Scott Stadthagen elected House Republican Majority Leader
The voters went to the polls on Tuesday and, by an overwhelming majority, voted to give the Alabama Republican Party control of state government for another four years. While Republicans did not grow their supermajority, they fought off Democratic and Libertarian challengers across the state with no net losses. The members of the caucus met on Thursday to decide on new leadership going forward. State Rep. Scott Stadthagen was elected by the members of the Republican House Caucus to serve as the body’s next Majority Leader. He replaces Rep. Nathaniel Ledbetter, who was elected Speaker of the House at the same meeting. Current Speaker Mac McCutcheon did not run for reelection as he is retiring. A full third of the Caucus will be first-term members. Stadthagen will serve as leader of the Caucus as it ushers in 26 new Republican members. The new Majority Leader says that he is looking forward to the advantages that the large incoming class could bring to the new quadrennium. “I have had the opportunity to speak with each of the newly elected members, and I am excited by the new ideas they bring to the table,” Stadthagen said. “There is value in bringing fresh sets of eyes with new suggestions for policy into our caucus. I am excited about it.” Stadthagen expressed confidence that the institutional knowledge and experience that veteran members have will be an asset to both the new members and to the House of Representatives as a whole. “The men and women who are returning to serve the people of our state in the Alabama Legislature after being re-elected are returning with the knowledge that the people of their districts voted overwhelmingly to re-elect them,” Stadthagen explained. “Having that vote of confidence from the constituents that you work so hard to serve is a big motivator. We will not forget the faith that the people of Alabama have put in us. They are counting on the Republican caucus. We won’t let them down.” Stadthagen promises to maintain a direct line of communication with all of the members of the caucus, newly elected as well as returning members, to ensure that each member is getting the support they need to represent their district to the best of their ability. “I am committed to staying in close contact with all of the caucus members to be as helpful as possible,” Stadthagen promised. “That is the role I was elected to do, and I take it very seriously. I want to help make this quadrennium as productive as possible for every legislator and for the people of the State of Alabama.” This will be just Stadthagen’s second term in the Alabama House of Representatives. He was re-elected on Saturday with 99.1% of the vote. He and his wife, Amy, have one daughter. Chris Pringle, one of the most senior remaining members of the Caucus, was named Speaker Pro Tem and will serve as Speaker if Ledbetter is absent or unable to perform his duties. The outgoing Pro Tem Victor Gaston also did not seek reelection. Now while the House Republican Caucus has chosen Ledbetter and Pringle to lead the House, they still need to be selected by the full body of the House when it is next in session. That will likely occur during an organizational session in January. To connect with the author of this story, or to comment, email brandonmreporter@gmail.com.
Libertarian Jimmy Blake says state needs to change ballot access law
On Friday, Jimmy Blake told Alabama Today that the State of Alabama has the most restrictive ballot access law in the country and that that needs to change. Blake was the Libertarian Party of Alabama nominee for governor in last week’s general election. On November 8, Blake received 45,823 votes – 3.25 percent of the votes cast – in his failed bid to be governor of Alabama. Kay Ivey was reelected to another term with 944,845 votes – 66.93% of the vote. Blake also was unable to achieve a high enough threshold for the Libertarian Party to have automatic ballot access in the 2024 election. “In 48 states, all but Kentucky and Alabama, I would have gotten enough votes for the party to have had ballot access,” Blake said. For a minor party to remain on the ballot in Alabama, one of its statewide candidates has to achieve 20% of the general election vote. Democratic nominee Yolanda Rochelle Flowers received just 29.16% of the vote in the governor’s race. That was the poorest showing for a Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Alabama history, down from Walt Maddox’s 40.4% just four years ago. None of the 65 Libertarian candidates on the ballot in last Tuesday’s general election were victorious. In the U.S. Senate race, Libertarian nominee John Sophocleus received just 2.32% of the vote (32,790 votes), and Democratic nominee Will Boyd received 30.87% (435,428 votes), while Republican Katie Britt received 66.64% (940,048 votes). Where Libertarians did best were in races where there was a Republican running but no Democrat. In the Lieutenant Governor’s race, Republican incumbent Will Ainsworth coasted to victory with 83.69% of the vote (955,372 votes). Still, with no Democrat in the race, his Libertarian opponent, Ruth Page Nelson, received 15.60% of the vote – 178,069 votes – still short of that 20% threshold required by Alabama state law. 1,411,756 people voted in the governor’s race, but only 1,141,507 votes in the Lieutenant Governor’s race, a drop off of 270,639 voters. Many of those voters who dropped off the ballot were Democrats who voted a straight-party ticket without making a preference in races where the Alabama Democratic Party failed to recruit a candidate. Candidate qualifying was over, and the ballot was set before new Democratic Party Chairman Randy Kelley was even elected. No Democrat won a statewide race on Tuesday. In fact, Doug Jones’s surprise victory over former Chief Justice Roy Moore in the 2017 special election for U.S. Senate is the only win for a Democrat in a statewide race in Alabama since 2008. The unlikely chance that a Democrat can win a statewide race in Alabama has made it extremely difficult for the Alabama Democratic Party to recruit candidates or for Democratic or non-Republican candidates to raise money. Where Libertarians came closest was in the race for Public Service Commission Place 2 race. There incumbent Republican Chip Beeker received 83.18% (929,248 votes), while Libertarian nominee Laura Lane received 16.05% (179,302 votes). “Laura Lane had enough votes for 49 states, even Kentucky, which has the second hardest ballot access at ten percent,” Blake said. The Libertarian candidates for PSC Place 1, State Auditor, and Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries all received over 14 percent of the vote in addition to Lane and Nelson. Blake said that Libertarians would be asking the Legislature to reform the state’s ballot access law. The last time the Libertarian Party of Alabama had ballot access was 2002. Then Sophocleus received more votes than the deciding margin between incumbent Democrat Don Siegelman and winner then-Congressman Bob Riley. Following that heavily contested race, the State Legislature changed Alabama’s ballot access laws to make it more difficult for minor parties to qualify for ballot access. The state requires a minor party or an independent candidate to turn in ballot access signatures of registered voters. To gain ballot access in this election cost the Libertarians over $240,000 and weeks of canvassing. The Party only completed the work in the days before the May 24 deadline. Without intervention by the Legislature or the court system, Libertarians will have to repeat that process if they hope to run statewide candidates in 2024. The 2024 election will include the statewide offices of President, PSC President, Alabama Supreme Court, and appellate judge. To connect with the author of this story, or to comment, email brandonmreporter@gmail.com.
Randy Kelley: Democrats have work to do after election showing
Alabama Democrats saw disappointing results in Tuesday’s election as the party continues to struggle to find its footing after the defeat of former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones. Democratic candidates in statewide races were held to about 30% of the vote on Tuesday, about 10 percentage points lower than four years ago, in an election noted for low voter turnout and a lack of competitive races at the top of the ticket “We’ve got to debrief, regroup and call our troops together. So, we’ll strategize and go on from here,” Alabama Democratic Party Chairman Randy Kelley said in a telephone interview. “I’m still optimistic despite being disappointed that our candidates didn’t win. We had some wonderful people running … But on the other hand, we’ve got some homework to do.” Voter turnout on Tuesday was an estimated 38.5%, according to unofficial returns. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Yolanda Flowers, who carried only 29% of the vote against Republican Gov. Kay Ivey after a poorly financed, shoestring campaign, said many voters didn’t realize her status as the first Black female to win a major party’s nomination for the office in Alabama. Speaking at a small gathering of supporters on election night, she told reporters some of the blame lies with the Alabama Democratic Party. “My team, they shared with me there was some hurt,” said Flowers, a longtime educator and political novice who made frequent mention of her Christian faith. “I wasn’t acknowledged as the candidate, the one to represent the state or the party.” Flowers said she received donations from some local Democratic groups, but her only real support from the state organization was contact with its vice chair, Tabitha Isner. Describing both the Democratic and Republican parties as “messed up,” Flowers said she plans to run for governor again in four years and won’t do anything differently. Her main purpose, she said, is “to keep God at the forefront.” The party has been through a power struggle in the past several years, as well as recent internal squabbling. Kelley this week sent party leaders a memo accusing Isner of overstepping her role. The Alabama Democratic Party’s Twitter account has been silent since August, when leadership changed hands. The party’s Youth Caucus wrote in a tweet this week that, “Alabama Democratic Party Leadership are fighting like 2-year-olds.” The Deep South was once the Solid South for the Democratic Party. But Alabama and other Southern states shifted to Republican control as white Southerners increasingly flocked to the GOP in a trend largely set in motion by the civil rights movement more than 50 years ago. Beleaguered Alabama Democrats were heartened by Jones’ 2017 victory in a special election. But the win did not translate to other gains. A slate of Democratic candidates were held to about 40% of the vote in 2018. Jones was defeated in 2020. Democrats on Tuesday were able to flip a legislative seat for the first time since 2010. Attorney Phillip Ensler defeated Republican incumbent Charlotte Meadows to win the Montgomery House seat. However, that win was tempered by the loss of longtime Democratic incumbent Dexter Grimsley to Republican challenger Rick Rehm in a southeast Alabama district. Both wins were aided by changes to district lines during the last redistricting process. Democratic hopes to pick up additional legislative seats did not materialize. Lisa Ward, who unsuccessfully challenged Republican incumbent Sen. Gerald Allen for the district that includes both the University of Alabama and rural west Alabama, said she remains optimistic. “You can’t give up because they say it’s a red state,” Ward said. She said she ran to bring attention to rural Alabama, and she said people in need don’t care about the party’s internal squabbles. “All they know is their water is brown, and they can’t pay rent, and their grocery tax is too high,” Ward said.
Alabama’s capital removes Confederate names from 2 schools
Two high schools in Alabama’s capital, a hub of the civil rights movement, will no longer bear the names of Confederate leaders. The Montgomery County Board of Education on Thursday voted for new names for Jefferson Davis High School and Robert E. Lee High School, news outlets reported. Lee will become Dr. Percy Julian High School. Davis will become JAG High School, representing three figures of the civil rights movement: Judge Frank Johnson, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, and the Rev. Robert Graetz. The schools opened in the 1950s and 1960s as all or mostly white but now serve student populations that are more than 85% African American. “Our job is to make our spaces comfortable for our kids. Bottom line is we’re going to make decisions based on what our kids’ needs may be, not necessarily on sentiment around whatever nostalgia may exist,” Superintendent Melvin Brown said, as reported by WSFA-TV. Julian was a chemist and teacher who was born in Montgomery. Johnson was a federal judge whose rulings helped end segregation and enforce voting rights. Abernathy was a pastor and leader in the civil rights movement. Graetz was the only white pastor who openly supported the Montgomery bus boycott and became the target of scorn and bombings for doing so. The new school names were given two years after education officials vowed to strip the Confederate namesakes. A debate over the school names began amid protests over racial inequality following the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota. Someone ripped down a statue of Lee outside his namesake school during the demonstrations. Like many other Confederate-named schools, Lee — named for the Confederate Army general — opened as an all-white school in 1955 as the South was actively fighting integration. Davis, named for the Confederate president, opened in 1968. But white flight after integration orders and shifting demographics meant the schools became heavily African American. The Montgomery City Council last year voted to rename Jeff Davis Avenue for attorney Fred D. Gray. Gray grew up on the street during the Jim Crow era and went on to represent clients, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. After the street name change, the Alabama attorney general’s office told city officials to pay a $25,000 fine or face a lawsuit for violating a state law protecting Confederate monuments and other longstanding memorials. The city paid the fine in order to remove the Confederate reference. Republished with the permission of The Associated Press.
Democrats keep Senate majority as GOP push falters in Nevada
Democrats kept control of the Senate on Saturday, repelling Republican efforts to retake the chamber and making it harder for them to thwart President Joe Biden’s agenda. The fate of the House was still uncertain as the GOP struggled to pull together a slim majority there. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s victory in Nevada gave Democrats the 50 seats they needed to keep the Senate. Her win reflects the surprising strength of Democrats across the U.S. this election year. Seeking reelection in an economically challenged state that has some of the highest gas prices in the nation, Cortez Masto was considered the Senate’s most vulnerable member, adding to the frustration of Republicans who were confident she could be defeated. “We got a lot done, and we’ll do a lot more for the American people,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Saturday night. “The American people rejected — soundly rejected — the anti-democratic, authoritarian, nasty and divisive direction the MAGA Republicans wanted to take our country.” With the results in Nevada now decided, Georgia is the only state where both parties are still competing for a Senate seat. Democratic incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock faces GOP challenger Herschel Walker in a December 6 runoff. Alaska’s Senate race has advanced to ranked-choice voting, though the seat will stay in Republican hands. Democratic control of the Senate ensures a smoother process for Biden’s Cabinet appointments and judicial picks, including those for potential Supreme Court openings. The party will also keep control over committees and have the power to conduct investigations or oversight of the Biden administration, and will be able to reject legislation sent over by the House if the GOP wins that chamber. In Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Biden said of the election results: “I feel good. I’m looking forward to the next couple of years.” He said winning a 51st seat from the Georgia runoff would be important and allow Democrats to boost their standing on Senate committees. “It’s just simply better,” Biden said. “The bigger the number, the better.” If Democrats manage to pull off a win in the House, it would mean full control of Congress for Democrats — and another chance to advance Biden priorities, which he has said include codifying abortion rights. The party still lacks the 60 votes in the Senate needed to move many kinds of major legislative changes. Biden, who called to congratulate Cortez Masto, said he was still hopeful that Democrats could hold the House. “It’s a stretch,” he acknowledged. “Everything has to fall our way.” The Senate fight had hinged on a handful of deeply contested seats. Both parties spent tens of millions of dollars in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia, the top battlegrounds where Democrats had hoped that Republicans’ decision to nominate untested candidates — many backed by former President Donald Trump — would help them defy national headwinds. Democrats scored a big win in Pennsylvania, where Lt. Gov. John Fetterman defeated celebrity heart surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz, who was endorsed by Trump, to pick up a seat currently held by a Republican. Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly won reelection by about 5 percentage points. A closely divided swing state, Nevada is one of the most racially diverse in the nation, a working-class state whose residents have been especially hard-hit by inflation and other economic turmoil. Roughly three-fourths of Nevada voters said the country is headed in the wrong direction, and about half called the economy the most important issue facing the country, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of 2,100 of the state’s voters. Heading into the midterm election, Republicans focused relentlessly on the economy, a top concern for many voters amid stubborn inflation and high gas and food prices. The GOP also hit Democrats on crime, a message that sometimes overstated the threat but nonetheless tapped into anxiety, particularly among the suburban voters who turned away from the party in 2018 and 2020. And they highlighted illegal border crossings, accusing Biden and other Democrats of failing to protect the country. But Democrats were buoyed by voters angry about the Supreme Court’s June decision overturning the constitutional right to an abortion. They also portrayed Republicans as too extreme and a threat to democracy, following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and Trump’s false claims — repeated by many GOP candidates — that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Schumer said Democratic candidates’ promises to defend abortion rights resonated with voters. He said the election results made him feel good about the country and its commitment to democracy. “We knew that the negativity, the nastiness, the condoning of Donald Trump’s big lie — and saying that the elections were rigged when there’s no proof of that at all — would hurt Republicans, not help them,” Schumer said. “But too many of them, and their candidates, fell into those traps.” Referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, Schumer said voters had rejected “extremist MAGA Republicans.” Nationally, VoteCast showed that 7 in 10 voters said the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe v. Wade was an important factor in their midterm decisions. It also showed the reversal was broadly unpopular. And roughly 6 in 10 said they favor a law guaranteeing access to legal abortion nationwide. Half of voters said inflation factored significantly in their vote, while 44% said the future of democracy was their primary consideration. Beyond Congress, Democrats won key governors’ races in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — battlegrounds critical to Biden’s 2020 win over Trump. Republicans, though, held governors’ mansions in Florida, Texas, and Georgia — another battleground state Biden narrowly won two years ago. Though the midterms failed to deliver Republican romps, Trump remains a major factor in the national party and plans to announce his third run for the presidency Tuesday at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida — setting up a potential rematch for the White House with Biden. “I think the Republican Party is going to have to … decide who they are,” Biden said. Republished
Joe Guzzardi: Tech layoffs may give U.S. IT workers opportunities
Elon Musk, Twitter’s new Chief Executive Officer, and the firings he immediately called for that included H-1B visa holders, as well as the tech industry’s mass, across-the-board layoffs, raise a three-decade-old question: should the H-1B visa be eliminated, and should U.S. tech workers be put first in line for the white-collar, well-paid jobs? Musk, who completed his $44 billion Twitter takeover last month, declared that he would end lifetime bans from his platform and tweeted that diverse viewpoints would be welcome. He has a golden opportunity not only to end censorship and restore free speech as he’s promised, but to also hire U.S. tech workers when the workforce needs to grow again. Going forward, Musk would have a chance to replace the Twitter employees that he’s fired with U.S. tech workers. The firings – about half the Twitter staff, or around 3,700 employees – are allegedly a cost-cutting measure. He summarily dismissed big earners like CEO Parag Agrawal, $30 million annually; Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, $18.9 million; Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde, $17 million; and General Counsel Sean Edgett, whose salary is unknown, but likely in the same range as his peers. A class action lawsuit was filed against Twitter in San Francisco federal court, claiming that the employees were not given the mandatory 60-day notice prior to the layoffs. Many of the fired Twitter workers may be in the double-whammy vortex. As H-1B employees, unless they find another job within 60 days or successfully change their immigration status, they must leave the U.S. or, no longer legally present, risk deportation. H-1B holders who are legally required to leave must depart and not overstay their visas which the federal government clearly identifies as temporary. The U.S. Immigration and Immigration Services estimates that about 8 percent of Twitter’s 7,500 employees, between 625 and 670, have H-1B visas. Tech and social media are either laying off workers by the thousands or imposing hiring freezes. With Intel’s 20 percent slash, Snapchat’s 20 percent cut, and hiring freezes at Amazon and Apple, H-1B holders are on edge. Meta, formerly known as Facebook, cut 11,000 jobs, 13 percent of its staff after Mark Zuckerberg admitted that his so-called metaverse project was a $15 billion bomb. Meta/Facebook is in a tough spot vis-à-vis its H-1B layoffs. Per the Department of Labor classification, this means 15 percent or more of Meta’s full-time employees are H-1B nonimmigrant workers. For more than 30 years, Silicon Valley and other employers have falsely claimed that without nonimmigrant H-1B visa employees, their businesses would suffer. Yet now, with widespread tech layoffs that include H-1B holders, admitting 85,000 international workers in 2023, the visa’s annual cap, would further hurt U.S. tech workers who are either displaced and forced to train their replacements or denied interviews. Because H-1B employees are cheaper to hire than U.S. tech graduates, the corporate elite prefer them over more skilled, more well-educated Americans. The Wall Street Journal hosted a panel discussion that featured two advocates who favor expanding the H-1B program and one critic who urges major reforms. The advocates, David Bier, the Cato Institute’s immigration studies associate director, and Theresa Cardinal Brown, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s managing director of immigration and cross-border policy, argued that the H-1B visa cap should be increased and that their labor market presence makes America a more prosperous place. The critic, Dr. Ron Hira, Howard University, political science associate professor and Economic Policy Institute research associate, countered that the rigged H-1B system is a transfer-of-wealth scam that makes the employers wealthy winners, and the workers, low-wage losers. Dr. Hira added that employers aren’t required to prove that a U.S. worker shortage exists before hiring an H-1B, that H-1B workers’ wages are set too low, and that the compliance system doesn’t hold employers accountable. “Guest-worker programs are supposed to fill domestic labor shortages. The H-1B program does not fill shortages,” Dr. Hira said. The Journal debate represents the challenge that H-1B critics face. No matter how many H-1B visa holders lose their jobs, or how economically depressed the tech sector is, the demand for more visas will remain. Pro-immigration media supporters like the Journal, immigration advocacy groups, lawyers, corporate America, and the powerful Chamber of Commerce will incessantly lobby Congress for more, more, more H-1B visas. Ray Marshall, President Jimmy Carter’s Labor Secretary and University of Texas Professor Emeritus, gave a no-frills summary of the H-1B that its advocates should heed: “One of the best con jobs ever done on the American public and political systems…H-1B pays below market rate. If you’ve got H-1B workers, you don’t have to do training or pay good wages.” Musk has an opportunity to set an example for Meta and others to follow: hire U.S. tech workers. Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
