It wasn’t the highest profile race of the night, but the Republican primary for chief justice of Alabama’s Supreme Court turned out to be one of the most interesting on Tuesday. Associate Justice Tom Parker defeated current Chief Justice Lyn Stuart to win the party’s nomination for the post. That alone isn’t so remarkable: No Alabama chief justice has completed a full term in office since 1995.
Parker’s views are odious, sure, but the thing that really sets him apart is his support of twice-removed, once-suspended former chief justice and former Senate candidate Roy Moore, who was defeated by now-Sen. Doug Jones, the first Democrat elected to that office in 25 years. Parker thinks Moore was illegally removed from office.
Reminder: Moore is the far-right bigot who is accused of propositioning young teenage girls (and worse) while an assistant district attorney in his 30s. His history as an accused sexual predator, rather than his extreme intolerance, seemed to be the breaking point in the Senate race. After all, he got removed from the Alabama Supreme Court twice for refusing to follow the law.
His first time on the court, Moore lasted just two years, nine months, and 29 days. He was removed in 2003 for defying a federal court’s order to remove a Ten Commandments monument outside the courthouse.
Ten years later, Moore was back: Having run for governor and failed, he decided to run for chief justice. He won the Republican nomination, but his victory over County Circuit Judge Bob Vance, a Democrat, was narrow. This time the Court of the Judiciary let Moore serve almost four years before suspending him without pay for the remainder of the term after he instructed probate judges not to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples.
Now, Moore sycophant Parker’s going to face Vance, the judge who nearly beat Moore in 2012. This race may in some ways be a better test of Alabamians’ openness to Democratic candidates. Parker is representing Moore’s views without carrying the taint of his offenses. (That said, Parker is standing by Moore even as Moore sues the four women who granted interviews about his predatory behavior for defamation.)
Moore’s support did nothing to aid wife Kayla Moore, his fiercest defender, who this week lost her bid for the Alabama GOP executive committee.
Moore-endorsed former campaign manager Rich Hobson, too, lost his bid for federal office, failing to proceed to a run-off after challenging U.S. Rep. Martha Roby, famous for un-endorsing Trump after his Access Hollywood tape leaked.
Have Alabamians had enough of Moore and his ilk’s brand of politics? Maybe so. Candace Cooksey, a Republican political consultant, told The New York Times that she’s found “Republican voters in particular are getting kind of fed up with the whole process.”