Tag: Steve Flowers

By Steve Flowers As I mentioned last week, we will have a plethora of political contests to follow next year and the field is beginning to formulate. The governor’s race is always the marquee event. However, the most important races will be for the 35 State Senate and 105 House of Representatives seats. These legislative races will be where most of the special interest money will gravitate. There will be…

By Steve Flowers Labor Day is the traditional kickoff to an election year. Folks, our quadrennial gubernatorial election year is going to be a doozy. We are in for one heck of a political year next year. Besides the Governor’s race, we have an open Lt. Governor’s race, an open Attorney General’s race, an open Treasurer’s race, and an open Agriculture Commissioner’s race. We have statewide races for Secretary of…

By Steve Flowers Folks, we are getting down to the proverbial lick log in the much-anticipated vote for the open U.S. Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions. After 20 years in the U.S. Senate as our junior U.S. Senator, Sessions left to become Donald Trump’s Attorney General. He probably regrets this decision. When the race began it looked like a Roy Moore vs. Luther Strange race. However, the third outside…

By Steve Flowers There is a proven theory espoused by political scholars that has prevailed in southern political history for decades. The premier political scholar, Dr. V. O. Key, first illustrated this repetitious theme that has weaved its way through the southern electorate. He called it “Friends and Neighbors” politics. It is not a complicated hypothesis. It simply means that southerners tend to vote for someone from their neck of…

By Steve Flowers During my tenure in the legislature in the 1980s and 1990s, political party affiliation was not as pronounced as it is today. We were identified within the Montgomery / Capitol arena as either a conservative pro-business legislator or a liberal pro-union / pro-trial lawyer legislator. Similar to when someone new arrives in Alabama and they are asked to choose sides in college football, you have to make…