The Alabama Republican Party’s candidate committee voted to remove three candidates from its primary ballot in state legislative races on Saturday, during its winter meeting.
House District 10 candidate Anson Knowles, Senate District 21 candidate Tripp Powell, and Senate District 10 hopeful Teresa Rhea were removed from the primary ballot after challenges to their candidacies.
The decision to drop Knowles from the ballot was connected to his prior Libertarian Party activity. For fifteen months, starting in 2015, Anson was the Chairman of the Libertarian Party in Madison County, Alabama. Additionally, after his time with the Libertarian Party, Knowles donated to a Libertarian candidate’s campaign.
The decision to drop Powell stemmed from a $500 donation given to the Democratic gubernatorial primary campaign of Mayor Walt Maddox in 2018.
During an appearance on Mobile radio FM Talk 106.5’s “The Jeff Poor Show”, Alabama Republican Party chairman John Wahl applauded the committee’s efforts to keep the ballots “pure”.
“[W]e take it extremely serious that we keep the Republican primary ballots pure,” Wahl said. “And what I mean by that is we’re not going to let a Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton come in and run on the Republican ticket. It’s not going to happen. Sometimes it gets hard. It’s very hard to know who is a Republican and who is not a Republican. The candidate committee makes those decisions, and I chair that committee. I choose not to take a vote because I feel like it is important for the chairman dispense all the information to provide the body information they need to make the best decision.”
“It’s always a hard process for both sides — the challenger and the defendees, and for us as a committee because it is an uncomfortable situation,” Wahl continued. “But it’s an incredibly important part of the ballot process. I think it is always important to respect how hard that is and know the members do the best job they can. They’re not perfect. They may make a mistake, but they do the best job they can to make sure people know the Republican Party is keeping the ballots pure.”
According to party rules, if a Republican elected official donates or endorses a Democrat, there would be instant removal from the party. Wahl argued that if this rule applies to elected officials, the standard should be the same for candidates.
Wah stated that there is no standard or statute of limitations, but that it was decided on a case-by-case basis.
When asked if he stood by the decision, Wahl stated, “I don’t think there’s any doubt that the candidate committee worked hard to make sure they made the best decision possible for the people of Alabama.”
