Alabama Republicans publicly throw support to Roy Moore in his bid to regain chief justice post

 

By Eric Velasco — The Birmingham News 

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — The Alabama Republican Party publicly threw its support to Roy Moore today, who beat two more mainstream candidates for the party’s nomination in his bid to regain the chief justice job he lost in 2003 for refusing to follow a federal judge’s order.

Moore and Bill Armistead, the state Republican Party chairman, held a joint news conference at state party headquarters in Birmingham. Armistead said Republicans had “a winner” in Moore and the party would make sure he is elected chief justice on Nov. 6.

Moore, who received little funding in his primary bid from traditional Republican corporate interests, faces perennial Democratic candidate Harry Lyon in the general election.

Moore today sounded more like a jurist preparing to address issues plaguing the state’s financially troubled courts than the judge who defied a federal judge’s order to remove a monument to the Ten Commandments that Moore had placed in the state’s Judicial Building.

The former Etowah County Circuit Court judge called on the state Legislature to provide enough funding for the judiciary to perform its constitutional duties. He said the courts should not be treated like a state agency, but rather as the third branch of government.

Moore said he faced deep budget cuts after he was elected chief justice in 2000, and was prepared to address the current funding shortfalls that court officials say could lead to layoffs of more than 40 percent of the 1,200 court system employees.

But Moore had no specific proposals, saying he was just a nominee now with no influence over the budget that will take effect five weeks before the general election.

Ultimately, the call for adequate court funding must come from the people, Moore said. “When the people wake up, they will change this problem,” he said. “But we will help them wake up. I think the people are becoming aware of this problem.”

Moore did not directly address the circumstances that led a state judicial panel to remove him from office three years after he first became chief justice.

Since winning the March 13 primary, Moore has said he would not move the Ten Commandments monument back into the court building. He has maintained that he viewed the federal judge’s ruling to remove the monument as an order to deny the sovereignty of God.

The two-time gubernatorial candidate said his current run for chief justice “is about principle,” and the recognition that the rights of the people derive from God, not government.

“And we’ve got to recognize His sovereignty over law, liberty, government and the state,” Moore said.