Inside the Statehouse
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Posted by: Steve51
Date: Jun 21 2017 3:57 AM
INSIDE THE STATEHOUSE
by Steve Flowers
The much-anticipated 2018 election contests have been pushed back by about three months due to the unanticipated race for Jeff Sessions’ senate seat. This ongoing contest will occupy the news through late September.
It was previously thought that June 6 would be the opening bell since fundraising for next year’s June 5 Primary could begin at that time. However, the bell will probably commence to chime in full force by Labor Day.
It will be a year for the record books. The ballot will be so long that it will take most folks 15 minutes to vote. We will have an open governor’s race with at least six to nine viable candidates. That same number of folks will be in the open Lt. Governor’s race. You will have a hotly contested open race for Attorney General. There will be five seats up for election on the State Supreme Court. There will be a fight among two sitting Justices, Tom Parker and Lyn Stuart, for Chief Justice, all Probate Judges, and many Circuit and District Court Judges in the State will be running as well as all 67 Sheriffs.
However, the most money will be spent on the 35 State Senate races and 105 State House seats.
In recent years, special interest money in
In January a three judge federal panel struck down the current district maps drawn in 2012. The three federal judges were following precedent sent down from the U.S. Supreme Court.
This new theory embraced by the courts advised that it muted minority voices in the political process. The court is right about that. Democratic Senators and Representatives have been run over repeatedly over the last six years by the Republican majority. They have treated them with irrelevance and irreverence.
The courts told the legislature to fix the lines to suit the Court order. The Republicans ignored the Court and ran over the Democrats again in the regular session. All of the black Democrats voted against the plan. The most contentious issue was over local politics. The Republicans’ maps gave Republicans a one-seat advantage in the House and Senate delegations in
The Courts were essentially ignored in favor of politics. The GOP supermajority continued to use the whip handle with the Democrats.
However, they are not holding the cards in this poker game. When the Court hears the case in September, the GOP plan will be discarded. The court may wind up drawing the new districts that legislators run under in 2018.
The last time the courts drew the lines was in 1983. In that case, the judges sent the demographics and judicial requirements to cartography experts in
Therefore, most lobbyists and special interests are keeping their powder dry. They will probably not be doling out large legislative donations until qualifying time around the first of the year.
The most hotly contested state senate race will be for the Dick Brewbaker seat in the Montgomery River Region. Brewbaker is not running for reelection.
Most insiders expect Senator Harri Ann Smith to retire from her Houston/Geneva Wiregrass seat. It was thought that popular
We will see.
See you next week.
Steve Flowers is
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