Gov. Bob Riley says, “I will never run for another office.” Jennifer Foster has that and more from the annual dinner of the Lee County Republicans last night.
Some had speculated Riley might eventually run for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Shelby. And of course, people do change their minds.
Two Alabama Political Blasts from the Pasts have released new books. While both pols were once at the top of the state’s political heap, the books could not be more different.
The more traditional release is a biography of former Alabama Governor John Patterson. The book Nobody But the People is actually written by Warren Trest, but Patterson worked closely with Trest and has been on the circuit promoting its release. From his role in cleaning up organized crime in Phenix City, to a tumultuous term as governor, to the transition to a respected jurist Patterson’s political career has had many acts and Nobody But the People chronicles them all.
Former State Senator Bill Drinkard has also become an author recently. Drinkard served three terms in the Alabama Senate and chaired the powerful Rules Committee before leaving the Senate to become an influential lobbyist. In the mid 1990s Drinkard pled guilty to a corruption charge and dropped off the political map before recently resurfacing as an aide to the Senate Democratic Caucus.
However, while Drinkard probably could pen an interesting biography about his ups and downs in Alabama politics, that is not what he’s done. Drinkard’s book Elom is a sci-fi novel that introduces (according to Publisher’s Weekly):
a low-tech world where human reproduction is controlled to concentrate desirable traits. Life is regulated by the scriptures of Geerna, a primitive human who long ago reached a covenant with the goddess Shetow. The wise women of the Medora Council interpret Geerna’s words and protect her secret prophecies, overseeing the competitions where adolescents demonstrate their skills and suitability for mating.
Drinkard’s book while obviously aimed at a specific market has met with at least some critical success as prominent sci-fi author David Drake said the book contains “engaging characters in a story told with the feel of a myth passed down by word of mouth.”
Whether or not either of these books is your cup of tea, it’s good to see two Alabama politicians enter the world of the published word. Now if only we could get more Alabama pols to blog…
Julian Smith, a vice-president at Alabama Power and recently named on the Political Parlor’s list of the Top 40 Most Influential Non-elected Alabamians, is retiring effective June 2. The announcement from Alabama Power is below.
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Scott Horton spoke in Huntsville Tuesday night (advance details here). Those in attendance are talking about Eddie Curran, on leave from the Press-Register, who was in the audience and had an exchange with Horton that was characterized in email to the Parlor as loud and disruptive - to the point that audience members shouted Curran down.
Don Siegelman and Jill Simpson were also in attendance.
More as info is available.
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Update: A reader has posted in comments below the text of a response from Dan Abrams which can also be found on the interwebs here.
Karl Rove wrote a letter last week to Dan Abrams of MSNBC that raised questions related to Abrams’ broadcasts on the subject of Rove’s alleged involvement in the prosecution of former Governor Don Siegelman. Brett Blackledge referred to the letter today in the Birmingham News.
If the version I received in email Friday is correct, here is the text of the letter:
Time has been tight around the Parlor the last few days… there are interesting things to talk about, e.g. the passage of HB274 and the fundraising figures reported for the 1st quarter of the year in the Congressional races.
If you have something interesting to say on these or other matters, feel free to use the comments (and I see that you have other places here!).
I hope to be caught up before long on some of these things.
Alabama’s elected officials are going to bat for the home team to rebut those who are criticizing the Air Force’s decision to choose Northrop Grumman and European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. (EADS) over Boeing in a recently awarded contract to make refueling tankers. The contract is expected to create 2000 jobs in Mobile.
Associated Press last weekend:
In a letter sent to the nation’s other lieutenant governors Friday, [Alabama Lt. Gov.] Folsom wrote: “The announcement by the Speaker of the House that Congress would be investigating the award of the contract has created a whirlwind of media coverage. As a result, a vast amount of misinformation has been reported distorting the facts surrounding the award, and making any impartial evaluation of this situation problematic.”
[…]
Alabama Gov. Bob Riley, members of the state’s congressional delegation, and the Legislature, through a resolution, have defended the selection process, which is supposed to result in a tanker assembly plant in Mobile and the creation of 2,000 jobs.
Mary Orndorff of the Birmingham News reported in her Washington blog, Sweet Home Potomac on Friday:
There are signs that the Alabama delegation, once content to patiently stick to the high road as the appeal of the Air Force tanker contract played out in official channels, is now engaging in the parallel, bare-knuckled political spat.
Sens. Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby fired off a “dear colleague” letter to their 98 colleagues last night to counter “misinformation” about the dispute between Northrop Grumman/EADS and Boeing, and ask that cooler heads prevail until the GAO releases its report, probably in June.
Helen Hammons finds herself in a church basement Saturday with over 300 other people and writes this report for us.
This writer, along with many others in the state, writes a lot about the woes of the two-year college system. On Saturday, at an event having nothing to do with that system, I stumbled upon what’s right with that system. I came to what was billed by organizers as an “Alabama Town Hall Meeting,” to listen, and, every now and then, to talk myself.
They came from around Alabama, from Montgomery, Mobile, Eutaw, Huntsville, Selma and many other communities large and small. They were from all walks of life - professionals, average working stiffs, people who would never worry about where their next meal would come from and people who struggled to have rice left to go with the beans at the end of the week. Some were black, some were white, some were Hispanic, and I even had a wonderful conversation with a gentleman who was originally from Europe. There were many youngsters from elementary through high school and college and many folks on the receiving end of Social Security and those in between.
The Washington Post yesterday calls Alabama’s John Anzalone “the best pollster you’ve never heard of,” saying his Democratic survey research firm is “among the hottest in the nation.” Readers here have heard of him; the Parlor recently named him on our list of most influential, non-elected Alabamians.
The occasion for the mention in the Post is that his outfit, Anzalone Liszt Research, is opening a Washington office.
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What good stories or observations do you have now that the qualifying period is over?
I see that John Amari, once a former Democrat, is now a former Republican as he has qualified as a Democratic candidate for Jefferson County District Court Judge. Amari was elected to the state House as a Democrat, served as a Republican state Senator, and ran unsuccessfully for Public Service Commissioner as a Republican (losing in the primary to Perry Hooper in 2006).
Speaking of former Democrats who are becoming former Republicans, I see that J.T. Smallwood has qualified (as many expected) for re-election as Jefferson County Tax Collector as a Democrat. Smallwood was elected to his current term as a Democrat, but held a press conference in 2006 to announce he was switching to the Republican Party and subsequently ran for the state GOP Executive Committee.
Gaynelle Hendricks has qualified to challenge Jefferson County Tax Assessor Dan Weinrib in the Democratic primary. Hendricks is the wife of former Birmingham City Councilor Elias Hendricks; she lost a contentious primary battle with Patricia Todd for the House District 54 seat in a challenge that had to be decided by the State Democratic Executive Committee.
Update: With a reader’s help, corrected some details in the third paragraph.
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On the same day that Roy Johnson pleaded guilty to 15 counts involving bribery, conspiracy, money laundering, witness tampering, obstruction and fraud related to his tenure as chancellor of the 2-year college system, Judge Johnny Hardwick in a separate case ordered the Alabama Board of Education to continue use of a practice allowing legislators to use flex-time to serve in the legislature.
Helen Hammons gives Parlor readers a first-hand account of the proceedings in Hardwick’s courtroom.
The ongoing war over whether or not legislators will be allowed to continue to work for the two-year college system and in the Legislature at the same time had another skirmish in Montgomery County Circuit Court on Monday when attorneys for legislators Blaine Galliher, Terry Spicer, Laura Hall and other plaintiffs and attorneys for Governor Bob Riley, Chancellor Bradley Byrne and the state Board of Education locked horns with each other.
Circuit Judge Johnny Hardwick gave both sides a hard time and even threatened to bring the college presidents into the suit during a heated exchange with defense lawyer Stephen Fitts about unpaid leave requests supposedly submitted to college presidents.
Though The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals today ruled that former governor Don Siegelman is to be released from prision on bond pending his appeal, it also today denied Richard Scrushy’s request for release (pdf).
Scrushy has not demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that he is unlikely to flee if he is released pending appeal. Scrushy’s motion for reconsideration is, accordingly,
DENIED
HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy was convicted with Siegelman in June 2006.
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Thinking about Alabama’s two congressional races this year (in the 2nd and 5th districts), and how dynamics nationally affect (and don’t affect) the candidates here…
CQPolitics this week reports on the widening disparity between the cash raised and available to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).
And the February figures show that the imbalance between the two parties, in terms of money that each House campaign committee had left to spend on races across the nation at the end of last month, grew to its widest yet. The DCCC began March with $38 million left to spend and had $763,000 in debts, compared to $5.1 million for the NRCC, which reported $1.9 million in debts.
In addition, the accounting scandal at the NRCC that “cost House Republicans nearly $1 million” will likely cost them at least some more by some potential donors’ unwillingness to contribute to the mismanaged fund.
Surely the relatively cash-strapped RNCC would like to have back the large sum they put into a “particularly painful” loss in Illinois where the seat held for two decades by former GOP Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert was won by Democrat physicist Dennis Foster in a special election a week and a half ago.
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain (Ariz.) helped [GOP candidate Jim] Oberweis raise money, and the NRCC pumped more than $1.2 million into the district — using more than 20 percent of its cash on hand — to no avail.
There is more at work than the issue of the two campaign committees’ cash on hand.
“It’s no mystery,” said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.). “You have a very unhappy electorate, which is no surprise, with oil at $108 a barrel, stocks down a few thousand points, a war in Iraq with no end in sight and a president who is still very, very unpopular. He’s just killed the Republican brand.”
Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan analyst of congressional politics, said: “The math is against them. The environment is against them. The money is against them. This is one of those cycles that if you’re a Republican strategist, you just want to go into the bomb shelter.”
The real story here in Alabama may be the relative insularity of the state GOP from the troubles affecting the national GOP. Bush may have “just killed the Republican brand,” but not so much in Alabama. For example, while Bush’s approval rating nationally is 30% in a recent Fox poll and 29% in a recent CBS poll, his approval rating in Alabama is a relatively remarkable 44%. Our Republican senators Sessions and Shelby garner 60% and 59% job approval ratings, and Republican Governor Bob Riley polls a most impressive 69% approval rating. In Alabama, it is the Democratic Party that is taking hits for its connection to the two-year college scandal, though it remains to be seen to what degree this will affect any election.
Whereas voters in Illinois and elsewhere may be taking out their dissatisfaction on GOP candidates, plenty of Alabama Republicans are glad that is not so much the case in Alabama - to the point that a Democrat (Tom Butler) interested in a seat held by a retiring Democrat (U.S. Rep. Bud Cramer) would rather switch and run as a Republican. Even the Democrats in Alabama who are running for Congress as Democrats are not particularly embracing the Democrat label.
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For ease of viewing the whole list and for future reference, here is our complete list of the Top 40 Most Influential Non-Elected Alabamians that the Parlor has been posting in pieces this week.
You may enjoy reading the comments already made on the previous posts (The first post with numbers 31-40 is here, 21-30 here, 11-20 here, and the Top Ten). If this post happens to be the first you have read of this list, then you may particularly enjoy reading the introduction. The introduction explains a bit about the criteria involved and how it came to be that, except for the Top Ten, the list is presented in unranked tiers of ten names.
Here is the complete list.
Top 40 Most Influential Non-Elected Alabamians
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Again, I am grateful to the many political insiders on both sides of the aisle who freely gave time and input to putting together this list of non-elected Alabamians who most influence Alabama politics and policy. Time and time again I would go back to them, saying, “Help me understand how this person wields influence.” Or, “What about this name? Should this name be included?” Each contributor’s own list would look at least a little different, but their collective input shaped the list we have here, and I appreciate the considerable time and interest they gave to this.
The introduction to the list is here. Numbers 31-40 are here, numbers 21-30 are here, and numbers 11-20 are here.
#1 - #10 of the
Top 40 Most Influential Non-Elected Alabamians
10. Jere Beasley –The former Democratic Lt Governor and nationally prominent plaintiff’s attorney virtually bankrolls Alabama trial lawyers’ political efforts out of his firm’s coffers, but has good relationships across the aisle, e.g. with Troy King and Rob Riley.
9. Jerry Newby – The head of ALFA which plays hard and heavy in a lot of Alabama elections and policy battles, probably the second most powerful interest group after AEA.
8. Bradley Byrne – Chancellor of the Two-Year College System is a powerful job in charge of dozens of campuses across the state; Byrne is an aggressive leader in the role with an eye on an even more powerful post.
7. David Bronner – The head of Retirement Systems of Alabama (RSA) handles billions of dollars every day and pretty much gets what he wants out of state government.
6. Bill Canary - The President of the Business Council of Alabama is arguably Gov. Riley’s closest ally, and BCA is in the thick of many political scrums.
5. Fine & Geddie – Joe Fine and Bob Geddie are the two most powerful contract lobbyists in Alabama. Period. Just check out their client list sometime.
4. Rob and Minda Riley – Folks on both sides of the aisle acknowledge the Govlings’ considerable influence on their father’s administration.
3. Charles McCrary – He’s the CEO of Alabama Power, the single most powerful company in Alabama politics. Other companies trail far behind in their political influence.
2. Jim Main – The state Finance Director oversees large sums of money, contracts, the state’s moneyed interests. Less experienced legislators try to see the Governor about advancing their cause; budget chairmen and those in the know see Jim Main.
1. Paul Hubbert – The head of the Alabama Education Association and legislative puppet-master was a unanimous choice for #1 among contributors. “The most powerful man in the state, no one else is close,” said one contributor.
How would your list look different? Are there egregious errors here? Notable omissions?
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 | Alabama Line |
(R) Jeff Sessions (1-19)
Would take a Larry Craig-type revelation to shake up this race.
(D) Vivian Figures (33-1)
Is anything shaking in this race at all?
(D) David Marsh (OFF)
A rumor here, a rumor there, but we haven’t seen that they have legs.
(D) Artur Davis (OFF)
Could have been strong underdog, but he’s out
(D) Jim Folsom (OFF)
No rumblings, whispers, or substantial rumors that he might run.
(D) Pete Johnson (OFF)
Said August 3 that he will not run. (B’ham News, 8/4/07)
(D) Ron Sparks (OFF)
Flirted with idea. Announced June 12 that he will not seek the office.
(R) Jo Bonner (1-29)
No obvious chinks in the armor.
(D) Benjamin Lodmell (>100-1)
Charge of soliciting more than votes gives him the longest of odds.
(D) Bobby Bright (3-2) NEW
Shoo-in for Democratic nomination, then the task toughens.
(R) Harri Anne Smith (3-1) NEW
Outright win only thing to keep her out of a GOP primary run-off.
(R) Jay Love (4-1) NEW
Easily the most viable of the Montgomery-area GOP candidates.
(R) David Woods (20-1) NEW
Is he crazy like a Fox-20 President?
(R) David Grimes (30-1) NEW
Showing least energy among those with some name ID.
(R) Craig Schmidtke (90-1) NEW
Oral surgeon will be able to numb the pain of loss.
(D) William Boyd (>100-1) NEW
Montgomery Mayoral hopeful will lose to Bright again.
(R) John W. Martin(>100-1) NEW
Army veteran will struggle to be competitive.
(R) Terry Everett (OFF)
The incumbent announced his retirement Sept. 26.
(R) Mike Rogers (1-11)
Heavy favorite but other incumbents have more favorably drawn districts.
(D) Josh Segall (19-1) NEW
District & early signs of professionalism up his chances a bit.
(R) Robert Aderholt (1-29)
Has built a base and enjoys powerful advantages of incumbency.
(D) Greg Warren (40-1)
It’s a sleeper race, and it’s still snoozing.
To be updated. See the AL-05 Big List.
(R) Ray McKee (tba)
The only announced challenger when Cramer announced retirement.
(D) Bud Cramer (OFF)
The incumbent announced his retirement on March 13.
(R) Spencer Bachus (1-70)
Most senior Republican in the state, in the most GOP District.
(D) Artur Davis (1-49)
Will be extremely difficult to unseat one of state Dems' leading lights.
(D) Jim Folsom (6-1)
LG has lots going for him, but plenty of obstacles until inaugural.
(R) Bradley Byrne (7-1)
Two year college ban is political gold. How rich is the vein?
(R) Troy King (17-2)
Top-ranking GOP candidate. Fierce detractors and fierce supporters.
(D) Artur Davis (9-1)
Little doubt that the popular Dem is considering a run.
(R) Mike Hubbard (13-1)
Party chair has nice launch pad but not committing to run.
(R) Jack Hawkins (15-1)
Transparent interest, would Riley's blessing be boon or bane?
(R) Kay Ivey (17-1)
Hitched her wagon to the wrong presidential candidate.
(D) Seth Hammett (18-1)
Maybe ties to 2-year college scandal are a little too close
(R) Tim James (19-1)
Announced, but politically inexperienced & has GOP detractors.
(R) Beth Chapman (20-1)
Too crowded. No reason for the SoS not to wait.
(D) Ron Sparks (20-1)
With Folsom & Davis obvious Dem frontrunners, he’ll likely pass.
(D) Mike Dow (22-1)
Too early to dismiss him from what may be his last shot.
(R) Tony Petelos (22-1)
Hoover Mayor focusing on re-election first.
(R) Luther Strange (22-1)
Might be more likely to run if King passes on this race.
(R) Charles Bishop (75-1)
Perennial possibility. Probably picked up pugilists’ support.
(R) Roy Moore (75-1)
Can’t rule him out until there is a stake in him. Is he still in GOP?
(R or I) Stan Pate (75-1)
Rumor says GOP curmudgeon considering. Perhaps as Independent?
(?) David Bronner (OFF)
He gets The Jimmy Rane TreatmentTM (See Rane below)
(L) Loretta Nall (OFF)
Tells the Parlor she won’t run for governor in 2010.
(R) Rob Riley (OFF)
The rumors are stale. Might run for AG.
(R) Harri Anne Smith (OFF)
She’ll be representing CD-2 or tainted by the loss.
(D) Susan Parker (OFF)
Democratic Party team player not needed off the bench.
(R) Jimmy Rane (OFF)
No indication that he is running despite earlier rumors.
(R) Richard Shelby (OFF)
Riley/Shelby office swap intriguing idea but no indication that he’ll run.
The Alabama Line and its contents are the creation of Doc’s Political Parlor, reflect consensus from insiders and well-connected folks on both sides of the aisle, and will be updated as conditions change. These odds are meant to inform, entertain, and provoke, not to serve as actual means for losing money. Permission granted to use this material if PoliticalParlor.net is cited as the source.
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