Alabama: Wallace’s Pottage

Alabama’s Governor George Corley Wallace, who regards himself as the very prototype of the Southern statehouse segregationist, was bitterly attacked last week as a “liberalizer” and was defeated by that grand old Southern political device, the filibuster.

This upside-down political cake was baked by Wallace’s ambition to run as the conservative candidate for the presidency in 1968. To further this aim, he decided, he would need a second term as Governor (TIME, Oct. 8). Summoning his usually docile legislature into special session, Wallace introduced a bill to repeal a 64-year-old clause in the state constitution that expressly bars the Governor from succeeding himself.

After a sharp fight, the lower house passed the amendment by 74 votes to 23. However, in the state senate Wallace’s bill bogged down in a talkathon organized by supporters of former Governor John Patterson, the leading candidate to succeed Wallace next year. When they attempted to invoke cloture, Wallace’s men were shocked to find that they could rally only 18 votes, six short of the two-thirds majority needed to silence the rebels.

Never Again. Confident of getting three more state senators—but not six —on his side, Wallace decided next to challenge the senate’s two-thirds majority rule. His supporters petitioned e Alabama Supreme Court to lower the bothersome requirement to three-fifths, or 21 votes. This maneuver was quickly repulsed by the court which last week ruled 6 to 1 against Wallace on the grounds that it would be “impertinent and lawfully unwarranted” for the judiciary to intervene.

Throughout the state, where the attitude toward the Governor has been one of adulation, there was a sharp change. “I voted for our Governor” Mrs. Raymond A. Busier wrote the Montgomery Advertiser, “but if I can be forgiven, I’ll never again. Wake up Alabamians, before you sell your birthright for a mess of pottage.” State Representative Kenneth Ingram protested in the Birmingham News that he had previously considered Wallace “a champion of conservatism, but now I find that he is advocating what appears to me to be liberalization of our very own Alabama constitution.”

Alabama’s major newspapers, which have long been in the Governor’s pocket, now lambasted him editorially over the succession issue. “It’s not Wallace’s destiny to become President,” said the Montgomery Advertiser, usually the state’s most fulsome Wallace worshiper. “We’re against third-party futility ” Wallace, who is against criticism, had his own way of dealing with the fractious press. The state government controls wholesale liquor distribution in Alabama and, by no coincidence, the six daily newspapers that have been opposing Wallace’s second-term bid lost their liquor-advertising contracts last week.

To the People. “I haven’t twisted any arms,” Wallace insisted. All the same, he declared, “the liberal element of this country cheerfully and gleefully is hoping for the defeat of the Governor of Alabama. A few senators are making it appear that the people are repudiating the Governor.” Vowing that he would “go to the people with this issue,” Wallace started stumping the home districts of senators who oppose him. If, as seemed likely, he is to lose the succession fight, George is expected to run instead next year for the US Senate seat now held by John Sparkman.

The Alabama constitution provides that a Governor may not run for the Senate for at least a year after leaving office, but this will hardly bother the Governor. The U.S. Constitution, which also defines the qualifications for federal office, makes no such stipulation. On this issue at least, States’ Righter Wallace will be only too happy to acknowledge federal supremacy.