Former State Senator Roger Bedford Jr. has died. Bedford was 67. He was diagnosed with cancer in September.
At one time, Bedford was one of the four or five most powerful people in the state Legislature for a number of years. Bedford was first elected to the State Senate in 1982 when he was only 25. He was re-elected in 1986. He did not seek re-election in 1990 due to a cancer diagnosis. After defeating cancer, he ran again for the Senate and was elected in 1994. He would go on to serve eight terms in the Alabama State Senate.
Bedford, a White rural Democrat – back when White rural Democrats aligned with Executive Secretary Paul Hubbert and the Alabama Education Association (AEA) dominated the Legislature – quickly rose in prominence statewide.
In 1996, he ran for the Democratic nomination for the open U.S. Senate seat when Sen. Howell Heflin (D-Alabama) retired. Bedford, mainly due to his AEA support, defeated Congressman Glenn Browder (D-AL04) in the Democratic primary. However, Bedford lost the general election to then-Alabama Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
Bedford remained in the State Senate, where he continued to grow in power and influence until 2010, when Republicans gained control of both Houses of the Legislature after 135 years of Democratic Party control. Bedford was one of the few White rural Democrats in the Alabama Senate to survive the 2010 election. He served as Senate Minority Leader from 2011 to 2013. He did not survive the 2014 election when Dr. Larry Stutts unseated him in the 2014 election by just 13 votes.
Bedford’s wife died last year after a long illness.
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