Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - Benefactor or idealogue

  Over the years, I have discussed my observations and concepts of the two different roles or routes taken by a U.S. Senator or Congressman during their tenure in Washington.

  One clearly chooses one of two postures in their representation of you in Washington. Our delegates to DC are either benefactors or idealogues.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - Benefactor or ideologue

  Over the years, I have discussed my observations and concepts of the two different roles or routes taken by a U.S. Senator or Congressman during their tenure in Washington.

  One clearly chooses one of two postures in their representation of you in Washington. Our delegates in D.C. are either benefactors or ideologues.

  The role of benefactor is much better for any state, especially Alabama. This public figure is not only a benefactor but also a facilitator and a statesman. In other words, this person is interested and diligent in bringing home the bacon to the Heart of Dixie.  

Extremist profile: Stephen Miller

  Stephen Miller is credited with shaping the racist and draconian immigration policies of President Trump, which include the zero-tolerance policy, also known as family separation, the Muslim ban, and ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Miller has also “purged” government agencies of civil servants who are not entirely loyal to his extremist agenda, according to a report in Vanity Fair.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - Tommy Tuberville ran a good, disciplined primary campaign

  Old political maxims clearly played out true to form in the July 14 GOP runoff for our junior U.S. Senate seat.

  Tommy Tuberville ran a very wise and disciplined campaign. He steadily stayed on point and simply said, I am going to support Donald Trump. Undoubtedly, when Tuberville decided about a year ago to leave his Florida home and run for the U.S. Senate in Alabama, whoever was advising him knew that the only issue was going to be who could cozy up to Donald J. Trump the most. They gave Tuberville the script, and he followed his playbook to perfection. He never deviated and never got distracted by issues, questions, or debates. He simply rode the Donald Trump horse all the way home.  

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - GOP Senate Runoff in less than two weeks

  Folks, we are less than two weeks away from the election contest for the U.S. Senate seat. The runoff between former U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions and former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville may be close and will definitely be interesting.

  The two conservatives were in a virtual dead heat in the March 3rd GOP Primary. Congressman Bradley Byrne (1st District) finished a strong third.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - How has the coronavirus affected Alabama politics?

  As we end the first half of 2020, there is no doubt that the coronavirus is the story of the year. The coronavirus saga of 2020 and its devastation of the nation’s and state’s economic well-being may be the story of the decade.

  How has the coronavirus affected Alabama politics? The answer is negligibly, if at all. The Republican Primary Runoff to determine the nominee for the junior U.S. Senate seat was postponed by the epidemic. It is set for July 14, which is right around the corner. The race between Tommy Tuberville and Jeff Sessions should be close and interesting.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - Senate runoff resumes with Trump and Sessions in a Twitter battle

  The U.S. Senate runoff between former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville and former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was placed on hold by the coronavirus. The primary on March 3 had Tuberville and Sessions in a dead heat. The runoff was scheduled for March 31. However, the pandemic shutdown placed a freeze on everything politically. The runoff is now set for July 14.

Steve Flowers - Inside the Statehouse: Observations

  Allow me to share some more observations from the year.

  One of my favorite individuals in the world and one of the finest gentlemen I have ever known is Alabama state Representative Steve Clouse of Ozark. My relationship with Clouse falls under the category of "Alabama is one big front porch".

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - The 1964 Goldwater landslide was the beginning of Republican dominance of the South

  Our primary runoffs have been postponed until July 14, 2020. It was a wise and prudent decision by Secretary of State John Merrill and Gov. Kay Ivey. Most voters are older, and the State of Alabama was asking them to come out and vote and at the same time stay home.

  The main event will be the GOP runoff for the U.S. Senate. The two combatants - Jeff Sessions and Tommy Tuberville - will now square off in the middle of a hot Alabama summer. The winner will be heavily favored to go to Washington. We are a very reliably Republican state, especially in a presidential election year.

Steve Flowers - Inside the Statehouse: U.S. Senate runoff moved to July

  The GOP contest to determine who sits in our number two U.S. Senate seat has been delayed until July 14, 2020 due to the coronavirus. The winner of the battle between Jeff Sessions and Tommy Tuberville will more than likely be our junior US. Senator for six years.  

Steve Flowers - Inside the Statehouse: U.S. Senate race is ticking down to a runoff

Editor's note: The March 31 runoff election has been postponed until July 14. 

  We have a great race for the U.S. Senate seat. When the votes from the first primary were counted, Jeff Sessions and Tommy Tuberville were in a virtual tie at 32% and 33%, respectively. 

  Mobile-Baldwin Congressman Bradley Byrne garnered 25% of the vote, which is significant, and Roy Moore’s 7% is nothing to sneeze at. Tuberville and Sessions will be fighting to convince Byrne and Moore voters to come to their aid. However, the most important quotient of Sessions’ and Tuberville’s missions will be to get their voters back to the polls.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - March 3rd primaries analysis

  Allow me to share some thoughts and analysis on the results of the March 3rd primaries

  The turnout was amazingly high despite rain and inclement weather across the state. 1,168,000 Alabamians voted. 725,000 voted in the Republican Primary, and 450,000 voted in the Democratic Primary. That equates to 62% Republican and 38% Democratic voters.

Trump’s politicization of the justice system

  Since the vast majority of Republican senators failed in their constitutional duty to be a check on serious government corruption, President Donald Trump has repeatedly exhibited his willingness to abuse the power of his office. But involving himself in the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) recommended sentencing of Roger Stone, a convicted federal criminal—and Trump’s close political ally—was perhaps the most flagrant display of how little respect Trump’s administration has for American democracy.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - Race is on for the U.S. Senate

  We are less than three months away from the election for our number two U.S. Senate Seat. The winner of the Republican Primary on March 3, 2020 will be our next U.S. Senator. Winning the GOP primary for any statewide office in a presidential year is tantamount to election in the Heart of Dixie.

  Jeff Sessions is the prohibitive favorite to win back the seat he held for 20 years. He probably regretted from day one leaving a safe U.S. Senate Seat with 20 years of seniority and four years left on his term to take a temporary Attorney General appointment for, at best, a four-year tenure. It amazed me when he did it. Sessions and Trump were at odds from the beginning over Sessions’ recusal from the Russian collusion probe by the Democrats. Trumps’ disenchantment with Sessions was quite obvious and outspoken.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - 2020 U.S. Senate race

  The long, hot summer has brought some crystallization to the 2020 U.S. Senate race. This seat is the Senate seat held by Jeff Sessions for almost two decades. He unwittingly made a strange and probably very regrettable decision to join President Donald J. Trump’s administration as attorney general. Very few U. S. Senators with 20 years seniority would leave their permanent seat in the illustrious, powerful, and elite body for a temporary - four-year at best - tenure in a tumultuous and transient cabinet post. 

  Trump is tempestuous at the least and still likes to think of himself as the host of his TV reality show, The Apprentice, who famously says, “You’re fired!” Trump has recently tweeted that Sessions' appointment as U.S. Attorney General was the most regrettable appointment that he has made. You can more than likely ascertain that Jeff Sessions feels the same way about his decision to leave his safe Senate seat for a shot as Trump’s AG. However, you could safely bet that the reserved, squeaky clean, Dudley-Do-Right, Eagle Scout Sessions will not do any tweeting, or betting, on anything, much less his Trump controversy.

He said he'd be murdered if deported. He was.

  He said he would be murdered if he were deported back to Honduras. He was.

  Nearly a year after a judge rejected Santos Chirino’s case for asylum, his 18-year-old daughter and 19-year-old son returned to the very same courtroom to plead their own.

  “Your honor, this is a difficult case,” their father’s lawyer, Benjamin Osorio, told Judge John Bryant. “I represented their father, Santos Chirino Cruz. … I lost the case in this courtroom. ... He was murdered in April.”

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse – Kay Ivey, our 55th governor

  The legendary Alabama storyteller Kathryn Tucker Windham used to say, “Alabama is like a big front porch.” She was right, and I have found that to be the case my entire life. Even recently, as I’ve traversed the state, I am always amazed at how you can visit with someone in one part of the state who is kin to or were college roommates with someone in another corner of Alabama. 

  The Alabama that Kay Ivey and I grew up in was even more like a front porch. Ivey grew up in Wilcox County where her family had been for generations. Therefore, she knew most everybody in the county and Camden. There were and still are less than 12,000 people in Wilcox County. There have always been more pine trees than people in the county. 

The ugly truth about President Trump's extreme anti-immigrant campaign

  President Trump may have backed down from his monstrous policy of separating children from parents who bring them across the border, but the executive order he signed this week was just another exercise in deception – a fig leaf that won’t conceal the ugly truth about the extreme anti-immigrant campaign he’s leading.

  As we all know, Trump didn’t need an executive order to change the policy, one that his homeland security chief initially denied even existed.

  And contrary to Trump’s scapegoating of Democrats – “that’s their law,” he earlier claimed – there was never any law that required him to rip terrified children away from their parents and cram them into kennel-like pens.

Why prison reform is not enough to fix the U.S. criminal justice system

  The Trump administration kicked off 2018 by expressing a surprising, newfound interest in reforming the country’s prisons and strengthening opportunities for those incarcerated to successfully re-enter their communities upon completion of their sentences. In mid-January, the White House convened a group of conservative governors and advocates for a roundtable discussion on prison reform, organized by President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The president also mentioned prison reform in his 2018 State of the Union speech, stating that “this year we will embark on reforming our prisons to help former inmates who have served their time get a second chance.” Most recently, the White House relaunched a task force initially established by former President Barack Obama—now rebranded as the Federal Interagency Council on Crime Prevention and Improving Reentry—which comprises federal agencies to coordinate the federal government’s policies to reduce recidivism.

We're deporting people who were Americans before the U.S. existed

  The screaming blocks out all other sound. In more than two minutes of footage, the only words audible above the girls’ sobbing:  “Get in the car.” “Mom!” “Where is she going?” “Are you guys alone?” “Yes.”

  The video, posted to Facebook on Thursday, shows at least two Border Patrol agents physically tearing Perla Morales-Luna out of her daughters’ arms and pushing her into a U.S. Customs and Border Protection vehicle.