When a bipartisan group of Alabama leaders began collaborating in 2004 to remove Jim Crow-era language from the state's constitution, the group thought the largely symbolic effort to scrub the long-abandoned policies would go fairly smoothly.
What they didn't count on was Roy Moore, who had recently been removed as the state's chief judge for refusing to remove a Ten Commandments statue from his courthouse. Moore needed a new issue and some headlines as he geared up to launch a primary challenge against the state's GOP governor, Bob Riley, who was leading the effort to develop an amendment to strike the discriminatory segregation and poll tax language. TPM’s Cameron Joseph writes:
“He had a huge impact. It was a measure that was set to pass without much opposition and then because he got involved it changed the dynamic completely,” said Susan Kennedy of the Alabama Education Association, the state public teachers’ lobby that supported the amendment.
Moore took up the call of conservative evangelical activists who wanted to doom the amendment—because apparently there's nothing more moral or Christian than segregation policies designed to help one race maintain a sense of superiority over another race. Jesus talked a lot about that, no?
“This amendment is a wolf in sheep’s clothing and the people of Alabama should be aware of it,” Moore told the Birmingham News in 2004, warning it would “open the door to an enormous tax increase” — one of many broadsides he issued.
His argument worked. The statewide measure failed by about 2,000 votes, out of 1.4 million cast. Every subsequent attempt to remove the language since that initial failure has failed, most recently in 2012. [...]
Alabama’s state constitution still contains the following language:
“Separate schools shall be provided for white and colored children, and no child of either race shall be permitted to attend a school of the other race.”
The proud legacy of Roy Moore—now there's a resume builder. Moore didn't defeat Gov. Riley in 2006, but over a decade later, Republican Alabamans found his racism compelling enough last month to give Moore a nearly 10-point win over GOP establishment candidate Luther Strange. Now for the general election.
Moore faces former U.S. Attorney Doug Jones, who is best known for successfully prosecuting, decades later, Ku Klux Klan member responsible for the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four young black girls.
This shouldn’t even be a contest and, yet, in the era of Trump, it is.