Paul DeMarco: Alabama financial news good despite sour national economy
Inflation, expensive gasoline, a bearish stock market, and product shortages have the American public worried about their financial future. Yet, despite all of the bad news nationally, Alabama actually has positive economic news to share and celebrate. The state of Alabama has now recorded the lowest employment rate in its history. At 2.7 percent, this represents a full percentage below the national average and the lowest in the Southeast. That is not the only good news. Wages have risen by 20 percent since 2019, which is a record high for Alabama as well. Post-pandemic, all businesses have been struggling to regain what they lost during the past two years when COVID-19 struck the Nation. Small businesses in particular have had to work hard to keep their current employees and create incentives to hire new workers. Alabama employers have been creative in finding solutions to the labor shortages in getting people back to work but there is still a long road ahead. While Alabama is an outlier in the good economic news, the inflation is still stifling businesses as consumers look to balance their budgets due to the high cost for food and fuel. Hopefully, Alabama will continue to enjoy good news that will help deliver financial well-being to its citizens. Paul DeMarco is a former member of the Alabama House of Representatives and can be found on Twitter @Paul_DeMarco.
Steve Flowers: Katie Britt won the Senate race the old-fashioned way
Katie Britt won the Republican Senate Primary the old-fashioned way. She got out and worked for it and earned it, and, folks, she won big. She beat Mo Brooks 63% to 37% in the GOP runoff. Katie carried an amazing 66 out of 67 counties. Katie Boyd Britt was born to win this Senate Seat at the youthful age of 40. Those of us around Alabama politics recognized early on that she had unique, God-given leadership abilities and integrity. We watched her grow up in Enterprise. She won everything in the Wiregrass, from Debate to Dance. When I saw her become Governor of Girls’ State as a junior in high school, I looked at Jack Hawkins, the Chancellor of Troy University, and said that young lady had governor or senator written all over her. Katie went on to the University of Alabama and was elected Student Government President; then she graduated from Law School at Alabama. She practiced law briefly and then became Senator Richard Shelby’s Chief of Staff for five years. She then headed the Business Council of Alabama for three years before beginning her journey to follow her mentor, Richard Shelby, in the U.S. Senate seat he has held for 36 years. Some of us who have known Shelby and been his friends and confidantes for over three decades were told soon after his sixth reelection victory in 2016 that these last six years would be his last hurrah. He told us he was going to encourage and support Katie Boyd Britt to succeed him. He wisely knew because of her age and acumen, she had the potential to be one of Alabama’s greatest senators. The seniority system in the United States Senate is so enshrined and entrenched that in order to be great, you have to serve awhile. In fact, in order to reach pinnacles of power in the senate, you have to be there at least 20 to 25 years. We have had three great senators in Alabama history. Senator Shelby is the most powerful and accomplished. The other two are Lister Hill and John Sparkman, who served Alabama in the U.S. Senate for 30 and 32 years, respectively. They were both powers. By the way, both Hill and Sparkman were SGA Presidents at the University of Alabama like Katie Boyd Britt. Katie is younger than Shelby, Hill, and Sparkman were when they arrived in the U.S. Senate. She will have the distinction of being the first female elected to the Senate from Alabama as well as the first female Republican Senator from the Heart of Dixie. There are several adages in politics that definitely apply to Katie’s overwhelming landslide victory. First of all, you do not ever want to get into a race where you are going to be outworked and outspent. She checked both boxes. She outspent her opponents significantly. Shelby made sure of that. Money is the mother’s milk of politics. More importantly, she worked this state like nobody’s business. She campaigned thoroughly in all 67 counties several times. It would be safe to say she outworked Mo Brooks and Mike Durant combined three to one. Katie built a statewide grassroots organization, and it paid off with her carrying 66 of our 67 counties. She started early and stayed late. Winning the GOP Primary for a U.S. Senate seat in Alabama is tantamount to election. However, Katie Boyd Britt will take nothing for granted. She will run hard and outwork her Democratic opponent, Will Boyd, and will prevail as expected in November. The last-minute Trump endorsement had no effect on behalf of Katie Boyd Britt. She was leading in all polls by 20 points with momentum and money on her side. She was going to win, overwhelmingly, on her own. It helped Trump a lot more than it did Katie. All he did was see a candidate who was going to win and jumped on the train. Thus, Trump used the old sayings, “I bet on a sure thing,” and “find a parade and act like you are leading it.” Katie knew Trump’s endorsement was not necessary. However, she graciously and quietly accepted and continued unabated to an impressive victory, which she earned on her own merits. Katie Boyd Britt will hit the ground running when she takes office as our first female elected Senator in January. She could be in the Senate for 40 to 50 years and will become one of Alabama’s greatest U.S. Senators. See you next week. Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His weekly column appears in over 60 Alabama newspapers. He served 16 years in the state legislature. Steve may be reached at: www.steveflowers.us.
Georgia subpoenaing Rudy Giuliani, Lindsey Graham in 2020 election probe
The Georgia prosecutor investigating the conduct of former President Donald Trump and his allies after the 2020 election is subpoenaing U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and other members of Trump’s campaign legal team to testify before a special grand jury. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Tuesday filed petitions with the judge overseeing the special grand jury as part of her investigation into what she alleges was “a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.” The move marks a major escalation in a case that could pose a serious legal challenge to the former president as he weighs another White House run. While the special grand jury has already heard from top state officials, Tuesday’s filings directly target several of Trump’s closest allies and advisers, including Giuliani, who led his campaign’s legal efforts to overturn the election results. “It means the investigation is obviously becoming more intense because those are trusted advisers, those are inner circle people,” said Robert James, former district attorney in DeKalb County, which neighbors Fulton. The special grand jury has been investigating whether Trump and others illegally tried to meddle in the 2020 presidential election in Georgia as he desperately tried to cling to power after Democrat Joe Biden’s victory. Trump continues to insist that the election was stolen, despite the fact that numerous federal and local officials, a long list of courts, top former campaign staff, and even Trump’s own attorney general have all said there is no evidence of the fraud he alleges. The investigation is separate from that being conducted by a congressional committee that has been examining the events surrounding the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 as well as the Department of Justice’s own sprawling probe. Trump is also facing other legal challenges, including in New York, where he, his namesake son and his daughter Ivanka have agreed to answer questions under oath beginning next week in the New York attorney general’s civil investigation into his business practices. The escalation comes as Trump has been mulling announcing a third presidential run as soon as this summer as he seeks to deflect attention from the ongoing investigations and lock in support before a long list of other potential candidates, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, make their own moves. Willis, who took this unusual step of requesting a special grand jury earlier this year, has confirmed that she and her team are looking into a January 2021 phone call in which Trump pushed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes needed for him to win the state. She has said the team is also looking at a November 2020 phone call between Graham and Raffensperger, the abrupt resignation of the U.S. attorney in Atlanta on January 4, 2021, and comments made during December 2020 Georgia legislative committee hearings on the election. Raffensperger and other state officials have already testified before the special grand jury. Willis also filed petitions for five other potential witnesses: lawyers Kenneth Chesebro, Cleta Mitchell, Jenna Ellis, John Eastman, and Jacki Pick Deason. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney signed off on the requests, which are similar to subpoenas, deeming them necessary to the investigation. In the petition submitted to the judge, Willis wrote that Graham, a longtime ally of the former president, actually made at least two telephone calls to Raffensperger and members of his staff in the weeks after the November 2020 election. During those calls, Graham asked about reexamining certain absentee ballots “in order to explore the possibility of a more favorable outcome for former President Donald Trump,” she wrote. A Graham spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. In the petition for Giuliani’s testimony, Willis identifies him as both a personal attorney for Trump and “a lead attorney for the Trump Campaign’s legal efforts seeking to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere.” As part of those efforts, she wrote, he and others presented a Georgia state Senate subcommittee with a video recording of election workers that Giuliani alleged showed them producing “suitcases” of unlawful ballots from unknown sources, outside the view of election poll watchers. Within 24 hours of the hearing on December 3, 2020, Raffensperger’s office had debunked the video and said that it had found that no voter fraud had taken place at the arena. Nevertheless, Giuliani continued to make statements to the public and in subsequent legislative hearings claiming widespread voter fraud using that debunked video, Willis wrote. “There is evidence that (Giuliani’s) appearance and testimony at the hearing was part of a multi-state, coordinated plan by the Trump Campaign to influence the results of the November 2020 election in Georgia and elsewhere,” the petition says. Giuliani’s attorney, Bob Costello, said he had no comment and that his client had not been served with any subpoena. To compel the testimony of an out-of-state witness, a prosecutor in Georgia has to file a petition and then a judge has to sign a certificate approving the petition, said Danny Porter, a former longtime district attorney in Gwinnett County in Atlanta’s suburbs. The next step is to deliver the petition to a prosecutor wherever the witness lives, and serve it to the witness, who is entitled to a hearing. If the person objects to going to Georgia to testify, they have to be able to show that either their testimony isn’t needed or that it would be an undue hardship for them, Porter said. Special grand juries are impaneled in Georgia to investigate complex cases with large numbers of witnesses and potential logistical concerns. They can compel evidence and subpoena witnesses for questioning and, unlike regular grand juries, can also subpoena the target of an investigation to appear before it. When its investigation is complete, the special grand jury issues a final report and can recommend action. It’s then up to the district attorney to decide whether to ask a regular grand jury for an indictment. It’s
Government protects rare mussel after decade long campaign
The government said it will protect a rare freshwater mussel and the 36 miles (58 kilometers) of streams where it lives in eastern Alabama after a more than decade-long campaign by environmentalists to protect the animal from the threat of extinction. A notice from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the Canoe Creek clubshell, which lives in only two tributaries of the Coosa River in northeast Alabama, is now considered an endangered species. The decision means stricter oversight of Big Canoe Creek and Little Canoe Creek West, where the mussel lives. Nearly three dozen species of freshwater mussels already have become extinct in North America, according to the Center for Biological Diversity, which said it joined with other groups in first asking for federal protection 12 years ago for the Canoe Creek clubshell. “With a recovery plan and captive restoration program, we can make sure this special mussel doesn’t join the dozens of species the Coosa River has already lost forever,” Tierra Curry, a senior scientist with the center, said in a statement Tuesday. First described in 2006, the Canoe Creek clubshell is about 3.5 inches (8.9 centimeters) long. Only 25 mussels were found in recent studies, and environmental groups said it is threatened by runoff from forestry and timber, droughts and pollution from development in nearby towns. Republished with the permission of The Associated Press.
