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Alabama Politics in the Twenty-First Century
By William H. Stewart The University of Alabama Press
Copyright © 2016 University of Alabama Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8173-9024-2
CHAPTER 1
Portrait of Alabama
Before launching a study of Alabama politics, it is essential for us to understand the environment in which political processes and institutions operate. An appreciation for the political milieu is essential in explaining how and why political actors behave as they do in contemporary Alabama. This environment has changed considerably in recent years (although there are relatively stable aspects), and a picture that might have been clear a relatively short time ago could be out of focus now.
Where Is Alabama and What's It Like?
You will find Alabama on the map in the east south central region of the United States. An Alabamian lives in the "real South." When one person was asked to identify the heart of the "real South," he said it was definitely "somewhere around Alabama." It has also been said that Alabama represents "the quintessential South."
A Snapshot of Alabama Politics
An Alabamian's vote is not continually solicited by national politicians. Its severest critics have identified the state's political reputation as that of a "political backwater." The state has never produced a president. Only one vice president (William R. King) came from Alabama, and he died a month after taking his oath of office. John Sparkman, at the time the junior senator from Alabama, was the unsuccessful Democratic nominee for vice president in 1952. At present, the state is not typically one of the leading players in national politics, although it has produced some powerful politicians in the relatively recent past (most notably George Wallace, who is the subject of chapter 2).
What has been true of Alabama in most recent presidential elections, as on November 6, 2012, has also been true in a majority of the other southern states. Political scientist Harold Stanley notes that in the 1990s, even though there was an all-southern Democratic slate twice (1992 and 1996), its victories (those of Clinton-Gore) did not depend on southern support. In this century, Republican southern support was crucial in George W. Bush's successful White House bids. Each time, however, the fact that Alabama would be a red state come November could be taken for granted. Since Alabama is usually off the beaten path in terms of national general election campaigning, even the most gifted Alabama politician of today can realistically aspire to no higher national office than that of US senator.
Alabama's Image
Although as we will see later in this book (especially in chapters 5 and 8), black and white Alabamians have become increasingly polarized politically, it is nonetheless true that progress in overcoming racial prejudice has been made — even if actual behaviors do not always jibe with that of the Finches of To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee's novel, set in a small southern Alabama town in the 1930s, is one of the most admired literary works in the world. The prolific Alabama writer Wayne Greenhaw called Mockingbird "Alabama's and perhaps the world's best novel." Its leading character, attorney Atticus Finch, is pointed to as "the most enduring fictional image of racial heroism." An Alabama teacher, Heather Langford of Notasulga, said she wanted her children to read Mockingbird and "know that if there were more people like Atticus Finch, the world would be a much better place."
Alabama's image, especially from the early 1960s to the early 1970s, was best represented by Wallace — a mostly negative symbol. Indeed, Wallace has been given as one of the reasons "why Americans hate politics." National columnist E. J. Dionne makes reference to Wallace's opportunism in changing from a racial liberal following a defeat at the polls to a man who "pledged never again to be caught on the tolerant side of racial politics."
A substantial number of Alabama's current generation of "most influential" people occupy no elective office. A list compiled in 2009 named twelve. Only two, then-governor Bob Riley and US senator Richard Shelby, had been chosen at the polls. All of the group were male and there was only one African American among them, Dr. Joe Reed, the head of the Alabama Democratic Conference since the 1970s (and formerly associate executive secretary of the Alabama Education Association). The average age of these dozen "power brokers" was calculated to be sixty-five.
Alabama Attitudes
Approximately one-fourth of the Alabama population is African American. An examination of political behavior with this formerly subjugated segment of society will be an important component of a political portrait of Alabama. Politicians of today no longer have to carry what historian Virginia Van der Veer Hamilton referred to as "the albatross of race." Still, Alabamians are subject to continuing allegations of intolerance, most recently in the case of Hispanics and the controversial immigrant law (proclaimed to be the "nation's toughest") of 2011 (discussed in chapter 3).
The Alabama population does not consist simply of blacks and whites. This fact was confirmed by the results of the 2010 census and was responsible for the immigration law mentioned in the previous paragraph. Most Alabamians have lived in the state all of their lives and aren't apt to accept the notion that newcomers (wherever they are from) should immediately have the welcome mat set out for them.
The 2010 Census
Between 2000 and 2010 Alabama's Hispanic population rose 145 percent — from a total of 75,830 Hispanics to 185,602 (+109,772). Hispanics now made up 3.9 percent of the state's population. Even newcomers to Alabama from other states do not quickly become key players in the state's politics, however, so it is not surprising that it presently has no prominent Hispanic politician.
Alabama's total population rose at a modest 7.5 percent between the 2000 and 2010 censuses. (The 2000 population was tabulated at 4,447,100; 2010, at 4,779,736.) The southern growth rate average was 14.3 percent. In- and out-migration have been virtually the same. The 2010 census showed approximately 100,000 entering the state from elsewhere, but another 100,000 leaving.
The state's largest metropolitan area is Birmingham-Hoover, with 1.1 million residents located in seven counties.
Huntsville is the second largest (510,088). Its population grew at the rate of 22 percent during the past decade. Forty-nine percent of the state's population lives in four metro areas, including these two — what is referred to as the I-65 corridor. (The other two metro areas located near I-65 are Mobile and Montgomery.) Prevailing political values are more likely to be those of residents of smaller towns within these metro areas than either the central cities or the more affluent suburbs.
Many residents of the less opulent suburbs are relatively recent migrants from rural counties. The Alabama economy of today is definitely more industrial than agricultural, and it has been many years since the typical state residence was a family farm.
Alabama has been classified as mostly "urban" for a long time, and population losses within the state have been most glaring in rural counties, including both African American and white majority population counties. In the Black Belt, the Lowndes County population declined 16 percent between 2000 and 2010 (from 13,473 down to 11,299). Neighboring counties sustained double-digit losses as well. In the northern part of Alabama, white majority counties, including Colbert (54,984 / 54,428) and Jackson (53,926 / 53,227), had small losses when 2010 census figures were released.
The Quality of Life
Alabamians are known for their passion for big-time college football. While it is true that this diverts attention from political matters, this is the case in other parts of the country as well. Alabama has no major sports team franchises so fan interest centers on Alabama and Auburn collegiate football. Fans may have a degree of loyalty toward their teams that resembles religious zealotry.
Poverty and Education
The average Alabamian, even if not officially classified as impoverished, is by no means affluent either. Thus many don't have the luxury of being able to follow politics closely even if they were so inclined. In 2010 the percentage of Alabamians identified as impoverished was 17.3. The Alabama rate was a little higher than the 2010 national poverty rate of 15.1 percent.
For the most part, not being highly educated, the typical lower-income Alabamian is unlikely to want to sacrifice on Alabama's behalf. Surveys regularly indicate (as pointed out in chapter 14) broad support for more public revenue for public schools — while referenda returns show just as regularly defeat at the polls for proposals that would provide it. Higher taxes aren't popular anywhere, but in Alabama the antitax mentality has been especially virulent.
Even though there is ample statistical evidence to prove that it helps to increase earning power throughout life, Alabamians are continuing to be underappreciative of the value of education and, partly for this reason, unwilling to support it generously, especially with locally raised revenues. Alabamians on the average have a lower level of education than the residents of most other states. About 78 percent have finished high school. Just three states — Louisiana, Texas, and Virginia — have smaller percentages. Alabama ranks forty-third among the states in terms of receipt by residents of two-year college degrees and forty-fifth from the perspective of diplomas from four-year colleges.
And, demonstrating why the state so often serves as the higher educational training ground for other states to which graduates move, Alabama ranked fiftieth in terms of the earning power of people who have received college degrees in 2012.
The "Status Quo Society"
Alabama citizens historically have had a preference for keeping things pretty much like they always have been. The typical Alabamian is "conservative," not just in politics but in other aspects of life as well. People living in areas of the country that seem more receptive to change may view typical Alabamians as uninformed or even ignorant. Based on this traditional predisposition, an orientation that is associated with lower levels of education, historian Glenn Feldman referred in the title of an article published several years ago to Alabama as "the status quo society" (specifically, the Alabama of the 1940s).
Rural Alabama residents are still sometimes referred to as rednecks — a form of demeaning stereotyping that has not been consigned to the scrapheap to join equally offensive racial epithets. When a polling firm took a survey early in 2012 it asked questions of Alabamians and Mississippians that it had not asked of respondents elsewhere. These questions included whether or not they believed in evolution, that interracial marriage was acceptable, and that President Barack Obama was a Muslim. In chapter 3, "Social Values and Politics," we will present findings from surveys related to attitudes on these subjects and political behavior. But the complete "portrait of Alabama" cannot be confined to simplistic stereotypes. In many respects, Alabama will be found to be just as advanced as more affluent, more educated states.
Modern Alabama
In 2009, when Alabama was competing with Washington State for an aircraft manufacturing plant, US senator Patty Murray of that state "challenge[d] anybody to tell [her] that they've stood on a[n assembly] line in Alabama and seen anybody building anything." This statement was rightly contradicted. Toward the close of the twenty-first century's first decade, Alabama counted among its employers well over 5,000 manufacturing firms, approximately 200 of which had their headquarters in foreign countries. The most spectacular addition to the Alabama industrial pantheon came in 1993 with the announcement that a Mercedes plant would be built at Vance. Production began at the plant in 1997, and it is estimated that, since then, the auto manufacturer has contributed approximately $1.5 billion each year to the state economy. In some respects, economic changes have not been positive. For example, toward the close of the 1990s there were forty-eight publicly traded companies that had their headquarters in Alabama. However, at the start of 2010 this number had decreased to only nineteen.
Corruption and Church
Cynicism toward politics and politicians has been encouraged by highly publicized scandals at all levels of government. Chapter 4 will deal with public corruption mainly at the state level, and comparative data related to the American states generally will be presented. At the outset, it is obvious that Alabama has no monopoly on corruption. A recent book on New Jersey had the subtitle, "New Jersey's Culture of Corruption." Even before its most recent governor headed to prison, Illinois's lieutenant governor (who would have to fill the vacancy) lamented that his state "ha[d] become an 'international laughingstock.'" Late in 2010 the capital city of Alabama, Montgomery, was said to be "in a state of upheaval" — but this time due to something positive. At Governor Bob Riley's urging, the legislature had just passed a package of ethics reform bills that leaders hoped would permit Alabama "to shed a reputation for corruption." We will discuss the politics of passage in chapter 4.
Surveys (the results of which are presented in chapter 3) indicate that Alabamians are considerably more religiously oriented, and, as we will see in chapter 4 as well, this has important implications for Alabama politics. One veteran capital journalist, Dana Beyerle, referred to Alabama politics as "a hotbed of religion." State politicians, he said, had almost invariably used religion in their campaigns. The Christian Right, discussed in chapter 3, has been a critical component of the Republican Party. While one negative aspect of Alabama's overwhelmingly conservative religious mindset once prominently included anti-Catholic bigotry, today like-minded Catholics and Christians of other persuasions are apt to coalesce politically (as on the issue of abortion, for example).
Alabama is becoming more diverse religiously, and this is having some political effects. The state was once almost monolithically Protestant, but this is no longer the case. The Eternal Word Television Network, a large Roman Catholic organization, is among the world's biggest religious operations and is headquartered in Alabama. Alabama's abandonment of old anti-Catholic prejudice was evidenced by the election of a Catholic US senator (Jeremiah Denton, a Republican) and governor (Don Siegelman, a Democrat) and by the win of Republican presidential aspirant Rick Santorum in its 2012 presidential primary. As in other states, there has also been observed both the increasing secularization of society and the growth in the number of people who profess to have no religious orientation.
Alabama is definitely not insulated from other national trends either, and the state suffered along with other states in the severe recession endured in the early years of the twenty-first century. Its recent unemployment rate has roughly paralleled the national level. Alabama's current governor, Robert Bentley, has pledged not take a salary until the jobless rate goes down to 5.2 percent. (It is presently about 8 percent.)
Policy and Politics
Governmental institutions in Alabama, and the officials voters elect to make policy through them, are similar in many respects to those in other states. This book has the goal of shedding light on the environment in which institutions function and how the processes and structures actually operate. We will make comparisons to and contrasts with other jurisdictions frequently (especially other southern states).
The fact that Alabamians like low taxes and apparently aren't concerned if public services don't get adequate funds has even been taken note of internationally. When a low tax consensus seemed to be building in Australia in recent years, this was said to represent "[a] little bit of Alabama" or "the politics of fiscal starvation." We will discuss the politics of funding and administering public services in chapter 14.
How Government Functions
At times in its political past Alabama state government has been identified as dysfunctional. This was especially true when the Democrats controlled the legislature while the voters usually elected Republican governors. Since late 2010 Alabama has had party government under unified party control. One may be dissatisfied with the outputs of a conservative state government and its failure to act on a liberal agenda that the Republican governor and legislature would never agree to. But it is not now stalemated government due to partisan deadlock. Republicans have a "supermajority" — and if they are united and if they have the will to act (both uncertain political variables) — they can do so. V. O. Key had argued that a two-party system was healthy for American democracy because it provided better ways of resolving conflicts between competing groups, bridged the separation of powers, and helped voters make more rational choices at election time. As Richard Scher observes, "The efficacy of the [two-party] model [for Key] was not based on policy outcomes or outputs." A two-party system did not exist in any southern state when Key advocated it.
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Excerpted from Alabama Politics in the Twenty-First Century by William H. Stewart. Copyright © 2016 University of Alabama Press. Excerpted by permission of The University of Alabama Press.
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