to choose to either continue in his seat or go for the brass ring. Bryne is a very viable candidate in the Senate race. However former Senator Jeff Sessions is favored to lead the March 3rd Primary and runoff, and then take back his U.S. Senate seat in the November General Election.
Sessions will settle in for a six-year term. Probably his final. He is 73 years old and will be 74 when he takes office next January. Therefore he will be a 74-year-old freshman senator. That is not the optimum age to become a U.S. Senator again.
Seniority is everything in Washington. Seniority still prevails dominantly. It is absolutely king. Sessions does not portray the national image and stature that our Senior Senator Richard Shelby enjoys, much less the power, prestige and ability to bring home the bacon to the Heart of Dixie. Indeed, during their 20 years of service together as our tandem in the Senate, Shelby has overshadowed Sessions not only in seniority but in power and accomplishments.
Actually, Sessions does not mind playing second fiddle to Shelby. He prefers it. During his 20-years in the Senate, he enjoyed playing the role of being the ultimate conservative ideologue. He was and will once again become one of the most conservative members of the Senate and will spend his time on social issues like immigration, abortion or other rightwing noneconomic issues. Sessions will be the darling of Fox News and will ask for his seat back on the Judiciary Committee, which does absolutely nothing for Alabama. Sessions does not really want to be effective. He is the ultimate ideologue.
Even though Sessions will be 74 in January of 2021, his chief rivals for the GOP nomination, Tommy Tuberville and Bradley Byrne will be 66 and 65, respectively – not exactly spring chickens. Those are not the perfect ages to enter the U.S. Senate. By the same token, if by some remarkable miracle upset Doug Jones wins this year’s race, he would not be the perfect effective Senator for Alabama as a 65-year-old Democrat.
Thank goodness for the Heart of Dixie we have Richard Shelby as our Senior U.S. Senator. When you have the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, you really do not need a second Senator. Seniority is everything in Washington.
See you next week.
January 22, 2020 - First District has had Outstanding Congressmen
Current First District Congressman Bradley Byrne is leaving his safe congressional seat to take a shot at the U.S. Senate this year.
The Mobile First Congressional District has had quite a legacy over the last century. Alabama’s First District has always been primarily made up of Mobile County. Historically, the rural southwest Alabama counties north of Mobile have been a part of the First. Washington, Clarke, Monroe and Escambia do not amount to much of the population. Baldwin and Mobile, which are now essentially one county, have been tied together for the past few decades, and they comprise most of the district.
In July of 1935, the legendary and colorful Frank Boykin became the congressman. He stayed in the First seat for 28 years. Ole Frank Boykin was a colorful, earthy fellow. He had little formal education but had made a lot of money in the lumber and turpentine business prior to going to Congress in 1936, and was reelected twelve times.
Boykin owned a hunting lodge in rural Washington County. He had a legendary hunting weekend retreat. Invitations to the retreat were coveted among members of Congress. The Speaker of the House would come every year, along with most of the leadership.
One of the best pictures I have ever seen was taken with Frank Boykin, who was about 5 feet 2 inches beside Governor “Big” Jim Folsom who was about 6 feet 9 inches. It was at the Boykin lodge. Both were obviously inebriated, especially “Big” Jim.” Boykin was famous for his favorite phrase, “Everything is made for love.”
John Tyson, Sr. served briefly after Frank Boykin lost out in a special state wide last man out election. Tyson’s successor was one of Alabama’s great congressmen, Jack Edwards. Mr. Edwards was more dignified than Mr. Boykin. However, they both served the First District well.
Jack Edwards was born in Birmingham. He was student body president at the University of Alabama and got his law degree from Alabama. He began his law practice in Mobile. Shortly thereafter, at age 36, he was elected to Congress in 1964. During his 28-year tenure in the House, with the addition of Baldwin County, the First District became one of the most Republican districts in the South. Edwards was reelected nine times. He chose to leave after 20 years.
Sonny Callahan succeeded Jack Edwards and stayed in the First District seat 18 years. Like Edwards he was helped in his first election by the top of the presidential ticket. Popular President, Ronald Reagan, carried Alabama overwhelmingly and had strong coattails. Callahan was also buoyed by Edwards’ endorsement and the addition of Baldwin County to the First.
Callahan was born in Mobile to a large Irish-Catholic family. He attended Mobile public schools. Although, like Boykin, he never graduated college and was successful in business. Along with being a popular state senator, he owned a trucking and warehouse business. He was serving in the state senate when he went to Congress in 1985.
Jack Edwards and Sonny Callahan were known for excellent constituent relations. Therefore, it was apropos for the man responsible for their constituent service to follow them into the First District seat.
Jo Bonner won the seat in 2002. He had been Callahan’s Chief of Staff. Callahan and Edwards endorsed Bonner in his initial primary. He was reelected, overwhelmingly, five times. After 10 years in Congress, he opted to leave Washington. Congressman Bonner is now Governor Kay Ivey’s Chief of Staff.
Jo Bonner was born to be the congressman from the First District. He was born into a family steeped in Wilcox County political and public service. His father was probate judge. He grew up as the “little brother,” actually and figuratively to fellow Wilcox Countians Judy Bronner, Kay Ivey, and Jeff Sessions.
Bonner was highly respected by his House colleagues. He was on a leadership track and was Chairman of the House Ethics Committee. Jo Bonner is a class act and the epitome of a true southern gentleman.
Bradley Bryne took up the mantle of the prestigious First District four years ago. He took to Congress like a duck to water and has done a good job.
See you next week.