GOP Sweeps Into Supreme Court (100% GOP

The Republican Party's three candidates for the Alabama Supreme Court won by double digits Tuesday night, giving the GOP complete control over the state's highest court.

The trio included Tom Parker, a top aide to former Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, Shelby County District Judge Patti Smith and Jefferson County's senior probate judge, Mike Bolin.

Meanwhile Republican challenger Tommy Bryan defeated two-term incumbent Sharon Yates, a Democrat, for a post on the state Court of Civil Appeals.

Parker called the unofficial returns, which showed him ahead with about 84 percent of precincts reporting, "encouraging."

"Alabama has been in the process of a political sea change from a Democratic state to a Republican state," he said. "The popularity of President George Bush is accelerating that."

Alabama's high court was composed entirely of Democrats until 1994. The Republican Party has eaten away at the Democrats' margin ever since, winning control in 2000. Going into this year's election, the GOP had an 8-1 majority on the court, and the sole Democrat was retiring.

Parker's opponent was Mobile lawyer Robert H. Smith, who said after early results that it would be a disappointment for Alabamians if the court becomes all-GOP.

"It will be sad that they will not have the balance that is needed on that court, that they will not have the voices of different people who look at things with a different perspective," he said.

Both men cited Parker's affiliation with Moore and the general popularity of the GOP ticket as influential factors.

"It certainly wasn't (Parker's) experience in jury trials and the experience in things that we usually look for in our judges," Robert Smith said.

Parker had defeated incumbent GOP Justice Jean Brown in the June primary, and his candidacy represented a departure from the usual business-backed Republican model. He campaigned on social issues important to conservative voters, such as gay marriage, and had garnered criticism from some Republicans for accepting campaign cash from trial lawyers.

Patti Smith defeated Democratic candidate Roger Monroe for the Place 2 position. Monroe served a term on the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals as a Democrat but ran on the GOP ticket in 2002.

Place 2 is occupied by Senior Associate Justice J. Gorman Houston Jr., a Republican who could not seek re-election because of his age. Patti Smith, who campaigned with the help of many of her 13 siblings, highlighted her 24 years' experience on the bench.

Bolin, a probate judge since 1988, was a clear winner in his effort to move the Place 3 spot into the GOP column Tuesday night. He had campaigned on his all-around conservatism and the need for an expert in probate law on the high court.

John Rochester, a circuit judge from Ashland, had tried to keep the seat in the Democratic party. Mobilian Douglas I. Johnstone, a Democrat, chose not to run for a second term.

The nine-member high court is led by Chief Justice Drayton Nabers, a Republican appointed by Gov. Bob Riley. That post will be on the ballot in 2006.

The Civil Appeals Court battle could continue after the election: Yates has promised that in the event of a Bryan win she would file an official complaint with the state Judicial Inquiry Commission over a Bryan campaign ad that Yates argues is misleading.

The advertisement highlights a Montgomery Advertiser editorial endorsing Bryan, but the spot does not explain that the endorsement came in the Republican primary earlier this year. The newspaper endorsed Yates in the general election. The state judicial code of ethics forbids court candidates from "distribut(ing) true information that would be deceiving or misleading to a reasonable person."

Yates has already filed a complaint with the Alabama Bar Association, which regulates Alabama attorneys.

Should Bryan assume office on the five-member panel, the court would become not only all Republican, but also all male. Yates' television ads stressed that she was the only female on a court where domestic relations matters -- divorces, custody battles and the like -- make up half of the total caseload.

Appellate court judges serve six-year terms. Associate justices on Alabama's Supreme Court earn salaries ranging from $152,000-$190,000, depending on years of service in the state court system. Judges on the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals earn $151,000-$189,000, depending on years of service.

Way to go Alabama! I bet that Morris Dees with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) isn't too happy about Tom Parker winning. They wrote a smear article about him recently because he associates with those who support the Confederate flag. Oh the horror! ROFL!

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http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=491

Honoring the Confederacy

In Alabama, a well-known Supreme Court candidate lauds an antebellum slave trader and appears with hate group leaders

By Heidi Beirich and Mark Potok

Tom Parker, Republican candidate for the Supreme Court of Alabama, isn't shy about touting his conservative credentials. He despises "liberal judges" who are "trying to take God out of public life." He is an "ardent opponent" of gay marriage, and "a national leader in the fight against Political Correctness." He underlines his close ties to Christian Right leaders like Phyllis Schlafly and James Dobson. Most importantly, of course, Parker is running as the protégé of Roy Moore, the Alabama chief justice ejected from his job after defying a federal court order to remove his two-ton Ten Commandments monument from the Supreme Court rotunda.

But Tom Parker has some other friends, too. It's just that he doesn't spend much time bragging publicly about this batch of colleagues and supporters.

In July, Parker made his way to the Selma home of Pat and Butch Godwin, who were holding a birthday party to honor Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a wealthy slave trader who became the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. (Forrest also presided over the massacre of some 250 black prisoners of war at Ft. Pillow, Tenn.) The Godwins run Friends of Forrest Inc., which owns a Forrest statue the Godwins spent two years unsuccessfully trying to place on public property.

Standing on his friends' Confederate battle flag-bedecked front porch, Parker rallied the crowd. Later, one listener lauded him as "a man not afraid of the flag."

The Godwins are tried and true neo-Confederates. Pat Godwin's latest crusade is to block any acknowledgement on the Capitol grounds of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march — a goal of the Alabama Historical Commission. In a July E-mail, Godwin railed at "the trash that came here in 1965," complaining that those who honor the civil rights movement "are aiding and abetting the ultimate goal of the ONE WORLD ORDER — to BROWN AmeriKa and annihilate Anglo-Celtic-European culture!"

Pat Godwin and her close friend Ellen Williams recently put together a packet of documents that they say proves that the march was the "Mother of All Orgies" and the marchers were motivated by "money, sex and alcohol."

A month earlier, in June, Parker showed up at the Elba, Ala., funeral of Alberta Stewart Martin, believed to have been the last living widow of a Confederate veteran. He made himself a quick favorite by giving away hundreds of miniature Confederate battle flags to the 300 people, many in period dress, who gathered for this major neo-Confederate event.

And, in a photo widely circulated in the neo-Confederate world, he is seen with what were apparently two friends of his: Mike Whorton, Alabama state leader of the League of the South hate group, and Leonard Wilson, a longtime segregationist who is on the national board of the Council of Conservative Citizens (see also Communing with the Council), a hate group that has described black people as "a retrograde species of humanity."

Parker, who was Moore's spokesman and legal adviser but lost that job when Moore was fired, did not return repeated telephone calls requesting comment. Pat and Butch Godwin also declined to return messages left at their home, which is known fondly in neo-Confederate circles as "Fort Dixie."

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