Alabama attorney general Luther Strange has decided to run for the Senate to succeed Jeff Sessions. President-elect Donald Trump has picked Sessions to be the U.S. Attorney General.
But Strange will not seek to be appointed to the Senate seat by Alabama Governor Robert Brantley. Instead he intends to run in a special election that may not be scheduled until the midterm election in 2018. However, if Brantley did appoint him to replace Sessions, Strange, 63, said he would accept the appointment.
In his second four-year term as Alabama AG, Strange took over two weeks ago as chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association, a group that has aggressively challenged immigration, environmental, and social policies of President Obama.
He said he will issue a statement next week that outlines his decision to run and his reasons for doing so. He was reelected attorney general in 2014 with 58.4 percent of the vote. He got his start in politics as a volunteer in Sessions’s campaign for Alabama AG in 1994. Sessions was elected to the Senate in 1996.
Two U.S. House members—Robert Alderholt and Mo Brooks—have publicly urged the governor to appoint them. The Senate vacancy won’t occur until next year after Sessions is confirmed as attorney general in Trump’s Cabinet. Sessions is expected to win Senate confirmation.
Strange is a popular and highly visible political figure in Alabama. He is tall (6-foot-9), played basketball at Tulane, and would be the only candidate in the race who has won two straight statewide elections. The special election could come as early as 2017.
“I think this is the right thing for me to do,” Strange told me. For one thing, his conservative views are similar to those of Sessions. Along with other state attorneys general, he has opposed Obama’s executive amnesty on immigration, the Clean Power Plan, and the policy on transgender bathrooms.
Strange has an unusual relationship with Brantley. It’s been reported his office is investigating the governor, though he has issued no statement on that subject.
But a group of legislators who want to impeach Brantley said they would “stand down” while Strange looked into the governor’s firing of his chief of security. Strange later advised the legislators that he found no wrongdoing.
