Election News - Alabama

TV ad spending in state Supreme Court elections reached a record breaking $29.7 million on more than 51,000 ads this year, surpassing the previous record of $24.4 million spent in 2004, according to new data provided by TNS Media Intelligence/CMAG and released by the Brennan Center for Justice and Justice at Stake. Ten states saw races where TV ad spending exceeded $1 million (Ala., Fla., Ill., La., Mich., Miss., N.C., Ohio, Texas, W.Va.).

A former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court who was removed from office nine years ago for refusing to take down a Ten Commandments monument has won back his job. Read more at the Chicago Tribune

Americans overwhelmingly rejected big-money attempts to hijack their courts on Election Day. The 2012 campaign saw record spending in state Supreme Court races, with Super PACs and other outside groups spending millions on TV ads and mailers seeking to influence judicial races. At the same time, voters rebuffed a series of costly campaigns seeking to make courts accountable to partisans and special interests, ignoring calls to unseat judges over their decisions, and rejecting referenda in three states designed to give politicians more power over the courts.

Targeted state supreme court justices were retained by voters in Iowa and Florida retention elections, and voters in three states rejected  ballot measures to change the way judges are chosen in merit-based selection systems. For more, see Gavel Grab.

Roy Moore, forever known as Alabama's Ten Commandments judge, has been re-elected chief justice in a triumphant political resurrection after being ousted from that office nearly a decade ago. Read more at AL.com

Former Chief Justice Roy Moore completed an improbable run on Tuesday to return to lead the Alabama Supreme Court almost a decade after he was removed for refusing a federal judge’s order to remove a more than two-ton monument of the 10 Commandments from the state judicial building. Read more at the Montgomery Advertiser

Former Chief Justice Roy Moore is running to get his old seat back. Moore was removed from office in 2003 for refusing to remove the ten commandments monument from the state judicial building. However, Democratic candidate Bob Vance says it's time for new leadership. Read more at WNCF

Four of the justices who served on the Alabama Supreme Court with former Chief Justice Roy Moore are among 10 bipartisan former and current justices who have signed a letter endorsing the Republican Moore's opponent in the Nov. 6 chief justice election. Read more from the Associated Press

...Moore focused mostly on national issues and did not mention his opponent at all in his brief 10-minute speech. Asked  why the national issues were relevant in a state race, Moore said they impact people in the state and they were also what the Republican club was interested in hearing about. Read more at AL.com

...Judicial fairness and impartiality are of the utmost importance in our judicial system.  Therefore I have declined all special interest contributions, making this judicial race the least costly in the recent history of Alabama.  Read more at Al.com

...The latest poll showed Moore leading his Democratic contender Bob Vance, who joined the race in August after the party replaced former candidate Harry Lyon. Lyon was largely ousted from the race by Democrats this summer over statements that he had made on Facebook. Read more at the Christian News Network

The Alabama Supreme Court became the nation’s top battleground between Democratic trial lawyers and Republican business leaders more than a decade ago, said Charlie Hall, deputy executive director of Justice at Stake in Washington, which opposes special interest money in the judicial system. Studies by the group and the Brennan Center found Supreme Court candidates in Alabama raised more campaign money than those in any other state between 2000 and 2010, despite its relatively small population of 4.8 million. Read more at Bloomberg

epublican Roy Moore, champion of the Ten  Commandments monument, is one of the best known judges in Alabama history. Jefferson County Circuit Judge Bob Vance, Moore's Democratic opponent in the race to be Alabama's next chief justice, says he doesn't care if he ever makes a headline and has no interest in issues unrelated to the problems facing Alabama's court system. Read more at The Huntsville Times

...Moore is a favorite of Republicans who tend to be more rural, more evangelical and more sympathetic with the Tea Party movement. That broad description of Moore's longtime supporters would not generally describe the Kiwanis group Moore spoke to today. Nevertheless, about 100 members of the group showed up for lunch and gave Moore a polite, but not enthusiastic, welcome. Read more at Al.com

The first play that Birmingham playwright Tom Wofford finished and staged garnered plenty of attention for him — and a certain former Alabama Supreme Court justice. To be fair, Judge Roy Moore didn’t need any help getting attention. The play, “Judge Roy Moore is Coming to Dinner,” tripled in audience size from one weekend to the next when it opened in 2004. Read more at the Anniston Star

Jefferson County Circuit Judge Robert Vance Jr. said he wouldn’t be in the race for Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice if former Chief Justice Roy Moore had not won the Republican nomination. Vance in August was named the Democratic nominee after the Democratic Party removed Harry Lyon from the race for Facebook comments he made concerning gays and party officials. Read more at the Gadsden Times

While it is certainly Moore’s right to have those opinions, they have nothing to do with his campaign and decisions he’d be called upon to make as chief justice. There is no danger that the Alabama Court will consider a same-sex marriage case in an era of Republican-controlled government. Similarly, the deficit is not his domain. Read more at the Andalusia Star-News

Republican Roy Moore picked up a hard-hitting endorsement in his bid for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, earning the support of actor and conservative activist Chuck Norris. Norris, a martial arts master and action movie star, named Moore among a group of "True Patriots" running for office in 2012. Read more at Al.com

Until recently, Moore’s lingering popularity with the state’s evangelical voters and lack of legitimate Democratic opposition had made him the likely favorite in the November election. But circumstances have changed. The state Democratic Party removed controversial Pelham attorney Harry Lyon from the ballot and replaced him with Robert Vance, a Jefferson County circuit judge who gives Moore a worthy and genuine opponent. What’s more, a handful of Republicans who would normally vote for the GOP candidate have announced that Moore isn’t their man; it’s Vance, the Democrat. Read more at the Anniston Star

Can Robert Vance Jr. pull off a shocker in the race for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court? That’s the question buzzing in state political circles after a strong week of campaigning for the Birmingham circuit judge. Vance, a Democrat, released polling numbers showing the race as a dead heat between him and his Republican opponent, Roy Moore. Read more at The Birmingham News

The Nov. 6 election is a little more than a month away, but the race for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court is really just beginning. After a quiet summer, Democratic candidate Robert Vance Jr. says he’ll run his first campaign ads in the next few days. “Generally speaking, they’re an effort to introduce me to the voters,” said Vance, a Jefferson County circuit judge. Read more from at the Anniston Star

Republican Roy Moore is once again the financial underdog in the Alabama chief justice race, according to campaign finance reports. Jefferson County Circuit Judge Robert Vance, Jr. has $433,910 in his campaign coffers going into the peak of campaign season. Moore has $192,894.  Read more at Al.com

Retired Alabama Supreme Court Justice Gorman Houston gave Republican Roy Moore a campaign donation when he ran for chief justice in 2000 and donated toward his moving expenses after he got elected. He's not repeating that in Moore's new campaign. "I'm voting for Bob Vance in a big way," Houston said in an interview. Read more from the Associated Press

Judge Robert Vance Jr. said he decided to enter public service after the assassination of his father and said he now feels called to serve in a different capacity after hearing the divisive comments between the two men who faced each other to become chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court.  Read more at the Montgomery Advertiser

...It's an improbable, head-scratching series of events that finds Vance and Moore as their parties' respective nominees in the Nov. 6 election. ...Alabama is one of 21 states that elects Supreme Court justices, according to the Justice at Stake Campaign, a Washington, D.C.-based, non-partisan, non-profit partnership working for fair and impartial courts.   Read more at the Detroit Free Press