Alabama commission dissolves judicial seat won by Black woman

  The rain was coming down in sheets the day Tiara Young Hudson won the Democratic primary for circuit court judge in the Alabama county she has long served as a public defender. Voters were undeterred.

  When the ballots were counted in Jefferson County, the most populous and most diverse in the state, they showed that more than 31,000 people had braved the storm to vote in the primary on that day in May. Fifty-four percent of them chose Hudson.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: Partisan drama in JeffCo and how it affects the race for Alabama AG

  Jefferson County is transitioning from a Republican to a Democratic county. In the process, they are having an interesting array of intriguing political happenings. You may recall that a few months back I wrote about the indictment of the newly-elected Jefferson County District Attorney, Charles Todd Henderson, on perjury charges. To say a lot has happened since then would be an understatement. 

  Dr. Robert Bentley has vacated the governor’s office under a scandalous cloud. Lt. Governor Kay Ivey has ascended to the governorship and appears to be the favorite to win election to a four-year term of her own in next year’s general election. We have had a special election to fill the remaining three years of Jeff Sessions’s six-year Senate term. Former Governor Bentley’s appointee, former state Attorney General Luther Strange, was overwhelmingly defeated by former state Chief Justice Roy Moore, and the Ten Commandments Judge is poised to become our junior U.S. Senator. And that brings me back to Henderson. 

Déjà vu: Fighting for school integration in 2017

  History was repeating itself for U.W. Clemon.

  More than 40 years after winning a school desegregation case in Alabama, he found himself in a courtroom arguing once again for the integration of the very same school district.

  “I never envisioned that I would be fighting in 2017 essentially the same battle that I thought I won in 1971,” Clemon told The New York Times Magazine. “But the battle is just not over.”

Maya Lindberg: The danger of censoring our history

  It’s Banned Books Week, an annual event that brings renewed attention to challenged and banned titles. For many educators and students across the country, this week represents a moment to celebrate the freedom to read and engage in conversations about censorship. For schools in Jefferson County, Colorado—the state’s second largest school district—Banned Books Week holds particular relevance.

Robert Wilkerson: JeffCo bankruptcy plan hits poor the hardest

  "It isn’t fair, daddy. It isn’t fair." That’s what my children said to me on several occasions while they were growing up and facing certain situations. "I’m sorry, but life isn’t fair" has been my standard reply. I said it, I believe it, but I don’t like it, and sometimes, I don’t accept it.

  The residents of Jefferson County are being treated unfairly in order to get the county out of bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is bad business and has many bad consequences. While we appreciate the work of David Carrington and several other commissioners, their solution is not fair to everyone involved.