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Could this week get any worse for Troy King?

By TWAY Kris

This could very well be remembered as the week that ended Troy King’s political career…

First, a scathing editorial runs in the Washington Times, saying, amongst other things:

Sometimes paying to sue just doesn’t pay. In a case with major national implications, the Alabama state Supreme Court gave a huge and well-deserved spanking Friday to Alabama Attorney General Troy King and the wealthy trial lawyers he is figuratively in bed with.

Applause and kudos to the Times’ editorial board for getting a shot in on PAC-to-PAC transfers in Alabama as well:

In the Alabama case, longtime kingpin trial lawyer Jere Beasley was carrying the case against the drug companies. Is it any wonder, then, that Mr. Beasley and his wife Sarah in 2006 donated a total of $50,000 in a single day, broken up among four separate political action committees all officially chaired by Montgomery lobbyist Johnny Crawford, only to have a fifth Crawford PAC donate the exact same total of $50,000 to Mr. King’s campaign the very same day? (In Alabama, PACs are free to move money back and forth among each other as many times as they want.)

I am a little surprised they left out the fawning treatment that Jere Beasley has been giving to Troy King on his blog , but they made their point.

Then, his Republican primary opponent Luther Strange hit him between the eyes with the worst news he could have gotten in the battle over endorsements this morning, both US Senator Jeff Session and Senator Richard Shelby are endorsing Strange.  Both senators have supported King in the past, which just makes the slight that much more painful.  As much opposition as there has been to Troy King within the Republican party since the day he was appointed, and that has only grown over time, it has rarely been apparent to those who don’t run in political circles.  Now they will see it in the persons of the highest ranking federal elected officials in the state switching allegiances:

“Senator Shelby has worked and been close family friends with Luther Strange for 30 years and has total confidence in Luther’s abilities,” said Shelby spokesman Jonathan Graffeo.

“The people of Alabama will have to make up their own minds, but I have a high opinion of Luther and I think he would make a fine attorney general,” said Sessions, through a spokesman.

Chris Brown, a spokesman for King’s campaign, said King respects Shelby and Sessions but, “He’d rather get his votes from the voters instead of some people in Washington.”

So, our sitting US Senators are just some people in Washington?  Okay…  In the King camp’s defense, when I heard this news this morning I didn’t have the first clue how to go about spinning it.  And what they went with was in line with the best responses I heard today.

I honestly don’t know how the sitting Attorney General of Alabama recovers from this…but it will be interesting to watch.

Speaking of watching…King tweeted that he granted an interview to CBS 8 News in Montgomery today.  I’ll post a link if the video is posted.

UPDATE:  The Montgomery Advertiser’s editorial board has their own take on Troy’s situation.

October 21st, 2009 | Tags: , , , , | Category: Alabama, Politics | 3 comments

Media Still Playing Out Sessions as Former Judicial Nominee Angle

By TWAY Kris

Many in the media continue to be fascinated by the angle on the Sotomayor confirmation hearings that Senator Sessions was once not confirmed for a judicial post by the very same committee one which he is now ranking member. It is an interesting angle, but it’s not the only hook into this story.

If things had gone as planned in 1986, the conservative Alabama prosecutor would have been confirmed to a lifetime appointment to a federal judgeship. But allegations of racism cast Sessions as a throwback to the Jim Crow South, and the Senate Judiciary Committee voted down his nomination. Stunned and embarrassed, Sessions returned home to Mobile as a man undone.

Soon he turned to politics, was elected to the Senate and joined the very committee that denied him a seat on the federal bench. He ascended from behind the scenes to the panel’s top Republican spot, and it now falls to him to weigh the GOP’s competing interests and political calculations while guiding the fractured party through the upcoming confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Yesterday, the judge went to the Capitol for private meetings with Sessions and other key senators.

I have been a long-time critic of Senator Sessions on any number of issues, but so far, I am very proud of the way he has handled himself in this process. Of course he isn’t just going to let the nomination go forward without any scrutiny, but he has been extremely fair and deferential in his criticism up to this point. I expect vigorous questioning from him in the hearings, but nothing nasty or grossly unfair. I hope he doesn’t disappoint me.

Sessions, GOP’s Lead on Panel Weighing Sotomayor, Was Once Rejected for Bench – washingtonpost.com.

June 3rd, 2009 | Tags: , , , | Category: Alabama, Politics | 2 comments

I believe Senator Sessions

By TWAY Kris

I believe Senator Sessions when he says he wants the Supreme Court nominee hearings to be fair, and I will look forward to seeing that carried out. I believe he remembers well what happened to him as a judicial nominee and doesn’t want to see what he viewed as unfair treatment given to anyone else.

“I really didn’t feel like that was a fair process and that I had the kind of opportunity to get my message out effectively. And sometimes it’s a gotcha thing. It has been for others, not just me, in which the explanation is sort of buried,” Sessions said in a recent interview. “We shouldn’t do that.”

He’s absolutely right…let’s hope the hearings stay on a higher plane.

via Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions vows fair hearing for Supreme Court nominee – Breaking News from The Birmingham News – al.com.

May 18th, 2009 | Tags: , , | Category: Alabama, Politics | 3 comments

How Sessions May Bring Fireworks to Supreme Court Nomination

By TWAY Kris

TIME Magazine has a piece today on how Sen. Sessions has some incentive to bring fireworks to the nomination process of the next Supreme Court nominee…

Twenty-three years ago the same committee he now leads on the Republican side rejected Sessions’s; nomination to the federal bench. President Ronald Reagan had already had more than 200 conservative judges confirmed when he nominated Sessions, then the young U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama, to the U.S. District Court in Alabama. At his confirmation hearing Democrats tracked down a Justice Department employee named J. Gerald Hebert who had worked with Sessions on civil rights cases. Hebert told the committee that Sessions had once complained to him that the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People were “un-American”; were “communist-inspired” and, worse, “forced civil rights down the throats of the people.” Sessions didn’t help matters by trying to make the case that in some circumstances those organizations could indeed be seen as un-American, and the Republican-controlled committee voted 8-10 against him. The deciding vote was cast by Alabama Senator Howell Heflin, whose seat both in the Senate and on the committee Sessions would take a decade later.

Good times…good times…

via How Sessions Could Give Obama a Tough Supreme Court Nomination Fight – TIME.

May 6th, 2009 | Tags: , , | Category: Alabama, Politics | Leave a comment
 
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