Female Air Force Colonel to Challenge as a Democrat
by Glynn Wilson
The race for Alabama’s Sixth District Congressional seat is about to get interesting enough to draw attention from around the country now that one tea party Republican has decided to challenge another in the primary, and an interesting new female candidate has decided to jump in as a Democrat.
State Sen. Scott Beason of Gardendale, one of the chief sponsors of Alabama’s draconian immigration law which has drawn scorn from around the country and hampered industry recruitment efforts, announced Thursday that he would challenge Rep. Spencer Bachus in the Republican primary to be held this year on March 13.
Designed as a Republican district to sit alongside the minority Democratic Seventh District, the Sixth District runs from Tuscaloosa north of Interstate 59 up through Hueytown and Gardendale all the way to Warrior in Blount County, then curves east toward Springville and runs all the way to Ashville in St. Clair County. It runs from there south to Pell City, Childersburg and all the way past Clanton. (See map).
Bachus was first elected to Congress in 1992, but he came under scrutiny and national criticism in recent months, landing on the CBS investigative magazine show “60 Minutes” in a segment on Congressional insider trading, an unethical but not illegal practice where members of Congress profit from knowledge they gain due to their seats on key committees. Even the tea party and right-wing talk radio shock jocks in conservative Alabama are now calling for Bachus’s head, so many encouraged Beason to challenge him this year.
A federal appeals court has balked at deciding a controversial legal case pitting the Alabama Education Association and its ability to raise membership dues against the new Republican administration dead set on weakening public employee unions and suppressing votes for Democrats.
According to a court filing that just popped up online from the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, the federal appeals court panel tossed the state’s appeal in the case back to the all Republican Alabama Supreme Court. The professional organization for teachers won a victory in a lower court and obtained a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of a law passed by the new so-called “Super Majority” of Republicans in the state Legislature, a law written to prohibit payroll deductions to groups that use some of the money for “political activity.”
The appeals court panel indicated it would be “constitutional” for the Legislature to block the payroll deduction if the organization is guilty of “electioneering.”
About 1,300 marched the 1.5 miles from the old Capitol to the governor’s mansion Saturday to protest Alabama’s HB56 (more photos below)
Editor’s Note: We turn the page on a new media chapter today by introducing a new free-lancer to the team, Taylor Bright (see bio note below).
by Taylor Bright
MONTGOMERY, Ala. – They started where the marches from Selma to Montgomery finally ended — at the old Capitol building overlooking Dexter Avenue.
The protestors — some 50 years later — said this new civil rights movement was beginning where the last major civil rights movement in the state ended.
“If Martin Luther King were alive today he would be marching with us,” said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.
On Saturday morning, some 1,300 people, a mix of Hispanics, African-Americans and Occupy protesters from across the state and country marched the 1.5 miles from the old Capitol to the governor’s mansion to protest Alabama’s HB56 which critics say unfairly punishes the state’s Hispanic population.
Alabama Democratic Party Executive Director Bradley Davidson responded Tuesday to comments posted by new state Republican Party chairman Bill Armistead blaming the local unemployment situation on President Barack Obama, rather than Republican Gov. Robert Bentley and the Republicans who now control the state Legislature and the state Supreme Court.
“This is what Republicans like Karl Rove, George Bush, and Bill Armistead do – they make stuff up,” Davidson said.
When President Bush took office and inherited one of the strongest economies in American history, we were well on our way to paying off the national debt. When Bush left office, our economy was hemorrhaging 700,000 jobs a month — and his $800 billion big-bank bailouts did nothing to help.
“Apparently Bill Armistead and Shana Kluck have nothing better to do than regurgitate whatever misguided talking points they get sent by the Republican National Committee,” Davidson said. “Unfortunately for them, their bosses in D.C. aren’t paying any attention to what’s actually going on in Alabama.”
The Alabama Democratic Party sent a formal letter to Attorney General Luther Strange Wednesday asking for a full-scale investigation into campaign violations of two Alabama Republicans, Congressman Spencer Bachus of Birmingham and state Rep. Dickie Drake of Leeds
“We have asked Attorney General Luther Strange to stand by his word and investigate this blatant violation of the Alabama Fair Campaign Practices Act,” said former Alabama Supreme Court Justice and chairman of the Democratic Party Mark Kennedy. “This is not the first time that Dickie Drake has violated the election laws. He has failed to file reports that were even close to accurate as required by law, he has accepted money through PAC-to-PAC transfers, and now it appears he has committed a felony with Rep. Bachus.”
“I have spent many years on the bench as a judge and it is clear there is strong evidence to warrant an investigation into the campaign practices of both Spencer Bachus and Dickie Drake,” Kennedy said. “I think it’s important for Attorney General Strange to send a message that the statute is enforced equally and without bias. If he doesn’t investigate the violations of Bachus and Drake, it sends a message that he is selectively enforcing the law at best and, at worst, he is using his office to protect criminals in his own party.”
According to campaign finance records, U.S. Rep. Spencer Bachus and newly-elected state Rep. Dickie Drake have committed a felony offense, he said. The offense comes after the principal campaign of Bachus donated $2,000 to the principal campaign of Drake.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Someone once said that practicing journalism is like capturing “history on the run.”
Sometimes when you are a fly on the wall at important events you think you are witnessing a historical moment. But it is sometimes hard to tell for sure. Like they say, only time will tell.
Did any of the reporters covering George Wallace’s inaugural address in 1963 have any idea what a seminal moment that would be in American political history?
Could anyone have anticipated that the groundswell of rage embodied in Wallace’s fiery rhetoric would lead to such a transformative movement for full-scale civil rights in the United States? Or that Wallace’s message and style would result in such a rising tide of so-called “conservatism” in American politics, a tide that has not yet fully dissipated over the country — or Wallace’s homeland of Alabama?
Retired AFL-CIO President Stewart “Buck” Burkhalter was inducted into the Alabama Democratic Party Hall of Fame Friday night by new AFL-CIO President Al Henley.
Alabama College Democrats President Beth Clayton urges more students and young people to get involved in politics, especially with the Alabama Democratic Party at this critical time in history.
During the Bush years, we specialized in covering the politicization of the U.S. justice system as much as any news organization. Our archives are about the most comprehensive for anyone researching the prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, and the original case against Richard Scrushy, which Glynn Wilson covered for The New York Times.
