A look back at the “Business & Politics” column in the July 2000 issue of Business Alabama is an exercise in eternal recurrence.
In March of this Year of our Lord 2012, Roy Moore won the Republican primary for chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court by upsetting two establishment Republican candidates, incumbent Chuck Malone and Charles Graddick.
Back in 2000, political columnist Bessie Ford assayed the June Republican primary for supreme court chief justice, a contest Moore won in an upset over three other candidates—particularly, the frontrunner favorite of business interests, Associate Supreme Court Justice Harold See.
See was considered the savior of Alabama business, having led the high court away from “jackpot justice” and into the fold of strict, constructive interpretation of the constitution. A former University of Alabama law professor first elected to the Supreme Court in 1996, he was revered by corporate defense attorneys and business groups.
As Ford pointed out, the Republicans have to contend with at least two brands of elected savior—the standard “we mean business” variety and the social conservative, hellfire kind.
Appointed Circuit Court Judge of Etowah County by Gov. Guy Hunt in 1992, Moore, a former kick-boxer, cowboy, West Point graduate and fundamentalist, built his career on a 1995 godsend—a lawsuit by the ACLU objecting to his courtroom display of the Ten Commandments.
By Chris McFadyen
