Alabama Attorney General Candidate - Giles Perkins - in Birmingham

Published Feb. 23, 2010 at 9:36 p.m.

As reported in a previous "On the Road with LIA" post, we attended the February 5th meeting of the Downtown Democrats club in Birmingham.

We were anxious to see the Democratic Attorney General candidates for the first time.  All three: Giles Perkins, James Anderson, and Michel Nicrosi spoke and answered questions.  (Please email me if you have a url for Anderson.) 

As Countrycat noted in an earlier post, we were most impressed with Nicrosi, but Giles Perkins also came across well. He is an attorney, a former Executive Director of the Alabama Democratic Party and definitely has the right attitude towards the current Attorney General: "Troy King is a disaster and it is our duty to remove him from public life."

Video and partial transcript below the fold.

Perkins had the added challenge of being the first speaker at the luncheon and had to contend with clanking plates, circulating staff and an audience somewhat distracted by their food.  In particular, he was careful to leave a great deal of his time for questions and discussion, but folks were so busy with food that he almost had to beg for questions.  Lesson for candidates: Have a list of questions you'd like to answer, just in case your audience has a mouth full of pork loin or cheesecake.

Troy King is a disaster and it is our duty to remove him from public life.  He does not want the Alabama we want.  He does not share our values.  He and Luther strange will use the office to protect their powerful friends and not the people who really need help. ...

I've practiced law in Birmingham since 1992...  I've also been active in our party's politics.  Now I've done this because my mother taught me that public life and politics were a way to build communities and help people.  If that's somehow a liability...  if it's a liability to have been in a foxhole with y'all then that's something I will gladly bear, because the only way to bring about change is to be in the game.  I ran the Alabama Democratic Party in 1998 when we had the most successful year we've had since the state has been a two-party state  We won 8 of 16 statewide elections.  We picked up two seats in the Alabama State Senate, we held our big majority in the House.  I know how to win elections.  I know how to put the resources together.  I know what the messaging needs to be.

...

The first duty of the Attorney General is to prosecute crime and to protect the citizens of Alabama and to do that I'm going to have to have something our friend Troy doesn't have and that's a good working relationship with all of law enforcement, Democrat or Republican, across the state.  It is also the job of Alabama's Attorney General to protect the people when the powerful break our laws or abuse our trust.  If we don't stop public corruption we will never realize our full potential or address our other concerns.  I was taught that you don't lie, you don't cheat, you don't steal and you don't tolerate those that do.  It's time that we brought a standard like this to Alabama public life. This isn't new stuff.  Our parents taught us how to behave.

In Genesis God gives us dominion over all things.  And with dominion comes responsibility.  We will be charged with how we treat this earth and the things that live on it.  You make me Attorney General of Alabama and I will fight to  protect all that's good in our state.

...If you're going to fight sometimes it helps to pick up a big stick.  The fundamental decision we have to make is what kind of Alabama we want to be.  We can live in this beautiful place and ignore its problems or we can fight for something better.  I see an Alabama with safe streets, honest government and opportunity for all.  I see an Alabama where my kids and your kids and your grandchildren raise their families and thrive and prosper right here in Alabama.  If you see this too, then help me win.

This is my first run for public office and I'm doing it to bring about radical, aggressive change in how we do business in Montgomery.

...The law is a very powerful tool, perhaps the big stick of the civilized world.  It's a tool that can help people and bring about justice.

The people who need help are not the ones who can hire fancy, expensive lawyers.  The people who need help are being taken advantage of every day.  Those are the people I'm running for.  Those are the people I want to protect.

As Attorney General I will be proactive and tough and will get more out of the office than has ever been gotten before.  There is no other office I want to seek.  I want to go down there and do that job...  I vow to you that I will not let you down.

Question on bingo: 

The reality of bingo is that the law has not caught up with what is going on on the ground.  And it is a very confusing...I think this escalation is actually quite dangerous...There's a call for leadership...  The Legislature needs to go and take it up in this session and let the people vote on it and decide if they want it in their communities and if it comes to their communities we need to tax it and regulate it at extreme levels.

Question regarding a moratorium on the death penalty:

I think we ought to consider anything.  I'm for the death penalty fairly applied...There are some real questions about how we are doing that in terms of access to counse, use of DNA evidence...

Q on public corruption: 

I think public corruption is holding us back and we need meaningful ethics reform...  The first thing we should have is transparency. ...I think that we ought to have a change on the PAC to PAC transfer and I think there are other measures that should be taken but I also think the Attorney General can fairly enforce the laws that exist and bring about some ethics reform.

Q on current AG's relationship with local officials: 

The real truth is that it's communication. ...  He takes cases away from them...for political reasons.  It ought to be that you're talking with them all the time.

Q on federal prosecution and state investigators:

We should be prosecuting crimes not people...  There needs to be clarity on how the investigators are reined in and who they work for.  The good news is we've got a good group of US Attorneys coming in and I believe whoever is the Attorney General has got an opportunity to sit down and sort that out in a meaningful way for the first time in a long time.

Q on consumer protection: 

I think we've got a real weak consumer protection statute.  And that's one of the reasons that our state and our citizens get taken advantage of.  I think what we have there is not being used enough.  We really need to and I would as AG...figure out what needs to be in our code to really empower the AG to protect the citizens.

Q on environmental protection:

I mentioned a passage of Genesis and I mean that.  I think we've got a responsibility to protect this earth and turn it over to our children in a way that's useful and that doesn't kill them. And that the AG ought to be focused on how do we utilize the law to at least call the questions, prosecute the bad polluters and turn this place over better to the next generation than it was given to us.

All three AG candidates will be speaking at the Madison County Democratic Women's lunch meeting at noon on March 4th.  Please try to make the meeting if you're close by or see them at any of the other numerous Democratic events being held between now and the primary.

On June 1st, we'll get to decide between insiders and reformers, newcomers and the Old Guard.  Between people who want to bring new ideas and energy into the party and state government and people who are smugly sure they should win because "it's their turn."

Where does Giles Perkins fall on the scale for Attorney General?

Back | Read more at Left in Alabama