April 14, 2010
It may not seem like it but we are heading down the home stretch in the governor’s race. The Republican and Democratic primaries are only six weeks away. On June 1 we will separate the wheat from the chaff in the Republican field of candidates. With four viable candidates on the stage it will be hard for any one candidate to get the over 50% needed to be the nominee. Therefore, the challenge is to make the runoff.
The two frontrunners will face-off six weeks later on July 13 to determine the final GOP nominee for the November 2 General Election. This six-week runoff span is a new twist. Historically we have had a three week runoff contest. However, the time has been expanded this year to accommodate our soldiers stationed overseas and allow them to fully participate in the electoral process. This will make the primary even more expensive for the final two participants in the GOP fray.
April 07, 2010
As many of you are preparing to file your tax returns do not feel too badly because the U.S. Census Bureau has revealed that we Alabamians pay the least amount in taxes of any other state in America. Yes, we in Alabama continue to have the lowest taxes in the nation. The primary stimulus for our low tax rate stems from our having the lowest property tax in America. In fact, we could double our state property tax and still be the lowest in the nation.
The Census Bureau took tax collection figures from all sources to determine the ranking. Taxes tallied by the bureau included personal and corporate income taxes, sales taxes, fuel taxes and property taxes. Alabama’s average state and local tax collection per person was also the lowest among the 50 states for fiscal years 2005 and 2006. In the latest report two of our neighboring states were fast on our track to be #50. Mississippi ranked 49th and Tennessee 48th when it came to paying taxes. Our other two neighbors’ tallies revealed that Georgia ranked 34th and Florida was in the middle of the pack in 26th place.
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March 31, 2010
In 1986 I was a young 34 year old politician. I was running unopposed for my second four-year term in the state legislature from my hometown of Troy. My best lifetime friend Keith Watkins was also 34 and was a young practicing attorney in Troy. We had been close friends since childhood. Richard Shelby did not know of our closeness but ironically Keith and I were the only two people that Shelby knew in Pike County. He asked us to meet him for breakfast and then asked us to be his county campaign managers for his race for the U.S. Senate against Jeremiah Denton.
Denton had been elected as the first Republican senator from Alabama since Reconstruction six years earlier. He had ridden Ronald Reagan’s coattails to victory but then proceeded to spend the next six years writing a book on how to get beat for a U.S. Senate seat. Denton was a great soldier and patriot but a horrible politician and senator. He was vulnerable to say the least. So Shelby’s decision to roll the dice and run against Denton was not as much of a gamble as it appeared.
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March 24, 2010
No other ethnic group in American history has immersed themselves into American politics any more than the Irish. The Irish politician that best exemplifies this devotion to politics was the famous Boston pol Tip O’Neill.
O’Neill was one of the most colorful politicians of the 20th Century. His extraordinary career spanned 50 years, including a decade as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. There is a great book entitled “Man of the House,” penned by William Novak, that chronicles O’Neill’s life and career.
The last true bipartisan friendship seen in Washington was the union of House Speaker Tip O’Neill, a devout liberal Democrat, and Ronald Reagan, the quintessential conservative Republican president. These two men of diverse political thought genuinely liked each other. They were both proud of their Scotch Irish ancestry and met frequently over libations like good Irishmen.
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March 17, 2010
It is very fitting that we Alabamians celebrate St. Patrick’s Day this week because a good many of us can trace our ancestry back to Ireland. The majority of Alabama’s early settlers were of Scotch Irish descent and a good many of us are still here today.
My maternal ancestors settled in southeast Alabama in the 1840’s. Their roots are easily traced back to Ireland. I had heard this from aging relatives that they came to Alabama from the Carolinas and indeed their birth and genealogy tables bear this out. They simply said the Carolinas because I believe that at the time of their migration there was no distinction between North and South Carolina. Although I believe most of our ancestors came from what is now North Carolina.
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March 10, 2010
I host a 30-minute television show entitled, “Alabama Politics,” which airs on public television. Most of the gubernatorial candidates have graciously appeared on the show. Invariably I have asked all of them the same question, “Why in the world would you want to be governor?”
The economy has cast an ominous financial cloud over our state government. Gov. Riley has declared historic levels of proration. The entire rainy day savings account is gone. We are surviving on onetime federal stimulus money, which runs out in 2010. The legislature is currently working to craft a budget, which takes effect in October. It will be a nightmare next year. When the new governor walks into the office in January of 2011 it will be like walking onto the deck of the Titanic. It will be a daunting task for the next governor. They may very well be a one-termer.
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March 03, 2010
With all the furor created by our outgoing governor over electronic bingo, the fact that we have a governor’s race has flown completely under the media’s radar screen. However, this is a premier governor’s race because it is the first gubernatorial contest without an incumbent governor on the ballot in over two decades. The contest has now been ongoing for close to a year.
As early as seven months ago I foolhardily predicted the winners and losers in the 2010 Governor’s Race. With just three months until the June 1st primary, I stand by my prognostications. If you recall, in early August of 2009 I told you that Bradley Byrne and Tim James would be the top contenders in the Republican primary and that they would eventually be pitted in a GOP runoff to face Democrat Artur Davis in November. I stand solidly behind that scenario. My prediction at that time was based on intuition. Today’s confirmation prognosis is based on fact.
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February 24, 2010
A good many of you have asked why simple, straightforward, no nonsense, good government legislation fails to pass even though it appears to have universal and overwhelming support and appeal among voters and legislators. Remember the old sayings and adages from the lips of your grandparents and older folks that you felt irrelevant and quaint? Sayings like “if you’ve got your health you’ve got everything” and “if it ain’t broke then don’t fix it.” The older you get it occurs to you how accurate and wise these old sayings are in actual life. They are golden facts.
One of these sage adages, “it takes an act of congress,” pertains to the difficulty of getting something accomplished. In politics there is no clearer truism. It is extremely difficult to pass a piece of legislation through congress and it is just as equally difficult to channel a bill through the labyrinth of legislative approval in Alabama. Ask any successful lobbyist or legislator which side they would rather be on in the legislative wars and they will tell you that they much prefer to be against a piece of legislation than trying to pass it.
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February 17, 2010
As Gov. Bob Riley delivered his last State of the State address to the legislature on January 12th, I sat in the old House of Representatives chamber in the Capitol. It was nostalgic. The House moved out of those chambers in 1984. However, I got to serve in that venue for at least two of my sixteen years in the House. I also served in those old chambers as a Page in my youth. I had the opportunity to hear quite a few State of the State addresses in the old historic chamber where delegates voted to secede from the Union and the Confederate States of America were born in 1861.
Most of these addresses were delivered by George Wallace. As you know, he was governor one way or the other for over 20 years. There was no teleprompter for the governor to read his speech from in bygone years. Today the governor acts like he is talking to the legislators but is actually speaking to a television audience.
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February 10, 2010
Most folks were shocked when Gov. Riley declared that unlike every other state in the country Alabama was not plagued by nor should we worry about the financial crisis facing our state. The governor took two minutes to dismiss the economic woes in a Pollyanna display of optimism basing his budgets on a pie in the sky gamble that congress would rescue us with another stimulus spending boondoggle. However, it was no surprise that Riley quickly moved to the subject of electronic bingo and spent nine minutes in a tirade against bingo in the state.
It has become obvious that the governor has made electronic bingo his paramount concern during his last year in office. To say that he is obsessed with this iniquity would be an understatement. At a time when every other governor in the nation is soberly and rationally wrestling with the daunting task of funding their state’s vital services, Riley is planning midnight raids on bingo parlors which employ over 5000 Alabamians and attract out of state business.
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