Anyone who follows the Legislative Session each year in Montgomery, knows that it is never short of controversy.  The House has its priorities, the Senate has its own, and governors have theirs. And it is fair to say that those priorities are not always the same. You can take gaming this session as an example.  However, in this session there is one major push that has brought all our state’s top elected leaders together – an ambitious workforce, economic and community development package called, “Working for Alabama.”  At an announcement event in Montgomery last month, we saw a ..read more

Those of you who live in the new 2nd congressional district have runoffs this coming Tuesday, April 16.  This is the most interesting and entertaining political contest in Alabama this year.   This new seat is comprised of all of Montgomery County, as well as most of the more rural counties surrounding Montgomery, including Macon, Lowndes, Bullock, Pike, Butler, Crenshaw, Barbour, and Russell.  It continues through rural Black Belt counties like an arrow towards Mobile and gathers most of the Black voters in Mobile.   This gerrymandered new district was created by ..read more

We Americans are going to the polls in seven months, to elect the next President of the United States.  Election day is November 5. We are getting set for a rematch between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden.  Americans are not too enthused to see this replay. I have never seen two candidates with as high negative polling numbers in my lifetime.  The old political truism that more people vote against someone than for someone will definitely come into play in this presidential race. If indeed Biden and Trump are the nominees, you will see the lowest percentage voter t ..read more

Growing up as a teenager in the 1960’s, I served as a Page in the Alabama Legislature. One day when I was around 13 years old, I was looking around the House of Representatives and it occurred to me that North Alabama, as well as the state’s largest county, Jefferson, was vastly underrepresented.  Even at that early age I knew that the U.S. Constitution required that all people be represented equally, and that the U.S. Constitution superseded our state Constitution.  Both Constitutions clearly state that the U.S. House of Representatives and the Alabama House of Representatives must ..read more

The most interesting and paramount race on the ballot in the March 5th primaries was the one for the new open 2nd Congressional District. This gerrymandered new district was created by the Federal Courts to implement a new Democratic/Black District in the Heart of Dixie.  The Democratic nominee will be favored to win this seat in November. When the plaintiffs proposed their new district plan to the Court, they attached a chart, which illustrated that had there been a Democratic vs. Republican congressional race on the ballot the Democrat would have won in 16 of the 17 races. Washington in ..read more

There were very few surprises in our March 5 primary results.  Since we are essentially a one-party Republican state when it comes to presidential, national, and statewide politics, most of the action was in the GOP Primary. The big winners were Donald Trump, Barry Moore and Sarah Stewart. As expected, Donald Trump trounced all his GOP “would be” challengers in the Heart of Dixie. The former president received 84% of the vote in our Alabama Primary and will probably win our state by around a 63% to 37% margin in the November General Election rematch against the hapless Joe Biden, if indee ..read more

I hope you all voted in the primaries yesterday. You have an advantage on me in that I have to go to press with my column before Wednesday, my publication date. Therefore, you know the results. However, I doubt there are any surprises. We do not have any good state races this year. We have four open seats on our State Supreme Court. However, three of the four are held by popular incumbents, none of which received even token opposition from either Republicans or Democrats. Justices Will Sellers, Jay Mitchell, and Tommy Bryan won reelection to new six-year terms on the State’s high tribunal, yes ..read more

This coming Tuesday, March 5, is Primary Election Day in Alabama. Your vote next week is probably as important this Tuesday as it will be in the November general election because winning the Republican nomination for a statewide position in Alabama is tantamount to election. We have an early primary election this year because we are part of the Super Tuesday GOP Presidential Primary caravan.  We do not have any close or interesting Alabama statewide races this year.  The four Supreme Court seats up for election are held by popular incumbents, who are unopposed.  The only contest ..read more

“Friends and Neighbors” politics and “all politics is local” has gone by the wayside.  Instead, we are a state and nation divided along partisan and racial lines.  In Alabama almost all White voters are Republican and almost all Black voters are Democrats.  Most folks vote lockstep along party lines. The federal courts have picked up on this and decided to plow new ground and create a second minority district for us here in Alabama by taking redistricting out of the constitutionally designated power of drawing lines away from the legislature and using the Voting Rights Act as pr ..read more

Last week we discussed the Alabama House of Representatives and highlighted the leaders in the House. This week we will talk about the prominent members of the very powerful Alabama State Senate. To begin with, the State Senate is made up of 35 members.  The body is overwhelmingly Republican.  There are 27 Republicans and a mere eight Democrats.  This qualifies for what is called a super majority Republican State Senate.   Our Alabama Constitution is very antiquated and rests all power, even local power, in the legislature.  That means that an inordinate amount of ..read more