2018 midterm elections

A12 SU N DAY, O CTO B E R 2 8, 20 1 8 T H E B I R M I N G H A M N EWS A L .CO M

KAY IVEY (R)(I*)Website: kayivey.com

Kay Ivey, thrust into the job as governor as Robert Bentley got his mugshot made, assured the public of her determination to steady the ship of state. It is that image — a con-fident hand upon the helm — that informs her campaign to earn the state’s highest office in her own right.

Her message is straightforward and firmly told: She’s grew up on a cattle farm and knows how to work, she respects community values, she guards the public till, she’s an unflinch-ing conservative, and under her watch the state economy is roaring.

In a campaign video, she says, “There was a storm, and dark clouds hung over state gov-ernment, and we were called to act. And I’m proud to say today that we have made it out of the darkness and we have brought progress and prosperity back to the state of Alabama.”

Ivey, 74, overwhelmed three rivals June 5 to claim the Republican nomination in the first round of voting. She’s run the campaign of an odds-on favorite to win Nov. 6, appearing to pay no heed to calls for public debates. (Reporters and her opponent are the only ones to raise the subject, she says.)

Ivey, who studied to be a school teacher, got her start in state politics in 1979 in the administration of Gov. Fob James. She lost in her first try for state office in 1982; she won the next four, twice each to the offices of treasurer and lieutenant governor.

Ivey, in her appearances, highlights her “Strong Start, Strong Finish” initiative to meld Pre-K learning, K-12 schools and workforce development into a “seamless educational jour-ney.”

She happily speaks about jobs numbers and manufacturing gains. During her tenure, she says, the state boasts the most jobs in its history, and its lowest-ever unemployment rate. “We’ve celebrated announcements and groundbreakings with companies like Google and Facebook and Boeing, and with some growing companies, too, like Kimber firearms and Autocar,” she told the summer conference of the Economic Development Association of Alabama. “Y’all, momentum is on our side.”

Who will get your vote?

WALT MADDOX (D)Website: waltmaddox.com

Under the quarter-century spell of George Wallace, Alabama never got to have a youth-ful New South governor. Excited supporters of Walt Maddox might tell you that he’s the one.

The 45-year-old Democratic nominee offers a platform that his campaign calls a New Covenant between public servants and the public that they endeavor to serve. It many respects, Maddox says, it’s a honest talk about kitchen table issues.

The state, he says, is trending toward crisis, whether it’s too few quality jobs, clogged urban highways, lagging K-12 schools or tenuous rural health care.

“You look at where we are in every quality-of-life ranking,” Maddox told The Associated Press. “We are at or near the bottom. That needle has not moved in 45 years.”

Gov. Kay Ivey, his opponent, isn’t just ducking debate, she’s ducking reality, he sug-gests.

“What Governor Ivey and the people around her that run state government don’t under-stand is this election isn’t about parties, it isn’t about right versus left. It’s about right ver-sus wrong, and they’re on the wrong side of history,” he told reporters in August.

Some key Maddox priorities boil down to tapping into sources of revenue previously believed to be politically taboo. For example, he’d expand Medicaid, promote an educa-tion lottery, seek a gaming compact with the Poarch Creek tribe, and pursue an infra-structure rebuilding program that would probably involve a fuel tax increase.

Meanwhile Maddox, the Tuscaloosa mayor since 2005, says that city’s revival after the 2011 tornadoes could be a template for renewing communities statewide.

In an interview with CBS 42, he told the story of a conversation with his wife, Stepha-nie, that helped seal his decision to run. They were talking that day about the family’s two kids, and about the future that they’d inherit.

“We thought, ‘You know what, if we look at Alabama, we look at where we are,’ ” he said, “‘if we are going to have an Alabama that they want to live in, we’ve got to draw a line in the sand.’”

Governor

WILL BOYD (D)Website: willboydforalabama.com

Florence pastor Will Boyd is keeping the energy high as he takes his case to voters to be their lieutenant governor. And there’s no doubt about his stances on the issues: His website features a platform offering 87 specific goals and policy positions.

On the February day that he declared his candidacy, Boyd said that he’s the candidate who “will fight for a stronger economy, truly affordable healthcare, and quality public education for all.”

Boyd, 47, won the Democratic nomination without opposition. Describing himself as a “practical progressive” in a written interview with the Alabama Policy Institute and Yel-lowhammer News, he also stated, “While my campaign motto is ‘Leading Alabama For-ward,’ my aim is to be ‘number one at serving as number two.’”

Boyd is seasoned in politics, having served as a city council member in Illinois, then running for the U.S. Senate both in that state and, in 2017, in Alabama.

Boyd also is an author and former college dean, and among several degrees holds a bachelor’s in engineering from the University of South Carolina.

In a video interview last year, expounding upon his call for “People Over Politics,” he said, “Sometimes Republicans have good ideas, sometimes bad. Sometimes Democrats have good ideas, sometimes bad. … We can find that there are commonalities, though, in our parties, in our ranks of friends, that will cause us to work together as a people.”

WILL AINSWORTH (R)Website: ainsworthforalabama.com

“It’s a new day for Alabama!” proclaims Will Ainsworth’s campaign website.Ainsworth is a state lawmaker, but he’s run from the get-go as an outsider candidate

for lieutenant governor who’s not beholden to the system for his career or his sense of self-worth.

He endured a fireworks-billed primary to win the Republican nomination, defeating one of the best-known names in state politics. (And he delivered the most memorable ad thus far in the 2018 election season: “Honey, what do you see up there?”)

Ainsworth, 37, a successful outdoor sports entrepreneur and former youth pastor, first won election to his Statehouse seat in 2014. He’s campaigning as a “proud Christian con-servative” who’ll focus on job-building and stand resolutely against public corruption. “Career politicians might not wear masks and break in during the night, but they’re just as dangerous,” he says in a Facebook video. “They’re bought and paid for by special inter-ests, and they’re stealing from us.”

Ainsworth gained a measure of national visibility in the spring when, in the House, he introduced a bill to allow certain teachers to carry or access firearms in the classroom. The bill followed the Florida school mass shooting.

He told CBS42, “I want your viewers to know, I’ve got three kids in the public schools. Nobody has more skin in the game than myself.”

Lieutenant governor

JOSEPH SIEGELMAN (D)Website: siegelman2018.com

The son of former Gov. Don Siegelman opens his campaign website video with a proud nod to his parents. “I grew up in a home where professionalism and commitment to the public good were what mattered most,” he says. “It seems like we’ve gotten away from that.”

At 29, Joseph Siegelman is running as the working family’s candidate, laying claim to a message not often heard in races for attorney general. He pledges a ferocious bat-tle against opioids, in particular to the “large out-of-state corporations” that “poison our loved ones” while reaping billions.

He also says in interviews that he’ll bring a nonpartisan spirit to his work. He told CBS42, “I think this is the one office where if you have a D beside your name or an R beside your name, it shouldn’t matter because to do this job right you have to be an indepen-dent.” Siegelman, the managing partner with The Cochran Firm-Birmingham, is making his first foray into state politics. He won the Democratic nomination in the June 5 party primary by collecting 54 percent of the vote.

Interestingly, it’s not often noted that Don Siegelman also served as attorney general, from 1987 to 1991. It was in those years that Joseph was born in Montgomery.

STEVE MARSHALL (R) (I*)Website: stevemarshall.gop

Gov. Robert Bentley elevated Steve Marshall to the job of attorney general in early 2017. Now, Marshall asks voters to keep him there.

The Republican nominee projects a no-nonsense style in his messaging, telling of his determination to confront the opioid plague and uphold gun rights. He champions his conservative credentials, pledging to prosecute illegal immigrants and stymie “federal overreach.” His website features “Endorsed by the NRA” in big letters.

But in a campaign video, it’s the state’s recent legacy of public corruption that gets the most time among issues. “As a prosecutor, I’ve enforced the ethics laws in courtrooms in this state. I’ve held those who violated those ethics laws accountable and sent them to prison,” steely Marshall says in the video, declaring the corruption to be “simply unac-ceptable.”

Marshall, 53, trounced Troy King in their July GOP runoff, a contest that drew wide attention as Marshall and his children also coped with the suicide of his wife.

Marshall, a longtime district attorney in Marshall County, is a former Democrat who changed parties in 2011. The governor who put him in that DA’s job by appointment back in 1991 was Don Siegelman, the father of his Nov. 6 opponent, Joseph Siegelman.

Attorney general

T H E B I R M I N G H A M N EWS A L .CO M SU N DAY, O CTO B E R 2 8, 20 1 8 A13

HEATHER MILAM (D)Website: milamforsecretary.com

The first point of Heather Milam’s platform is one that comes up often in her messag-ing: Empower voters. “Whether you are in Marshall County, or Talladega County, or Lee County or Madison County, we just want our humanity recognized and identified,” she says in a video on her website. “That’s why voting is so personal to me. It’s because it’s your voice, and it’s the only thing we really have in a democracy. And people want to talk about it, people care about it, and I’m going to fight like hell for it.”

Milam, 39, the Democratic nominee for secretary of state, easily won the June 5 pri-mary.

Her background, in brief: She started the Birmingham-based newspaper Weld, she’s trained new entrepreneurs, and she now teaches business at the University of Montevallo.

Other important points on Milam’s platform are to provide transparency, protect voter files, and make the office more accessible to citizens.

On a fund-raising website for her campaign, Milam writes, “I will infuse the Secretary of State’s Office with the high seriousness it deserves.”

“I’m ready to go to Montgomery and be solution-oriented, and be a new face in the city of Montgomery. I think that they need some new energy there,” she told WVTM 13 in Bir-mingham. “Some new fresh energy is going to be a real challenge to the old status quo. I’m prepared for that.”

JOHN H. MERRILL (R)(I*)Facebook: facebook.com/JohnMerrill

John Merrill says he gladly gives his cell phone number to the citizens whom he meets, putting it on his business cards. “If you need to get in touch with me — With me! — you need to do so when it’s convenient for you,” he told a women’s group in Cullman County. “If that’s not your expectation for the people that represent you at the municipal, county, the state, the regional, federal level, you change your expectation.”

Merrill, 54, the Republican nominee for secretary of state, seeks a second term. He takes pride in the long history of the office, which was established even before the state was, and describes it as being more efficient under his watch than ever before.

On the business side, Merrill says that business document filings and incoming checks are being processed on the same day that the office receives them, and no later than the next business day.

On the elections side, Merrill says that 1.01 million voters have registered during his tenure, and that his office has resolved 92 percent of all election-related complaints sub-mitted by citizens

Two key goals in years ahead are (1) to introduce computer tablet polling books in every county, to speed voter check-in and eliminate avenues for fraud, and (2) to ease the pro-cess of absentee voting, while also requiring applicants to submit photo IDs.

ROBERT “BOB” VANCE JR. (D)Website: judgebobvance.com

Robert “Bob” Vance Jr. ran hard against Roy Moore in 2012, and turned heads even in losing by pulling 48 percent of the vote. Trying again for the chief justice job as the Demo-cratic nominee, he returns to that battle of 2012 in the opening paragraphs of his website statement of his goals and purpose.

“Over the past several years, we have seen the rise of politicians who have tried to divide us rather than bring us together,” his statement reads. It goes on: “A judge must not see the world as ‘us’ and ‘them.’ … In short, a judge must be there for everyone.”

Vance, 57, is a longtime circuit court judge in Jefferson County. In his campaign, he emphasizes that the chief justice is also the court system’s head administrator.

“Alabama needs someone who will advocate for the courts. Someone who will work to solve the courts’ funding problems as they currently exist,” Vance told a meeting of Cull-man Democrats. He also enjoyed a stroke of political good fortune in 2017 — in the form of free national visibility — as news networks brought him onto their shows to discuss Moore’s soon-to-fail bid for the U.S. Senate.

Many voters will remember Vance’s father, Robert S. Vance, also a Birmingham judge. In 1989, the elder Vance was killed by a bomb hidden in a package delivered to his house. The bomb-maker was an embittered wanna-be lawyer, Walter Leroy Moody. The state exe-cuted Moody this year at age 83.

TOM PARKER (R) Website: parkerforjustice.com

Tom Parker has been heralding his political conservatism since the April day he announced his chief justice candidacy. “Alabama is a conservative state,” Parker declared then. “We revere the Constitution and the Rule of Law. And I believe our courts are the battleground for our God-given rights as free people.”

An associate justice on the court since 2005, Parker toppled incumbent Lyn Stuart to win the Republican nomination for chief justice in June.

Parker, 67, is a familiar face in Christian conservative circles in the state, and enjoys a long association with James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. He was founding director of the Alabama Family Alliance, now the Alabama Policy Institute, a research and policy hub that advocates for limited government and free enterprise.

As a veteran ally of Roy Moore, notably during his Ten Commandments wars, Parker has often spoken up for him. On his website, Parker also makes clear his enduring opposi-tion to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling that legalized gay marriage.

And Parker says he gladly stands with President Donald Trump. Parker told WSFA12 in Montgomery, “I want to provide leadership in the Alabama Supreme Court at this time to hopefully be a player in restoring the constitution through new conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.”

DONNA WESSON SMALLEY (D)Website: smalleyforsupremecourt.com

Donna Wesson Smalley, running for Place 4 Supreme Court associate justice, stresses the word “experience” in her messaging.

“I have 40 years of experience in actually practicing law,” the Democratic nominee writes on her website. She later continues, “Now more than ever, we need true leaders, with experience in the trenches.”

“My opponent was 2 years old when I started practicing law,” she told a Democratic town hall event in August.

Smalley, 63, a practicing attorney in Jasper, pledges to assert her independence in assessing the merits of the cases before her.

At a Mobile fundraiser, she said, “If you get 12 good and true citizens in a jury box, I’ll take them any day of the week. Sometimes they rule against me, sometimes they rule for me. But I guaran-dog-tee-you most of the time they’re right. They know what’s going on. And I don’t want some people that have never practiced law for a living, that are living a comfy life in an ivory tower at the Supreme Court in Montgomery, deciding that the jurors didn’t know what they were doing.”

Some voters may be aware of Smalley’s sister, Debbie Wesson Gibson. She’s one of the women who says that Roy Moore pursued a romantic relationship with her when she was a teen and he was in his 30s.

JAY MITCHELL (R)Website: jayforalabama.com

Jay Mitchell’s website gets right to the point: He’s a conservative, a constitutionalist and a Christian.

“Alabama needs Supreme Court justices who will block liberal challenges,” Mitchell says in an ad that riffs on his days as a 6-foot-7 basketball player at Birmingham-Southern. “I believe in God, the family, the constitution and enforcing the law, whether liberals like it or not.”

Mitchell, 42, is partner in the Birmingham law firm Maynard, Cooper & Gale who’s making his first run for public office. He convincingly won the Republican nomination for Place 4 associate justice, receiving 71 percent of the June 5 vote.

Mitchell is member of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal think-tank that holds much sway in national Republican circles. He serves on the board of Cornerstone School in Birmingham, a nonprofit Christian school with a mission to serve inner-city students.

In a commentary celebrating Constitution Day, Sept. 17, Mitchell wrote, in part, “In recent decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has made its own law — by ignoring or minimiz-ing the text of the Constitution in favor of the justices’ own policy views and ideas of what they would like the Constitution to say. This judicial activism flouts the rule of law, makes a mockery of our Constitution, and undermines the sovereignty of the American people.”

Secretary of State

Chief Justice

Supreme Court Associate Justice, Place 4

CONTINUED ON A14

2018 midterm elections

2018 midterm elections

A14 SU N DAY, O CTO B E R 2 8, 20 1 8 T H E B I R M I N G H A M N EWS A L .CO M

MIRANDA KARRINE JOSEPH (D)Website: mirandajoseph.com

Miranda Joseph, running for state auditor, isn’t wasting any time digging into the state’s books. “The 2017 annual audit report states the Department of Corrections had a perfect audit. However, the ‘Lost Report’ shows the department had three pistols stolen. How can they have a perfect audit?” she tweeted in September while campaigning.

Joseph, 33, the Democratic nominee, is making her third try for the auditor’s office. “Just as we sit at our kitchen tables to save and watch our pennies, our government

should do the same with our tax dollars,” she says on her website.Joseph is expending significant campaign effort at the state’s grassroots, attending all

manner of local events, even handing out potato chip bags and water bottles emblazoned with her name. She’s hammered on the state’s recent plague of public corruption.

“Folks are fed up with individuals who have betrayed the public trust, and with those individuals who are more concerned with self service than public service,” she says in a campaign video.

She makes sure to note to voters that she’s a certified internal auditor, and that her opponent is not. Her Facebook page highlights the video remarks of one of her volunteers who says: “When you need an electrician, you don’t call a plumber.”

JIM ZEIGLER (R) (I*)Facebook: facebook.com/ZeiglerWasteCutter

Jim Zeigler heightened the profile of the state auditor’s office with his scrutiny of Gov. Robert Bentley’s dubious expenses and ethics wrongdoings. In Zeigler’s campaign for a second term, he makes clear that he’ll be pursuing new quarry.

Through the summer, he’s openly questioned highway department spending priorities, and undertaken litigation claiming that the state violated its own bid laws in buying soft-ware for its accounting system.

“Why are Montgomery politicians fighting against Jim Zeigler?” says his first cam-paign ad. “Because Zeigler is a state auditor who fights corruption and wasteful spending. Zeigler stands for us, the taxpayers.”

Zeigler, 70, won the Republican primary June 5 with 56 percent of the vote. Eight months earlier, he’d raised a lot of eyebrows when he compared Roy Moore’s reported pur-suit of teenage girls to the relationships of Biblical figures such as Joseph and Mary.

Zeigler served on the Public Service Commission in the ’70s, winning the job at age 24. He then toiled in the political wilderness, running and losing several times until his audi-tor victory in 2014. His wife, Jackie, is a member of the state school board.

“I wear it as a badge of honor when I am left out of things by Montgomery insiders,” Zeigler tweeted in August.

State auditor

CARA Y. MCCLURE (D)Website: iamcaramcclure.com

Cara McClure sends the message that Alabama can “elevate the quality of life for all” by uplifting the poor, the underrepresented and the marginalized.

“Make a plan to vote now! Don’t sit this one out!” McClure, the Democratic challenger for Public Service Commission Place 1, declares on her website.

McClure’s campaign says utility rates are unfairly high, and accuses the PSC of hiding behind closed doors and being too cozy with corporate interests. “We will put the public back in the Public Service Commission. That’s a promise,” she said in a tweet.

In another tweet, she labels the PSC as a “secret society,” that’s also “the most import-ant agency nobody knows about.”

McClure, 48, has become known in her Birmingham community for her social activ-ism. She founded Black Lives Matter Birmingham and led a Mother’s Day campaign to bail black mothers out of jail and reunite them with their families.

In an interview with Glamor magazine, she said she’s determined to represent, “those who don’t have a voice or seat at the table.”

“We need leadership with hope, we need leadership that is connected to the grass-roots,” she told Democratic Party supporters at a May event. “We need leadership that understands what it means to choose between food and utilities. Because it is expensive to be neglected by the people who are supposed to represent us.”

JEREMY H. ODEN (R)(I*)Facebook: facebook.com/jeremyoden

Jeremy Oden describes himself on Facebook like this: “A Trump conservative and a tried and tested public servant.”

Indeed, Oden, 50, has plenty of experience in the public arena. He’s an ordained minis-ter and former state lawmaker and banker whom Gov. Robert Bentley appointed to a Pub-lic Service Commission vacancy in 2012.

Oden attained a full term to the Place 1 seat in the 2014 election and won a tough Republican primary battle in June in his bid for re-election.

Oden has been a vigorous advocate for the coal industry and Alabama coal jobs, accusing the Obama administration and environmental activists of orchestrating “an onslaught of attacks against our way of life.” On Facebook, he says, “Proud to be part of the PSC team delivering cheaper energy to all Alabamans.” He’s heralded Alabama Power Co. rate reduction following Republican tax cuts earlier this year.

“In a family, in your home, what do you pay every month? … That’s my job: to keep that energy as cheap and reliable as possible,” Oden said in a 2014 interview with the PBS show Capitol Journal. “When it comes down to it, I want the cheapest production and the most reliable production of energy that we’ve got. And that’s when I go over there to that light fixture or that light switch, I cut it on and that light’s going to come on.”

KARI POWELL (D)Website: electkaripowell.com

Kari Powell’s campaign declares that big utilities gouge Alabama rate-payers and that the present Public Service Commission is letting it happen.

Powell, the Democratic challenger for PSC Place 2, is running on a platform of “Lower Bills,” “Clean Energy” and “Open Doors,” the latter involving her pledge to conduct public regulatory hearings.

Powell, 36, describes herself on her website as a mom, a graphic designer, an experi-enced marketer, and a committed volunteer who’s active in social justice causes. (Her blue campaign T-shirts feature a clever line: “Powell to the people.”

“My message is clear. I’m fighting now and, once elected, a new fight begins. A fight for fairness and transparency at the Alabama Public Service Commission. The current com-missioners are not fighting for Alabamians, but for their Big Business Buds!” she writes on her Facebook page.

In campaigning, she repeatedly emphasizes that in Alabama, one of the poorest states, the electrical rates are among the nation’s highest.

Powell says that the present PSC is beholden to “fossil fuel interests” and imposes obstacles to solar energy and other renewable energy sources.

In an August campaign video, she says in a speech to College Democrats, “It is a prob-lem when the Public Service Commission actively blocks clean energy. It is a problem when we lose good jobs to our neighboring states because of our inability to embrace the clean energy economy.”

CHRIS “CHIP” BEEKER JR. (R) (I*)Facebook: facebook.com/chipbeeker2014

Chris “Chip” Beeker’s Facebook page says that he knows first-hand about the impor-tance of reliable energy to the state’s economy. In his younger days, he worked at two of Alabama Power Co.’s generating plants, Barry and Gorgas.

Beeker, 70, running for a second term to the Public Service Commission Place 2 slot, handily won the Republican nomination in June.

He’s a timber company owner and farmer, and former two-decade-long member of the Green County Commission.

Beeker is campaigning as a stalwart conservative and robust supporter of President Don-ald Trump. “Some of the things that he has previously done with the EPA to allow people to get back into the coal industry is very exciting to me,” Beeker, in an August interview with Yellowhammer News, said of the president.

In a 2014 news conference, Beeker, denouncing Obama administration clampdowns on coal, said that God had put the coal in Alabama. “Who has the right to take what God’s given a state?” he said.

Beeker pledges “fiscal responsibility” and to ensure that Alabama enjoys “the most reli-able and affordable energy possible.”

In 2017, Beeker also made a point to emphasize the PSC’s role in regulating the trucking industry, writing a commentary on the subject published by the St. Clair Times. Referenc-ing a Merle Haggard song, he wrote: “I recognize that ‘the white line is the lifeline to the nation.’’

Public Service Commission, Place 1

Public Service Commission, Place 2

AMENDMENT 1

Ten Commandments displays

This amendment opens the way for displays of the Ten Commandments on state property and property owned or con-trolled by a public school or public body. The amendment, however, expressly pro-hibits the “expenditure of public funds” to defend its own legality.

The amendment notes that Ten Com-mandments displays must adhere to established constitutional requirements, such as being exhibited along with histori-cal or educational items.

The amendments

There are four statewide amendments on the general election ballot. Here’s an explanation of each:

AMENDMENT 2

Rights of the unborn

This amendment declares that the state, as a matter of public policy, rec-ognizes the rights of unborn children, specifically their “right to life.” And the amendment makes clear that the state’s constitution provides no right to an abor-tion, or to any public expenditure for an abortion.

AMENDMENT 3

University of Alabama trustees

This amendment pertains to the struc-ture of the University of Alabama Board of Trustees. It says: (1) there will be two trustees from each congressional district, as the six districts presently exist. Thus the number of trustees wouldn’t change if the number of congressional districts increases or declines; (2) the state super-intendent of education will be removed from automatic membership on the board; and (3) trustees will no longer have to retire after turning age 70.

AMENDMENT 4

Filling vacancies in the Legislature

This amendment says that if a seat in the Legislature becomes vacant on or after Oct. 1 of year three of a four-year term, the seat will remain vacant until the next general election. At present, the gover-nor must call a special election, expend-ing public funds to fill the seat until the next general election, even if it’s just a few months away.

T H E B I R M I N G H A M N EWS A L .CO M SU N DAY, O CTO B E R 2 8, 20 1 8 A15

JEFFERSON COUNTY

COUNTY COMMISSION: DISTRICT 4Republican incumbent Joe Knight has held this seat

since he was first elected in 2010. His Democratic chal-lenger is J.T. Smallwood, Jefferson County’s tax collector since 2002.

Knight, a private practice attorney, says he’s running on his record. He says he’s “proud to have helped transformed the commission into an efficient governmental unit in wake of bankruptcy and layoffs.”

Smallwood says he “brings a common sense approach to solving problems, which was honed while being a small business owner,” according to his website.

DISTRICT ATTORNEY

Republican Mike Anderton, 62, is looking to hold onto the seat he was appointed to by Gov. Kay Ivey in November 2017.

He previously served as Jefferson County deputy assis-tant district attorney from 1984 to 1987 and Jefferson County district attorney’s office’s division chief from 1987 to 2017. This is his first time seeking elected office.

Democratic challenger Danny Carr, 45, served as interim DA for the first 11 months of 2017 after the man elected to the position, Democrat Charles Todd Henderson, was charged and found guilty of perjury.

With 17 years of prosecutorial experience behind him, this is Carr’s first time running for political office. He touts crime prevention, safer streets and communities, and com-munity trust with law enforcement, as well as victims’ rights.

Anderton says he seeks first and foremost to make Jef-ferson County a safer place for all residents. He says he believes in upholding the law equally for everyone across the board without regard for race, creed, status or any other factors.

SHERIFFRepublican incumbent Mike Hale, 67, ran successfully

for sheriff in 2002 and has won re-election every race since.He says his priorities include school safety, diversity in

hiring in promotional practices, and the continued efforts of the Metro Area Crime Center.

Democratic challenger Mark Pettway, 54, has been in local law enforcement for 25 years, currently detective ser-geant with the sheriff’s office.

This is his first time running for political office. He says his top priority is ensuring public safety with a focus on protecting children in schools, community policing, crimi-nal justice reform and law enforcement training.

CIRCUIT COURT: PLACE 8

This is Democrat Marshell Jackson Hatcher’s first time running for office. She’s been a practicing attorney for 21 years, adjunct law professor for two, and a former sher-iff’s deputy. She says improving the quality of justice is crit-ical to the community. “My service would be fair, my ser-vice would be impartial, and my decisions would be based on the evidence that comes before me,” she told Glamour in May.

Republican Tracey Crisan McDonald, an attorney, has represented both plaintiffs and defendants in civil lit-igation. Through her handling of those cases, she says she has gained the respect of the legal community through her strict ethics, professionalism and dedicated advocacy on behalf of clients.

CIRCUIT COURT: PLACE 16

Republican incumbent Teresa T. Pulliam had her own private law practice for 14 years before she was appointed to the circuit court bench in 2005 by Gov. Bob Riley. She was elected in 2006 and re-elected to the bench in 2012.

Pulliam grew up in Huntsville and is a 1980 magna cum laude graduate of Birmingham-Southern College. She grad-uated from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1983 and began her legal career as a prosecutor in the Mobile Dis-trict Attorney’s Office, moving to the Jefferson County Dis-trict Attorney’s Office in 1986.

Democratic challenger Linda Hall’s candidacy has been up in the air for weeks now. Just this past week, Fayette County Circuit Judge Samuel Junkin ruled her not eligible to run because of residency requirements. A lawsuit filed last month by a Jefferson County voter stated Hall, a pri-vate practice attorney for the past 20 years, lives in Shelby County — which isn’t part of the 10th circuit — and hasn’t lived in Jefferson County for the required 12 months.

Junkin, however, did not issue an injunction — at the request of the plaintiff — that would have prevented Hall’s votes from being counted.

CIRCUIT COURT: PLACE 27Democratic candidate Alaric May brings more than 23

years experience to the table. The attorney is currently a special circuit court judge and a special district court judge, and he’s a member in good standing to seven bar associa-tions.

“May said one of the main responsibilities of the Circuit Court criminal judgeships is punishment, and sentences should be evaluated in each case based on the crime, the impact on the victim and the defendant’s circumstances. But he said the judgeship’s primary focus should be preven-tion,” according to Birmingham Watch.

Republican candidate Leslie Schiffman Moore was the assistant district attorney in the Jefferson County DA’s office, Bessemer Division, from October 2000 through Jan-uary 2017, specializing in child physical and sexual abuse and child death cases. (One case garnered the longest sen-tence in Bessemer system history — 822 years — according to her website.)

She followed that up from February 2017 through April 2018 as assistant DA in the Birmingham district.

Her goals include stopping the school-to-prison pipeline, and developing and shoring up programs to help stop opioid addiction.

DISTRICT COURT: PLACE 3Attorney Pamela Wilson Cousins, the Democratic can-

didate, bring 26 years of experience in family law, making her “clearly the best and most qualified to serve” in this Family Court judgeship, according to her website.

She says she will “make sure our children are placed in safe environments, that child support is calculated cor-rectly, that parents understand documents they are asked to sign and that each parent gets its rightful visitation with their children.”

Republican Davis Lawley has served as a special circuit judge for the drug court, an assistant district attorney and an assistant attorney general in the child welfare division.

He ran unopposed in the primary. He has lost a pair of recent general elections for district court judge, in 2012 and 2014, falling just short with 48 percent and 49 percent of the vote, respectively.

DISTRICT COURT: PLACE 11

Republican incumbent Jill Ganus was appointed to the seat in October 2017. Before that Ganus served as a district judge in Jefferson County from 2006 to 2013, where she was assigned to Family Court. In that position, she dealt with child abuse and neglect, children in need of supervi-sion, delinquency cases, contributing to the delinquency of minors, termination of parental rights and child support.

Democratic challenger Thomas Thrash, an attorney and retired sergeant from the Birmingham Police Depart-ment, says his law enforcement experience will help him be an effective judge.

“I want to devote some time to help the community in preventive efforts and promote positive decision-making situations for our youth,” he told Birmingham Watch before winning a three-way race in the June primary.

CIRCUIT CLERK

Democratic candidate Jackie Anderson-Smith is a cur-rent member and former president of the Jefferson County Board of Education. She hopes to focus on voter registra-tion.

“One of the critical roles of the clerk’s office is the over-sight of voter registration and voter education,” she told Birmingham Watch. “I will work to elevate this platform through creation of new programs that touch communities at the grassroots level.”

Republican hopeful Phillip Brown is chairman of the Alabama Minority GOP’s Birmingham chapter and was elected in 2012 as the State Chairman of the ALMGOP and is now serving his third two-year term of office.

A Jefferson County Circuit Court jury ruled Oct. 3 that Brown was guilty of conspiracy to remove church money and acting wrongly as a trustee of the Sandusky Church of Christ. He was also found guilty of libel. Damages against Brown were assessed at $231,000, according to Circuit Court records.

Brown said the ruling wouldn’t affect his run for office. “I plan to run and see what the voters do on Nov. 6,”

Brown said. “We’ll let them decide.”

BOARD OF EDUCATION: PLACE 2Democratic incumbent Martha Bouyer first won elec-

tion to the board in 2014, then re-election in 2016. Her goals include working to ensure all schools are safe and secure, increasing the number of pre-K programs and boost student retention and graduation rate.

Republican challenger Eddie Brown recently retired as director of support operations for the Jefferson County Board of Education after 41 years at the board. As an insider, he says he understands the strengths of the board, as well as the areas that need attention. He and all three of his children are graduates of Jefferson County schools.

LOCAL AMENDMENT NO. 1In 2017, the Homewood School Board and Homewood

City Council passed unanimous resolutions to ask the Leg-islature to pass a constitutional amendment exempting Homewood from the Lid Bill, which prevents most cities in Alabama from adjusting their local ad valorem taxes with-out legislative approval. The amendment passed earlier this year and must now be ratified by the voters of Jefferson County. A “Yes” vote basically removes state control over Homewood’s tax base, allowing the city to seek an increase in property tax rates through a citywide referendum. Prop-erty tax funds go toward the school system. Keep in mind: This relates only to the city of Homewood, but voters across Jefferson County still get to vote on it.

SHELBY COUNTY

BOARD OF EDUCATION: PLACE 2

Republican David Bobo currently holds the seat. He was appointed in March 2017 to fill the unexpired term of Kevin Morris, who was appointed to the Shelby County Commis-sion.

Bobo earned a degree in communication with an empha-sis in public relations from the University of Alabama. He has worked for Jefferson State Community College since 1994 as director of community and media relations.

Democratic challenger Susan Lehman is a Realtor in Alabaster.

“All of our children deserve someone who will look after their best interests,” she wrote on her Facebook page.

i: incumbent

— Compiled by Brent Conklin, bconklin@al.com

Sources: AL.com archives, candidate websites and Facebook pages, Birmingham Watch, Homewood Star, Shelby County Schools

Local contested races

Joe Knight (R) (i)

J.T. Small-wood (D)

Mike Anderton (R)

Danny Carr (D)

Mike Hale (R) (i)

Mark Pettway (D)

Tracey Crisan McDonald (R)

Marshell Jackson Hatcher (D)

Teresa T. Pulliam (R) (i)

Linda Hall (D)

Leslie Schiffman Moore (R)

Alaric May (D)

Jill Ganus (R) (i)

Thomas Thrash (D)

Davis Lawley (R)

Pamela Wilson Cousins (D)

Phillip Brown (R)

Jackie Anderson- Smith (D)

Eddie Brown (R)

Martha Bouyer (D) (i)

David Bobo (R) (i)

Susan Lehman (D)