Alabama Attorney General (AG) Steve Marshall spoke to the Mid-Alabama Republican Club on Saturday, about his accomplishments, kicking off his 2022 re-election campaign.
“The stay at the Supreme Court may have been the biggest win I have achieved,” Marshall said. “Friday, we had another.
“That was dealing with the social cost of carbon. This is another way of talking about a tax. A tax especially on the people that put food on our table our farmers and especially our cattlemen. Those cows out in the field are a source of methane.”
The Biden administration blames methane for global warming – which Biden’s executive order on the social cost of carbon was meant to stop.
“Don’t think for one minute that the Biden administration won’t attack our farmers and ranchers,” Marshall said.
Marshall said after five years as AG and, “Having now matured in the job,” he appreciates the importance of the “civil side of the House.
“The AG is known as the top cop in the state,” Marshall said. “But being Attorney General is not only dealing with things like fighting crime.”
Marshall explained that the Attorney General’s job also involves defending the state against federal overreach.
“Those on the left who couldn’t change our laws in the legislature attempted to change them in the courts,” Marshall said of the 2020 elections, where liberal activist groups sued to, “End our photo ID requirements; Be able to remove the witness signature requirements from an absentee ballot; What I call the Chick-fil-A method of voting curbside. We had a federal judge who, for reasons I will never understand, agreed with all three.”
Marshall said that he had to sue to, “Reject the ability of a federal judge to change the election laws of the state.”
Ultimately, Marshall prevailed, unlike some of his contemporaries in other states like Georgia and Pennsylvania.
Marshall spoke about his fight against federal vaccine mandates.
“Joe Biden thought he could make you get vaccinated,” Marshall said. “We were able to push back against Washington in that area.
“You remember what was going on then – Afghanistan – an unmitigated disaster. Was purely political” to distract Americans from the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“We just did not have the legal standing to come in and litigate on behalf of federal employees.”
On the vaccine mandate for federal contractors, the state did however have standing because Alabama, Auburn, and UAB were federal contractors as well as the Department of Public Health and the Department of Rehabilitation Services. Marshall explained that that allowed the AG’s office to sue on behalf of those state agencies. That has been stayed.
“Inoculation regimes have always come from the states,” Marshall said.
Marshall next detailed the reapportionment case.
“This will be one of the most-watched cases in this term,” Marshall said of the pending Supreme Court decision on Alabama’s reapportionment.
Marshall said that the state legislature is responsible for reapportionment and that the state is, “Not to be subject to the whims of federal judges and liberal groups in what we do.”
Marshall thanked the Alabama Legislature for not drawing a new map and holding firm.
“If you draw a map that would be the map,” Marshall said.
While the 2022 election will be held using the legislature’s map, ultimately, the Supreme Court will decide whether or not to allow the districts to remain this way moving forward or if the state should redraw the maps with two majority-minority districts as the three-judge lower court ruled.
The Mid-Alabama Republican Club meets at 9:00 a.m. on the second Saturday of each month at the Vestavia Public Library.
Marshall faces Harry Still III in the Alabama Republican primary on May 24. The winner of the Republican primary will then face Democrat Wendell Major in the Nov. 8 general election.
To connect with the author of this story, or to comment, email brandon.moseley@1819News.com.
