One of the best races formulating within the GOP is the intra party Senate race between veteran Gardendale State Senator Jack Biddle and Gardendale Rep. Scott Beason. Biddle has served in the Legislature for over 30 years. He served terms in the House in the 1970s and 80s and was Chairman of the powerful House Rules Committee for one term. During this era practically the entire House ran as Democrats, more out of tradition and expediency than philosophy.
It was Jack’s conservative philosophy that got him kicked out as a Democrat. The more liberal wing of the Democratic Party was in control in 1983 when the federal courts called for new elections because of reapportionment. The Democratic Party leadership got behind closed doors and handpicked the nominees of the Party because all of us had just been elected the previous year to four-year terms. Biddle, along with dozens of pro business Democrats, was not given the Democratic nomination. However, Biddle and his conservative Democratic colleagues won that war. They simply ran as Independents and because of their popularity in their districts coupled with a voter backlash against handpicking they all won as Independents. One of them, Lowell Barron, even won his Senate seat back by running as a write-in candidate. His northeast Alabama constituents took pencils into the ballot box and wrote his name in by unanimous consent.
