This November: Part 8
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Give me Liberty
Rodger Williamson
Again, picking up from where I left off from last week, I continue with my thoughts regarding the candidates for governor of Alabama.
Our next Democratic candidate for governor of Alabama is Patricia Jamieson Salter, originally from Atmore and now residing in Birmingham. To be honest, I was unable to find much of anything about Ms. Jameson, outside of the fact that she is currently a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) with Blue Cross/Blue Shield and that she went to school at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
After that, I only found a comment that she had made publicly in response to a question regarding education in Alabama, where she had said that “access to the internet in rural communities would help education improve in the state.” She also advocated for “higher teacher pay.”
Our next Democratic candidate for governor is Malika Asha Sanders-Fortier, who was born in Selma. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, and a Juris Doctor from the Birmingham School of Law. After graduating from college, Ms. Fortier returned to Selma and worked as the executive director of 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement.
She is a member of the Alabama State Bar and the Black Belt Lawyers Association. Ms. Fortier succeeded her father, Henry Sanders, to represent the 23rd District of the Alabama Senate in 2018. Answering a question regarding education in Alabama, Ms. Fortier said that there are “schools in Alabama [that] rank in the top 1% in the country,” so she believes there is a successful model in existence, but she added that “schools need stronger leaders and more parent involvement.”
Our final Democratic candidate for governor is Douglas “New Blue” Smith, originally from Eufaula and now residing in Montgomery. Mr. Smith studied both economics and math at the University of Alabama and became a developmental economist.
Smith is a former campaign assistant for Sen. Lister Hill, a former congressional aide for Congressman George Andrews, a former chief administrative assistant for Gov. Lurleen Wallace, and a former chief administrative assistant and executive director of the Courage Crusade for Gov. Albert Brewer.
Smith earned a degree in law from the Jones School of Law, but is now a retired corporate attorney and currently the president of the MAC Company in Montgomery. In response to a question regarding education in Alabama, Smith blamed the decline in education on Gov. Bob Riley and his “neoliberal” programs which, he said, reduced federal funds in the state. “By 2013, Robert Bentley had decreased federal funds to 36% of the state budget. That meant that education funds had been cut $1.1 billion.”
I leave it to the people of Alabama to vote their conscience in the upcoming primaries, but as for me, “none of the above” regarding these three candidates, as they all believe that dumping even more taxpayer dollars into a failing educational system will resolve the ongoing problems.
I personally see things from the Reagan perspective when he said that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” We only have to look at the current economic situation with regard to inflation, and supply chain problems, to see what happens when politicians think they can simply hand out more money and the problem will be resolved, but they always fail to account for the “law of unintended consequences.”
This concludes my reviews of Alabama’s current candidates, and I look forward to returning to reviewing whatever the current political situation will be in next week’s “Coosa County News.”