PROFESSOR-POLITICIAN: AN EXAMINATION OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE CAREER OF GLEN BROWDER

A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty Of Jacksonville State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts With a Major in History

By Cynthia Genieve Certain

Jacksonville, Alabama

August 8, 2008

1 2 PROFESSOR-POLITICIAN TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... 2

PROLOGUE ……………………….…………………………………………………………5

I. YOUNG GLEN ...... 8

The Work Begins ...... Academic Ups and Downs ...... College Man ...... Becky ......

II. DR. BROWDER ...... 23

Dr. Browder and His Students ...... The JSU Mafia ...... Applied Theory ...... The Family Grows......

III. INTO THE FIRE ...... 54

Practical Game Plan ...... First Campaign ...... Politicking with George Wallace ...... Professor-Politician on Goat Hill ...... Hard History and Civics in the Heart of Dixie ...... Personal Style of Quiet, Practical, Biracial Politics ...... Saturday Morning Massacre ...... Write-In History ...... Constitution Reform ...... Election Reform ...... Education Reform ...... End of the Term ......

IV. A REFORMER TAKES CHARGE ...... 104

Launching a Long-Shot Campaign ...... A Strategy of Stealth……………………………………………………………………… Primary Squeaker and General Election Landslide...... Moving to Montgomery ...... Setting the Stage for Election Reform ...... Crossover Controversy ...... Campaign Finance Disclosure ...... 3 Voting Reforms ...... Digitizing the State‘s Business ...... Enduring Impact ......

V. THE NATIONAL STAGE ...... 145

Running for Congress ...... Moving to Washington ...... Walking Softly ...... Representing Alabama in Congress ...... Politics and Reform in Washington ...... Politicking with Bill Clinton ...... Campaign Finance Revisited ...... Freelancing for the Common Good ...... Palm Sunday Tragedy ...... Reuniting Randolph County ...... Unholy Fire ...... The Congressman, the Boss ......

VI. A BLUE DOG POINTS THE WAY ...... 185

Birth of the Blue Dogs ...... Difficult Contract ...... Coming Out Party ...... Smaller Slice for Alabama ...... Browder‘s Dividend Plan ...... Blue Dogs Start to Bark ...... Anticipating a Shutdown ...... Coalition Budget ...... Train Wreck ...... Building Consensus at the Center ......

VII. PLAYING DEFENSE ...... 217

A Crash Course in National Security…………………………………………………….. Fighting for Fort McClellan.,,,,.……………………..……………….…………………… The Last Battle ...... Closure ...... Toxic Legacy at Anniston Army Depot ...... Gulf War Syndrome ...... Looking Back ......

VIII. UP OR OUT ...... 248

A Senate Seat Opens ...... Toe in the Water ...... In With Both Feet ...... 4 Strategy of Limited Resources ...... Going Negative ...... Landslide Loss ...... Breaking Up the Team ......

IX. THE ROAD AHEAD ...... 280

Promoting the Future of American Democracy ......

EPILOGUE...... 288

APPENDIX A: GLEN BROWDER‘S PROFESSIONAL POSITIONS, PUBLICATIONS, PAPERS, PRESENTATIONS, AND OTHER CITATIONS...... 293

APPENDIX B: SELECTED PUBLICATIONS, PAPERS, AND PRESENTATIONS FEATURING, QUOTING, OR REFERENCING GLEN BROWDER ...... 303

APPENDIX C: CHARTS AND TABLES ...... 310 Chart 1: Browder Political Career……………………………………………………. Table 1: Browder Electoral Record………………………………………………...… Table 2: Browder Congressional Career Voting Percentages (All Roll-Call Votes) ...... Table 3: Browder Congressional Voting Record On Economic, Social, Foreign Policy Issues (Liberal-Conservative Scores) ...... Table 4: Browder Presidential Support Scores Compared To House Democrats And House Republicans (And Immediately Preceding/Subsequent Scores For Nichols And Riley) ...... Table 5: Browder Party Support Scores Compared To House Democrats, House Republicans, Southern Democrats (And Immediately Preceding/Subsequent Scores For Nichols And Riley) ...... Table 6: Browder‘s Stewardship Of Public Funds (Congressional Office Allowance), 1989-96 ...... Table 7: Browder Interest Group Ratings (Selected Congressional Scorecards) ......

SOURCES ...... 318

5 PROLOGUE: THE PROFESSOR-POLITICIAN

On a hot August afternoon in 2006, Professor Glen Browder stared at the computer screen in his new office on the third floor of Brewer Hall at Jacksonville State

University. As usual, the window was open behind him, and the sounds of a university getting ready for the fall semester drifted in on a warm Alabama breeze. Browder paid little attention to the noise of traffic, construction and marching band practice. He, too, was preparing for the students‘ return at the end of the month. This would be his last class, ―The Future of American Democracy,‖ a seminar he developed upon his return to teaching after eight years in Congress.

Filling his office except for a narrow path from the door to his desk were stacks of cartons and piles of unfiled papers. Organizing his documents was Browder‘s top priority as he contemplated his upcoming retirement. The collection comprised a personal record of more than thirty years as a teacher, political consultant, member of the

Alabama House of Representatives, Alabama secretary of state and U.S. congressman.

When the inventory was complete, the entire collection would become the property of the university library.

Browder‘s career had been an unusual pairing of roles. First a professor, then a politician, both in chronology and in priority, he was a man whose vision of how

American democracy should work took him out of the classroom and onto the political stage. It was this civic vision, not ideology, which drove his politics. When he became a politician, he did not leave the professor behind, but applied his academic philosophy to the job of governing. Although he has been characterized as a reformer, and he did 6 pursue a series of changes that brought honesty and transparency to government processes, he did not enter public life with a zeal to shake up the system. Rather, he worked from the inside to make the system work better. From his very early years,

Browder had had an ―almost mystical‖ love of American democracy. It had provided him opportunities that he could not have enjoyed in any other country, and when he detected defects in that system, he was philosophically bound to try to fix them. He worked to bring changes in the yawn-inducing, eye-glazing, nitty-gritty processes that, when working correctly, allow Americans to carry on their daily lives without giving a thought to such vital concerns as the quality of teaching in public schools, how political campaigns are paid for, the size of the national debt, or the security of the chemical weapons stockpile — but when working incorrectly threaten our safety and encroach upon our freedoms.

After fourteen years in elected office, the professor-turned-politician returned to the classroom. Now with prodigious first-hand experience to season his academic expertise, he resumed what he considered his most important work: teaching. His mission after Congress was to convey to the next generation of leaders, both through his teaching and by his own example, that ―you can do good if you do it right,‖ that is, by applying a combination of philosophy and practicality to problems in government.

The long, tedious work of inventorying his files was near its end. The boxes in his office were only the small portion of the Browder Collection that remained to be organized, and they would be cleared out by the end of the term.

But on this August afternoon, both the papers and the syllabus could wait.

Demanding most of his attention was a baseball game being broadcast over the Internet. 7 Baseball was a lifelong passion. As a boy, he‘d dreamed of playing centerfield for the

Brooklyn Dodgers, and his resume still mentioned his availability if a pro team ever came calling. It wasn‘t a pro match-up that distracted him on this day, however. It was an

American Legion League game, pitting Deland, Florida, against Browder‘s hometown,

Sumter, South Carolina. Asked what was on his computer screen, Browder flashed a guilty smile. Then the lines of his face softened as his memory raced back across time, through years of politics and public service, teaching and consulting, studying and writing — returning to the town where he was born in the early years of World War II and where growing up in poverty would shape the thinking of a man who would help shape U.S. policy. ―Sumter was good to me,‖ he mused. ―Everybody was good to me.‖1

It was an unexpected opening. During two years of interviews, Browder had been reticent to talk about his youth except to say that growing up poor instilled in him a determination to succeed. Yet this story must begin where he began, back in Sumter on the wrong side of the tracks.

1 Glen Browder, interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, August 28, 2006.

YOUNG GLEN

Sumter, South Carolina, in 1943 was expanding with the kind of energy that only a new military installation in wartime can bring. The construction of Shaw Air Force

Base two years earlier had brought people and money to Sumter, and while the city‘s old guard held onto a façade of Southern gentility, the new elite embraced mid-century progress.

Archie Calvin Browder, Glen‘s father, wasn‘t seeing much of that money, gentility or progress. Archie, a twenty-nine-year-old sometime house painter, lived on the poor side of town in a rented one-room house with his twenty-one-year-old wife, Ila, and their three sons, four-year-old Billy, two-year-old A.C., and Johnnie Glenn1, born

January 15. Archie was a charming fellow with wavy red hair and a taste for the drink.

He did not work regularly, and Ila clerked at a nearby fruit stand to help pay the bills.

Their relationship was turbulent, but neither could have foreseen how the turbulence would lead to tragedy that soon would end Archie‘s life in a jailhouse fire.

Glen was too young to remember how his father died, and as a child he didn‘t ask, for fear of stirring up unhappy memories. Years later, though, his mother and other

1 Later documents show the current spelling. Browder does not remember when or how the spelling changed, nor does he consider it important. 8 9 relatives finally answered his questions. ―What I‘ve learned,‖ he wrote, ―is what I‘d always suspected — my father was no Atticus Finch.‖2

One weekend in mid-January of 1944, Ila and the boys took off unexpectedly to visit relatives in nearby Manning. Archie came to Manning in a bad mood and quickly wound up in jail for a mixture of minor wrongdoings — maybe public drinking, maybe domestic problems, maybe his reputation. Whatever the reasons, he appeared to have been smoking in his cell-bed when fire broke out, filling his lungs with scorching heat and smoke. A family friend came to Ila with the message that Archie had been injured in the fire, took my mother to the jail to get her husband, and transported them all in his pickup truck back to the hospital in Sumter. After a week of semi-conscious suffering, my father was dead.3

A social worker urged Ila to send the three boys to a local orphanage. She steadfastly refused. Instead, she took a war job making metal parts for battleships. They got by with her income, Social Security and the help of relatives.

With the returning soldiers at the end of the war came a renewed optimism, especially when Ila met Charlton McLeod, a veteran of combat in Europe, in a local café where she was waiting tables. They soon married and had three more children, a daughter, Janice, and two sons, Larry and Stanley.

Like Ila, Charlton had grown up in a family of sharecroppers. Both had quit elementary school to help with the farm work. Now, living in town with six children to support, Charlton and Ila took factory jobs. Charlton worked as a sander in Sumter‘s furniture mills, while Ila operated a sewing machine. It took both their paychecks to provide a meager living, but they survived with a ―hardscrabble dignity,‖ Glen wrote.4

2 Glen Browder, ―Professor-Politician: Recollections and Records of an Alabama Reformer‖ (unpublished draft), 15. Atticus Finch is the hero of Harper Lee‘s To Kill a Mockingbird, a novel set in a poor Southern town of the same period. 3 Browder, ―Professor-Politician,‖ 16. 4 Glen Browder, The Future of American Democracy: A Former Congressman’s Unconventional Analysis (Lanham: University Press of America. 2002), 31. 10 As Glen reached school age, he learned that Sumter had a rigid class hierarchy and that his place in it was close to the bottom. ―For most of my childhood, I felt the continuous sting of social deprivation and self-conscious stigma about who I was and where I lived and not having what others had,‖ he wrote. ―School was a daily disaster.

Although we lived on the bad side of town, I walked with my brothers to the city elementary school attended by kids from all over Sumter. On rare occasions I went home with uptown friends for short visits after school, to their houses in good neighborhoods, with lawns and doorbells; but they never came home with me to my side of town.‖5

Glen felt out of place in school. He never had the right school supplies, he didn‘t dress like the other kids, his parents did not take part in PTA or attend school events, and he was shy. He‘d inherited Archie‘s red hair and freckles, but not his father‘s outgoing personality, and he felt that his appearance compounded his problems. He saw himself as

―a red-haired, freckled-faced, scruffy kid from over near the mill.‖6

Glen and his older brothers looked out for themselves from a young age. ―We spent much of our time outside the home — fishing, hunting, playing ball, getting into devilment — without a lot of supervision,‖7 he wrote. Glen liked to go off by himself and think. ―I recall playing hooky from school and climbing up a tall tree, sitting there all day — no toys, no food, just looking across the neighborhood world and thinking about things. I probably am one of the few people in America who would play hooky from school and spend the day in the nearby public library.‖8 This early independence fostered a sense of self-reliance which later would help him through school and which

5 Browder, ―Professor-Politician,‖ 17. 6 Ibid. 7 Browder, ―Professor-Politician,‖ 22. 8 Ibid. 11 would remain an important aspect of his adult personality. But in his first years of elementary school, Glen‘s independence, combined with his shyness and feeling outcast, led him to avoid school as often as he could get by with. This only made things worse because when he returned after such absences, he was embarrassed for not having his homework and not knowing what the class was doing. Young Glen was in a downward spiral that would take a miracle to reverse.

That miracle came in the form of one of the family‘s frequent moves. Although the family still lived on the poor side of Sumter, the move put Glen in a different school district in the middle of the third grade. He began attending Wilder Elementary School, where all the students suffered the same deprivations and the teachers and staff were especially sensitive to their needs. ―Wilder was a wonderful place for poor kids — located on our own side of town, run by kind and sensitive teachers, and bossed by a big, loud, white-haired, heart-of-gold woman principal — Miss Ruby Gallman.‖9 The change in Glen was dramatic. No longer conspicuous for his poverty, he began attending school regularly and enjoying it.

Many years later, Browder looked back on his teachers at Wilder with great fondness. ―Teachers and administrators, people who lived on the right side of town, people I didn‘t even know, were interested in helping me,‖ he wrote. One inspired him academically. Another persuaded her roommate to pay for Glen‘s music lessons.

Another lent him a pair of her son‘s dress pants for an uptown event. ―The most memorable good deed,‖ he wrote, ―was when Sumter sent selected safety patrol leaders from all its elementary schools to Washington, D.C., for a long weekend. Miss Gallman

9 Ibid. 12 called me into her office and gave me a motherly talk — and she put three dollars in my hand. That may not sound like much money, but without Miss Gallman and her three dollars, I would have gone a thousand miles roundtrip and spent three days in our national capital without a cent in my pocket. As it worked out, I was able to enjoy myself and buy gifts for everyone in my family.‖10

The Work Begins

By the time Glen was twelve, he had figured out that if his lot were to improve, he would have to do make it happen on his own. That meant earning some money. ―I knew

I would have to hustle if I were going to have anything extra,‖ he wrote. ―Selling peanuts and fish bait, rounding up soft drink bottles and scrap iron, picking cotton, I did it all.‖11

At age thirteen, he took a job delivering newspapers for a local agency before school. He started out making four dollars a week, and for the first six months he spent three dollars of his weekly earnings to make payments on a bicycle he‘d bought on credit to be able to deliver the papers. ―It didn‘t leave much spending money, but it was more than I would have had otherwise,‖ he recalled.12 He continued working for Bradford‘s News Agency for the next four years. The agency came to rely on Glen as the go-to boy, the one who could be counted upon to take over a route that another boy failed to deliver. Eventually,

Glen was working as much as thirty hours a week, and although years later he would describe this as ―the worst job I ever had,‖13 he recognized that it affected his future in ways greater than just providing him spending money. Sitting on a curb before dawn,

10 Browder, ―Professor-Politician,‖ 18. 11 Browder, ―Professor-Politician,‖ 17. 12 Ibid. 13 Browder, August 28, 2006. 13 with barely enough light to see, Glen began reading the newspapers he was folding — first the headlines, and then complete articles. He read about Sumter City Council meetings, arguments in the South Carolina legislature, Negro teenagers not much older than himself demanding the right to sit at all-white lunch counters in neighboring states, fears of Communist incursions into American life and the constant threat of the atomic bomb. He didn‘t realize it was happening, but young Glen was developing an understanding of and an affinity for civic affairs.14

In 1960, Glen left the news agency for a job in a grocery store owned by W.G.

Hinnant and T.M. Shuler. He worked there part-time until graduating from high school.

Working throughout those years kept a little money in his pocket, but he was never able to save enough for his secret dream — college.

Academic Ups and Downs

Glen‘s school experience had been a roller-coaster. At the beginning of the seventh grade, he‘d changed schools again and found himself back in the midst of the children of Sumter‘s social elite at an age when a boy feels most vulnerable to social pressures. All through junior high he felt inadequate at school, but he had a job that brought him a measure of respect. Thus, he gave more attention to his newspaper route than to his school work and returned to his old pattern of skipping classes. As before, a personal mentor intervened to turn Glen around. This time it was Glen‘s supervisor at the news agency, Jimmy Mathis, who provided positive direction and encouraged him to pay more attention to his schoolwork. When Glen showed that he was back on track, Mathis wrote a recommendation to help him win a college scholarship.

14 Ibid. 14 By his sophomore year at Edmunds High School in Sumter, Glen was getting good grades and even tutoring some of his classmates. He was making many friends, and he noticed that girls were paying attention to him.15 They admired him as ―a brain,‖ giggled at his practical jokes and responded to his ready smile. Despite his enduring poverty, he had joined the high school elite. Both teachers and classmates frequently chose him for honors.16

He excelled in the courses that required him to write. As a sophomore, he wrote one of the three top essays in a school-wide Literary Week competition. In his junior year, he covered sports for the school newspaper, Hi-News. As a senior he was Hi-

News‘s editor in chief, and three of his articles won state-wide journalism awards.

Circumstances appeared to be propelling Glen into journalism, but despite his obvious talent, he saw writing as a tool rather than a goal. Writing brought him recognition among his peers and his teachers, opening doors to acceptance, popularity and, most important, college.

Writing assignments gave voice to philosophical explorations that had germinated in Glen‘s treetop reveries and blossomed when he began reading the newspapers he delivered. His award-winning sophomore essay, ―Downfall and Tyranny,‖ rejected

Soviet-style Communism ―because it has utilized force, brute strength, poverty, ignorance, deceit, and propaganda‖ in ―the battle for men‘s minds.‖17 In a speech to his

15 Glen Browder, interviewed by the author, Anniston, Alabama, May 31, 2007. 16 Browder is listed in his high school yearbooks as vice president of his homeroom, president of the local chapter of the National Honor Society, editor of the school newspaper, a junior commencement marshal, Furman Scholar, voted Most Likely to Succeed in the Class of 1961, member of Quill and Scroll high school journalism honorary, first alternate delegate to Boy‘s State, and Youth Government Day mayor of Sumter. 17 Glen Browder, ―Downfall and Tyranny,‖ the Browder Collection, Box 1: Browder Early Background (1943-71), Edmunds High School files, 1959-61. Written for a tenth grade English class and entered in 15 graduating class during commencement exercises in 1961, Glen expressed a personal code to which he would adhere throughout his adult life: ―The people who will be successful in this search will be those who excel as individuals — those who are well- trained and highly competent, who can establish pleasant relationships with fellow- workers, who are willing to expend their full energies on the task at hand.‖18

At this early age, he already displayed a deep-rooted devotion to American democracy and a belief that it provided unlimited opportunities for those willing to work toward their goals and who treat others with respect. It is a philosophy that he maintains to this day. ―I adopted an optimistic, methodical approach to things; and over time, I developed an almost mystical confidence in the American system,‖ Browder wrote. ―I knew that I had a tough road to travel; but I also figured that, with perseverance and patience, I might climb out of my hole to the top of the hill where I could enjoy the blessings of American life.‖19

College Man

The first step out of that hole was to get himself into college. He‘d been able to save about four hundred dollars from his part-time jobs, but that would not begin to cover his expenses. With the blessings of his teachers and family, Glen began applying for scholarships. He won an Elks Lodge scholarship, which provided another four hundred dollars, but he needed more.

Sumter High School‘s annual Literary Week competition. The typed manuscript has handwritten notes and suggested edits, both Browder‘s and his teacher‘s. 18 Glen Browder, ―Excellence in Business,‖ The Browder Collection, Box 1: Browder Early Background (1943-71), Edmunds High School files, 1959-61, commencement address, Edmunds High School, May 30, 1961. Browder was one of four honors students chosen to speak during the ceremony. 19 Browder, Future of American Democracy, 31. 16 In February 1961, Glen received a letter offering hope. His assistant principal had nominated him for a job as a student assistant in the public relations department at

Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina. The letter from Ben Hay Hammet, director of the college‘s public relations department, advised Glen that he was one of a number of candidates for the job, which would consist of writing press releases and covering athletic events for the college. In early April, Glen received a telegram notifying him that he was one of four finalists for the job, having beaten out fifty-one other candidates. An interview with Hammet the following week secured the job and

Glen‘s future for the next four years.

Glen loved college. The sports publicity job paid his tuition and living expenses, so for the first time in his life he did not have to worry about money. The staff in the public relations department adopted him as family, and Hammet became a personal mentor. In addition to working for Hammet, Glen also became co-sports editor of the campus newspaper, was elected president of the history club, and earned membership in the academic honor society. His grades suffered during the fall semesters, when he was busy writing about the football and basketball teams for Hammet, but he brought them back up to Dean‘s List levels in the spring semesters. The A‘s he consistently earned in

History and French were more the result of late-term cramming than aptitude for the subjects, he said.20

The only thing that marred Glen‘s college experience was a nagging worry about the escalating conflict in Vietnam. As an unmarried man in his early twenties, he would be a prime candidate for the draft when his student deferment ended upon his graduation.

20 Glen Browder, interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, November 27, 2007. 17 He didn‘t want to go to Vietnam, but he couldn‘t see any way around it. Finally, he decided that it would be better to know than to take his chances. In the spring of his senior year, he volunteered for the Army. After graduation, he reported to Fort Jackson,

South Carolina — ―and they sent me home,‖ he recalled. ―The doctors examined me and asked me about my back, and before the day was over, the doctor came up to me and said, ―You‘re out.‖ Glen suffered from spondylolisthesis, a congenital spinal defect that would cause him pain in later life but which saved him from Vietnam. ―It‘s always a nagging question for me,‖ Glen said many years later. ―I did not want to go to war, but I did want that issue resolved. So I volunteered, got my local Draft Board to change me to la [fully fit to serve], and I reported for duty. And they sent me home. And I was not unhappy.‖21

After graduating in 1965 with a bachelor‘s degree in history, Glen remained at PC for another year as the school‘s sports information director and assistant publicity director. The decision to stay was momentous — not because of any career implications, but because it was during this time that he met Becky Moore. A year and a half later, she would be his wife.

Becky

Sara Rebecca Moore Browder is a trim blonde whose sparkling eyes and quick laugh betray a penchant for mischief. When she met Glen, she was a seventeen-year-old secretary with big dreams. She liked him immediately, and as she got to know him, she found the two were much alike. Both had come from poor, hard-working families living

21 Glen Browder, interviewed by the author, Anniston, Alabama, May 31, 2007. 18 on the wrong side of town, both were smart and ambitious, and both knew that their way out of poverty rested on their own efforts.

Becky had grown up in Clinton‘s textile mill village, a few miles but a world away from Presbyterian College‘s manicured grounds. Her parents had married when both were fifteen years old, and they had three daughters before they were twenty. Like

Glen, young Becky had worn hand-me-down clothing and endured the condescension of the ―town people‖ because of where she lived. From the time she was a little girl, Becky longed for an exotic life that would put the mill village and Clinton far behind her. She would own a hotel in Hawaii or perhaps she‘d marry a Mafia don. One thing was certain:

No matter how much she wanted to go to college, she would not consider taking money from her parents to pay for it. ―I remember my parents asking if I wanted to go to college,‖ Becky recalled. ―I think they wanted me to. But I saw how poor we were — I really have always been tuned in to finances — and I told them, no, I didn‘t want a thing to do with college. I really did want to go, but there was no way I was going to get my parents to spend money, break their backs, to put me through college.‖22 Thus, it was as a secretary, not as a student, that she arrived at the Presbyterian College campus in the summer of 1965.

Becky and another young secretary shared an office on the second floor of the college administration building. Glen worked down the hall. Becky was entranced with

Glen from the moment she saw him. She always knew when he was approaching because he whistled a tune as he climbed the elegant spiral staircase to the second level.

―You could tell the minute he hit the building, because he would start whistling up the

22 Becky Browder, interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, October 18, 2006. 19 steps,‖ Becky said. ―I remember sitting at my typewriter and looking up when he would walk by, and I thought, ‗Ooh, I like him!‘ I remember liking him so much that I quit thinking about my dreams of going to Hawaii because I was focusing on him. … I just liked the way he looked, the way he acted, everything.‖23

Within a few weeks, Glen and Becky were dating. From that point, Becky forgot all her other dreams. ―I fell so head over heels in love with Glen that I wanted to be Mrs.

Glen Browder. You know how girls used to write, ―M-r-s.-G-l-e-n-B-r-o-w-d-e-r?‖

Well, I did that. A lot. I wanted to get married to him. I fell totally in love with him.

Fast. And then he moved!‖24

Glen had been working at PC for nearly a year when he landed a job as a sportswriter for the Atlanta Journal and moved to Georgia. Becky was heartbroken and cried for most of the first week he was gone. Eventually, convinced that Glen had decided to pursue his new career without her, Becky recovered her composure and revived her old dreams. For his part, Glen managed to stay away just long enough for

Becky to dry her eyes. He was back in Clinton by the weekend.

For the next several months, Glen worked in Atlanta and commuted to Clinton on weekends. Occasionally, Becky traveled to Atlanta to visit him, but such visits were inconvenient and uncomfortable. Glen arranged for Becky to stay at a female friend‘s apartment, Becky recalled, ―because you know in those days, you didn‘t just shack up.

Um-um. No shacking. And my father wouldn‘t have liked it.‖25

23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 20 Glen didn‘t like being apart from Becky so much, and he didn‘t like newspaper work much, either. ―The job at the Atlanta Journal … was not a dream job,‖ Becky remembered, ―because they had him writing little piddly stuff and the hours were ungodly. He‘d have to get up at three o‘clock in the morning sometimes to do that, so it was like going back to delivering newspapers.‖26 Glen soon took a job as an investigator with the U.S. Civil Service Commission, doing background checks for people who needed government security clearance. The downside of this job was that it required him to drive all over Atlanta, which even by the late 1960s meant taking one‘s life in one‘s hands. The upsides were that the job paid for him to travel beyond Atlanta and it was secure enough that he could support a wife. He and Becky married in February 1967.

During the first year of their marriage, the young couple scrimped and saved every way they could. Becky accompanied Glen when he traveled out of town, and together they spent only his daily travel allowance from the Civil Service Commission, banking Glen‘s salary. At the end of the year, they had managed to save three thousand dollars and decided it was time to follow one of their dreams — touring Europe.

Glen arranged for an unpaid leave of absence, sold his old car and bought a copy of Frommer‘s Europe on $5 a Day. He and Becky left their few belongings with Becky‘s parents and boarded a flight on Icelandic Air. After stops in Iceland and Luxembourg, they hitchhiked into Verdun, France, and then took a train into Paris, where they ordered a Simca automobile that Glen had decided to buy and take back to the United States.

They remained in Paris for a month, taking French classes while they waited for their car, and then resumed their tour. They drove through Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Spain,

26 Ibid. 21 and from Spain they crossed the Mediterranean into North Africa, all the time spending as little money as possible. They trumped their guidebook‘s five-dollar-a-day promise, spending an average of $3.87 a day for the two of them, Becky recalled proudly. They ate sparingly and stayed in hostels and cheap hotels, sometimes sleeping in the car if they arrived too late to get full value for a night‘s lodging. Becky told this story about returning to Paris:

One time we pulled into the outskirts of Paris and we thought, ‗It‘s two o‘clock in the morning, what are we going to pay the hostel fee for?‘ So we just laid the seats back and went to sleep. About two hours later, we woke up and the French police were surrounding the car. They told us to move on, move on. They didn‘t arrest us or anything, but we thought about that the next time we slept in the car, to make sure we were out of the outskirts.27

Their wanderlust satisfied for the time being, they returned to Atlanta with their

Simca 1000 and Glen resumed his job with the Civil Service Commission. Before long, one of his interviews took him to the Political Science Department at Emory University in Atlanta. A faculty member encouraged him to pursue a higher degree in Emory‘s graduate school, and after some deliberation, he decided to apply. The university not only accepted him, it also awarded him a fellowship. He and Becky moved into married- student housing and lived meagerly on Glen‘s stipend of about three hundred dollars a month, which Becky supplemented by typing papers for other students for fifty cents a page. ―We were happy as clams,‖ Becky said. Glen played tennis and grew tomatoes; the two of them fished at a little lake on campus and went to movies, and Becky enrolled in a creative writing class at a local community college. ―It was a good life, a very good life,‖ she said.28

27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 22 When Glen had finished his studies in political science at Emory, jobs in his field were precious. ―There was a glut of Ph.D.‘s at that time,‖29 Becky said. A teaching position was available at a small university not far from Atlanta, just across the state line in Jacksonville, Alabama, and Glen decided to take it. He could teach for a year or two and Becky finally could finish her own degree while they decided where they wanted to go next.

On the long road from Wilder Elementary School to Jacksonville State

University, Glen had shed his reticence. The once shy, freckle-faced kid from the wrong side of the tracks had assumed the mantle of college professor, and it was a natural fit.

Glen had become — and to his students always would be — Dr. Browder.

29 Ibid.

DR. BROWDER

Glen and Becky made the two-hour drive from Atlanta to Jacksonville for the first time on a muggy August day in 1971. As they arrived in the town, Glen lowered his car window to ask directions to the university. A young pedestrian, presumably a student,

―smiled broadly, pointed straight ahead and chirped, ‗Just follow your nose,‘‖ Glen recalled. He and Becky knew then that they were going to like their new home at the little university that advertised itself as ―the friendliest campus in the South.‖1

The Browders found Jacksonville a pretty town nestled among the low hills at the feet of the Appalachian Mountains. It is virtually unchanged since they first saw it in

1971. A marble statue commemorating the county‘s Civil War soldiers stands in the town square, surrounded by antique buildings which house restaurants, bookstores, bridal boutiques, banks and churches. Up the road a half-mile, the university library, the tallest building in the county, decked in white marble when the Browders arrived but since re- clad in red granite, beckons visitors from all directions. Surrounding the library are classroom, administration and residence halls in a range of ages and architectural styles.

Similarly, the town boasts homes ranging from colonnaded antebellum mansions to high- density subdivisions and rundown student rentals. Although it is one of the oldest cities in Calhoun County and was the county seat until 1899, Jacksonville now exists primarily for the university. Full-time residents number fewer than ten thousand, but the

1 Glen Browder, ―Professor-Politician: Recollections and Records of an Alabama Reformer‖ (unpublished draft), 23. 23 24 population doubles when the university is in session. Almost everyone in town works at the university, is retired from the university, or works in a service job necessary to the university population. Alabama Highway 21, which runs through the middle of town, connects Jacksonville to Piedmont to the north and to Anniston and Oxford to the south.

Dr. Browder and His Students

Browder found JSU to be an unpretentious regional school with a surprisingly strong faculty. Despite having a significant number of students and instructors from other states and countries, the university‘s population was overwhelmingly Alabamian.

Browder‘s students represented an accurate cross-section of the people in the state. A few were privileged, but most came from working-class families. They were mostly white and mostly first-generation college students. They tended to be somewhat older than the typical student, often entering college after completing military commitments or working for a few years, or they were dividing their time between work and classes and took longer to complete their degrees. Browder felt an immediate connection. ―My students at Jacksonville have always reminded me in many ways of myself — working- class kids who didn‘t have any idea what they were going to do in life but who knew that they didn‘t want to relive their parents‘ lives in the mills and fields and coal mines,‖

Browder wrote. ―But many of them also had dreams and grit — something that can‘t be taught anywhere, not even at our most prestigious universities.‖2

Over the course of his tenure at Jacksonville, Browder had the freedom to structure his classes to explore his particular interest, the nature of American democracy.

2 Browder, ―Professor-Politician,‖ 24. 25

In addition to traditional courses in United States Government, State and Local

Government, Political Parties, and Elections, Browder also taught subjects in which he had special expertise: Public Opinion, Leadership, and Scope and Methods of Political

Science. His most popular course and personal favorite was Southern Politics, in which the professor said he learned as much as his students:

This regularly scheduled course attracted overflow enrollments — undergraduates, graduates, good students, less-than-good students, aspiring politicos, varsity athletes, black, white, male, female, and of course my personal following — all of whom understood that most of us would get to know Alabama politics and each other personally and that it was a fairly interesting and loose class.… I hope that they learned as much from me as I learned — about Southern politics, American democracy, and people — from them.3

When Browder began teaching, he was twenty-nine years old, not much older than many of his students and younger than some of them. Lecturing to age-mates could have been problematic, but lecturing was not his style. He preferred to lead discussions.

Rather than dictate dry facts, he challenged students to think and to defend their ideas out loud. Browder ―was not the most animated of teachers,‖ but he riveted students‘ attention through the power of ―analytical critique,‖ recalled political scientist Jess

Brown, one of Browder‘s first students. ―He would point out caveats. He would do things that ignited student comments. He gave us the analytical framework behind the headlines of the day, not disconnected factoids. We could see patterns.‖4 Browder‘s delivery grew more animated as he gained experience, and in later years he felt more comfortable when the course outline called for a lecture. Talladega County

3 Ibid. 4 Jess Brown, Ph.D., Huntsville, Alabama., interviewed by the author, Munford, Alabama, November 30, 2006. 26

Commissioner Kelvin Cunningham, who studied under Browder in the early 1980s, said,

―I was impressed with the delivery of Dr. Browder‘s lectures. He was able to bring

Southern Politics to life. He caused me to think about the South and its part in shaping the political culture in this country.‖5

Cunningham pinpointed one attribute that distinguished Browder among JSU‘s instructors and packed his classes with students: ―His practical approach in the classroom allowed students to feel comfortable in providing feedback to serious questions and issues.‖ Browder accorded his students a respect that they may not have encountered elsewhere, and he required that they show respect for each other‘s opinions.

When politics heated up the classroom discussions, Browder kept rancor from boiling over by analyzing all sides of a question but not taking sides. ―He was extremely nonpartisan in the classroom — and extremely nonpartisan when it came to someone needing to be brought back to reality,‖ said Centre, Alabama, attorney Dean Buttram, another of Browder‘s early students. ―He was always focused on the truth and the strengths and weaknesses of both [arguments]. That was one of the things his students loved about him.‖6

Browder looked for ways he could connect with his students as individuals. The first day of each class, he passed out index cards on which the students were to write their names, hometowns, addresses and phone numbers. Later Browder would employ this information as a database of contacts for political campaigns, but initially he found it

5 Kelvin Cunningham, ―Re: Questions regarding Glen Browder books,‖ e-mail message to author, December 10, 2007. 6 Dean Buttram, interviewed by the author, Centre, Alabama, November 9, 2006. 27 useful in starting conversations to help him and his students get to know each other. Ray

Minter, who later would become Browder‘s political adviser, confidant and chief of staff, recalled how his first conversation with Browder started with Browder‘s note cards back in 1973:

He was going through the cards like he always did, and he‘d pick out ten or twelve and ask someone like, ―You‘re from Sylacauga — what‘s Sylacauga famous for?‖ Well, he got through with his cards, and he said, ―I‘m from Sumter, South Carolina. Can anybody tell me what Sumter, South Carolina, is famous for?‖ I didn‘t know it at the time, but Glen has always been an avid sports fan. No one said a word for a long time, so finally I said ―Bobby Richardson, second baseman, New York Yankees.‖ He said, ―Who said that?‖ And I didn‘t say anything. He said, ―WHO SAID THAT?‖ So I raised my hand. He said, ―Move up front. You got an A.‖ He was laughing, so I just sat there. He said, ―MOVE UP FRONT. You‘re gonna sit on the front.‖ So I did, and that was our first meeting.7

Besides sharing Browder‘s love of baseball, Minter had been stationed at Shaw

Air Force Base near Sumter a few years earlier. The unexpected connections they discovered that first day of class in the fall of 1973 would expand over the next few years until Minter‘s career became inseparably intertwined with Browder‘s. Browder would become Minter‘s personal mentor, and Minter would become Browder‘s right hand. Yet their personalities could not have been more different. Confronting the same problems,

Browder responded intellectually, Minter viscerally. Minter recalled that it was an unfocused anger that led him to Browder‘s classes in the early 1970s:

As Glen said, I was mad at the world. He said I wasn‘t mad at one side or one part of it, I was mad at everything. And I probably was. Being in the service, being in Vietnam, I guess, I wanted to learn about the processes and the decision-making of the folks that were causing the events that were taking place at that time. You know, it was unsettling. You‘d had Kent State, you‘d had all sorts of marches, Watts had burned. We were in an upheaval from the

7 Ray Minter, interviewed by the author, Anniston Army Depot, Bynum, Alabama, March 23, 2007. 28

civil rights movement and all of those things, and it was still coming into the culmination of it. I was just angry, angry about everything, and government was the side of the thing that I zeroed in on.8

Minter‘s story is not unique. While Browder helped Minter to corral and discipline his anger, he touched other students in ways just as personally meaningful.

―I am not in a position to adequately describe the genuine educational encouragement and inspiration that I received from Dr. Browder during my school days at JSU, but on the other hand, it was quite evident that Dr. Browder was dedicated to his profession and his students,‖ recalled former student Wayne Rowe, who for the past twenty-five years has been the chief executive officer of a Gadsden, Alabama, health care firm. ―I first met him during my undergraduate studies and can best characterize him as a mild-mannered Southern gentleman, a serious political-minded professional, and a very personable individual. He was committed to extending as much time as was needed to help his students with whatever problem or issue we faced regarding any class assignment.‖9

William Killough, scion of a Talladega County political family, became a

Browder fan during his introductory Political Science class. Later he became an aide to

Congressman Browder. After that first course, Killough scheduled all his classes according to when Browder was teaching. ―He inspired me,‖ Killough said. ―He became my school advisor and mentor. He opened doors to understanding the political system, challenged me to question my political beliefs, and confirmed to me that politics, as ugly as it may seem at times, does shape and form our government, therefore affecting our

8 Ibid. 9 Wayne Rowe, ―Commentary — Dr. Glen Browder,‖ e-mail message to the author, January 4, 2008. 29 daily lives. This made me realize the importance of our role as citizens, voters and politicians — the need to be involved.‖ Killough‘s admiration for his professor grew into devoted friendship during his sophomore year at JSU. ―My mother had passed away during a difficult divorce with my father, so my life had hit an all-time low,‖ Killough said. ―I was struggling to find meaning and understand ‗why.‘ Looking back now on this time in my life, I remember the support of Glen, not only in the classroom, but also on the personal level. He and Becky reached out during this time in my life. I remember good conversations around their dinner table talking about politics and government and also my situation.‖10

Other students found their own inspirations. Buttram found honest debate of public policy that eventually led him to study law. Brown found an intellectual equal who inspired and guided him into political science. Cunningham found a role model in the professor-politician who demonstrated how the two roles complemented each other.

But of all the benefits Browder‘s students took from his classes, an easy A was not among them. ―I guess he gave me my lowest grade in graduate school,‖ Buttram recalled. ―No matter how much he might think of you or you of him, he didn‘t mind giving you a little slap on the wrist occasionally if he thought you were not measuring up to your potential. After that I went to war with him to meet his challenge. That‘s what he did to us — he challenged us.‖11

10 William Killough, ―Re: Questions regarding Browder biography,‖ e-mail message to the author, December 10, 2007. 11 Buttram, November 9, 2006. 30

Browder challenged his students in different ways. Alabama Lieutenant

Governor Jim Folsom, Jr., a classmate of Buttram and Brown, recalled that the first time

Browder taught Southern Politics, he announced test scores in descending order.

―Whenever he gave our tests back, he would start with the highest grade in the class.

He‘d say Mr. Robinson made a 98, Mrs. Jones made a 96, Mr. Folsom made an 89 or whatever, and then you‘d get on down to these guys who made 50s and 60s. I always thought that was very motivational. You had to walk up to the desk and get your grade, and everybody in the class knew what you had made.‖12 Folsom contended that although this practice may have been embarrassing to some of the students, it was fair and motivated them to work harder.

He told another story of an experience in the Southern Politics class which demonstrated Browder‘s demanding standards as well as his fairness. Folsom usually rode to class with a buddy who lived in the same apartment building, but the morning of the mid-term exam, the friend decided not to go. ―I think he‘d been out too late the night before,‖ Folsom said. The friend said he would take a makeup exam later. That was his first mistake. By the time Folsom returned after the exam, his friend was feeling much better, and the two of them decided to go for a ride in the friend‘s car. Folsom said that was mistake Number Two:

It was a spring day, beautiful weather, everybody was having a big time … so we got in his little MG and went riding around campus, going here and there, got the top down, socializing, visiting everybody, having fun. Two days later, we went back to class and he had gotten a fake doctor‘s slip and had it signed — you‘ve seen those before, I‘m sure. He said, ―Dr. Browder, I

12 Jim Folsom, Jr., Alabama lieutenant governor, conversation with Glen Browder, Chip Hill and the author, Birmingham, Alabama, June 21, 2007. 31

couldn‘t take the test, I was sick. I was just bad sick.‖ And Glen said, ―You weren‘t sick. I saw you and Jim Folsom riding through campus in an MG.‖ I thought, Oh god, he is gonna fail, Browder‘s gonna fail him. But he was fair to him. He said, ―OK, I‘m going to let you take the test, but whatever grade you make, I‘m subtracting ten points for you lying to me.‖ So that‘s how Glen dealt with things. He was fair. He always did the right thing.13

The JSU Mafia

Folsom, Minter, Cunningham, Buttram, and Brown were among a number of

Browder‘s students who would become prominent in Alabama politics. Folsom, son of former Alabama Governor ―Big‖ Jim Folsom, served two terms on the state Public

Service Commission before being elected Alabama‘s lieutenant governor in 1986. He acceded to the governor‘s office in 1993 and was again elected lieutenant governor in

2006. Minter, after a few years of teaching high school government and economics, became Browder‘s administrative assistant in the state capital and in Washington, D.C.

He worked for Browder until the congressman left office in 1997, and he later became chief of staff at Anniston Army Depot. Cunningham, also a teacher, became the first

African American to serve as chairman of the Talladega County Commission. Buttram served for six years on the Alabama Ethics Commission and went on to become a federal district judge. In 2002 he retired from the bench and returned to his law practice in

Cherokee County, where he remains a leader in the Democratic Party. Brown is a professor of political science at Athens State University and provides political analysis for local media. Rowe was appointed by the Gadsden City Council to serve two five- year-terms on the city Board of Education. His fellow school board members elected him

13 Ibid. 32 as the first and to date only African American board president. Browder also counts many other state legislators, city council and county commission members and congressional staffers among his former students.

One of Browder‘s students from the late 1970s, Mike Rogers, represents

Alabama‘s Third District in Congress, the same district Browder represented. Rogers, too, considers Browder an academic and political mentor. ―I took every course he offered, in undergraduate and graduate school,‖ Rogers said. Rogers had planned to enter politics since he was thirteen years old, and he found that Browder‘s classes gave him the practical knowledge he would need to get his career under way. Browder‘s classes offered ―more about the fundamentals of the political process and were not as philosophical as most of the other courses were,‖ Rogers said. ―He generally gravitated toward subject matter that was very practical as far as what I was looking for, that is to understand the process — not only how to get elected and how a campaign is run and why they‘re run in the way they‘re run, but then also how you govern, how you make things happen‖14

Throughout his years in teaching, Browder listened to his students‘ problems, helped them frame goals and often advised them about starting political careers. He directed their theses and research papers and involved them in his own scholarly work.

He served for several years as faculty director for the Student Conference On American

Government, which brought hundreds of high school and college students and prominent political leaders to the small college town; and he sponsored JSU‘s Young Democrats

14 Mike Rogers, U.S. congressman representing Alabama‘s Third District, Washington, D.C., telephone interview with the author, June 21, 2007. 33 chapter. Even after graduating, many former students, both Democrats and Republicans, turned to him for political counsel. Whatever other advice he gave them, he recalled, he also encouraged the idea of positive public service.15

His counsel carried even more weight after he entered politics himself. ―The fact that I was in the classroom with an active member of the Alabama legislature was impressive,‖ recalled Cunningham. ―His ability to relay information first hand caused me to consider a career in politics. I actually asked him his thoughts on my entering a school-board race. His response was very insightful and truthful. He told me that when one takes the office of school-board member, they tend to get stuck in that position. He is the reason that I decided to run for a position as county commissioner. I have often thought back to his method of serving when I make decisions as a commissioner.‖

Although Jacksonville State University had numerous alumni in politics before

Browder arrived, he has been the most often identified catalyst for JSU‘s powerful political cadre. The Mobile Register described a ―JSU Mafia‖ in Alabama politics, with

Browder as its main mentor; and JSU political scientist Dr. Hope Davis cited his colleague as ―a major influence on individual students and on the department‘s emphasis on the practical.‖ The newspaper noted that Browder‘s work apparently had raised the

Political Science Department‘s profile for young Alabamians of that time throughout the area. ―Both Jay Rhodes and Melanie Jones, a senior political science major and editor of the student newspaper, said they knew of Browder and his JSU affiliation while they were high school seniors deciding where to go to college.‖ Browder credited other

15 Glen Browder, ―PP Attachments 12-14-07,‖ e-mail message to the author, December 14, 2007. 34 faculty and alumni, but he admitted that his hands-on approach connected with the younger generation. ―I taught the kinds of courses that future political leaders might be interested in taking, and I found that there were a lot of young men and women who were receptive.… These people would have gone on to become leaders regardless of whether they had come to Jax State and taken my courses, but we did have a good environment for them to develop their interests.‖16

Most of Browder‘s students did not enter politics, and today he can name many of them who went on to succeed in other fields. But he also recalls that many JSU students had to struggle to make their way in life, and Browder connected with that struggle:

I remember the part-time undertaker [Franklin McGee] who overcame a terrible upbringing in Alabama-Georgia moonshine country and today is one of the most successful businessmen (a mortician) in the area. I remember the young deaf lady from Dothan [Heather Whitestone] who danced her way to ―Miss America‖ stardom. I remember the struggling boy from Fort Payne [Randy Owen] who organized and became the lead singer of the super- successful band ―Alabama.‖ I remember the rough-edged kid from nearby Possum Trot Road [Rick Bragg] who dropped out after a few classes to chase his writing dreams and who … won a Pulitzer with the New York Times…. But I‘m just as proud of those everyday people who walk up and reintroduce themselves to me — business people, teachers, law enforcement personnel, homemakers, all kinds and all colors — whose lives are better due to their schooling at this relatively uncelebrated but special institution. I like to think that I made a difference, that I had something to do with helping them live better lives.17

16 Sam Hodges, ―Jax State: A Maker of Movers and Shakers,‖ Mobile Register; November 14, 1993, the Browder Collection, Box 22: U.S. Congress Campaign 1994, Newspaper Clippings ‘93- 94. 17 Glen Browder, The Future of American Democracy: A Former Congressman’s Unconventional Analysis (Lanham: University Press of America. 2002), 33. 35

Applied Theory

Despite the empathy he felt for his students, Browder was more of an outsider than he expected. He had much to learn about the culture of his adopted state. Although he had grown up in the South and spent five years in neighboring Georgia, he didn‘t know much about Alabama beyond its notorious football rivalries and what news he‘d seen of the civil rights struggle while he was in Atlanta. Living and teaching in

Jacksonville, he soon developed a more textured picture. The first and most powerful lesson he learned was that Alabamians were struggling to reverse their state‘s reputation for being racially insensitive and culturally backward, no matter how much they might joke about it or how well-deserved that reputation might be. Browder‘s academic research during that period had a profound impact on his understanding of the cultural and political dynamic in Alabama. Papers he presented in 1972 and 1973 show the results of a case study of the public, influential leaders and city council members in

Anniston, Alabama, which he later would call ―one of his best learning experiences:‖18

I discovered that political policy linkage between the people and their representatives is just as likely to occur through shared community culture — thus almost by accident — as by the purposeful design of the players in the local political system. My research also has convinced me that race is still the strongest dynamic in Alabama politics, and such is probably the case in the rest of the South and perhaps throughout the nation. I have concluded, furthermore, that American public officials have much more discretion and opportunity for bold, positive leadership than they think they have or are willing to exercise.19

18 Browder presented the results of this research in several professional forums, including a paper on ―Public Opinion and Grassroots Politics‖ (Southern Political Science Association; Atlanta, l972); another paper on ―Citizen Impact on City Policy‖ (Southwestern Social Science Association; Dallas, l973); and an article on ―Race and Representation in a Southern Community: The Coming of a Negro Revolution?‖ in Politics 1974: Trends in Southern Politics,(Greensville, N.C.: East Carolina University Publications, 1974). 19 Browder, ―Professor-Politician,‖ 26. 36

In the following years, Browder used his linkage study in numerous courses. It was especially useful, he said, in the intensive one-month summer sessions.

―I would introduce students to the study and get them to conduct their own assessments of what was going on in their home communities,‖ he said. ―Additionally, that project introduced me to some key leaders in the area.‖20

Wayne Rowe observed that Browder‘s study had as much impact on his career as they did Browder‘s. ―I had many classes with Professor Browder during my JSU days, but one class, Community Leadership, stands out distinctly,‖ Rowe recalled. ―Professor

Browder gave each of us an assignment to research the top ten leaders within the local communities. Over the years, this specific class assignment and related lectures have lingered with me because, surprisingly, I learned that in any and all local communities, there is a nucleus of leaders who control what goes on in government policy-making and implementation of policies. In almost every level of government, there are ten to fifteen people who call the shots or impact the decisions by our elected officials and community leaders. With this knowledge, I have successfully been able to navigate through the politics in my professional positions and community services assignments. Additionally,

I have also provided political counseling to two city councilmen, a probate judge, and two state legislators during their election campaigns.‖21

For Browder, this research marked the dawning of his grasp of the power of his own civic vision. There was a void in government, a ―vacuum of leadership,‖ he found, that could be filled by persons with vision and determination. At first it was sufficient for

20 Glen Browder, ―Re: Clarification on Wayne Rowe,‖ e-mail message to the author, June 7, 2008. 21 Rowe, January 4, 2008. 37

Browder to teach and to share his findings, but the longer he instructed students in their civic responsibility, the more he assumed personal responsibility for accelerating

Alabama‘s progress toward New South ideals of racial harmony, educational excellence, and economic prosperity.

Now in his mid-thirties and settled into academic and family life, Browder began to feel an itch — not boredom, exactly, just a sense that he‘d like to do something more directly involved with politics. Since his days at Emory, he had conducted polls for academic research. He published regularly, and he spoke about his findings at conferences from South Carolina to Texas. 22 He was well respected among political scientists, but there was that persistent itch that could only be satisfied, he came to realize, by applying his academic knowledge, theory and training to real-world problems.

The first step was to extend his polling expertise to live political campaigns.

―My first big break was working with Viewpoint Enterprises, the power consulting team of Ed Ewing and Bill Jones, that had dominated Alabama politics for awhile,‖ Browder said.23 Ewing and Jones, former press secretaries for Alabama governors George and Lurleen Wallace, had left the Wallace camp and started Viewpoint shortly after George Wallace‘s 1968 presidential bid. It was the first full-time, professional political consulting firm in the state. By the late 1970s, Viewpoint was formidable.

22 Browder published extensively throughout his career. For a complete list of his published works, speeches and professional presentations, see Appendix A. 23 Glen Browder, ―Monday Re: Message from Glen Browder,‖ e-mail message, January 22, 2007. 38

Ewing and Jones introduced in Alabama what Browder later would call scientific campaign management.24 They started every campaign with a poll to establish baseline data. Ewing said he and Jones decided to use polling after one of their first candidates lost his race because they didn‘t have reliable data. ―[The candidate] kept telling us how good things were and how great it looked and wound up just getting waxed. So we made up our minds right then that any candidate we took, we were going to poll to know what was going on, Ewing said.‖25

The success of the campaigns Ewing and Jones managed depended in large part on the quality of the polling, and that varied greatly according to the expertise and diligence of the pollster. Browder, Ewing said, was one of the best. ―There are four key elements in polling,‖ Ewing explained: ―Sample selection, doing the questionnaire, reading the statistics properly, and then interpreting them to the guys that use them.

[Browder was] great in all aspects.‖26

Working with Viewpoint gave Browder a chance not only to make practical use of his polling expertise, but also to renew his interest in the media — Viewpoint was a full-service advertising and public relations agency that specialized in politics. Working with Ewing and Jones, Browder learned the art of turning research data into a campaign message. Just as important, he also learned the mechanics of getting that message to the public — hiring artists to design campaign literature, renting studios to record radio and television commercials and buying ad space in newspapers. He recognized that he was

24 Browder, October 20, 2006. Browder defined scientific campaign management as, ―a rational, systematic approach based on sound data, principles, and the use of computerized research and research-based media marketing.‖ 25 Ed Ewing, interviewed by the author, Wetumpka, Alabama, November 15, 2006. 26 Ibid. 39 learning from the best. ―They both were very kind to the college professor who wanted to learn the business,‖ he said. ―I learned a lot from them.‖27

By early 1976, Browder felt ready to manage a campaign on his own. His first client was John Teague, the man Browder would come to regard as his political mentor.

Working together in 1976, the two formed a friendship that would outlive both of their careers in public office.

Teague had represented his hometown of Childersburg for two years in the

Alabama House of Representatives when he decided to run for a newly vacated seat in the state Senate. Teague had managed his own House race in 1974. ―It was a shoestring campaign,‖ he said. ―We went door to door over and over and over and over and over.‖

He expected to run his Senate race the same way until Browder proposed to manage his campaign scientifically, using techniques he‘d learned from Ewing and Jones. Teague was skeptical, but he was aware that candidates for statewide offices had begun using professional managers and polling, recently having met Ewing and Jones through friends in Montgomery. When Teague learned that Browder was working with Viewpoint, he decided to employ that team to manage his Senate race, becoming one of the first in the state to use professional campaign management based on polling data for a district-level race. ―I think that industry was in its infancy,‖ he said. ―There were people around, but most of them had been involved in statewide races. …As far as the state House and state

Senate, at that time there was no great number that had a professional public relations

27 Browder, January 22, 2007. 40 group. There were a lot of freelance people, but no organized effort such as Glen put together for me.‖28

Browder‘s plan for the race went against all of Teague‘s political instincts — he told Teague not to campaign in the largest county in the district. ―It took awhile for me to agree that that was what I would do, because my thinking was to go to where the bulk of the votes were and just campaign as normal,‖ Teague said. However, Browder‘s polling had determined that Teague was strong in two of the three counties of the district, but weak in the most populous county. Browder advised Teague to concentrate his efforts in Talladega and St. Clair counties, where he was strong, and stay completely out of Calhoun County, where his opponent, a high school principal and football coach, was extremely popular. ―He told me, ‗Now if you‘ll do what I tell you to do, you‘ll win. If you don‘t, you‘re going to lose,‘‖ Teague said. ―‗If you go into Calhoun County, all you‘re going to do is stir those people up, and they‘re going to work harder and harder.

…I‘m going to handle Calhoun County; you just stay out,‘‖ Teague recalled. ―There was probably forty percent of the vote in Calhoun County,‖ he said. ―If it had not been for

Glen, I would have lost that Senate seat.‖29

Two years later, when Teague was up for his first full term in the Senate, he hired

Browder again. This time, Teague faced opposition from political leaders in St. Clair

County. Browder decided to meet them head on. He developed a campaign message specifically for St. Clair County, reminding voters of Teague‘s family ties there. ―My family was an old family in that area although I‘d never lived in that county,‖ Teague

28 John Teague, interviewed by the author, Montgomery, Alabama, November 15, 2006. 29 Ibid. 41 explained. Browder produced campaign flyers and newspaper ads using the theme, ―John

Teague‘s roots go deep in St. Clair County,‖ showing an ancient oak tree with massive roots and the names of Teague‘s relatives among the branches. ―I had never realized how far back those kinds of ties go,‖ Teague said, ―but everyone there recognized a name of one of the families I was related to, so I became their home son. We just swept the county.‖30

By this time, Browder had a couple of years‘ experience in managing campaigns.

In 1976, shortly after he first signed on with Teague, he and JSU colleague Ted

Klimasewski had formed a consulting business that would offer a wide range of services, including, of course, political campaign management. They called their business

Alabama Consultant Service (which they conveniently shortened to ACS), a title vague enough to serve as an umbrella for all the services they expected to offer. Klimasewski, an assistant professor of geography, was an expert in urban planning, and like Browder, he had extensive research experience. Polling would be at the core of their business, and they would develop recommendations for clients based on their interpretation of the survey results.

This type of consulting was virtually unknown in Alabama, and the local market was slow to embrace their concept. Establishing a clientele proved more difficult than they expected. In their first year, they wrote proposal after proposal that went nowhere.

In one such proposal, Browder and Klimasewski offered to identify issues most important to Calhoun County residents and produce a series of reports for the local newspaper and

30 Ibid. Copies of campaign literature and advertisements Browder created for Teague are available in The Browder Collection, Box 9: Consulting Materials 1970s-80s, John Teague case files. 42 television station.31 In another, they planned to determine which type of industry would provide the maximum economic and social benefit to the county.32 In a third, they offered to complete the complicated application process to establish a branch bank in

Alexandria, a small town in northern Calhoun County.33 All of these proposals ended up in Browder‘s Dead Cases file.

They had more success with political consulting. The new concept of scientific campaign management was catching fire with candidates, and ACS was one of only a handful of companies in Alabama that offered it. ACS was located in Jacksonville, in the northeast part of the state; Viewpoint was in Montgomery, the state capital in the center of the state; and Design/Research, run by James Everett Voyles, was in Mobile, in the southwest corner. Instead of competing with each other for business, the three firms collaborated to offer scientific campaign management to candidates in all parts of the state and even some from neighboring states.

By the end of 1976, Teague had won his first election to the Alabama Senate and

ACS needed new clients. Looking ahead to the 1978 statewide elections nearly two years away, Browder and Klimasewski began recruiting clients among likely candidates. One of these contacts paid off earlier than they expected when a bank fraud scandal cost a state senator his seat in 1977, opening an opportunity for Lister Hill Proctor.

31 Glen Browder and Ted Klimasewski, ―Calhoun Profile,‖ The Browder Collection, Box 9: Consulting Activities 1970s-80s, Dead Cases File, undated. 32 Glen Browder and Ted Klimasewski, ―Industrial Development Study,‖ The Browder Collection, Box 9: Consulting Activities 1970s-80s, Dead Cases File, undated. 33 Glen Browder and Ted Klimasewski, ―Cost of Completing Parts II, III, and IV of the Application to Establish a Branch Bank in Alexandria,‖ The Browder Collection, Box 9: Consulting Activities 1970s-80s, Dead Cases File, June 22, 1977. 43

Proctor, an assistant district attorney in Talladega County, had lost the

Democratic primary for the same seat by about a thousand votes in 1974. He decided to make another run for the seat in the 1977 special election, and this time he hired Browder and Viewpoint to help him. Conventional political wisdom held that Proctor would be familiar to voters because of his prominent position in the legal community and his earlier run for the seat. However, Browder‘s polling late in the primary campaign showed that although more voters recognized Proctor‘s name than his opponent‘s, neither candidate was well known. Browder said low name recognition predicted a low voter turnout and recommended concentrating the remaining campaign efforts in Proctor‘s home county, where the candidate led in name recognition seven to one. Proctor followed Browder‘s advice and won both the primary and the general election.34

Two successful campaigns in two off-year elections proved Browder‘s ability to get candidates elected, and ACS signed a full slate for the 1978 elections. Browder and

Klimasewski worked for more than a dozen candidates, managing some campaigns directly and polling for several others whose campaigns Viewpoint and Design/Research managed. In one week, Browder found that he was interviewing voters on behalf of five possible candidates for different offices in Calhoun, Talladega and St. Clair Counties.

―Since the interviews had to be adjusted to include only the races in each area,‖ Browder said, ―I needed a matrix to keep up with what I was doing.‖35 Browder‘s handwritten

34 Glen Browder, ―ACS survey report for Senate District 18,‖ The Browder Collection, Box 9: Consulting Activities 1970s-80s, August 1977. 35 Glen Browder, ―Re: Question about consulting,‖ e-mail message to the author, September 25, 2006. 44 matrix shows a total of eight hundred sixty interviews.36 Browder also was managing campaigns for Jim Folsom, Jr., his former student who was seeking a seat on the

Alabama Public Service Commission, as well as for several Alabama House and Senate candidates. ―I really hustled back then, doing the work of ten people,‖ he joked years later.37

If the workload took a toll on the Browders‘ family life, neither Glen nor Becky recognized it at the time. Becky worked as hard as Glen, doing what she called ―the monkey work,‖ organizing phone banks, conducting surveys and delivering campaign media. Many times, their three-year-old daughter, Jenny Rebecca, was right there with her. ―A lot of times it was no problem, but then there were times when we were in the heat of a campaign — like I can remember one day dragging Jenny in the back of the car, and she was a tired little girl and she wanted to go home and play, and I said, ‗But Jenny,

I‘ve got to take these radio announcements all over for John Teague.‘ And the poor little thing had to drive with me.‖ Looking back, Becky regretted the burden that she and Glen required Jenny to carry, but she still supported Glen‘s decision to pursue his consulting business. ―I think Glen was trying to figure out what he wanted to do, and that‘s normal,‖ she reflected. ―Glen has a very active mind, and he found something that he really knew and could flourish in and he went for it. And he was good at his political consulting — damn good. He really was. But it turned out to be a family event. We

36 Browder‘s matrix is on a 4x6 inch index card in The Browder Collection, Box 9: Consulting Activities 1970s-80s. 37 Browder, September 25, 2006. 45 should have had more family time, no doubt about it. Because you do that consulting and those politicians aren‘t taking off time from their families for you.‖38

Inevitably, complications in some of the campaigns added to an already burdensome workload. The Teague campaign, in particular, was fraught with difficulty.

In August, Browder and Teague spent three days explaining a printing error in a sample ballot. Many candidates distribute replicas of the ballots before elections so that voters can more easily find the candidate‘s name when actually voting. Teague supporters distributed three thousand copies of a ballot one Sunday afternoon before it was discovered that the name of a candidate in a different race had been left off. The offended candidate complained to the State Democratic Executive Committee, charging fraud. Browder, who had arranged for the printing, explained in a newspaper interview that the printer had switched a page of Teague‘s ballot with a page from a ballot for another candidate. When Browder learned of the error, he halted distribution and printed corrected ballots. The chairman of the party‘s executive committee ruled that the ballot was not fraudulent.39 That, however, was not the end of the problems for the Teague campaign. Teague‘s name was left off the official ballot in several voting machines in

Talladega County in the Democratic primary in September. Teague pushed his complaint

38 Becky Browder, interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, October 18, 2006. 39 This account is drawn from a series of three daily newspaper articles: Regina Wright, ―Candidate Charges Fraudulent Sample Ballot,‖ (Talladega) Daily Home, August 28, 1978, sec. A, p. 1; ―Controversial Sample Ballot To Get Scrutiny Of State Demo Chairman,‖ Daily Home, August 29, 1978, sec. A., p. 8; and Regina Wright, ―Bailes Says Teague Ballot Not Fraudulent,‖ Daily Home, August 30, 1978, sec. A, p. 1. 46 to court, but nothing came of it since he was already in a runoff and the number of votes he might have lost would not have affected the outcome.40

Throughout the campaign season, Browder surveyed voters to monitor his candidates‘ chances and the effectiveness of his management. He called the races with uncanny accuracy in a letter to Ewing in the week preceding the election.41 The results on election day confirmed his predictions, although they reduced his winning record considerably. ―I took a boatload of campaigns and about split even,‖ he recalled.42

One of the winning campaigns Browder managed was Folsom‘s. Folsom had been working in the public relations department for Reynolds Metals in Florence,

Alabama, when Browder called him to suggest that he run for a seat on the state Public

Service Commission. ―At that point in time, everybody thought that was a dead-end street,‖ Folsom recalled, and he told Browder as much. ―Dr. Browder responded that it didn‘t have to be that way, that it could be a pretty good place if it were handled properly, that it hadn‘t been handled properly. So I said, ‗Well … let me think about it.‘‖ Browder and Folsom got together a few days later, and Browder persuaded Folsom to agree to a poll. ―I looked at the numbers,‖ Folsom said, and ―at that point in my life, I didn‘t know what they said, whether they were good or bad. Dr. Browder thought they were good.

So after that, he was my consultant.‖ Browder continued polling for Folsom, created television advertising, ―and pretty much told me what to do,‖ Folsom recalled.43

40 This account is drawn from two newspaper articles: ―Irregularities charged — Suit filed in Talladega voting,‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, September 9, 1978, sec. A, p. 3; and ―Court action taken over election,‖ Childersburg Advance, September 14, 1978, 1. 41 Glen Browder, letter to Ed Ewing, Viewpoint Enterprises, August 31, 1978. 42 Glen Browder, telephone conversation with the author, June 16, 2007. 43 Folsom, June 21, 2007. 47

Browder‘s main contribution, Folsom said, was establishing a theme for the campaign that reversed the public perception of the office. ―The PSC was known as the political graveyard in the mid-seventies because electric power rates were escalating dramatically,‖ Folsom recalled. At that time the Arab oil embargo was driving up the cost of oil and Alabama Power Company wanted to raise its rates to pay for building a nuclear power plant, Folsom said. The telephone and gas utilities were nearly as unpopular as the electricity suppliers, and the Public Service Commission was responsible for regulating them all. So instead of attacking the utilities and promising to lower rates, Browder had Folsom advocate a ―professional approach,‖ hiring a professional staff to analyze and manage rates to provide for the utilities‘ necessary expansion while protecting rate payers from exorbitant increases. The utilities supported this approach enthusiastically and threw their weight behind Folsom. ―Really, that‘s what they wanted,‖ Folsom said. ―They wanted to be regulated in a professional manner.‖44 Leah Rawls Atkins wrote about the race in a history of the Alabama Power

Company, ―Folsom did not run as a demagogue nor did he advocate lowering utility rates. His platform was to have a professional approach with decisions based upon the best advice possible.‖45 Folsom won in a landslide, and Browder continued to advise him while he served on the commission.

Years later, looking back on a political career that had not yet peaked, Folsom credited Browder with prodding him to enter politics and with teaching him how to win.

44 Ibid. 45 Leah Rawls Atkins, Developed for the Service of Alabama: The Centennial History of the Alabama Power Company, 1906-2006 (Birmingham: Alabama Power Company, 2006) 410. 48

―I learned a lot in that ‗78 campaign,‖ he said. ―I learned a lot about new, modern day campaigns and how campaigns were run. That helped me quite a bit in making decisions as we went down the road. To tell you the truth, I probably wouldn‘t have stepped out there and left the security of that job [at Reynolds] and run. So this guy had a lot to do with me getting in the game.‖46

Browder had no doubt that Folsom would win that PSC race, and he was just as sure that his friend Jim Main would lose his bid for the state Senate. Browder had resigned from the Main campaign, unable to match a competing consultant‘s guarantee of victory, but he and Main remained friends. Main recalled in 2007 that Browder had told him from the beginning that he would lose if he ran for the Senate but that he could win a

House seat easily. ―He did the polling before we announced, and he came back and said,

‗You can win the House seat without any problem. There‘s no possible way you can beat

Donald Holmes for the Senate.‘ Oh, I wanted to be a senator. I was thirty-three or thirty- four years old and I was full of vinegar, so I said, ‗No, I‘d rather not be in the legislature than be a House member.‘ And long story short, I wasn‘t in the Senate; I didn‘t get elected. Donald Holmes did win.‖47 Main did not run for office again, but went on to become chief of staff for Governor Fob James and state finance director for Governor

Bob Riley.

The 1978 election season tested Browder‘s effectiveness as a campaign manager.

Successes and particularly failures taught Browder a new set of rules for managing campaigns. He kept a running file of ideas and observations that he developed into the

46 Folsom, June 25, 2007. 47 Jim Main, Alabama Finance Director, interviewed by the author, Montgomery, Alabama, June 25, 2007. 49

―Ten Commandments of Campaign Consulting,‖ which he would apply when running for office himself:

1. Campaigning is both a science and an art — and it helps if you are smart, work hard, and get lucky. 2. Money is what separates ―doers‖ from ―dreamers‖ — and winners from losers. 3. Name recognition wins most elections — thus gimmicks are effective when the voter doesn‘t have anything better to go on. 4. It‘s easier to get people to vote ―against‖ than ―for‖ — that‘s why negative campaigning works. 5. Don‘t accept what the candidate tells you — check it out yourself. 6. Don‘t fight with the press — except when you have to. 7. Don‘t believe everything the public tells you in public opinion polls — sometimes people fudge, sometimes they don‘t know what they‘re talking about, and sometimes they just change their minds. 8. Don‘t ever lie to the candidate or the press or the public — you‘ve got to live with them and yourself after this election. 9. Don‘t allow yourself to become an issue in the campaign — you may like your name in print but eventually it will hurt your candidate. 10. The key to successful campaign consulting is to work for winners.48

Browder and Klimasewski continued teaching at JSU throughout the 1978 campaign season, which contributed to their frantic pace and provided negative campaign fodder in one race. Although they were careful to separate their ACS and JSU activities, the connection was easy to discern. An Anniston Star article after the November general election characterized them as ―moonlighting college professors.‖49 Teague‘s runoff opponent published an advertisement that described ACS as ―a Jax State campus based advertising agency‖ and accused Browder of diverting taxpayer money from JSU into

48 Browder, ―Professor-Politician,‖28-29. 49 Mike Sherman, ―Candidates feel inflation pinch,‖ Anniston Star, November 1978, Box 9: Consulting Activities, 1970s-80s. 50

Teague‘s campaign.50 Neither Browder nor Klimasewski suffered any professional reprisals for their work with ACS, but after a little more than two years and one full-on campaign season, Klimasewski had had enough. He and Browder dissolved their partnership after the 1978 general elections.

For Browder, there would never be enough. He was a political scientist and a political animal. He wanted to continue working with candidates, and he still thought the broad-based ACS consulting concept was viable. He incorporated as Data Associates and began soliciting clients on his own.

The Family Grows

During the early years of the 1970s, Glen and Becky were living their version of the American Dream.51 He was well established as an assistant professor at JSU, and

Becky, having earned her bachelor‘s degree, was working on her master‘s and was teaching finance. In 1975, Jenny Rebecca‘s birth made their family complete.

Glen now had two loves of his life. ―From the time we had Jenny, it was always

Jenny, Glen and me,‖ Becky said. ―He moved her over into our bed when she was six months old because she had roseola and he was scared to death she would get sick during the night. She stayed there until she was four.‖52 Shortly after Jenny was born, the

Browders built a house on ten acres in the nearby Williams community. At their mountainside home, the young family had room to spread out and put down roots. Glen

50 ―Why Can‘t Johnny Read?‖ Newspaper ad for Billy Atkinson, who opposed John Teague for the Democratic nomination for Alabama Senate District 19, the Browder Collection, Box 9: Consulting Activities, 1970s-80s. 51 Browder, Future Of American Democracy, 31-32. 52 Becky Browder, interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, October 18, 2006. 51 was able to grow tomatoes again, and inspired by fatherhood, he planted an apple orchard. The gesture, a long-lived tribute to his love for his child, recalled the time- softened memories of his boyhood days spent among the branches of a tree. It was a connection he hoped Jenny would adopt and cherish as she grew, and apparently she did.

Jenny, now a biology graduate student and lifelong naturalist, retains affection for her childhood home, according to her mother. ―Jenny still wants that house,‖ Becky said.

―She loved that house. She used to teach school in the basement to all her dolls and stuffed animals. We took her back there a few years ago, and Jenny asked the woman who owned it at the time if she could go down front and pick an apple from the apple trees. The woman said, ‗Pick all you want.‘ Jenny‘s the type of girl — and some people think this is wacky but I don‘t — she thanks the tree for the apple. And she thanks the

God above for the tree. So she picked her apples, and I went down there and she was sobbing. She said, ‗I want this house back so badly.‘ But it‘s a dream.‖53

After nearly a decade in Alabama, Glen and Becky still had strong ties to South

Carolina, and they felt it was time to make some serious career and family decisions.

During his partnership with Klimasewski, Browder had made some inquiries about expanding ACS into his home state. Now that he didn‘t have a partner, he had even more freedom to move and he stepped up his efforts to find a niche in South Carolina. He wrote to advertising firms, universities, politicians and political handlers. He even considered giving up teaching if it meant he could get back to South Carolina. In a letter

53 Becky Browder, October 18, 2006. 52 to longtime friend Stanley G. Brading in Sumter, Browder expressed contentment with his life except that he wished he could return to South Carolina:

Everything here is perfect: a good job, a nice home, and a lifestyle which I cherish. Becky and I have a daughter (4 years old) who is a blessing. The only thing I would like different would be for the entire scene to be shifted to South Carolina. I have checked into the possibility of returning to South Carolina, but with no success; the market for political scientists has been terrible for the past decade and likely will be terrible until the mid-80s. During the past few years, I have run campaigns from the county to the state level. My primary interest is polling, but I also work on the media side, and I can direct all aspects of the campaign. I really enjoy this work; and I am confident that, other things being equal, scientific campaign management will win just about any race. At this point in my career, I am seriously looking at the possibility of leaving academia to do full-time what I‘m now doing on a consultant basis.54

Browder followed up his letters with phone calls and visits throughout 1979 and

1980, but one promising lead after another faded into nothing.

Looking back, Browder placed no great emphasis on his desire or Becky‘s to return to South Carolina. ―Just exploring the market,‖ he said. ―I had been in Alabama almost a decade. I looked homeward, with political science and political ideas, but I finally figured out I had better a situation and better prospects here in Alabama.‖55

Very soon, Browder would find out just how good his prospects were in Alabama, for he decided to leave the sidelines and get into the game. Several years of classroom instruction and field research had produced a popular teacher and solid scholar; he knew a lot about Southern politics, public opinion, political parties, elections, leadership, and government. In five years of consulting, he had experienced considerable success in polling; he had developed unorthodox, winning strategies for campaigning; and he had

54 Glen Browder, letter to Stanley G. Brading, Sumter, South Carolina, June 5, 1979. 55 Browder, October 20, 2006. 53 advised public officials on politics and policy. But observing and orchestrating political races did not satisfy his ambition — he itched to try his own hand at real-world democracy. Dr. Browder was about to run for political office.

INTO THE FIRE

It had not been Glen Browder‘s lifelong ambition to become a politician. Rather, it was an idea that besieged him in the late 1970s as he managed successful campaigns and watched from the sidelines as several of his clients entered public service. If his academic background had given him a theoretical understanding of American democracy, managing political campaigns had exposed him to the exhilarating inner workings of the election process. ―Very few things in academia and life are as challenging as electoral politics; and there‘s always a clear, timely and consequential outcome,‖ he wrote. ―Just as in sports, when the time clock runs out, you look at the scoreboard — and you win or lose.‖1 The more contact he had with street-level politics, the more he wanted to be a part of it. It was time to leave the sidelines and get into the game himself.

―My flame of ambition and arrogance — fueled by a combination of philosophical motives, political savvy, and textbook knowledge — probably burned stronger and hotter and more self-reflectively than most,‖ Browder wrote in The Future of American Democracy. ―I wanted, from the beginning, to be different from run-of-the- mill public officials. I wanted to do something special.‖2

Since college, Browder had been intrigued with two large philosophical ideas which he would follow as he entered politics. The first was what French writer

1 Glen Browder, ―Professor-Politician, Recollections and Records of an Alabama Reformer‖ (unpublished draft), 28. 2 Glen Browder, The Future of American Democracy: A Former Congressman’s Unconventional Analysis (Lanham: University Press of America. 2002), 35. 54 55 Alexis de Tocqueville described in the 1830s as ―the Great Experiment‖ of American democracy, that the United States governed itself in a way that was unique and unprecedented and not guaranteed to succeed.3 The second was Plato‘s concept of the

―Philosopher-King,‖ that those charged with governing must balance ―public power‖ with ―virtuous knowledge‖ and be able to see beyond superficial symptoms to identify and remedy core problems in government.4 For Browder, America‘s ―Great Experiment‖ was too precious to be squandered at the hands of political hacks and bureaucrats lacking the civic vision of Plato‘s Philosopher-Kings. Yet civic vision appeared to be in short supply. ―I was struck by the lack of interest in reform issues among both aspiring candidates and established public officials; very few professional politicians seemed really interested in such things as clean elections, political ethics, and constitutional reform,‖ Browder wrote. That, more than anything else, lured him to run for public office. He realized that he ―could indeed exercise leadership on important matters of public policy in Alabama and possibly beyond — in great part because normal politicians generally do not care for the civic responsibilities and heavy lifting of American democracy.‖5

Browder‘s ambition burned brighter than ever, but it did not blind him to reality.

―I had no delusions about being America‘s Philosopher-King,‖ he wrote. ―However, I did aspire — presumptuously but sincerely — to be a Professor-Politician, a less mythical leader with sufficient civic vision and practical ability to achieve as much philosophical

3 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835, Penguin Classics ed., trans. Gerald E. Bevan (London: Penguin Books, 2003) 15-16. 44 Plato, The Republic, Penguin Classics edition translated by Desmond Lee, Penguin Books, London, 2001. 5 Browder, ―Professor-Politician,‖ 5.

56 progress as is politically possible. In short, I wanted to do the right thing — and to make it work!‖6

Practical Game Plan

Browder devised a game plan that, if fully realized, would propel him all the way to Washington, D.C. ―I did not specify any particular targets or dates, but I did identify what needed to be done — both substantively and procedurally — and how to do it,‖ he wrote. ―The result was immediately positive, and the plan unfolded in phases almost as if preordained, with timely steps up the political ladder from Jacksonville to Washington.‖

According to his three-stage plan, he would start by establishing his presence in the state

Democratic Party, then run for office in Alabama, and from there build his name recognition to win a spot in the national arena.7

Through his academic and consulting work, Browder had moved into the inner circles of local and state party politics. When Browder expressed an interest in serving on the state Democratic Executive Committee as a prelude to running for office, the local committeeman moved aside to give him an entrée.

The 1980 presidential election provided Browder‘s first experience as a candidate.

He ran for delegate to the Democratic National Convention in New York. As he had from the beginning of their marriage, Glen enlisted Becky‘s full participation — he talked her into running too. They both won slots among the delegation.

Their selection for the Alabama delegation surprised a lot of people, including

Browder‘s former student Jim Folsom, Jr. ―I was pretty impressed that he had gotten

6 Ibid. 7 Browder, ―Professor-Politician,‖ 6.

57 elected delegate, because not a whole lot of people knew him then,‖ Folsom recalled.

Browder was not so surprised. ―A lot of it is calculating what you have going for you,‖ he explained to Folsom, slipping back into the professor-student relationship with the sitting lieutenant governor of Alabama. ―One of the things I calculated was that my name began with a B, and when fifteen or twenty people are running for four slots, alphabetically if you are a B, you‘re probably going to get some advantage at the head of the ballot.‖ Folsom examined Browder‘s expression to detect whether he was joking, then smiled broadly and said, ―I guess you did get a few points from that.‖8

Attending the Democratic National Convention signaled the beginning of a new direction in both the Browders‘ lives. For Glen, it was the first step in the realization of his plan. For Becky, it was confirmation that she preferred a supporting role in Glen‘s political future. They would face many more elections together, but never again with

Becky as a candidate.

For the next two years, Browder worked in what he called ―the partisan vineyards of local and state politics.‖ 9 Although Republicans would occupy the White House for twelve years, starting with Ronald Reagan‘s election as president in 1980, and the GOP would continue to strengthen in the South, Democrats still controlled Alabama politics in the early 1980s. When Browder entered politics, candidates ran as Democrats if they expected to be elected. It was not a matter of identifying with a liberal agenda or a conservative one — most Alabama politicians were conservative, and Browder was quite conservative on some issues and less so on others. First on his agenda was improving the

8 Conversation between Alabama Lieutenant Governor Jim Folsom Jr. and Glen Browder, with Chip Hill and Geni Certain present, Birmingham, Alabama, June 25, 2007. 9 Browder, ―Professor-Politician,‖ 7.

58 process. ―I entered public service originally, as did many others, with an ambitious, arrogant, burning urge to make democracy work better than it was working at that time. I was never really moved by ideological or partisan issues, nor did I develop any powerful special interest support groups that would walk through hell with me,‖ he explained in

The Future of American Democracy. ―If forced to describe my political philosophy, I would say that I was pretty much self-driven by civic love of the game of American democracy.‖10

In 1982, Browder got his chance to join the game. Incumbent Democrat Gerald

Willis told Browder that he had decided not to seek re-election to the Alabama House of

Representatives. If Browder could win this seat, he‘d have his ticket to Montgomery and phase two of his game plan would take effect. The race would take some money, but perhaps not as much as his opponents would spend. He had other assets that would make up for his lack of funds — but first, he had some polling to do.

Until his research showed he could win the seat and until he and Becky determined that they could afford the expense of a campaign, Browder kept his interest quiet. To minimize speculation in the press about his intentions, he and Becky made media inquiries on behalf of an unnamed political candidate under the auspices of Data

Associates, Browder‘s consulting identity. In April, he was noncommittal in a newspaper article which questioned whether JSU would allow his candidacy.11 In June, he announced that he had decided to run.

10 Browder, Future Of American Democracy, 35. 11 Tim Funk, ―Politicians stir with spring,‖ Anniston Star, April 12, 1982, the Browder Collection, Box 12: Campaigning for the Alabama Legislature 1982 (and Special Election of 1983), Election Newspaper Clippings, 1982.

59 The First Campaign

Although Browder began talking about reforms as soon as he started talking about running for office, he was no wide-eyed idealist. Beginning with his announcement speech, he avoided the word ―reform,‖ which some voters would find clichéd and some would find threatening. Instead, Browder employed the keywords of reform that would become the foundation of his political career, ―common sense‖ and ―moral leadership.‖

What‘s more, he gave his first political expression to a practice that would become his modus operandi, coalition building. ―I have some strong convictions about what our area and state need,‖ Browder said. ―I think that, basically, we have to restore some common sense and moral leadership to government. However, I want to talk with the people about these ideas before making any specific plans.‖ He said he intended to visit fifteen homes in the district, conducting a ―living room poll,‖ and would qualify for the race in one month, at which time he would share the results of his poll in a public meeting.12 The living room poll produced no surprises. Browder‘s intent was to establish a foundation of grassroots support for his positions. Even if he were sure he had a good solution to a problem, he knew voters would accept it more readily if they felt they had been involved in formulating it.

Browder did not expect to have an easy ride in this first campaign. He had a strong base in the university community, but he was unknown in the outlying area, where the district was distinctly blue collar. He anticipated that his opponents would criticize him as an outsider from South Carolina and as a know-it-all college professor, and he would not have much advertising money to counter the attacks. He learned at this early

12 Anniston Star, June 9, 1982, 4D.

60 stage in his career that he disliked fundraising and wasn‘t good at it. His opponents, however, did not have his political science expertise, his consulting experience, his communication skill, or his vision. If Browder made the best use of all his assets, they should more than make up for his lack of money.

Browder first applied his managerial skill to recruiting volunteers. He divided the

House district into five geographic divisions and appointed coordinators who introduced him to their neighbors and took care of campaign business in the area. These coordinators typically had not been active in politics before, but were well respected in their communities and committed to Browder‘s vision. Among them were John Van

Cleave in Jacksonville, Jack Holder and Rod Douglas in Piedmont, Evis and Linda

Thompson in Weaver, Robert Whiten in Pleasant Valley and the rural west side of the district, and Bennett and Sandra Harper in White Plains and the rural eastern area of the district. These friends — and numerous others — proved to be effective campaigners and long-time supporters, Browder said.13

Browder also was adept at managing information about himself, particularly when it came to manufacturing news events that would boost his poll numbers. When he did have to pay for media, he crafted the message with fine subtlety. Without diminishing his education or his accomplishments, he presented himself as a working man, one who understood the struggles of the poor and who was living proof that poverty was not inescapable. Campaign ads read like personal messages. One such ad, an ―open letter‖ from Becky, described how their early years had imbued them with ―a special interest in

13 Glen Browder, ―Additions for GB bio,‖ e-mail message to the author, May 10, 2008.

61 and respect for the hard-working people of District 57.‖14 In another, Browder published his home telephone number and invited district residents to call him to discuss problems they wanted him to address in the legislature.15 In a widely circulated personal profile he developed for the campaign, Browder called himself, ―A Common Sense

Leader for the Eighties,‖ and proffered this surprising position statement:

I think that government has gotten off track by telling us that it can solve all our problems, that it can guarantee happiness. So what we have is a lot of taxes and regulations and we‘re still not happy. The government, and politicians, need to stop promising so much.16

This message earned him the title of ―most philosophical‖ in a newspaper article which characterized the upcoming elections as a beauty pageant. Browder used the opportunity of the interview to expand on his statement. Comparing legislative compromise to ―horse trading,‖ he again vowed not to promise happiness but committed himself instead to ―try to trade up for the district.‖17 As the primary election approached, he made more news by announcing that he would relinquish his university salary while the legislature was in session. In three sentences — and without ever using these words

— Browder made the case that he was conscientious, honest and moral, that his family was the center of his life, that he would be frugal with taxpayers‘ money, and that he would not receive two state salaries at the same time. ―My family and I have given long and serious thought to this situation,‖ he said. ―It will mean considerable sacrifice for us,

14 Glen Browder, ―An Open Letter From Becky Browder,‖ for publication in the Jacksonville News, the Browder Collection, Box 12: Campaigning for the Alabama Legislature 1982 (and Special Election of 1983), Newspaper Campaign Ads, 1982. 15 Glen Browder, political advertisement, Jacksonville News, the Browder Collection, Box 12: Campaigning for the Alabama Legislature 1982 (and Special Election of 1983), Newspaper Campaign Ads, 1982. 16 Glen Browder, Personal Profile, the Browder Collection, Box 12: Campaigning for the Alabama Legislature 1982 (and Special Election of 1983), The Glen Browder Story, 1982. 17 Larry Tye, ―Candidates stump for seats in Legislature,‖ Anniston Star, July 8, 1982, sec. D, p. 1.

62 since I do not own my own business and I am not a rich man. However, I think it is the fair thing to do for the taxpayers of this district.‖

The local press adored Browder, and it was not accidental. He used all his accumulated expertise to make friends in the media. As a consultant, he had compiled a list of do‘s and don‘ts for his clients when giving interviews, and he now applied these principles to his race for the legislature: ―Don‘t lie; don‘t be self important; don‘t blame a reporter for his paper‘s policies; don‘t be inaccessible; do be accessible and available; answer promptly; get to know reporters and editors personally; be accurate and on time; be candid and cooperative; if you don‘t know an answer, admit it and report back later.‖18

The attention Browder received in the media frustrated and annoyed his opponents, but it also demonstrated the most effective means of attacking him. Before the primary, the strongest arguments against Browder came in letters to the editors of the

Jacksonville News and the Anniston Star. One writer accused Browder of favoring colleges and universities over elementary and high schools, and another said he was disloyal to the president of JSU. Browder bought quarter-page ads in both papers denouncing the assertions as incorrect and pointing out that neither of the writers was registered to vote in the district. The most effective rebuttal, however, came from the flood of letters sent to both newspapers by Browder supporters.

One last asset that Browder had over his opponents was his committed and well- trained volunteers; many of his former students worked in Browder‘s first race. Dean

Buttram and Ray Minter contacted friends and relatives in the area, while Mike Rogers

18 Glen Browder, ―Do‘s and Don‘ts for Dealing with Media,‖ the Browder Collection: Box 9, Consulting Activities 1970s-80s.

63 put up signs, knocked on doors and made calls for polls. ―That was a great learning experience for me,‖ Rogers said. ―At that time, particularly in a state House race, nobody was doing polling. They couldn‘t afford it, and most state legislative campaigns don‘t have a large enough infrastructure of volunteers to do it. Glen had hired a nice little cadre of former students that were interested, and he was able to draw on those, so his first House race was pretty sophisticated.‖19

In the primary, Browder led in votes but did not win an outright victory. When told his runoff opponent, Charley Baker, claimed to be more conservative, Browder bristled at being characterized as a liberal. ―I‘m pretty much in the middle,‖ he told a reporter as the primary votes were being totaled. ―I think we‘re both concerned about jobs, crime and education, but the difference may be that I can be more effective in dealing with those issues.‖20 The charge of being too liberal came up again later the same week when two of his primary opponents endorsed Baker.21 Browder tried to ignore the barbs until Baker began referring to Browder‘s endorsements from teachers, police officers and insurance agents as special-interest influence. Then Browder publicly criticized Baker‘s acceptance of a contribution from an Anniston beer distributor, telling a reporter, ―I will take this support any time over Mr. Baker‘s beer money.‖22

Browder won the runoff with fifty-two percent of the vote and ran unopposed in the general election that November. He had spent just $12,284 on the campaign, $5,420 of it his own money.

19 Mike Rogers, Washington, D.C., telephone interview with the author, Munford, Alabama, June 21, 2007. 20 Larry Tye, ―Holmes and Campbell are victors; Baker, Browder face runoff fight,‖ Anniston Star, September 8, 1982, p .1A. 21 ―Chandler, Grogan endorse Baker,‖ Anniston Star, September 14, 1982. 22 Marian Uhlman, ―Personalities spice District 57 runoff,‖ Anniston Star, September 23, 1982, 1D.

64 In the two months between being elected and taking office, he began a relationship with Alabama‘s most legendary politician. Browder sent Governor-elect

George Wallace, whom he had never met nor supported, a letter promoting his ideas about good government and reform. ―My statements here may seem somewhat presumptuous,‖ he wrote, ―but I feel comfortable that we could work well together; and I think that we must take some bold and presumptuous steps if Alabama is to meet the challenges it faces the rest of this century.‖23

Politicking With George Wallace

According to Browder, George Wallace was the most interesting — and skilled

— politician he encountered in Alabama, and the only one who ever rivaled Wallace in that regard was President Bill Clinton.24 Reflecting on his relationship with Wallace,

Browder wrote:

I would learn, in time and through my dealings with him, that George Wallace was more than a classic stereotype of demagoguery, political opportunism, and social sins. He was, in many ways, a breakthrough populist in a state long run by the ―Big Mules‖ and Black Belt bosses; and he and his wife Lurleen did much for the poor, the uneducated, and the disadvantaged. Toward the end, he lived through his own mortal hell of self-realization about his role in state, national, and world history; and he successfully sought forgiveness from black Alabamians for his segregationist past. After extreme physical and emotional suffering, he realized at least partially the grace and power of redemption before his death.25

Browder, of course, knew of Wallace, but the two had not met before Browder was elected to the Alabama legislature. He had never supported Wallace in any political

23 Glen Browder, letter to George Wallace; November 30, 1982, the Browder Collection, Box 35: Alabama Legislature, 1982-83, Alabama Legislative Issues/Correspondence 1983. 24 Glen Browder, interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, November 27, 2007. 25 Glen Browder, ―Professor-Politician, Recollections and Records of an Alabama Reformer,‖ unpublished draft, July 18, 2002, 11.

65 endeavor. However, Browder knew that to be successful in the legislature, he would have to form a practical working relationship with a man biographer Marshall Frady characterized as a ―deep, dark original threat‖26 to American democracy. The friendship that grew between them far exceeded Browder‘s initial ―practical‖ aim and lasted until the end of Wallace‘s life.

―Governor Wallace wanted to be a good Governor at that time,‖ Browder wrote.

―He wanted to help black people; he wanted to help poor people; he wanted to improve the education system; and, irony of ironies, he was prepared to raise taxes in whatever way was necessary to provide needed social and governmental services.‖27

Wallace, however, no longer had the physical ability to mold his vision into reality. ―Despite his reputation as one of the most aggressive politicians in Alabama history,‖ Browder wrote, ―Governor Wallace was not really in control of his administration or the legislature. His appointed people and personal staff ran things.

This created a situation in which it was hard to deal with the governor‘s office because you had to talk with various people and you could never count on decisions standing up beyond the immediate conversation.‖28 Browder said that Wallace‘s younger staff members recognized that ―the governor had blessed and trusted me; and people like

Charles Carr (his legislative liaison) and Rex Cheatham (his education aide) provided invaluable partnerships for good work on behalf of the governor.‖ Carr and Cheatham were not in the majority of Wallace‘s staff, however, and Browder said not even Wallace could count on all his directives being carried out. ―Even when Wallace would tell his

26 Marshall Frady, Wallace (New York: Random House, 1976), ix. 27 Glen Browder, unpublished commentary prepared for Stealth Reconstruction, 2007, 11. 28 Ibid, 12.

66 people to do something progressive, you worried that some of the other, older operatives, whose careers and agendas went far back and deep into Alabama‘s past, might go right out and do whatever they thought needed to be done or what they really wanted to do.‖29

Browder seemed somewhat baffled by the governor‘s attachment to him and speculated that Wallace discerned that their relationship would be mutually beneficial:

We formed a positive relationship, for some reason; I guess it was partly because I was aggressive and ambitious and partly because I met their needs: a reform-oriented college professor with publicly stated objectives of clean elections and good government (and excellent relations with the news media). I could always call on him personally and he would see me and, amazingly, he always responded well to my reform initiatives and suggestions. I would visit him in the governor‘s office, at his private quarters in the governor‘s mansion, or by telephone; and he always said to me, ―Glen, I want you to do what you think is the right thing to do!‖ Then, he‘d turn to one or more of his aides and say, ―Do what we need to do to get this taken care of!‖ Of course, we then would go back to the process whereby I had to navigate the bureaucratic/personality jungle to get anything resembling what had just been decided. I‘m sure his assistants hated to see me come in the door because it often meant something that they didn‘t like or prioritize.30

George Wallace, Jr., said his father simply liked Browder: ―Glen Browder was one of my father‘s favorite people.‖ The younger Wallace said the governor had recognized Browder‘s vision and commitment to good government from their first encounters. ―As is so often the case, political figures have those around them who are very helpful in a number of ways but tend to lack a clear vision of the bigger picture and how that affects our posterity. Glen Browder had that capacity; my father recognized it early on in his relationship with Glen, and thus began a friendship my father always cherished,‖ he said. The younger Wallace said his father ―admired the intellectual and

29 Browder, December 11, 2007. 30 Browder, ―Stealth Commentary,‖ 12.

67 philosophical approach Glen brought to public service.‖ Browder and the governor

―both understood the process of governing and all the factors in the equation that make public policy. Their approach to the process was more statesmanlike than that of most of their contemporaries, and because of this, it inevitably put them in the crosshairs of certain special interests,‖ Wallace said.31

Browder chose not to comment on George Wallace‘s racist political career, because, he said, the man he came to know was ―in agony over what he had done to black people and his role in history.‖ The inner pain that Wallace suffered over his racist politics of the past ―dwarfed the crippling action of his would-be assassin,‖ Browder said.

―He wanted to do right, not only regarding race but also in governing Alabama; his demons no longer rained hell on enemies in the media and in Alabama and throughout the nation — his demons of those last few years tormented his very soul.‖32

During the final years of Wallace‘s life, Browder visited him periodically. He always found the experience to be moving, both personally and professionally.

I witnessed his pain and grief. He was permanently and constantly hurting and needing the physical help of staff. His conversation was often interrupted and garbled. Interestingly, his most valuable and faithful companions seemed to be black assistants (some of them may even have been work release inmates from the prison system) who took care of his needs. I recall him asking Eddie to help do this or help do that; and Eddie was always kind, gentle, and loving with his patient. The most discomforting part of the experience, and the part that made me think about the diverse, entangled threads in the texture of our personal lives and Southern history, was when I realized that Governor Wallace was suffering over what he had done through earlier years and, with watery eyes, tried to convince me that he wanted to

31 George Wallace, Jr., ―Re: Questions Regarding Browder Book Project,‖ e-mail message to the author, December 3, 2007. 32 Browder, ―Stealth Commentary,‖ 11.

68 make things better; and he begged me to do what was right for all the people of Alabama.33

The visits were meaningful for the governor as well, his son recalled. ―I can hear him now,‖ George Wallace, Jr., said. ―I would visit him at night in his last years and we would talk and he would reminisce about Mother and his life‘s journey. On occasion, he would talk about people he had been associated with while in public life, and he would bring up the name of Glen Browder. ‗Glen,‘ he told me, ‗is one of those people you like immediately. He is a gentle soul with strong principles and the courage of his convictions, and he has that special quality that draws people to him. There is goodness in Glen Browder, and people recognize it and feel it immediately. Glen is a good man.‘‖34

The Professor-Politician on Goat Hill

Election to public office had confirmed that the professor was now also a politician. But whether he could measure up to his self-described ideal of Professor-

Politician would be determined by his activities on Goat Hill, the Alabama capitol complex. Browder was sworn into office on January 5, 1983, and gained appointments to the Judiciary Committee and the Constitution and Elections Committee. At the end of his first year, Wallace appointed him to the powerful Ways and Means Committee. Browder characterized his service in the Alabama legislature as ―focused on good government and various reforms, generally siding with a coalition of moderate to progressive interests.‖35

Alabama Education Association scorecards show Browder had a ninety-five percent pro-

33 Ibid. 34 Wallace, December 3, 2007. 35 Glen Browder, ―Go Ahead and Cry Some More,‖ e-mail message to the author, December 11, 2007.

69 education career voting record;36 Alabama Alliance of Business and Industry scorecards gave him a thirty-eight percent score on business issues; 37 and the Alabama

Citizens Action Program gave him a one hundred percent score on moral issues.38 His major accomplishments were the ―Browder Education Reform Act of 1984,‖ the

―Alabama Crime Victims Compensation Act of 1985,‖ and the ―Alabama Performance-

Based Career Incentive Program (Teacher Career Ladder) Act of 1985.‖ He also served as vice chairman of the Governor‘s Education Reform Commission in 1985 and 1986.

Browder received several awards and recognitions for his service. His legislative colleagues included him among their Outstanding Legislator ranks in 1985 and 1986; and he received special commendations from crime victims, social workers, and school financial aid administrators.

Hard History and Reform in the Heart of Dixie

Browder thought his academic and consulting background had filled in the gaps in his understanding of politics and race relations in Alabama; but when he took his seat in the legislature, he found that his education had barely begun. He soon learned that achieving any kind of change required navigating a well-established and politically dangerous racial minefield with conservatives — mostly Democrats — on one side and an amoebic coalition of liberals — also mostly Democrats — on the other. Browder knew well the ravages of slavery on Southerners, black and white, past and present, and

36 Alabama Education Association Scorecard, the Browder Collection: Glen Browder‘s Profile as Alabama State Legislator, 1982-86. 37 Alabama Alliance of Business and Industry Scorecard, the Browder Collection: Glen Browder‘s Profile as Alabama State Legislator, 1982-86. 38 Alabama Citizens Action Program Scorecard, the Browder Collection: Glen Browder‘s Profile as Alabama State Legislator, 1982-86.

70 although he considered the route most legislation took through the Alabama House to be unnecessarily circuitous with crises at every turn, he recognized the legacy of the

South‘s hard history in the state‘s legislative system. 39 ―As Anniston Star publisher

Brandt Ayers has explained so clearly and sensitively over the years (with appropriate credit to Arnold Toynbee),‖ Browder wrote in 2007, ―people elsewhere study history,

Southerners live it; and it has been hard on everyone in this region.‖40

Browder continued:

History had been especially hard on black Southerners. After slavery, they had to build their lives from scrabble — segregated and impoverished — within the larger white environment that had problems of its own. In the course of that process, blacks established correlative institutions (families, churches, schools, businesses, etc.) incorporating the strengths and values of their cultural heritage; but they also suffered tremendous disadvantages. The broader white government ignored legitimate needs such as education, economic development, and law enforcement; and it was common for white leaders to leave things alone in the black community as long as black problems did not unduly offend or impact white society. Consequently, black Southerners developed their own ways of doing things, ways that did not always fit the ideas and mores of white society; in particular, black politics sometimes operated in a shadowy arena with relatively little oversight. I, therefore, anticipated that fundamental reform would involve difficult interactions between these historically segregated societies; and, indeed, once inside the system, I daily encountered the stark, pervasive, resistant politics of Alabama‘s enduring dilemma.

It was not pretty civics. It was the continuing legacy of hard history. In Alabama, unsteady bifactionalism — a struggle between relatively liberal groups and relatively conservative opponents — provided the essential framework for policy, issue, and governance during my tenure in the House.

39 Among the many references for Alabama history and the South since the Civil War, the author found the following recent books helpful: Harvey H. Jackson, Inside Alabama: A Personal History of My State (Tuscaloosa, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 2004); Frye Gaillard, Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement that Changed America (Tuscaloosa, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 2004); Wayne Flynt, Alabama in the Twentieth Century (Tuscaloosa, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 2004); Wayne Flynt, Poor But Proud: Alabama's Poor Whites ( Tuscaloosa, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1989); Peter Applebome, Dixie Rising: How the South Is Shaping American Values, Politics, and Culture (San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1996). 40 Browder, December 11, 2007.

71 There was no real two-party system at that time, and thus the formal legislative leadership — beholden to Governor George Wallace and dependent upon an alliance of education, labor, black and trial lawyer interests known simply as the Coalition — structured the process to enact moderate to progressive legislation against loosely aligned forces of conservative Democrats and an increasing number of Republicans.41

Browder usually sided in these disputes with the prevailing leadership, the

Democratic Coalition. This course was in keeping with his politics, it helped develop his biracial relationships, and it proved useful when he started pushing his own reform agenda.

To generalize, I pursued a good government political career in Montgomery, voting moderately/progressively on issues of the Democratic Coalition, staying out of frequent frays between racial hotheads, and maintaining good personal relations with individual black legislators and organizations. I carefully articulated explanations for some of my relatively liberal actions for the broad white populace, and I discussed more delicate racial matters in private, quiet sessions with black politicians. This may sound rather simplistic; but in the polarized environment of the 1980s, that was quite an assignment.42

Even as the civil rights struggle stretched into its fourth decade, the legacy of hard history did not yield easily on Goat Hill, according to Browder:

Race served as a common, everyday prism for business in the Legislature, and black-white differences served as the flashpoint for daily argument among competing factions. All of us knew that the small band of black legislators comprised a loyal, determined, disproportionately powerful part of the Democratic Coalition, interested in every issue, ready to fight at any moment, and demanding satisfaction — or else there would be hell to pay. For example, there usually were other, very important items on the day‘s schedule that depended upon their procedural cooperation simply for deliberation; and besides, any black complaints were taken very seriously by the U.S. Justice Department.

Consequently, the public debate often degenerated into shouting matches about fairness, justice, racism, and corruption; and none of us was ennobled

41 Ibid. 42 Browder, ―Stealth Commentary,‖ 7.

72 in the process. Sometimes the House leadership proceeded without the black legislators, and occasionally it ran over them; but most major policy victories included an accommodation to key black leaders who were vital to the Coalition‘s broader agenda of issues and governance.

Beginning with the organizational session, for example, the leadership coordinated with key black legislators regarding committee assignments and policy agendas; even daily voting schedules were negotiated on racial grounds. Thereafter, virtually all matters involved black-white haggling, whether the issue was state budgeting for education (which required special appropriations for traditionally black schools); appointments to state boards, agencies, and commissions (which had to be racially balanced); state government contracts (which required minority set-asides); state employment practices (which required equitable hiring goals); state employee pay raises (which had to be weighted toward lower level workers); state tax policy (which had to consider business-class-race disputes); and law enforcement and criminal penalties (which were almost impossible to legislate due to disparate impacts). Reapportionment (redistricting of electoral boundaries) was a special nightmare of monumental racial ramifications. Even congratulatory resolutions were scrutinized to make sure they were sensitively worded and without hidden agendas. Inevitably, anything that might benefit one side or the other in a two-sided argument relating in any way to black-versus-white — past, present, or future — was a racial crisis.

This problem was especially frustrating for those of us interested in fundamentally changing the Alabama political system. We found that it was virtually impossible to address obvious and serious problems — whether it was education, elections, taxes, welfare, the constitution, anything involving systemic progress — without running into racial obstacles among both white and black legislators; each side was unwilling to consider change because it might hurt them in the historical struggle of white-versus-black.43

A Personal Style of Quiet, Practical, Biracial Politics

It did not take Browder long to comprehend the dilemmas presented by white- black dynamics in the legislature. He quickly developed a stylistic accommodation,

43 Browder, Stealth Commentary, 6-7.

73 which he would come to describe as ―quiet, practical, biracial politics in the post-civil rights era.‖44

To begin, I would say that most white leaders during that time knew that a new day had dawned in their state. They may not have liked it; and, for sure, many hated it. But they accepted the reality of a new, biracial politics. While everybody understood that racism and racist politics would continue into the future (not simply by purposeful action but because of the difficulty of quick fixes for historical dilemmas), most whites realized that there had to be significant accommodation in Alabama, whether through changing attitudes, affirmative action, or even simply institutionalizing racial considerations in routine politics and government.

Second, the institutional leadership embraced the new way of doing business. The Democratic establishment figured that compliance — bringing blacks into the process and sharing power and policy — was the only way to continue their control of the process, especially in light of a growing Republican presence. These practical white leaders, in concert with key Democratic special interest groups (a disciplined confederation of blacks, teachers, unions, and trial lawyers), thus changed the system, incrementally and pragmatically, to ―satisfice‖ external demands and establish internal power-sharing arrangements with black politicians. Of course, some Democratic white politicians never accepted or changed; they continued to rant and obstruct; some switched parties; many inevitably faded from the scene.

Third, the Alabama Legislature was undergoing partisan change in addition to racial accommodation during that era; and Republicans were of mixed politics and sentiments. The Republicans, all white of course, had different ideas from the Democrats regarding what the state legislature was about; they prioritized limited government, low taxes, a favorable business climate, and pro-family/morality issues. Especially in the beginning, the GOP had fewer outright racists in their ranks; and the old-line business types dutifully accepted change and biracial politics in principle. But, besides natural partisan debates about the government‘s role in dealing with racial, social, and economic problems, some of the political practices of the new day offended them — and they vociferously attacked the Democrats for race- based political dealing. Also, the insurgent Republicans relentlessly assailed ethical shortcomings of the Democratic establishment. As a civic democrat, I agreed with the Republicans on numerous matters regarding legislative procedures and various reform matters; but I was a Democratic Party team player, with responsibility for governing rather than posturing, and I stuck

44 Glen Browder and Artemisia Stanberry, ―Stealth Reconstruction‖ (unpublished draft), 2007, 9.

74 with my team. Later defections of disgruntled conservative Democrats regimented and normalized racial, political, and philosophical divisions between the Democratic establishment and the growing Republican Caucus.

Fourth, after working with and forming extensive relationships with African Americans in Montgomery and throughout the state, I concluded that — other than obvious historical differences and public posturing — most black leaders in Alabama were like white leaders in Alabama; they were politicians eager to assert their new influence on important public policy. They were no more nor less noble and no more nor less political than their traditional adversaries; for the most part, they were interested in the same things as moderate white politicians — improving the state‘s education system, economic development, jobs, and social services, while also looking out for black constituencies, other disadvantaged people, some powerful special interests, local areas, and pet causes. At the same time, they were just as inclined as white politicians toward personal power, patronage, and perks.

Fifth, it surprised me somewhat that black politicians were not generally fond of civic legislation such as education, election, and constitutional reform. I had figured that they would be natural allies in these efforts; but, in reality, they were not very interested in these matters of great concern to some of us white leaders and the outside progressive community. I attribute this disinterest to two related historical developments. First was the fact, stated earlier; that Southern white society had long segregated and ignored what went on in black society as long as it did not disturb or egregiously offend the white world. Therefore, white politicians managed and manipulated the black community for whatever gain was there; and certain practices and ways developed among blacks beyond the scrutiny of broader government and society. Secondly, I concluded that since my black colleagues had gained power and services through the shadowy, traditional game of Alabama politics, they were not very keen on changing the rules of the prevailing game, even for progressive reasons. Quite often and understandably, for example, they viewed ideas like increasing school standards and cleaning up voter lists as contrary to the interests of themselves and their black constituents. So I usually had to sell them on my reform initiatives — as both progressive leaders and vested politicians — and not always successfully.

Sixth, in terms of political and socioeconomic backgrounds, black leadership in Alabama was expanding during those years. While the Civil Rights Movement was still a potent rallying cry, and while most black leaders in the state still derived their electoral support from the combined base of religious and civil rights organizations of the 1950s-60s, the elected officials in Montgomery and even in the local areas increasingly were more secular,

75 independent, and professional as politicians. Educators and lawyers prevailed among their ranks rather than the ministers and activists of the old days.

Finally, this analysis of biracial relations would be incomplete without a reiterated emphasis on the definite, continuing, routinization of race during those days. The personalities, issues, confrontations, and accommodations were part of the public record — so I‘ll not go into specific detail; I‘ll simply say that the race factor directly or indirectly impacted just about everything that happened on Goat Hill. Black legislators struggled constantly — and aggressively — to deal with their policy and political disadvantages in a system where obvious racial considerations — and some racism — still prevailed. Likewise, many white legislators resented the attitudes and ways of certain black colleagues — particularly those individuals trading on historical mistreatment for personal political advantage and private gain.45

Browder said he rubbed shoulders with genuine civil rights heroes, black and white, in those days; and he worked with many practical veterans of the previous era to change things constructively. However, he learned first-hand that ―crass racial politicking was a biracial phenomenon in Alabama. Black-white tension underlay or overlay daily life in Montgomery.‖ No important public policy decisions — ―the organization of the legislature; the division of money for education, highways, law enforcement and other functions; appointments to various colleges, boards, and commissions; and resolutions about various hot-button or even non-controversial issues,‖ were made without racial clashes. ―Quite often there were private slurs from both sides; and debate on the floor sometimes grew unnecessarily heated as debate turned non-racial into racial issues. Inevitably, whether the legislation involved race or not, the issues were resolved to a great degree in some private, backroom manner of racial accommodation.‖

That was the price of trying to govern in Montgomery, Browder said. ―Few of us were surprised or seriously impacted by this situation; after all, politics is politics; also, we

45 Browder, ―Stealth Commentary,‖ 8-10.

76 knew it was a well-deserved nuisance tax from our aforementioned legacy, and we simply lived with it. But it was a real part of biracial politics — and added to the challenge of my practical assignment — during that period.‖46

The Saturday Morning Massacre

Before his first year in the legislature was out, Browder was plunged into the kind of politicking that all politicians inherently fear — reapportionment. In 1982, the federal government ordered the Alabama legislature to redraw legislative boundaries to make the districts more accurately reflect the racial makeup of the Alabama electorate. A three- judge panel had approved a redistricting plan, the third attempt since the 1980 U.S.

Census to create districts acceptable under the federal Voting Rights Act. The new plan shifted the boundaries so that several districts would have African-American majorities.

With the district lines settled, Judge Frank M. Johnson ordered new elections for that fall.47

As much as the redistricting had been necessary, new elections were a nasty nuisance. The legislators had just won their offices a year earlier, and they were loathe to redraw their districts, spend money waging new campaigns, and perhaps lose their seats.

―In redistricting, all personal, partisan, and other considerations go off the table and it‘s every man for himself,‖ Browder explained.48

46 Ibid, 10-11. 47 ―Redistricting Summary,‖ Michael P. McDonald, Ph.D., Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution, Associate Professor, George Mason University, Department of Public and International Affairs, 4400 University Drive, MSN 3F4, Fairfax, VA 22030-4444 (accessed online August 30, 2007 at: http://elections.gmu.edu/Redistricting/AL.htm). 48 Browder, February 19, 2007.

77 The redistricting negotiations in the House and Senate had been ugly, as members strove to keep their own districts intact and shift the onus of change to neighboring districts, but the real debacle occurred when the Democratic Party grabbed the opportunity to hand-pick its nominees for the special election. The Democrats had such control over politics in most of Alabama that whoever the party ran virtually was assured of winning that seat, so the State Democratic Executive Committee decided not to bother with primaries. Instead, on October 1, 1983, a Saturday morning five weeks before the elections, executive committee members carefully selected the Democratic

Party‘s candidate for each House and Senate seat. Few of those select candidates would face Republican opposition and fewer still would lose in the general election, so gaining the executive committee‘s imprimatur was tantamount to being appointed to a seat in the legislature. Cognizant of the power it wielded, the committee took advantage of this rare opportunity to strengthen its ranks, or as Tuscaloosa, Alabama, journalist Tommy

Stevenson wrote, ―used the appointment process for a little payback, purging itself of some of the previous winners its powers-that-were did not think toed the party line closely enough.‖49 This momentous hand-picking became known as the Saturday

Morning Massacre, and it would foretell trauma for partisan politics of the future.

According to Browder, who sat on the executive committee as well as in the legislature, the hand-picking put him in an awkward position. ―In some situations, the

State Democratic Executive Committee dumped the person who had been elected just the

49 Tommy Stevenson, ―The one time a write-in actually won an election,‖ Tidesports.com, September 24, 2006 (accessed online March 15, 2007, at http://www.tidesports.com/article/2006609240320).

78 year before and put in another person, let‘s say more acceptable to the Democratic coalition.‖ In the new majority-black districts, they replaced the incumbent whites with

African American candidates, but they also installed more liberal whites in some districts.

―This was a very risky, aggressive and unpopular move. Most of the people kicked out in that election were kicked out for partisan or philosophical reasons,‖ Browder said.50 ―I bled emotionally and politically for my part in the notorious hand-picking scandal, but it significantly expanded African American representation in the Alabama legislature.‖51

Browder kept his House seat, but as a committee member he had to make a hard choice between two good friends. ―John Teague and Lister Proctor went head to head, and I sided with Teague,‖ he said. ―I had just worked for Lister in a special election, and

I had worked for John. I had to call Lister Proctor and tell him, ‗we‘re friends but I‘m closer to John and I‘m going to vote for John‘ — which is a terrible call to have to make.

Lister took it like the gentleman and the man that he is. He didn‘t hit the ceiling, rant and rave. He took it — because in politics, especially when you get behind closed doors, people understand sometimes when you have to make hard calls.‖52

Browder not only held onto his seat, he actually moved up in the House hierarchy. When the special election was over, he approached Governor Wallace about a new committee appointment. ―After having proven myself as a ‗practical‘ legislator, or so I presumed, I thought I‘d try to move up the ladder in power and influence,‖ he wrote.

―So I went to the governor (who actually hand-picked the speaker and other key personnel) and asked to be appointed to the Ways and Means Committee, which was the

50 Browder, May 31, 2007. 51 Browder, ―Stealth Commentary,‖ 8. 52 Browder, May 31, 2007.

79 most prestigious and powerful organ in the House. I waged an aggressive campaign, made it clear that I would remember their confidence in me, and I got the assignment.

This greatly enhanced my standing on Goat Hill.‖53

Write-In History

Soon after the Saturday Morning Massacre, Browder would dredge up images of the closed executive committee meeting room when he took up the cause of another legislator ousted in the hand-picking. Freshman Senator Lowell Barron, a pharmacist and former mayor of Fyffe, Alabama, was well-loved in his district. Barron wanted to keep his seat, and he felt a growing swell of indignation from voters who objected to having their choice overruled by party bigwigs. There was only one way Barron could return to the Senate for the next session, however, and that was to mobilize voters in a write-in campaign against David Stout, the executive committee‘s choice. It had never been done before, and it has never been done successfully since. But once in Alabama‘s history a write-in campaign worked, and Glen Browder masterminded it.

―Barron, who subsequently has been elected six times … and now all but runs the

Alabama Senate as its pro tem, said he came home from the SDEC meeting in

Birmingham in October — a month away from the general election — ‗very dejected,‘

Stevenson wrote. ―It was real frustrating that they had taken away a seat that people had just elected me to,‖ Barron told Stevenson. ―But when I got home, I found people very

53 Browder, ―Stealth Commentary,‖ 12.

80 upset and calling me, asking me to run as a write-in. I had never heard of a write-in, and I don‘t think many other people had, either,‖ Barron said.54

Browder and Barron had met the previous year when Barron, on the recommendation of friends who knew of Browder‘s prowess as a political strategist, hired Browder to manage his Senate campaign. Barron initially was not impressed, he confided years later to his and Browder‘s mutual friend Charles Carr. ―I don‘t know who the person was who introduced Glen to Lowell, but Lowell said, ‗I asked myself what in the world have I gotten into? This hippie professor shows up in flip-flops and Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt.‘‖55 When they met again, Barron knew that if anyone could save his

Senate seat, Browder was the man. Browder was intrigued, but he needed some time to map out a strategy. ―I researched it a little bit and came back and told him, ‗I don‘t know whether it can be done or how it can be done, but it‘s interesting and I think it‘s worth trying. If we‘re gonna do it — and I think you should — this is how I recommend we do it. With no guarantee that it‘ll work.‘‖56

Secrecy was the key to Browder‘s strategy. He had determined that the campaign‘s success would hinge on discreetly fanning voter anger into a blazing rage but letting the voters believe it was all their idea. Browder knew that Stout would have all the resources of the Democratic Party behind him if he realized he needed to campaign, but Browder also knew that nearly everyone thought a campaign would not be necessary.

54 Stevenson, September 24, 2006. 55 Charles Carr, interviewed by the author, Oneonta, Alabama, April 16, 2007. Carr was appointments secretary for Governor George Wallace 1982-86. At the time of the interview he was president of the Blount County-Oneonta Chamber of Commerce. 56 Glen Browder, interviewed by the author, Anniston, Alabama, May 31, 2007.

81 That was the point of the hand-picking. ―If you‘re having an election and you are the only person on the ballot, you just assume you‘ve got it. So you don‘t even run a campaign,‖ Browder explained. ―That‘s what we wanted.‖ So with only a month to work before the election, the most difficult task for Barron‘s supporters was to keep their write-in plans quiet. ―Most of his supporters had problems with keeping it secret,‖

Browder said. They worried that the momentum would fade if volunteers could not take their message to the streets.‖57

The strategy worked exactly as Browder had envisioned. Resentment over the hand-picking intensified as the election neared, and that worked to Barron‘s advantage.

―There was a lot of grumbling and griping about what the party had done, and the anger sustained over those three weeks,‖ Browder said. ―And then people started talking about a write-in, and it was almost a thing where the voter anger had to convince Lowell to run a write-in. But he didn‘t announce he would run a write-in, and the voter anger, the public emotions, continued to build.‖ Barron appeared to dismiss the notion of a write-in campaign at first, ―because we did not want anybody to know that we were taking it seriously,‖ Browder continued.58

The Barron campaign unleashed its forces a month after the Saturday Morning

Massacre and a single week before the November 8 election. ―Everything was in place by then — the sample ballots, the commercials, the little pencils with his name on them, everything was in place.… We were prepared. The campaign commercials — they weren‘t talking about taxes or anything like that. The commercials talked about how they

57 Browder, May 31, 2007. 58 Ibid.

82 had done Lowell Barron and the people of this district wrong. And we‘ve gotta show

‗em.‖59

Surprised by the onslaught, Stout tried to mount a campaign. ―That last week, cars flooded into that area from the Coalition interests — cars, money, signs, workers, commercials, all kinds of things,‖ Browder said. ―But at that point, I think it was too late.

Obviously it was too late.‖60

Barron won the election by a large percentage. ―It was one of those signal events,‖ Carr said. ―At that particular time, the Alabama Education Association, labor, trial lawyers and the two dominant black groups ruled the Democratic Party. Every one of them was against Barron, and he crushed them. I mean, he crushed them.‖61

Constitution Reform

In the Legislature, Browder quickly established his presence on reform issues. Of particular interest to him as a political scientist were efforts to rewrite the state‘s constitution and reform its election laws. As an educator — and as a parent, he regularly pointed out — he also was committed to improving the state‘s education system, and he wanted to remove constitutional impediments to that as well.

First, however, he figured he needed to develop his standing and political muscles at home. He helped extend the public water supply to the Vigo community; he helped arrange for Piedmont residents to be able to call other cities in Calhoun County without paying long distance charges; he also negotiated funds into a highway bill to begin

59 Ibid. 60 Ibid. 61 Carr, April 16, 2007.

83 widening Alabama 21 between Jacksonville and Piedmont. In a riskier endeavor, he helped craft and pass a public referendum increasing the local sales tax to build a new

Calhoun County jail. The political necessity of taking such local measures to the legislature was another reason Browder wanted to revise the state constitution.

The Alabama Constitution, which had been in effect since 1901, granted little authority to local governing institutions. It was extraordinarily long, having been amended hundreds of times, and by some accounts more than half of its provisions no longer had any legal validity.62 Historian Wayne Flynt later railed that it was ―the most archaic and inefficient constitution in the U.S.‖ and ―larger than Moby Dick.‖63 It institutionalized the political power of the landed gentry by, among other things, keeping property taxes to an absolute minimum.64 In this and other ways, the constitution kept the quality of public education in Alabama behind that in other states. Browder put it bluntly: ―The 1901 constitution … omitted education as a public responsibility of state government.‖65

Constitution reform had been tried several times in the state‘s history, beginning as early as 1915, but no attempts had ever succeeded. George Wallace, just elected to his fourth term as governor, had no interest in revising the system that had allowed him to have a long, if tumultuous, political career in Alabama. Wallace didn‘t necessarily

62 William H. Stewart, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, University of Alabama, ―Reform of the Alabama Constitution,‖ Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform Symposium, (accessed online August 11, 2007, at http://accr.constitutionalreform.org/symposium/reformwhs.html). 63 Beth Anderson, ―Constitutional reform rally gives students history lesson,‖ The Outlook, October 30, 2002 (accessed online Oct. 8, 2005, at http://accr.constitutionalreform.org/news/alex_100302.html). 64 Jess Brown, Ph.D., Professor of Government and Criminal Justice, Athens State College, ―Legislative provisions in the constitution of Alabama — Evolution, commentary, and prescription,‖ Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform Symposium (accessed online August 22, 2007 at http://accr.constitutionalreform.org/symposium/provisions.html). 65 Browder, ―Professor-Politician,‖ 9.

84 oppose constitution reform; he just had other priorities for his final term in office.

Lieutenant Governor Bill Baxley, however, had made it a major issue of his 1982 campaign. Baxley contended that the most appropriate route to a new state constitution was for the legislature to draft a document for public referendum rather than pursuing a state convention, Browder explained. ―Baxley also figured that he would have to restrict the proposal to what was necessary,‖ Browder said,66 rather than writing potentially controversial sections that would have little chance of approval by the legislators or the public.67

Upon taking the helm of the state Senate as lieutenant governor in 1983, Baxley set to work implementing his vision of constitution reform. ―The 1980‘s constitutional reform effort was not an ideological reform effort but a scholarly effort,‖ recalled Bill

Stephens, Baxley‘s aide who later became the legal counsel for Retirement Systems of

Alabama. After conferring with people who had been involved in previous reform attempts, ―it was agreed that major structural and substantive change was neither politically possible nor needed,‖ Stephens said, ―but that a scholarly revision to remove antiquated provisions, reconcile conflicting provisions, consolidate duplicate amendments, etc., and once again make the Alabama state constitution a concise and understandable governing document that applied equally throughout the entire state, was possible and needed.‖68

66 Browder, December 11, 2007. 67 Stewart, ACCR Symposium. 68 Bill Stephens, ―Re: Questions Regarding Glen Browder Biography,‖ e-mail message to the author, December 5, 2007.

85 Browder had served on Baxley‘s statewide committee appointed to draft the revisions and was vice chairman of the standing House Constitution and Elections

Committee, which would originate the House version of the bill to revise the constitution.

(The Senate had a corresponding committee which would produce its own bill.) Browder also was one of three House conferees named to reconcile differences in the House and

Senate bills, and this was where the real work occurred, he said. ―The plan all along was to try to pass something (anything) in the House and in the Senate, and then work out what we really wanted in conference.… The conference was very contentious and thorough; we had to deal with all the special interests and media and individuals to craft something we thought might pass public approval.‖69

Stephens lauded Browder‘s role in creating the document: ―Glen Browder added discipline and credibility to that effort, as well as substantive contributions.… Glen‘s academic discipline helped the reform group maintain its processes and perspective. He was also a practitioner of the possible and helped the group avoid making divisive changes and persevere in finding widely acceptable, and sometimes innovative, solutions to difficult drafting problems.‖70

All the work up to this point had been aimed at producing an amendment which, when approved by the voters in a statewide referendum, would replace the 1901 constitution. For all its compromises, the new constitution still had opponents, and they did not give up when the House and Senate passed the final bill. State Senator Richard

69 Glen Browder, ―From GB Monday and Attachment,‖ e-mail message to the author, August 13, 2007. 70 Stephens, December 5, 2007.

86 Manley of Demopolis brought suit to block the change, and just a week before the scheduled referendum, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in Manley‘s favor. The court ruled six to three that the 1901 constitution did not permit its own replacement through an amendment to it. The court said that a constitutional convention was the only means by which the constitution could be completely rewritten.71 Stephens recalled that the state

Supreme Court‘s ruling ―came too late to keep the proposal off the ballots in several counties, and in those counties voters approved the proposal.‖72

Movements to reform the state constitution continued to rise and fall over the next thirty years, but at the end of 2007, the 1901 constitution, with all its problems, continued to be the law of the state. Browder‘s contribution to the 1983 constitution reform movement had come to nil, but it established the young politician as a new name in the civic arena.

Election Reform

With constitution revision sidelined by the court, Browder turned his attention to election reform. Secretary of State Don Siegelman, a longtime champion of government reforms, was pushing a broad mixture of campaign initiatives in the legislature, and

Browder eagerly joined his team.

Alabama‘s election problems were serious and many: With no effective means of purging voter rolls, people remained eligible to vote — and frequently did vote — after

71 League of Women Voters of Alabama, ―A History of Attempts to Reform the 1901 Alabama Constitution,‖ September 3, 2002 (accessed online August 10, 2007, at: http://www.lwval.org/ConRef_History_09.03.02_p.html). 72 Stephens, December 5, 2007.

87 they had died. Abuse of absentee voting was widespread; and the seventy-five-year- old law regulating campaign finance disclosure was outdated and ineffective.73

Browder had become interested in updating the state‘s election laws shortly after he came to Alabama, and in the legislature he made it a priority. ―I had pushed the issue as a political scientist, party activist, and political candidate, so I joined the reform team immediately upon receiving my oath of office as a state legislator in l982,‖ Browder wrote in 2002. Besides Siegelman, who was redefining the secretary of state‘s role to include being the state‘s chief elections officer, the reform team was led by state Senator

Jim Bennett and state Representative Jack Venable, both of whom had introduced election-reform bills in previous legislative terms. Browder sponsored and cosponsored numerous election-reform bills, including Siegelman‘s centerpiece proposal requiring campaign finance disclosure and completely overhauling the outdated and unenforceable

Corrupt Practices Act of 1915. He also tried to sell the House on his own idea of an

Alabama Elections Commission that would study problems and solutions. During his entire legislative term, though, election reform was an elusive and frustrating endeavor.

―We introduced bill after bill and held news conference after news conference,‖ Browder wrote. ―Nobody opposed us, at least not openly. But nothing ever happened. We came close sometimes, but election reform always fell short.‖74

Nevertheless, Siegelman acknowledged Browder‘s efforts in an official

Certificate of Thanks in 1985:

73 Editorial, ―Elections reform laws needed,‖ Mobile Press, November 15, 1985; the Browder Collection: Box 39, Alabama Legislature, Education Reform. 74 Browder, ―Professor-Politician,‖ 2002, 30.

88 On behalf of the people of Alabama and for me as Secretary of State of the State of Alabama, and personally, I would like to thank you for the efforts you have made toward bringing more integrity and more responsiveness to the elections system in our Great State.75

As Democrats began looking toward the 1986 elections, Browder‘s name came up as a possible candidate for secretary of state to succeed Siegelman, who already had announced he was running for attorney general. Browder told the Montgomery

Advertiser in September, 1985, that he would not make a decision about running for the statewide office until after the New Year, but used the question as an opportunity to say he was ―personally and professionally interested in election reform.‖76 The media embraced election law reforms as a crusade, giving Browder widespread publicity for a bill that he planned to introduce in the 1986 session.

In early November Browder filed his bill, which he called the Fair Campaign

Practices Act. The bill clearly defined political candidacy, updated the requirements for reporting campaign contributions and expenses, and imposed stiff penalties for violations.

If the bill passed, its implementation would be delayed until January 1, 1987, giving legislators the opportunity to ―impress voters with an effort to reform‖ without having to abide by the new regulations in the 1986 elections.77

Browder scheduled a series of press conferences around the state to make sure the media remained on board. The endorsements rolled in. In the Anniston Star he described the existing law as ―outdated, of questionable legality and sometimes more harmful than helpful.‖ He said that previous reform efforts had failed because they were regarded as

75 Don Siegelman, ―Certificate of Thanks from Alabama Secretary of State,‖ May 20, 1985. 76 ―Browder Considers Race,‖ Montgomery Advertiser, September 6, 1995. The Browder Collection. 77 Terry Abbott, United Press International, ―Election reform bill may pass next session,‖ November 7, 1985.

89 attacks on politicians by outsiders, whereas his bill allowed legislators to clean up the system from the inside.78 The Birmingham Post-Herald’s respected political columnist

Ted Bryant wrote that while Browder‘s proposals were not new, they combined ―the best features of election reform legislation from the last ten years.‖ Bryant conceded that

Browder‘s bill was ―not the ultimate in good election legislation,‖ but it was a big, overdue step in the right direction. Bryant also noted that Browder planned to have a bill to clean up voter lists ready for the next session. ―If he can move the bills into a position for floor debate, it will be difficult for legislators to argue against needed election reform in an election year,‖ Bryant wrote.79 In the days that followed, newspapers across the state editorialized about the need for new election laws and urged their legislators to support Browder‘s bill. But Bryant‘s veiled prediction came true during the session that convened in January. Browder‘s bills never made it to a vote.

Browder struck out twice in trying to get constitution and election reforms enacted, but he was still swinging. And when he brought education reform to the plate, he hit a home run.

Education Reform

As a parent, as a teacher, and as a beneficiary of public education, Browder was committed to raising the quality of Alabama schools from a national joke to at least the national average. In this effort he had a powerful ally, Governor George Wallace.

Wallace, his reputation tarnished by the civil rights struggle and his body ravaged and paralyzed by an assassination attempt, by all accounts wanted to heal the divisions in his

78 Bill Edwards, ―Browder seeking campaign reform,‖ Anniston Star, November 7, 1985, Sec. B, p. 1. 79 Ted Bryant, ―Got election reform on agenda,‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, November 7, 1985, Sec. A, p. 4.

90 state during what was to be his final term as governor. Like Browder, he had made a priority of improving the quality of Alabama‘s public education, and he assigned

Browder the formidable task of making it happen. That Browder, an unknown freshman legislator, had gained Wallace‘s attention puzzled some of Wallace‘s close aides.

Charles Carr, Wallace‘s appointments secretary during his last term, theorized that

Wallace took notice when Browder sponsored a bill to allow the state to fine lawbreakers to help compensate victims of violent crime. Wallace had been especially supportive of

Browder‘s Crime Victims Compensation Act, both because a violent attack had put him in a wheelchair and because the young woman whose rape and murder had sparked the bill had been from Wallace‘s hometown, Carr said. But, Carr continued, Wallace also had an ―uncanny way of finding things out,‖ and often surprised those around him by what he knew. ―How he knew about Glen, I don‘t know … [but] the governor held Glen in high regard. He was part of the team, if you will, and I guess that‘s the ultimate compliment that Wallace could give.‖80

Browder, of course, had campaigned for the governor‘s good will from his first days in the legislature. When he thought the time was right to approach Wallace about education reform, ―I again presumed to assert myself up the ladder,‖ he wrote. ―I talked about education reform with a good friend in the Wallace administration (Charles Rowe, the state finance director who also worked in a comparable position at Jacksonville State

University), and he suggested I put my ideas in a memo to the governor. I did so, the

80 Carr, April 16, 2007.

91 governor responded favorably, and I went on to become his lead legislator on education reform in the House.‖81

Whether education reform was Wallace‘s idea or whether Browder impressed it upon him may never be known. What seems most likely is that Browder brought

Wallace a proposal that corresponded with what Wallace already had been thinking. A newspaper article in April 1984 said Browder had been hounding Wallace about education reform since shortly after taking office more than a year earlier.82 Rex

Cheatham, Wallace‘s education liaison, corroborated that account, saying he first met

Browder when the freshman legislator walked into his office in 1983 proposing to sponsor a bill. ―Glen was a bridge builder. He knew who to talk to, and he would go to those individuals, and then things started happening,‖ Cheatham said. ―He introduced himself and started talking about what he‘d like to do … to reform education, and, of course, we shared it with Elvin Stanton [Wallace‘s executive secretary] and the governor, and so it really became what Governor Wallace wanted to be his education program.‖83

Paul Hubbert, the powerful chief executive of the Alabama Education

Association, moved Wallace‘s timeline back at least a year. Hubbert recalled that

Wallace had been uninterested in education reform until he decided to seek office again in 1982, when improving education had become a national obsession. Wallace learned of the successful teachers‘ Career Ladder program Governor Lamar Alexander had

81 Browder, February 19, 2007. 82 Associated Press, ―Education reform sponsor says he‘s no expert,‖ Decatur Daily, April 2, 1984, the Browder Collection, Box 44: Education Reform. 83 Rex Cheatham, interviewed by the author, Huntsville, Alabama, June 4, 2007. Cheatham was education liaison to Governor George Wallace 1983-87. At the time of the interview, he was Uniserve director for the Huntsville-Alabama A&M District, with the Alabama Education Association.

92 implemented in Tennessee and wondered if it could be duplicated in Alabama.

Hubbert at that time did not support the Career Ladder concept but had other ideas about how to improve education in Alabama. Hubbert‘s chief rival, State Education

Superintendent Wayne Teague, had proposed his own ―Plan for Excellence,‖ which

Wallace adopted and expanded when he returned to the governor‘s office. And Wallace embraced the dire April 1983 report of the National Commission on Excellence in

Education, ―A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform.‖84 In early 1983

Wallace appointed a preliminary committee to recommend a course of action and later chose Browder to shepherd the education reform bills through the legislature, Hubbert recalled.85

Browder introduced his first education bill in the 1984 House session. It called for a thirteen-member commission to study and make recommendations to the governor and established statewide public kindergarten, teacher pay raises and library improvements. The bill did not address funding for its reforms, although everyone involved knew at the time that funding would be difficult and that the reforms could not be enacted without it.86 John Teague sponsored the bill in the Senate, and after it passed, he offered a resolution declaring it The Browder Education Reform Act. Wallace appointed the Governor‘s Commission on Education Reform in August 1984, with himself as chairman and Browder as vice chairman.

84 Frederick Burger, ―Calhoun lawmaker is making a name,‖ Anniston Star, February 2, 1986, the Browder Collection, Box 44: Education Reform. 85 Paul R. Hubbert, Ph.D., interviewed by the author, Montgomery, Alabama, June 25, 2007. Hubbert was in his 37th year as executive secretary/treasurer of the Alabama Education Association, the union which represents Alabama‘s public school teachers and support personnel. 86 Associated Press, April 2, 1984.

93 The commission‘s overarching directive was to study public education, propose legislation to address problems, and monitor the implementation of the reforms. Fully half of the commission‘s ten objectives were steps toward setting up a Career Ladder for teachers. 87 After its success in Tennessee, the Career Ladder concept had become the national model, and many states were adopting it or adapting it as a means of providing financial incentives for teachers to improve their performance in the classroom. The concept is simple: Teachers climb the Career Ladder, getting a pay increase at each higher rung. To take a step up, they must achieve goals for proficiency and training for each level. Implementation is much more complicated. Experts across the country were unable to predict how many teachers would qualify for the ladder or how fast they would climb, and that meant that state legislatures could not guess how much money would be necessary to budget for education each year. Teachers were wary because they would be subject to formal evaluations for the first time, and they distrusted their own supervisors to perform the evaluations.88

It took some months for the members of Wallace‘s Education Reform

Commission even to agree to propose a Career Ladder program. The commission members included the heads of the major education agencies,89 and all were long

87 Governor‘s Education Reform Commission, ―First Annual Report to Governor George C. Wallace and the Alabama Legislature,‖ Summer 1985; the Browder Collection, Box 39: Education Reform. 88 Pat Wunnicke, ―Financing educational excellence,‖ State Legislatures, September 1985, Vol. 11, No.8, p.16-19 89 The first annual report of the Governor‘s Education Reform Commission lists these members: Paul Hubbert, executive secretary of AEA; Wayne Teague, state superintendent of education; Randy Quinn, director of the Alabama Association of School Boards; Joe Sutton, director of the Alabama Commission on Higher Education; Charles Payne, chancellor of postsecondary education; James Brown, an educator from Montgomery; Josephine Glanton, an educator from Dothan; Ann James, president of the Alabama Parent- Teacher Association; James A. McCarty, a school board member and businessman from Muscle Shoals; Jim Street, Director of the Alabama Council of School Administration and Supervision; State Senator John

94 accustomed to fighting for a bigger share of the state‘s limited education funds. ―The commission had a Who‘s Who of leaders in education in all areas, people who sometimes would fight and you‘d think would never come to the table together,‖ Cheatham recalled.

―It was a major accomplishment to get them to commit to be a part of the process.‖ The commission meetings often were contentious and sometimes belligerent; Browder, who presided over most of them, found his coalition-building talent put to the test. ―Glen‘s personality was the type that could bring folks together who even fight with each other,‖

Cheatham said. ―I‘ll give you an example: We had a hot meeting — that day it was held at the state Department of Education. Dr. Teague and Dr. Hubbert got into a knockdown, drag out; stood up; may have even used some choice words with each other; and the meeting just had to adjourn.‖90

By then, the commission had decided that a Career Ladder would form the centerpiece of the reform effort. The bitter argument came down to a dispute between labor — AEA — and management — the state Board of Education — over how many teachers would be included in a Committee of 35 that would create the evaluation system.

Hubbert, who only grudgingly supported the Career Ladder anyway, objected to a proposal Teague offered, calling it ―a charade,‖ and walked out of the meeting, left the building and went back to his own office at AEA headquarters. Teague returned to his office, and the rest of the commission members just sat around looking at each other.

Browder was able to coax both men back to the table with an alternate proposal that gave

AEA and the state Board of Education fifteen appointments each and reserved five for

Teague; Gerald Waldrop, President of AEA; and Levi Watkins, an educator from Montgomery. The report does not specify whether educators are teachers or administrators. 90 Cheatham, June 4, 2007.

95 Wallace. Hubbert agreed when it became clear that three of Wallace‘s appointments would be teachers.91

With this key compromise in January 1985, the commission was ready to send its proposal to the legislature in February. Wallace endorsed the bill, Browder sponsored it in the House, and John Teague in the Senate, but the Career Ladder would be as controversial in the legislature as it had been in commission meetings. First Wayne

Teague then Randy Quinn, head of the state Association of School Boards, publicly opposed the bill. Hubbert signed off on a number of changes, and Teague grudgingly added his approval. ―It can‘t stand much tampering with and still keep my support, but

I‘m very much in favor with it as it is,‖ Teague told a reporter.92

Hubbert recalled that the bill passed the House with little difficulty but had more trouble in the Senate. Senators had added so many amendments that Lieutenant

Governor Baxley did not want to bring the bill to a vote for fear the amendments would kill it, but Hubbert assured Baxley that he had the votes to win on every amendment.93

Baxley went on a tour of the state to promote another bill, leaving Senator Earl Goodwin of Selma to preside in his absence. After a two-day filibuster by Career Ladder opponents, Goodwin decided to gavel the bill to a vote, flouting Senate rules. But when

Goodwin called for the bill to be read, the clerk could not find it. Ryan deGraffenried,

Jr., — a strict parliamentarian who had led the constitution reform effort in the Senate the

91 Associated Press, ―Commission expected to greet teacher-pay plan ‗with open arms,‘ Alabama Journal, January 30, 1985, reprinted in the Governor‘s Education Reform Commission Annual Report, Summer 1985. 92 Peggy Wilhide, ―House Blacks Oppose Bill‘s Evaluation Program,‖ Montgomery Advertiser, February 4, 1985, sec. A, p. 2. 93 Hubbert, June 25, 2007.

96 year before and who opposed both the Career Ladder bill and Goodwin‘s manhandling of Senate rules — had hidden the bill in his pocket. When Goodwin, a man of more than seventy years, learned what deGraffenried had done, he proposed to manhandle the much younger senator from Tuscaloosa. Frederick Burger, who covered politics for the

Anniston Star during the mid-1980s, related to his readers:

When he informed Goodwin of his action, Goodwin threatened to have deGraffenried arrested and the bill seized, but deGraffenried reminded Goodwin that he had immunity as a legislator. ―The bill happens to be in my pocket, and it‘s going to remain in my pocket,‖ deGraffenried said.

Goodwin abruptly called a recess, purposefully headed for the well of the Senate and lunged toward deGraffenried.…. Cooler heads prevailed, however, and the fuming septuagenarian was waylaid before he could get his hands on deGraffenried.94

The bill passed that night and Wallace signed it into law on May 17, 1985. The passing of Browder‘s Career Ladder law, officially the Performance-Based Career

Incentive Program Act, opened the way for education reforms that remain in effect in

Alabama. Under the new law, the state established eleven regional centers at universities around the state for teachers‘ continued training, inaugurated initiatives in reading, math, science and technology, created an evaluation system for teachers, and raised teachers‘ salaries to the national average.95 The Career Ladder itself was never fully implemented, for two reasons: AEA would not consent to a budget cap for teacher salaries even though the legislature could not provide unlimited funding,96 and teachers objected strenuously to the use of a stopwatch to time their evaluations. The evaluation system, modified to eliminate the stringent timing component and stripped of its association with the Career

94Frederick Burger, ―Senators at brink of brawl,‖ Anniston Star, May 9, 1985, Sec. A, p. 1. 95 Cheatham, April 10, 2007; Hubbert, June 25, 2007. 96 Hubbert, June 25, 2007.

97 Ladder concept, eventually was adopted. The evaluation system in place today97 is essentially ―Career Ladder without the stopwatch,‖ according to Cheatham.98

As the commission‘s work progressed, Browder continued to referee fights between the teachers and administrators. In the fall of 1985, the Committee of 35, whose responsibility was to come up with the teacher evaluation instrument, was at loggerheads for more than a month over minor points. Reminiscent of the earlier brouhaha between

Teague and Hubbert, Browder threatened to shut down the committee and abandon

Career Ladder if committee members could not come to terms. They reached an agreement the next day.99

Browder had become the most recognized name associated with education reform in the state — more than Hubbert, Teague, Baxley or Wallace — and the state‘s press joined him in calling for stronger leadership. At the meeting in which he threatened to shut down the Committee of 35, he called for cooperation and political leadership in what sounded like criticism of Governor Wallace, who had left the development and implementation of education reforms largely to Browder. But Browder also pointed out that Alabama had not had a tax increase for education in fourteen years, with the legislature squarely to blame.100 The Montgomery Advertiser complimented Browder‘s effectiveness in leading the reform effort and castigated those in high offices who had waited for Browder to come along. ―The contrast is striking. The only public figure in

97 Alabama Professional Education Personnel Evaluation Program, or PEPE for short. 98 Cheatham, April 10, 2007. 99 Betty Cork, ―Education Reformer Calls for New State Leadership,‖ Montgomery Advertiser, November 18, 1985, sec. A, p. 1 100 Ibid.

98 the state willing to risk serious action was not the governor, not the lieutenant governor, not the school board boss, although any of them might have done it easier.‖101

It appeared that education reform had unstoppable momentum, that the commission would continue studying and recommending programs, and the legislature would find ways to fund them. This scenario likely would have been realized, Cheatham and Carr said, if only George Wallace had run for one more term. But he did not. His health had continued to deteriorate, and he declined to run for re-election in 1986. Both

Cheatham and Carr, looking back, speculated that Wallace had known all along that

1982-86 would be his last term even though he kept that knowledge to himself.

―Wallace I think was more cognizant of the last term and the opportunity to leave a legacy, Carr said. ―I think he knew, even though it was unspoken — it was tacit, he never said he wasn‘t going to run again — I think he knew with the health problems he was having, that this was it.‖102 Cheatham had voiced the same opinion a few days earlier. ―Governor Wallace, I think he was smarter than we were. We all thought we would be there for eight years, but I think deep down inside, the governor thought because of his health that this might be a single term, and he wanted so badly to make education a cornerstone of the legacy that he left.‖103

Wallace‘s and Browder‘s plan for education reform in Alabama would not be completed during their terms, and parts of what they achieved would be dismantled under the next governor. The formidable combination of Browder‘s vision and Wallace‘s clout

101 Joe McFadden, ―For Alabama kids, it‘s first things first,‖ Alabama Journal & Montgomery Advertiser, November 16, 1985, the Browder Collection, Box 37: Alabama Legislature, 1984-85. 102 Carr, April 16, 2007. 103 Cheatham, April 10, 2007.

99 was not enough to overcome the opposition of Alabama‘s Big Mules, historian Jeff

Frederick wrote in a recent Wallace biography:

Wallace‘s final term in office may have been his best effort for improving education in Alabama…. Wallace‘s education reform bill of 1984 was designed to increase teacher salaries; implement a statewide kindergarten program; augment math, science, and computer science curricula; attract a pool of highly qualified undergraduate students to the teaching profession; and establish a commission to implement further reforms…. The Administration, with the strong backing of AEA, did convince the legislature to pass a merit pay plan for teachers known as the ―career ladder.‖ Conceptually, the idea allowed school systems to reward outstanding teachers while terminating those that could not meet minimum standards.

Frederick concluded, however, that

By the time Wallace was more interested in lasting reform, he was physically unable to make it happen, especially when it came to wrangling more dollars for state programs. A political culture predicated on high amounts of regressive taxes, low property and income tax, and special interest group power was too powerful for the aging Wallace to topple.104

Just how easily education reform‘s momentum could dissipate became apparent shortly after Republican Governor Guy Hunt took office in 1987. ―One of the first acts that Hunt took was to kill Career Ladder,‖ Carr said.105 He also declined to appoint a new Education Reform Commission when Wallace‘s commission expired. Under the new administration, members of Wallace‘s commission and other education experts quibbled over whether the commission had accomplished anything of value.106 The teacher evaluation system was still controversial, merit pay increases for teachers had not

104 Jeff Frederick, Stand Up For Alabama: Governor George Wallace (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2007) 397-401. 105 Carr, April 16, 2007. 106 Betty Cork, ―Hunt To Bring School Reform New Approach,‖ Montgomery Advertiser, Sept. 28, 1987, sec. A, p. 1.

100 been funded, and scholarships for math and science teachers were still pending approval in the legislature.

Browder saw his entire education reform program disintegrating and there was nothing he could do about it. ―As our vision and leadership problems mounted and the politics of education reform (at least our endeavor) unraveled,‖ he wrote, ―I kept muttering to myself that this is a heck of a way to run a railroad.‖107 Years later, as

Browder‘s reform commission colleagues looked back on what they accomplished, the improvements in education in Alabama loom large. ―He could never be given the credit he‘s due for the role he played,‖ Cheatham complimented Browder. ―It was really monumental what we were able to do.‖108

End of the Term

As Browder approached the end of his term in the legislature, he felt some disappointment that his many of his reforms had not been enacted, but he knew he‘d had remarkable success for a freshman legislator. The Anniston Star said he‘d have been the

Legislative Rookie of the Year for 1983 if such an award had existed, and his House colleagues had voted him one of its Outstanding Legislators for both 1985 and 1986.

Two groups, Victims of Crime and Leniency and the Alabama chapter of the National

Association of Social Workers named him their Legislator of the Year for 1985, and the

Council of State Governments named him a Toll Fellow in 1986 for ―outstanding achievement in service to state government.‖ Browder had brought his constituents a number of local improvements, had passed legislation providing financial compensation

107 Browder, ―Professor-Politician,‖ 12. 108 Cheatham, April 10, 2007.

101 for crime victims statewide, and had put a system in place that was on track to bring education in Alabama up to national standards.

Browder‘s work in the legislature came at the price of spending long periods away from his family. Becky often spent time in Montgomery with Glen, leaving Jenny with a relative. Then in mid-September, 1984, they had a frightening experience that made both Glen and Becky want to stay closer to home. Glen received an anonymous death threat on the answering machine at their Jacksonville home:

You (expletive) (expletive)! I‘m a kill your (expletive) (expletive)! I‘m a blow your (expletive) brains out, you (expletive)! You (expletive)! You just wait, you (expletive)! I‘m gonna blow your (expletive) brains out! You (expletive)! You (expletive) (expletive)!109

Browder never knew who had made the call or what the person had been so angry about. Whether an angry constituent, a disgruntled student, or a random lunatic, the caller brought home for the Browders the dangers that come with being in the public eye.

Years later, Glen still cringed at the thought that nine-year-old Jenny might have picked up the phone. Governor Wallace sent state troopers to monitor the neighborhood, and there were no further calls or incidents. Glen and Becky took precautions regarding their family safety; but the experience did not shake Glen‘s determination to carry on with his work.

Late in his term in the state legislature, Browder recognized a ―vacuum of leadership‖ in which his civic vision set him apart. ―I found that boldly stepping forward with civic vision and a plan of action worked wonders in such an environment,‖ he wrote.

But boldness could only take him so far. The system and its adherents were entrenched,

109 The Browder Collection: Accolades and Arrows.

102 and Browder‘s vision alone was not enough to drag the state‘s overweight constitution, its foundering education structure, or its laughably obsolete election laws out of those ruts. ―The fact was,‖ Browder wrote, ―that, despite all our visionary hoopla, very few political leaders or any powerful interest groups — within the system — were willing to flex their muscle for our reform agenda.‖ Browder had partnered with

Secretary of State Don Siegelman on election reform without much real change; he had worked with Lieutenant Governor Bill Baxley on constitutional reform to no avail; and he and Governor George Wallace pushed education reform with limited and mixed success. He concluded that ―the paucity of vision and leadership and success throughout the system was no accident — that‘s how those in control keep things from happening that they do not want to happen.… In order to win on such tough issues, those of us with vision had to get full control of the leadership.‖110

As it became apparent that his reform efforts would suffer the same fate as their predecessors, Browder grasped ever more clearly that he could not drive the reform train from his seat in the legislature. He began to look around for a more appropriate route.

With the precedent Siegelman had set in redefining the role of the secretary of state,

Browder saw that office as the best platform from which to launch an election reform package — and his further political aspirations as well. After the 1986 legislative session, he put his Fair Campaign Practices bill on the shelf, knowing that it had life remaining. Several things would have to happen, but if they did, Browder was sure he could turn his election reform ideas into laws. He‘d have to get himself elected secretary

110 Browder, ―Professor-Politician,‖ 30.

103 of state. He‘d have to name his own Election Reform Commission. And he‘d have to organize statewide public demand for the reforms he recommended.

Browder more than once was portrayed as a modern-day Don Quixote, futilely trying to reform a system that did not want to be reformed. But the professor-politician had spent four years learning how the Alabama political system kept reforms from being enacted. Although constitutional and campaign reform had proved impossible, he had gained valuable experience as a champion of good-government causes. He also had developed practical political skills and standing at home and in the capital. His success in education reform had demonstrated that he could be particularly effective in steering reforms around the obstacles he could not roll out of his way. When he became secretary of state, Alabama‘s election laws were going to change.

A REFORMER TAKES CHARGE

One term in the Legislature provided all the proof Browder needed that he was in the wrong place to launch his election reform agenda. He‘d need more clout — both his own, by virtue of an appropriate statewide office, and that of the most powerful members of the Alabama House and Senate. He was sure he could build a coalition that could push his reforms into law, but first he‘d have to secure a platform for himself. He needed to be secretary of state.

Browder identified the least understood and most tedious elective office in

Alabama as the best place to get election reform started. The secretary of state traditionally was a keeper of public records, including those relevant to elections.

Browder could envision stretching the duties from merely keeping election records to becoming the state‘s chief elections officer. Don Siegelman had begun that transformation during his terms as secretary of state in the early 1980s, and upon leaving that office to run for attorney general in 1986, Siegelman encouraged Browder to seek the vacant secretary‘s position.

Still, Browder‘s decision to seek the statewide office surprised some of those close to him, and his election surprised them even more. ―I honestly thought that when

Glen ran for secretary of state, he would be a long shot,‖ John Teague recalled. ―I didn‘t think he had established the type of contacts he needed to run statewide.… I said, ‗Glen, that‘s great, but I just don‘t know — how many people know you?‘ He said, ‗Well, you

104 105 know, I think we can do it.‘ And boy, he ran it with precision. He‘s so thorough — you know, Glen‘s unflappable. He handles things so easy, he thinks everything out, he just doesn‘t react real quickly.… So I was surprised — and frankly, [more surprised] when I began to realize that he was picking up support and that he had a real good chance.‖1

Characteristically, Browder did not chart this course without first dissecting the options with Becky; and then he sought input from his cadre of trusted advisers —

Teague, Ed Ewing, Jess Brown, Ray Minter, Dean Buttram, Calhoun County Probate

Judge Arthur Murray, Democratic Party politico Tom Woodall, Charles Carr, and others.

When Browder told them what he wanted to accomplish and why he thought he could win, ultimately, his vision convinced them. ―We had talked as he was leading up,‖

Minter said. ―We had talked, too, about the vacuum that was down there, the vacuum of leadership. I think I probably was surprised. It was pretty bold of him to take this thing on, a one-term legislator who was going to run for a statewide office.‖2

Launching a Long-Shot Campaign

The problems that Teague and Minter identified would make for a tough campaign. The vast majority of the voting public neither knew nor cared what the secretary of state was supposed to do and had little interest in the reforms Browder wanted to initiate. What‘s more, although Browder‘s opponent was not an incumbent, she was a fixture in state government while he was still a virtual unknown. And, of course, Browder had hardly any money and not much prospect of raising a substantial

1 John Teague, interviewed by the author, Montgomery, Alabama, November 17, 2006. 2 Ray Minter, interviewed by the author, Anniston Army Depot, Bynum, Alabama, March 23, 2007.

106 campaign war chest. To get elected, he would have to accomplish three difficult tasks: create a public mandate for election reform, define himself as the state‘s most appropriate chief elections officer, and overcome his lack of name recognition, all on a minuscule budget.

Browder‘s opponent was formidable. Annie Laurie Gunter had a sweet, grandmotherly appearance that fitted the traditional role of the secretary of state, and her name was familiar to most Alabama voters. The daughter of a former Montgomery mayor, she was a long-time George Wallace ally. She was finishing her second term as state treasurer and hoped to move easily into the secretary of state‘s office. She was uninterested in reform, and she opposed Browder‘s ideas about changing the role of the office.3

Browder was the opposite of Mrs. Gunter in every way. Despite the accolades he had earned in his term in the legislature, he was considered a newcomer to state politics and was not well known outside his home district. Young, dynamic, and analytical, he shook up the race for the mundane office the same way he wanted to shake up the way

Alabama‘s elections were run.

To overcome his name-recognition gap, Browder set out to make the voters care about his qualifications and question Mrs. Gunter‘s. He hammered his opponent on campaign finance questions, using Mrs. Gunter‘s own actions as an example of why he believed election laws needed to be reformed. Over and over, he asked questions for which she did not have good answers: Why wouldn‘t she report her campaign

3 Joe McFadden, ―Mouse that roared to defeat Gunter,‖ Alabama Journal & Montgomery Advertiser, May 22, 1986; the Browder Collection, Box 13: Campaigning for Alabama Secretary of State, 1986, Campaign Clippings.

107 contributions earlier than state law required, as Browder himself had done? Why hadn‘t she fully disclosed her campaign contributions from her 1982 race for state treasurer? Why was she using state-funded mailings to further her campaign? And why wouldn‘t she debate him on these issues?

By questioning rather than attacking, Browder was able to recast the campaign in his own terms, establishing his credentials and letting the state press provide needed publicity that his meager budget could not. For one whole month he challenged Mrs.

Gunter to debate him, sending a copy of the invitation to the newspapers each day. After two weeks she was so annoyed that she held a press conference to announce her answer to his challenge: ―an emphatic no.‖4 Browder went ahead with what he had begun calling the Great Undebate. Summoning the press to the floor of the state House of

Representatives in the historic old Capitol, he called upon his JSU colleague Jerry

Chandler to moderate and propped one of Mrs. Gunter‘s campaign posters in a chair on the stage. ―The poster in the chair is not meant to imply that Mrs. Gunter is a one- dimensional candidate,‖ he said in classic Browder understatement. ―She‘s just not here.‖5 The press treated the stunt as a huge joke on Mrs. Gunter. She retorted that she was tired of being singled out, picked on and lectured by a liberal college professor.6 But she still had no answers to Browder‘s questions that by now were central to media reports on the race.

4 Associated Press, ―Mrs. Gunter Rejects Debate Challenge,‖ Montgomery Advertiser, April 17, 1986; the Browder Collection, Box 13: Campaigning for Alabama Secretary of State, 1986, Campaign Clippings. 5 Norman Zumwalt, ―Browder conducts Great Undebate,‖ Gadsden Times, May 6, 1986, sec. B, p.1. 6 Michael Jennings, ―Browder‘s low key, yet takes on big gun: Opponent Gunter,‖ Birmingham News, May 28, 1986, sec. F, p. 2.

108 Editorial pages in the large dailies boomed with Browder‘s calls for election reform, while the weekly papers and TV reporters chimed his praises for an endearing little gimmick he had come up with — planting apple trees. ―The best example I ever saw of [managing the press] was when he ran for secretary of state,‖ said Charles Carr.

―He conducted ceremonies all across the state planting apple trees, and he tied that in with the seeds of democracy — I call that unearned media. He milked that like a cow.

And he had to — secretary of state was a low profile office. Quite frankly, when he ran, people didn‘t give him a chance. He didn‘t have any money.‖ If he‘d had unlimited funds, he might have done it differently, but he didn‘t have money, and shining public light on the finances of those who did was one of his main reasons for running. So he made the best of the tools he had available, and the tool he wielded most expertly was his knowledge of what made news. ―Name recognition is not a bad thing anywhere, especially if it‘s free,‖ Minter explained. ―He was a master of using free press. He planted apple trees all over, everywhere. If you‘re going to be at a senior citizens‘ home, reporters are not going to cover that. If you‘re going to plant an apple tree there for the future of health care for these folks, they‘re going to cover that; that‘s a story.‖

Why apple trees? ―His standard thing was, one, he liked them,‖ Minter said.

―And two, he had planted them for his daughter so that when she got older, if they‘d lived there, they‘d have apples. And I think it symbolized the future and continuing growth of the direction we were headed into. It goes back to some of that too, with teaching and apples. I think there was a multitude of meanings, but the trees themselves, it was growth for the future.‖

109 Browder crisscrossed the state planting trees, delivering apples and making speeches. News outlets that didn‘t have the time, space or interest to provide lengthy coverage of Browder‘s reform ideas always turned out to cover his tree plantings, and

Browder supplied a condensed message that would fit within their formats. ―Glen knew how to frame issues,‖ Carr said. ―Glen had this unique ability to identify what was important, cut to the heart of the matter, make his point and then get out. And he knew that he wasn‘t going to get more than thirty seconds to a minute. He would plant an apple tree and he would say a bite that was going to be repeated, and he knew what to say.‖7 His tree-planting sound bite hit all the points of his campaign — vacuum of leadership, coalition building, election reform, building a better future:

Too often, Alabama politics has been a dog-eat-dog struggle among special interests and the public interest has been forgotten. We need people who are committed to the public good and who will provide the leadership to make things better. But the most important element of this new leadership is the ability to bring our people together to cooperate for the common good. Ten years ago, when my daughter Jenny was born, I planted a row of apple trees in front of our house so that she could enjoy something good and healthy as she grew up. Now she loves those fresh apples. I think the same idea applies to this campaign. By cleaning up the state‘s electoral system, we are planting symbolic apple trees for the future of all our children in Alabama.8

For all their gimmickry, the tree plantings were profoundly affecting, because whether Browder won the election or lost it, local folks knew he had contributed something to their community that would remain long after the election was forgotten.

Browder, the political scientist and strategist, counted on their seeing his name on the ballot and remembering fondly that nice young man who planted apple trees.

7 Charles Carr, interviewed by the author, Oneonta, Alabama, April 16, 2007. 8 ―Browder begins campaign for Secretary of State,‖ The Chanticleer, March 6, 1986, p. 1.

110 A Strategy of Stealth

With virtually no statewide name identification and sparse prospects for campaign contributions, Browder felt it was critical that he run the table of endorsements, both from media and from political organizations. He accomplished that assignment almost perfectly, getting the nod of all but one of the state‘s large newspapers and winning the backing of the most influential political groups.

Among the most important endorsements Browder received were those of the state‘s most powerful and influential African American political organizations. To secure the support of the black community, Browder employed his academic research, consulting skills, and legislative experience in developing what he would later call a

―stealthy strategy‖ of black-white politics that would characterize his future career in

Montgomery and Washington.

He quietly paid his respects to leading African American political organizations

— the Alabama Democratic Conference, the Alabama New South Coalition, and the

Jefferson County Citizens Coalition — which could deliver a sizable bloc vote. He and co-author Artemisia Stanberry explain the nature and process of his ―black politics‖ in their book, Stealth Reconstruction:

For a while during the ‗70s, ‗80s and ‗90s, African American organizational endorsements were black gold in Alabama politics. The payoff — a ninety percent bloc vote among more than a third of the Democratic primary voters and a quarter of the statewide general electorate — quite often was the key to winning the Democratic primary in the spring and vanquishing Republican opposition in the fall general election.

Normally, the process worked this way. Several weeks before an election, the Alabama Democratic Conference, the Alabama New South Coalition, the Jefferson County Citizens Coalition and similar groups would hold their

111 endorsement meetings and invite candidates to appear, make a pitch, and await the screening committee‘s closed-door decision. This practice, not unlike what happened with other cohesive interest groups, was the black community‘s way of dealing with an adverse and manipulative history.…

Browder sought black organizational endorsements and counted heavily on the marked ballots that those organizations distributed right before the election and at voting places. Compared to such prized endorsements, black media support was insignificant; and mainstream media were irrelevant.9

Browder managed to gain the statewide endorsements of both the Alabama

Democratic Conference and the Alabama New South Coalition, no doubt at least in part because of his friendship with one of the most flamboyant characters in recent Alabama politics, Dr. Joe Reed. Reed has led the Alabama Democratic Conference since 1979 and is vice chairman of the Alabama State Democratic Executive Committee. He also is the associate executive secretary of the Alabama Education Association, which means he shares leadership of the state‘s most powerful lobby with Paul Hubbert. At one time,

Reed was also a Montgomery city councilman. In Stealth Reconstruction, Browder describes his old friend as ―an irascibly righteous, powerful, and demanding personality.‖

Reed helped Browder during his campaigns, both by supporting him and by guiding him, and he expected reciprocation once Browder gained office. ―In both formal communications and face-to-face exchanges, Reed alternately helped my career and pressured me to further black objectives in Alabama,‖ Browder told Stanberry. ―He was quick with political advice; and it was usually on target and compelling. Most of it understandably inclined toward his advantage.‖

9 Glen Browder and Artemisia Stanberry, Stealth Reconstruction: A New Thesis About Quiet, Practical, Biracial Leadership and the Unheroic Transformation of Southern Politics (prepublication draft), 2007, 107. Publication of Stealth Reconstruction is scheduled for late 2008 by NewSouth Books, Montgomery, Alabama.

112 Stanberry continues:

Reed constantly invited Browder to attend black meetings, dinners and celebrations, suggesting often that ―you ought to buy a table for this event, and we‘ll get some of our people to sit with you.‖ He also could be pointedly direct about such invitations, as when warning Browder that, ―if you can‘t come to our endorsement meeting, we cannot endorse you.‖ On another occasion, he chastised Secretary of State Browder regarding a recommended appointment for which Browder was considering another applicant: ―When you take somebody to the dance, you expect them to dance with you!‖ But he was supportive; once, during a critical, closed-door redistricting fight, he spoke up and said ―Browder‘s been good to us, and we ain‘t going to hurt him.‖ Additionally, he regularly urged Browder and other white politicians to make use of black media in campaigns: ―We believe that such advertisements and use of black-owned and -operated media will not only further your campaign in the black community, but will also further economic justice and parity and will go a long way in assisting us in assessing the candidate‘s commitment to equal opportunity for all people.‖ 10

A Primary Squeaker and a General Landslide

During the last days before the June 3 primary, Browder made a final push to boost his name recognition as voters were making up their minds. Sheila Gilbert, longtime friend of the Browders and wife of political science colleague Jerry Gilbert, headed up the Browder ―Apple Corps,‖ a dedicated team of volunteers who mailed nearly fifty thousand postcards to voters around the state. University colleagues Hope Davis,

Jerry Smith, Jerry Gilbert, and others had always backed their friend, and in this campaign the JSU faculty, staff, students, and alumni — along with educational associates spread far and wide — helped energize civic-minded people throughout the state, Browder recalled. Ray Minter cruised the state‘s highways, hanging red, apple- shaped Browder signs from trees and bushes. Inspired newcomers — like young couple

10 Browder, September 19, 2007.

113 David and Lynne Barnes and their kids in Mobile — hauled Browder‘s apple material and proselytized wherever people gathered in their part of the state.11

Browder used up his remaining campaign funds buying all the TV, newspaper and radio advertising he could afford for the last weekend of the race. He also benefited from publicity he could not buy, the endorsements of a dozen daily newspapers. Editors portrayed Browder as the face of progress, saying that he brought much-needed intellectual depth, innovation and integrity to state politics and that his election would foreshadow the end of Wallace-era demagoguery.

―Ironically, another thing that benefited me,‖ Browder recalled, was that ―while

[Mrs. Gunter] was an old Wallace ally, I think I got the majority of the Wallace vote. I had a good relationship with Wallace, a trusting relationship. She had opposed him on an appointment years ago, and the Wallace crew remembered that.‖12

In pre-election polls, Browder trailed Mrs. Gunter by as much as two to one.

Drawing on his polling experience, Browder was so sure he would lose that he did not plan a post-election party. Watching the returns on television at a neighbor‘s house, he was surprised when he ended the night with a slim lead. The vote was so close and

Browder‘s win so unexpected that the Associated Press would not call the race until Mrs.

Gunter conceded three days later. The final, official tally was 365,163 votes for Browder and 343,613 votes for Mrs. Gunter, a 51.5 percent to 48.5 percent victory that analysts called the biggest shocker of the Democratic primary.

11 Glen Browder, ―Additions for GB bio,‖ e-mail message to the author, May 10, 2008. 12 Glen Browder, interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, March 14, 2006.

114 After his upset victory in the primary, Browder became the heavy favorite in the general election. He spent the rest of the summer canvassing the state, pushing his election reforms. His constant companion, by now, was Ray Minter, who had become his most valued campaign worker. During the primary race, Minter had worked tirelessly for

Browder, somehow accomplishing whatever unreasonable feat the campaign required.

Now, Minter, a burly man with an intimidating appearance and a ready laugh, was

Browder‘s ―Producer,‖ a title he would justify repeatedly in years to come.

Minter described one political rally at the Birmingham-Jefferson County Civic

Center in which he produced what looked like a political miracle, but which came down to plain old back-scratching. Minter had preceded Glen and Becky to the venue with the intention of placing Browder‘s apple-shaped campaign cards on all the tables, but when he arrived he was told that no campaign materials were to be allowed. This presented a quandary for The Producer. ―The last words he gave me were, ‗I want you to get this stuff on the table,‘‖ Minter recalled. ―Those were my directions. I was trying to figure out how in the world I was going to do this. So I said to myself, first I‘ve gotta get inside.‖ Minter went to the back door, pretending to be checking on building maintenance. ―Of course, I was dressed up,‖ he laughed. ―So they opened the door, even though I had a coat and tie on.‖ The scene inside was chaotic. The banquet staff was behind schedule and struggling to get the tables set up for the dinner, which was to start in one hour. Minter eavesdropped as the event manager frantically cast about for some way to finish the preparations on time. ―The lady that was running the thing was just about to pull her hair out,‖ he said. Then Minter saw his opportunity:

115 Each plate had a candle, and they were setting up for I don‘t know, a thousand or two. She said, ―We‘ve gotta get these candles lit. We‘ve gotta get somebody on it.‖ And somebody else said, ―We can‘t, we‘re trying to do the food and all this stuff.‖ Well, I heard this, and I walked over and I said, ―Listen, I‘ll help you.‖ She said, ―Who are you?‖ I said, ―It doesn‘t matter. I‘ll help you light the candles and whatever else you need, if you‘ll let me put this material down beside each plate.‖ And she said, ―Whatever — we‘ve gotta get this done!‖ … So I lit candles in there, and as I would light a candle, I would put a card down at each plate.

When the guests arrived, Minter looked around with satisfaction as surprise registered on their faces. ―Every one, I could see it on their faces, especially the ones sitting on the stage,‖ he said. ―Why is this out there? And it was only Glen‘s stuff. But I had lit a damn thousand candles to be able to get that stuff out.‖13

Although they arrived separately for that event, much of the time Browder and

Minter traveled together. ―We went to lots of events, he and I, had a lot of talk time, a lot of road time,‖ Minter said. They talked about things that were important to them — about their families, about education, about politics and government and how to make democracy work better. Sometimes they just talked about food, at least once because they hadn‘t had any, in spite of having attended three $500-a-plate dinners in one day. In the crush of shaking hands and asking for votes, somehow neither of them had found time to eat. ―We were somewhere before Birmingham, then in Birmingham and then in

Selma, and of course everyone charges the politicians,‖ Minter said. ―We stopped at three or four o‘clock in the morning at some place that was open outside of Selma and

13 Minter, March 23, 2007.

116 got a hamburger. We were laughing about it. We had paid all that money for all that food and didn‘t get a chance to eat any of it.‖14

As November approached, Browder‘s election appeared inevitable. His calls for election law reforms — a new campaign finance disclosure law, accurate voter rolls and a state Elections Commission to oversee the changes — had received an unexpected boost from a controversy in the Democratic gubernatorial primary which added ―crossover voting‖ to the reform lexicon. The only real disagreement between him and his

Republican opponent, retired businessman Jim Watley, was that Watley thought appointing an Elections Commission was unnecessary. The state press lauded Browder as a model which other politicians should emulate. An editorial in the Alabama Journal

& Montgomery Advertiser provides this example:

Glen Browder brings intellectual depth to elective office, but he also has shown he is enough of a pragmatist to get things done. But his biggest attraction is that he gets people to concentrate on those things that need to be done for the state, instead of emphasizing — like so many other politicians — those things they disagree on.… His emphasis on bringing people together instead of capitalizing on their differences we whole-heartedly recommend to his fellow candidates.15

Browder won the election 644,492 votes to 405,189, a 61 percent to 39 percent margin. He had spent $72,311 in the primary race and $12,294 for the general election.

Moving to Montgomery

Even before his landslide victory, Browder was already planning for his move to

Montgomery. He asked Minter to accompany him as his chief of staff. The invitation,

14 Ibid. 15 Editorial, ―Glen Browder,‖ Alabama Journal & Montgomery Advertiser, Nov. 26, 1986, Sec. B, p. 3.

117 although exciting, upended Minter‘s life. ―I remember, Glen asked me as we had been at one of these many things and were coming back,‖ Minter said. ―His words were,

‗Roll this around lightly and think about it. What would you think about going to

Montgomery with me?‘‖ Minter rolled it around, all right — like a cement mixer. He thought about wrenching his two-year-old and four-year-old sons out of the only home they‘d ever known. He thought about whether his wife Babs, who like him was a high school teacher, would want to give up her job and her home. He thought about changing careers for the insecurity of the political life. He thought about his anger back in college, and the professor who taught him to channel it productively, and the time they‘d spent together over this campaign. When he arrived home after midnight, he woke Babs and told her about Browder‘s offer. They agreed to sleep on it and decide the next day.

Babs, who Minter admitted had been taking care of the boys, running the house and teaching while he and Browder had been on the campaign trail, told her husband, ―If you want to go down there in order to make a difference, then it‘s OK to go. But if it‘s not, if there‘s any other reason, then I don‘t want to do it.‖16 They went.

The move to Montgomery was wrenching to both the Browder and Minter families. Glen‘s term began in January, the middle of the school year. He had taken a leave of absence from JSU and Ray had resigned from Wellborn High School, but Becky and Babs had harder choices. Babs finished out the school year and kept her boys at home until June, then followed Ray to Montgomery. Becky and Glen decided to move together, changing Jenny‘s school in the middle of the sixth grade. Becky remembered that decision with a hint of regret: ―I never realized how sad she was,‖ Becky said. I

16 Minter, March 23, 2007.

118 look back on it now and I can see her crying on the couch and missing everything.

You get so caught up in your own self that you forget what an impact it has on your children.… She always campaigned, but I don‘t know if she ever realized as a little kid that it means you actually leave your house and move to another place. It‘s not that easy being a kid of a politician.‖17

Browder took the oath of office on January 19, 1987, a Monday. Minter went to the office the day before to get the work space organized in preparation for an

Inauguration Day reception. Browder expected George Wallace to make a brief appearance, and he had instructed Minter to make sure Wallace encountered no obstructions with his wheelchair. Minter was impressed that Wallace, who had just relinquished the governor‘s office, would come to Browder‘s reception. In fact, Wallace would attend receptions for only two state officers that day: Browder, and his son,

George Wallace, Jr., who had been elected state treasurer.

After the inaugural festivities, Tuesday was to be the first real work day and

Minter arrived in the office early. Before he could get himself oriented, however, FBI agents arrived and served him with a subpoena. ―How they knew I was going to be there,

I still don‘t know to this day, but they came in and asked for me,‖ Minter recalled. After the agents left, he said, ―I just put my hands on my head and sat there thinking, ‗What have I gotten myself into?‘‖ What Minter didn‘t know, but soon learned, was that subpoenas are routine for the secretary of state. As the official record keeper, any time a law or election is challenged, the secretary of state is likely to be subpoenaed. ―I found

17 Becky Browder, interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, October 18, 2006.

119 as time went on, we got sued every other week, just by virtue of the office and all the records that were contained there,‖ Minter said. ―That office gets sued a lot.‖

Minter began his work as Browder‘s administrative assistant knowing Browder had much he wanted to achieve and would waste no time getting started. The pace established that first day never let up. Over the next three years, they would revolutionize the way the secretary of state‘s office functioned, and Minter would find ways to implement Browder‘s directions in every case, even when the task appeared impossible. Their computerization of the state‘s record keeping system vastly increased access and opened a ramp to the information superhighway that was still a few years away. They established a training system for poll workers to comply with a court order in a racial discrimination lawsuit Attorney General Don Siegelman inherited from his predecessor, Charles Graddick. Years before the federal Motor Voter law took effect, they went to Wal-Mart stores in rural areas and registered hundreds of new voters.

Through it all, however, Browder never lost sight of his primary goal. He pursued election law reform with dogged determination, sometimes going through the legislature and sometimes going around it.

Setting the Stage for Election Reform

Browder had introduced a bill in special session in the summer of 1986 authorizing the creation of the Alabama Elections Reform Commission. The legislature did not act on the bill, but having introduced it, Browder used it as a campaign vehicle. After he was elected, he formed the commission as if he had the authority. He would chair the commission himself. It was a risk, but he

120 treated his election as a mandate to clean up Alabama‘s election laws, and he knew he had to act while public demand still smoldered. Within two months of taking office, he appointed the twenty-five members of the commission. They came from every corner of the state and represented all aspects of the election process: county commission chairmen, Democratic and Republican party chairmen, probate judges, county registrars, members of the League of Women

Voters and executives in the state press associations. In his choice of commissioners, Browder was able to pool broad first-hand knowledge of the problems with Alabama elections. Whenever possible, he appointed friends who shared his zeal for reform. Attorney Dean Buttram, his former student, became Browder‘s proxy at commission meetings and chaired Alabamians for

Progressive Election Laws, a group Browder formed to foment grassroots support. Calhoun County Probate Judge Arthur Murray, who had campaigned for Browder, headed the Elections Commission subcommittee on election code revision.18

The commission makeup guaranteed continuing media coverage in rural communities as well as in the cities. Appointment to the commission was recognized as an honor, making celebrities of local people whose jobs often were bureaucratic and mundane. Interviews with the newly appointed commissioners gave them a chance to describe election problems in their own communities, clarifying the perception of local need for reform. Browder arranged speaking dates in the commissioners‘ hometowns, enhancing their

18 Robin DeMonia, ―Browder picks two for election reform,‖ Anniston Star, April 22, 1987.

121 prestige with a visit from a state official and impressing upon civic clubs and professional organizations the importance of the changes he sought.

Election reform would present the greatest test yet of Browder‘s coalition- building skills, even more than Career Ladder had done. Browder knew he‘d need others on his team besides his blue-ribbon commission. He also would need like-minded reformers in state government. His predecessor, Don Siegelman, had espoused a reform agenda but had had little success. Now as attorney general, Siegelman could provide valuable support for Browder in investigating voting irregularities. If Browder could get reform legislation moving, the new governor, Guy Hunt, who had run on a political reform platform and who had won because of voter backlash to a second hand-picking incident in the Democratic Party, obviously would have to support it.

However, for any reform to occur, someone would have to push bills through the legislature. In the House, Browder could count on Tallassee Representative Jack

Venable, an outspoken reform advocate and newspaper publisher. Homewood Senator

Jim Bennett was a longtime champion of election reform; and Selma Senator Earl

Goodwin, who had pushed Browder‘s Career Ladder bill to a vote two years earlier, would also sponsor or co-sponsor election reform bills in the Senate. Browder‘s biggest gun, however, was House Speaker Pro Tempore Jim Campbell of Anniston, a man with enough clout to carry the bills through the House on his own reputation.

Browder recalled:

I knew that what we had done in the past, that process would never work without a couple of things. You had to have somebody statewide — the leader, the champion, the secretary of state — who was committed to not only introducing the idea, but fighting for it in

122 the trenches, fighting publicly, in the media and speaking at the Chambers of Commerce, but also inside the corridors of power. And the other thing you needed was someone on the inside, somebody with power. Jim Campbell was that person.19

Browder and Campbell itched to get to work on a bill to force political candidates to report where their campaign contributions came from and how they spent the money

— they had sketched out the skeleton of a bill in an impromptu meeting in a parking lot on the JSU campus in the summer of 1986.

But that was only one item in a list of reforms Browder wanted to tackle. His strategy was to have the Elections Commission study each issue, hold public hearings and recommend changes. His introductory meetings around the state with members of the commission suggested a list of reforms — which closely matched Browder‘s own list — and the hottest issue, the one that had cost the Democrats the governor‘s office, was the one the commission would address first.

The Crossover Controversy

―Crossover voting‖ was shorthand for a practice many voters in Alabama considered their constitutional right — voting in one party‘s primary and the other party‘s runoff. The Democrats had such a powerful majority in the state that until the mid-1980s crossover voting had never made much of an impact and few gave it any thought. In

1986, however, when Attorney General Charles Graddick came in second to Lieutenant

Governor Bill Baxley in the Democratic primary for governor, he encouraged

Republicans to cross over and vote for him in the runoff. After Graddick won the runoff, the State Democratic Executive Committee investigated and declared Baxley the party‘s

19 Glen Browder, interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, March 25, 2005.

123 nominee. A federal court in Alabama upheld the decision, maintaining that political parties have the right to choose their own nominees, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Graddick‘s appeal. Democratic voters, still irritated by the Executive

Committee‘s decision to appoint candidates after redistricting in 1983, were outraged at this second ―hand-picking‖ and retaliated by crossing over to the Republican candidate,

Hunt, in the general election. Hunt became the first Republican elected to Alabama‘s highest office since Reconstruction.

Calls for election reform were equated with preventing another crossover voting debacle like the one in 1986, but ideas about how to do it ranged from strict party registration on one extreme to open primaries on the other. Browder, speaking both as secretary of state and as chairman of the Elections Commission, rejected party registration as too contentious. ―Party registration flies in the face of tradition in

Alabama,‖ he said, ―a tradition in which people would not declare until election day which party they wanted to participate in — also a tradition which allows independents to participate in the process. Party registration would violate both of those traditions.… If this commission comes up with something, it will be something which will accommodate independents, allowing them to continue to participate in the primary system.‖20

Browder led the Elections Commission in discussions that soon brought a recommendation that would preserve the parties‘ ability to choose their own candidates and the independent voters‘ ability to participate in primaries. The commission recommended keeping a list of who voted in which primary and allowing those voters to

20 Stan Glasscox, ―Party Registration — When it comes to reform, ‗Keep it simple, stupid,‘ ‖ Southern Democrat, Oneonta, Alabama, June 10, 1987.

124 participate only in the same party‘s runoff. Those who did not vote in the primary could vote in either party‘s runoff. The list would be sent to the probate judge after the primary and returned to the polling place for the runoff. The list would be sealed after the runoff, and if the election were not contested, the list would be destroyed.

Response to the proposal, mostly positive, was reflected in the state‘s press. The

Gadsden Times said this was ―the best solution to crossover voting.‖21 The Montgomery

Advertiser called it a ―reasonable solution.‖22 Editorial support was not universal, however. The weekly Linden Democrat-Reporter published a contrarian diatribe suggesting Browder would like to burn party brands onto babies foreheads.23 Despite a few naysayers, leaders of both parties said they supported this plan. Bennett and

Goodwin sponsored a Senate bill with the commission‘s recommendations, and

Lieutenant Governor Jim Folsom, Jr., put it on the fast track for consideration. However, the budget debate took precedence, as usual, and the session expired before the legislature could vote on it. Goodwin introduced the bill again in the next session, but again it died.

Meanwhile, the state Democratic Party leaders had decided to enforce the party‘s existing rules prohibiting crossover voting. Party Chairman John Baker said the prohibition would apply to all elections, so that anyone voting in the Republican presidential primary in March 1988 would be barred from voting in the Democratic

21 Editorial, ―The best solution to crossover voting,‖ Gadsden Times, April 14, 1987, the Browder Collection, Box 49: Alabama Secretary of State, 1987-89. 22 Editorial, ―Reasonable Solution,‖ Montgomery Advertiser, September 16, 1987, the Browder Collection, Box 49: Alabama Secretary of State, 1987-89. 23 Editorial, ―Register babes at birth,‖ Linden Democrat-Reporter, July 2, 1987, the Browder Collection, Box 49: Alabama Secretary of State, 1987-89.

125 primary and runoffs for state elections in June. In June, 1988, Attorney General

Siegelman sent Browder a letter saying political parties had the authority to enforce their own anti-crossover rules. Democrats continued to prohibit crossover voting, although

Republicans did not.

The issue never was fully resolved in statute, but, Browder said, ―We accomplished a lot in making people aware, less likely to try to abuse it.‖ The issue resurfaces occasionally; as recently as 2006, the state Republicans decided not to ban crossover voting in their primaries.

Campaign Finance Disclosure

Having sent its crossover voting recommendations to the legislature, the Elections

Commission turned its attention to Browder‘s bigger concern, campaign finance reform.

The Fair Campaign Practices Act, which the Birmingham News called ―the silver lining‖ behind the dismal 1988 legislative year, would become the highlight of Browder‘s term as secretary of state. ―Alabama finally has the tools to clean up campaign financing in this state,‖ the Birmingham News editorial said, ―— to discourage the legalized bribery and end the secret, under-the-table deals.‖ The editorial went on to detail problems with the old law:

Candidates didn‘t have to tell us who bankrolled their campaigns until after an election. We never got the chance to see which special interests were in their corner before we voted. Between elections, incumbents might take huge sums of money from lobbying outfits and we never knew about it. We never got the chance to see if their voting record followed the money trail. And the door was wide open for worse. If a candidate took a large sum of money from a special interest one day, and changed his vote on an issue important to them the next, it wasn‘t a bribe; it was merely a ‗campaign contribution.‘24

24 Editorial, ―The Silver Lining,‖ Birmingham News, Birmingham, Alabama, September 24, 1988.

126

Campaign finance laws not only dictate how much money candidates for public office can accept from individuals, businesses and groups; they also require that candidates file reports with the secretary of state detailing where their campaign contributions come from and how they are spent, so that the public can better judge a candidate‘s responsiveness to special interest groups. As Ted Bryant wrote in the

Birmingham Post-Herald in March, 1988, ―They want to know where a gubernatorial candidate gets $3 million or $4 million to spend on an office that pays $70,222 a year for four years. Who is so terribly interested in getting a particular candidate elected to that office, and what do they expect to receive as a return on their investment?‖25 When the new law passed, Bryant wrote that it might be the most significant legislation he‘d seen in seventeen years of reporting on state government.‖26

Under the old law, The Corrupt Practices Act of 1915, the reports did not have to be filed until after the election, and under many circumstances — as when funds were raised in non-election years — did not have to be filed at all. The law had no enforcement provisions, and Fred Burger wrote in the Anniston Star that of the twenty- one members of the legislature who failed to file the reports for the 1986 election, none would be prosecuted.27 ―What makes [the 1988] Act so important was what we had before it,‖ Browder recalled in 2005. ―The campaign law had not been changed since

25 Ted Bryant, ―Political fund disclosures edge closer,‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, March 24, 1988, sec. A, p. 4. 26 Ted Bryant, ―Disclosure bill makes it a good session,‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, September 24, 1988, sec. B, p. 8. 27 Frederick Burger, ―Lawmakers silent on contributions,‖ Anniston Star, November 15, 1987, sec. A, p. 1.

127 1915. It was worthless. It was useless. It was not legal. But it was not just minor things like that — nobody abided by it. And nobody was prosecuted for not abiding by it.‖28

After studying the issue through the fall of 1987, the Elections Commission held a public hearing in November and again recommended changes. Browder and Campbell judged the time was right to push campaign finance reform to the forefront. Although many earlier attempts (including four separate bills in the 1987 legislative session) had failed, Browder recognized a unique opportunity to get reform legislation passed in 1988.

As with crossover voting, each party had its own rules regarding disclosure, but there was no incentive to comply when the other party had different rules. However, Republicans were too few to derail reform if Democrats supported it, and Democrats, still stinging from the loss of the governor‘s office, would support a tougher disclosure law, if only to force Guy Hunt to reveal the identities of his contributors.

After a year in office, Hunt‘s fund-raising activities belied the support he had earlier voiced for beefing up disclosure requirements and election laws in general.

Burger reported in August, 1987, that Hunt said he thought the state‘s disclosure laws were fine the way they were,29 and Bryant followed with an accounting of Hunt‘s continuing fund raising, even though the governor was in his first term in office and had no campaign debt. Hunt refused to disclose how much money he had raised since being

28 Glen Browder, interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, March 12, 2005. 29 Frederick Burger, ―Politicians and money: an Alabama quandary,‖ Anniston Star, August 30, 1987, sec. A, p. 4.

128 elected, and the existing law did not require him to do so.30 Hunt was the most visible Republican engaged in questionable fundraising, but he had plenty of company among Democrats, most disappointingly some of those whom Browder had hoped would help push reform legislation. Soon, Jim Folsom, Jr., Lowell Barron and Don Siegelman were being excoriated in the press for holding fundraisers in non-election years and for refusing to disclose the amounts and sources of the contributions. Among these three, however, only Barron had a vote in the legislature. Campbell, Venable, Bennett and

Goodwin still were firmly in the reform camp, and Browder knew that few in the House or Senate would dare to oppose them.

Also in Browder‘s coterie was the Capitol press corps, which reveled in exposing well-known politicians‘ monetary peccadilloes. Newspapers across the state became enthusiastic allies in the effort to reform what the Birmingham Post-Herald termed ―pig- trough politics,‖31 keeping the issue before their readers continually for more than a year, from the first proposals through the signing of the bill into law. For most of the public, however, calls for campaign finance reform were confusing and boring, and their fire for election law reform had gone out.

When the legislative session opened in February, 1988, Campbell and Bennett introduced identical versions of the seventeen-page bill in the House and Senate. It would repeal and replace the 1915 law.32 Browder, the bill‘s chief architect, praised it as

30 Ted Bryant, ―Oh, that‘s fund raising,‖ West Alabama Gazette, (reprinted from Birmingham Post-Herald), September 10, 1987, 4. 31 Editorial, ―Pig-trough politics,‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, October 1, 1987, the Browder Collection, Box 49: Alabama Secretary of State. 32 H.493 By Campbell, White (L), Brooks and Butler, Feb. 11, 1988, the Browder Collection, Box 49: Alabama Secretary of State.

129 having ―biting teeth‖33 in its enforcement provisions. The bill would require reporting of contributions and expenditures no later than five days before elections and would raise the threshold for reporting to one hundred dollars. (The old threshold was ten dollars for contributions and five dollars for expenditures.) It would not take effect until the following year, a concession to allow legislators to vote for the bill without having to abide by it in the 1988 elections.

Campbell said postponing implementation was one of the concessions that he,

Browder and Bennett offered to enable their colleagues to vote for the bill. ―Fortunately

Glen, Jim and I all were practical men. Glen had been in the legislature and knew the unwritten rules, which are just as important as the written rules. Bennett had been there the same length of time that I had, so we had a good idea about what would and would not fly and how we could craft the legislation to get it passed.‖34

The House passed Campbell‘s bill quickly. ―I‘m not going to be falsely modest,‖

Campbell said, ―but once word got out that I was going to be the primary sponsor of the bill, everybody understood that this was going to be a serious proposition. It was going to be a serious effort that was going to set some new rules for campaign finance disclosure.‖35 Ted Bryant‘s analysis in the Birmingham Post-Herald advised the reform team not to ice down the champagne just yet, because the quick passage in the House happened, he said, only because Campbell had used his considerable clout to push it

33 Press release, Alabama Secretary of State‘s Office, Feb. 12, 1988, The Browder Collection, Box 49: Alabama Secretary of State. 34 Jim Campbell, interviewed by the author, Anniston, Alabama, March 25, 2005. 35 Ibid.

130 through. Bennett did not wield the same power in the Senate, Bryant said, and he might not be able to get the bill to the floor for a vote.36

Browder knew it was a tough fight in the Senate, but he didn‘t fully realize how tough until many years later when reminiscing with John Baker, State Democratic

Executive Committee chairman during the 1980s. ―Nobody else knows how it was put together,‖ Baker said in June 2007. Both the state Democratic and Republican parties had their own disclosure rules, and at the time the Republican rules were slightly more rigorous. Baker‘s role was to persuade the Democratic Executive Committee to adopt the stringent requirements in Bennett‘s bill, knowing that Senate Democrats would then pass the bill in order to force Republicans to abide by the same rules. Baker didn‘t dare call a meeting to discuss the rule change — he knew he‘d be shouted down. Instead, he mailed a carefully worded ballot to committee members and was able to get enough YES votes to adopt the new rules. ―I felt like we could get past the party,‖ Baker said, ―but I didn‘t know how hard it would be to stand firm.‖

Baker was summoned to a meeting of Senate Democrats, most of whom pressed him to back down. Baker, however, took his marching orders from the most powerful man in the state — not the governor, but the head of the Alabama Education Association,

Paul Hubbert. ―I had a few conversations with Hubbert to make sure it was OK with him,‖ Baker said. ―I assured him I would stick with it, not wind up subjecting Democrats to it without the Republicans. I never heard him speak for it — but you know half the committee asked him about it.‖ Hubbert‘s approval, though tacit, was essential, Browder agreed. ―Hubbert supported it — he did not kill it.‖

36 Bryant, March 24, 1988.

131 Unknown to Browder, the Alabama Democratic Caucus remained staunchly opposed to the new disclosure requirements and threatened to leave the party. Other black leaders threatened boycotts, Baker said. Baker negotiated a compromise. ―Let‘s get through the ‗88 elections,‖ he said, promising to revisit the rules afterward. ―They did not return until ‗89,‖ he said. Baker told Browder that he held off on the negotiations with the ADC until the week after Browder‘s special election to Congress. Looking back on his involvement in implementing campaign finance reform, Baker said, ―I‘m prouder of that issue than anything else I‘ve done in public life.‖37

Bennett‘s bill was passed out of committee with four days left in the regular session, but it had not passed the full Senate when the session ended.38 It passed unanimously in the September special session, but with a number of amendments which were unacceptable to House members,39 and one in particular that the press considered outrageous. Lowell Barron, who owed his Senate seat to Browder‘s write-in strategy, had amended the bill to prohibit the use of the information in the disclosure reports without the written consent of the person or organization filing the report, effectively making it illegal for the press to report the disclosures.40 Commentators and cartoonists blasted Barron,41 who said his intent had been to ―prevent political opponents from using

37 John Baker, conversation with Glen Browder and the author, Montgomery, Alabama, June 25, 2007. 38 Frederick Burger, ―Heavily amended disclosure bill before joint panel,‖ Anniston Star, September 21, 1988, the Browder Collection, Box 49: Alabama Secretary of State 1987-89. 39 Amy Herring, ―House Rejects Senate‘s Version Of Yearly Finance Disclosure Bill,‖ Montgomery Advertiser, September 21, 1988, the Browder Collection, Box 49: Alabama Secretary of State, 1987-89. 40 Ted Bryant, ―Campaign measure faces clock; bill lumbers toward committee,‖ Birmingham Post Herald, September 21, 1988, the Browder Collection, Box 49: Alabama Secretary of State, 1987-89. 41 Editorial cartoon, ―Financial disclosure goal,‖ Alabama Journal, September 28, 1988, the Browder Collection, Box 49: Alabama Secretary of State, 1987-89.

132 names and addresses from the reports to solicit campaign funds for themselves.‖42

The possibility was great that the session would end before the House-Senate conference committee could resolve the differences in the two versions. However with less than one day to work on it, the conference committee passed the bill, minus Barron‘s amendment and several others.43

The only remaining question was whether Hunt would sign it.44 Campbell pointed out that although the press made much of the suspense as the state waited for Hunt‘s signature, the question was moot. The bill had passed both houses of the legislature with large majorities, and a veto override was guaranteed.45 The override turned out not to be necessary, as Hunt signed the bill by the October 2 deadline.

The Alabama Fair Campaign Practices Act remains virtually unchanged since it was passed out of the conference committee on September 20, 1988. Browder and

Campbell acknowledge that it is not perfect law, and they knew it when they wrote it.

Some of its inadequacies are the result of compromises required to make the legislation palatable to the politicians who would have to vote for it and then live with it. However,

Browder and Campbell said they never anticipated the problem that draws the most frequent criticism — that the law allows untraceable money transfers from one political action committee to another.

―There are a lot of problems with it and a lot of complaints about it right now,‖

Browder said. ―But some of the complaints deal with limiting aspects that we had to

42 Bryant, September 21, 1988, 1987-89. 43 Frederick Burger, ―Disclosure law awaits Hunt‘s pen,‖ Anniston Star, September 23, 1988, sec. A, p. 1. 44 Editorial, ―Disclosure At Last,‖ Montgomery Advertiser, September 26, 1988, the Browder Collection, Box 49: Alabama Secretary of State, 1987-89. 45 Campbell, March 25, 2005.

133 accept to get it passed in 1988. These problems should have been addressed over the years. We fixed a 1915 law that was totally inoperative, that nobody — candidates, special interests, or courts — followed. Now, as a general rule, everybody reports and it‘s all computerized for easy access; and, for the most part, the public knows about campaign finance in Alabama just as in other states. It‘s easy and cheap to simply fault the [law] over a few shortcomings. But it‘s been twenty years now; critics ought to quit whining and fix those problems.‖

Browder put some of the onus for PAC-to-PAC transfers on his old friends in the media. ―Even under current law, I think the media could do more than complain,‖ he said. ―In PAC-to-PAC transfers, money seems to get lost from public accountability.

But the fact is, the media can figure out where that money comes from, they just can‘t prove it. They ought to go ahead and say where the money comes from and, frankly, let the politicians dispute what the media say. Force the politicians to deny the obvious or admit, in effect, that ‗We laundered it.‘ The media won‘t go out there and call a spade a spade about where the money comes from.‖46

Campbell used almost the same words in ascribing the PAC-to-PAC transfer problem to the media: ―That‘s more of an editorial page issue than a real one.

Otherwise, the legislature would have done something with it. The information is there.

There‘s a thread that can be followed, it just takes a little work.… A lot of the griping I hear about campaign finance reform is that a lot of people in the media are just too damn lazy to do the spadework.‖47

46 Browder, March 12, 2005. 47 Campbell, March 25, 2005

134 In an ironic twist, it was a journalist who first exposed the loophole that allowed PAC-to-PAC transfers, according to Browder‘s Montgomery press secretary

Brenda Carr. Steve Prince, a reporter from the Alabama Journal, called to ask whether the practice was legal, Carr said, ―so I took the law and I read it and I went down the hall to our elections people, and I said, ‗Please tell me this is illegal. I can‘t find it. Please tell me it is.‘‖

They sent the question to the attorney general, who determined that the practice was outside the intent of the law but not specifically prohibited. ―And from there on,

PAC-to-PAC exploded,‖ Carr said. A short time later, the Alabama Journal shut down and Prince came to Carr looking for a job. ―Yeah, I‘m going to hire you,‖ she said,

―because you deserve to help me clean up this mess.‖48

Despite whatever complaints now are leveled against it, The Fair Campaign

Practices Act filled a seventy-five-year void. ―The law changed the environment completely,‖ Browder said. ―For the first time now, people play by rules whereby they tell where they get their money and how they spend it. You can be kicked out of office

— and people have been kicked out of office — for violating this. We have a system that works.… It‘s the difference between night and day.‖49

Voting Reforms

Browder had been thinking about the state‘s widespread problems with absentee ballot abuse and bloated voter rolls since before taking office. The regulations had been

48 Brenda Carr, interviewed by the author, Huntsville, Alabama, November 22, 2006. Brenda Carr is married to Charles Carr, appointments secretary for George Wallace. 49 Browder, March 12, 2005.

135 updated while he was in the legislature, but the new rules were not well understood and were unevenly applied. The 1988 elections provided a test of local adherence to the new rules, and in a number of locations the system failed.

Browder noticed extraordinarily high percentages of absentee voting in several counties in the June 28 primaries, and he suspected something was amiss. In one county, almost one-third of the votes cast were by absentee ballot, and in several districts one candidate received nearly all the absentee votes. The most common complaint, Browder told reporters, was ―that persons may be illegally encouraging absentee voting, a practice that ultimately undermines the election process‖50 because without the oversight of poll watchers, absentee voters could more easily be pressured or paid to vote a certain way.

―The secretary of state‘s office doesn‘t have a lot of enforcement authority, but it is responsible for the conduct of the elections,‖ said David Plunkett, who had covered

Browder‘s reform efforts as a reporter for the Prattville Progress before joining

Browder‘s staff as an elections specialist. ―So what he did,‖ Plunkett said, ―was put together a plan where we basically put out information that helped people understand the problem of absentee ballot fraud and identify it, and I think that helped lead to a couple of prosecutions.‖51

Browder launched an investigation the day after the primaries, visiting areas where complaints had arisen and interviewing election officials and voters to determine how many people in those counties had legitimate reasons for using absentee ballots. A

50 Tom Lindley, ―Absentee ballots — Browder to probe charges of irregularities,‖ Birmingham News, July 6, 1988, the Browder Collection, Box 49: Alabama Secretary of State, 1987-89. 51 David Plunkett, Washington, D.C., telephone interview with the author, Munford, Alabama, June 17, 2007.

136 week later, he turned over the information he had collected to the attorney general and asked Siegelman to determine whether violations had occurred and to take appropriate legal action.52 Siegelman appointed a staffer to work with Browder‘s investigation and established a file for complaints.53 Browder then went a step further and sent monitors to six city halls to keep an eye on absentee ballots in the runoff. The monitors arrived unannounced five minutes after the deadline for presenting absentee ballots, ―to remind local election officials that they were required to keep all absentee ballots, applications and affidavits.‖54 Although Browder himself could not prosecute violations, his investigation and monitoring ―made people less likely to violate the statute,‖ he explained. ―It was just firing a shot over their heads. I caught hell from a lot of local politicians and some in the legislature. It probably scared the devil out of them when I got all the material and turned it over to the attorney general.‖55

Abuse of absentee voting was easy to do and difficult to police because the voter rolls were maintained locally to the extent that they were maintained at all. Different groups had different reasons for not wanting the lists purged of ineligible names, and they blamed each other. Probate judges, whose job it was to keep the lists of registered voters, received five cents per name. Registrars who tried to purge their lists often were blocked by county commissions. Black leaders, having struggled to get their constituents registered to vote, did not want to lose any of them. And because Alabama was subject

52 Glen Browder, letter to Alabama Attorney General Don Siegelman, July 5, 1988, the Browder Collection, Box 49: Alabama Secretary of State, 1987-89. 53 Don Siegelman, letter to Secretary of State Glen Browder, July 7, 1988, the Browder Collection, Box 49: Alabama Secretary of State, 1987-89. 54 Frank Sikora, ―Secretary of state checks for abuse of absentee votes,‖ Birmingham News, August 24, 1988, sec. B, p. 1. 55 Glen Browder, interviewed by the author, Anniston, Alabama, May 31, 2007.

137 to the federal Voting Rights Act, any attempt to clean up the lists had to be pre- cleared through the Justice Department.56 Meanwhile, the voting lists in a state with a population of barely four million people contained half a million ineligible names. Some counties, under a federal court order to purge their lists, had reduced their voter rolls by as much as one-third, but other counties still had twice as many names on their lists as they had eligible voters. Editorial cartoonists had a field day with drawings of ghosts, dogs and a statue of Jefferson Davis voting in Alabama elections.

Browder believed voting reforms could be addressed as effectively through technology as through legislation or litigation. Centralizing the voter lists statewide and maintaining them on a computer network based in the secretary of state‘s office would reduce the workload on local registrars and probate judges, give the secretary of state more direct oversight of how well the lists were maintained and ensure compliance with federal and state laws. Voter fraud, whether from the cemetery vote or by absentee ballot, would be much more difficult.

Browder drafted a bill to fund such a computer network and Jim Bennett introduced it in the 1988 regular session and again in the special session, but legislators balked at the million-dollar price tag. After the November elections, Browder and

Bennett began drumming up support for the proposal in anticipation of a third try.

Browder thought his cause could benefit from a little drama, so he called in the press for a demonstration of his recently completed system for tabulating vote totals. He piled his desk high with paper vote tabulations from each of the state‘s sixty-seven counties. Then

56 Ted Bryant, ―State voter lists need major scouring,‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, December 6, 1988, the Browder Collection, Box 49: Alabama Secretary of State, 1987-89.

138 he described the traditional process of transcribing, counting and recording the results of the November election. Finally, he touched a button on a keyboard and printed the same results. Computerization, he told the reporters, would not only speed vote tabulation, it also would help keep voter rolls up to date and thus impede misuse of absentee voting.57

The computer Browder used for his demonstration had been adapted from a network for keeping tabs on commodity sales and farm loans, but it would not suffice for the voter registration network he had in mind. The network he proposed would require more computers and more software, and this would have to be authorized by the legislature. The demonstration served its purpose: Bennett reintroduced his bill in the

Senate, Campbell sponsored it in the House, and Alabama‘s Voter File Maintenance

System was approved in 1989. Converting the state‘s voter rolls to a computerized database turned out to be more arduous than getting the network approved, however. The last counties joined the network in 2002.

Digitizing the State’s Business

By the time he won the fight to computerize the state‘s voter rolls, Browder was an old hand at using computers to get his work done. In his first year in office, he had implemented a centralized record of farm loans and crop sales that commodities buyers and bankers could access by modem. An overhaul of state record keeping systems had been mandated in a 1985 federal law, and Alabama was one of the first states to set it up.

The new system saved time and paperwork for bankers who held liens on crops and the

57 ―Election ‗Dinosaur‘ Victim To Progress,‖ Lowndes Signal, Fort Deposit, Alabama, December 1, 1988; the Browder Collection, Box 49: Alabama Secretary of State, 1987-89.

139 buyers of the crops, so they used it heavily and paid a small fee each time. Their user fees paid for the technology over five years and afterward reverted to the general fund, so that the system eventually became a moneymaker for the state. Its success paved the way for Browder to adopt a similar method of digitizing records of business incorporations the next year. Adding corporations to the system allowed banks, businesses and lawyers to access public records about all business transactions in the state. Browder contended that computerizing the incorporation records made the state more attractive to new businesses both because the information they needed was more readily available and because it showed the state was ahead of the pack technologically.

Browder was motivated to get the system up and running quickly for more than the obvious improvement in efficiency. In compliance with the governor‘s directive to all state offices at the beginning of 1987, he had reduced his budget request by 5 percent, and income from the farm lien system would make up the shortfall. By the time he showed off the system to the press, his staff had it working perfectly, but it had not been an easy road to reach that point.

Members of the Alabama legislature in 1987 did not fully trust computers, and with state revenues so short, they were reluctant to appropriate the money for hardware.

―It was a tough piece,‖ Ray Minter recalled. ―Getting it out of committee was tough, getting it on the [House] floor was tough, getting it through was tough — and it was tough on the Senate side. But it gave us enough money to computerize the whole office, not just that one section.‖ As he had done for Browder‘s campaign finance reform bill,

Jim Campbell pushed this bill through the House. Minter described how Campbell

140 bullied his colleagues into passing the bill over their own reservations: ―I was watching the debate on the floor and they asked Campbell, ‗Who‘s gonna pay for this?

Mr. Speaker, who is going to pay for this?‘ And he said, ‗Who do you think is going to pay for it? You and I are going to pay for it, like everything else.‘‖ After it passed,

Minter recalled, Campbell told Browder, ―You bring me anything you want to do, Glen, and I‘ll do it, but don‘t bring me another one of those damn farm bills.‖ Browder had not just handed Campbell the bill and relied on him to get it passed, however. He had met separately and then collectively with all the groups who would be affected by the change.

―He finally got them on board,‖ Minter said. ―He held meetings first with the bankers and then the business community, who were more in favor of this, and then the farmers and the timber industry, the ones that were opposed. He had several of these talks of how to proceed and then got them together, got them to buy in to the direction that he wanted to go.‖ But still, Minter concluded, ―It was a very, very tough sell getting that passed through the legislature.‖ 58

If Browder and Minter thought their troubles were over when the bill passed, they soon realized their mistake. Software for the system did not exist. Nebraska had developed a prototype which Browder hired programmers to adapt for Alabama, and that process went as smoothly as any software development can. The real difficulty lay in getting the staff to change over to the new system, and that task fell in large part to

Brenda Carr. Carr, who had been a reporter for a weekly newspaper before moving to

Montgomery when her husband Charles went to work for George Wallace, joined

Browder‘s staff in October 1987. Although she was hired to handle media contact, she

58 Minter, March 23, 2007.

141 soon began supervising the office‘s record keeping. And if legislators had been suspicious of computers, they were visionary compared to the legacy employees in

Browder‘s office. ―When Glen came into the secretary of state‘s office, they were running the state out of big, red ledger books, which was just not the way to do business in the late 1980s,‖ Carr said. ―Change is hard for people. And this very kind man met with some resistance among the employees who had been there many, many years. They didn‘t want to let go of their red ledger books.‖

Carr cajoled, directed and finally ordered the clerical staff to use the new system, and no sooner did she have business transactions online than Minter put her in charge of digitizing the Acts of Alabama, which until then also were tracked in big, red ledger books. ―I was very concerned that all these pieces of legislation were coming in and we needed a program to track them,‖ Carr said. Browder hired a programmer to develop software that would allow them to convert the process in a way that complied with state law, but again, the secretaries resisted. They didn‘t trust the computer not to lose or destroy the information, and they were not placated by assurances that it was backed up every night.

―It kind of got unpleasant,‖ Carr said. ―These two ladies worked right outside

Glen‘s office, and one day I was standing there saying to one of them, ‗You will input these bills that have just been delivered from the governor. I will answer your questions, but I want you to do it, because I want you to know how to do it the next time the papers are delivered.‘ And she was protesting mightily. Glen heard it in his office and he

142 walked out. She looked at him as an appeal, and he just kind of looked at her and said, ‗Do it.‘‖

In the first year, the commercial system returned 105 percent of Browder‘s projected revenue, proving to the legislature that his assertions of its value were not just theoretical. The next year, the corporations division began repaying its startup costs and generating money for the state‘s general fund. In the push to create the statewide voter registration network, the League of Women Voters estimated that purging 20 percent of the names would save forty thousand dollars per election from reduced printing costs to publish the lists. In the end, it was dollars, not good government, that won the argument for Browder, but he dragged Alabama‘s government kicking and screaming into the

Information Age.

Enduring Impact

Of all the changes Browder brought about during his term as secretary of state, he considers the Fair Campaign Practices Act the most important, and many of those who worked with him agree. ―It was a big change. And I think people thought it was a constructive change,‖ said David Plunkett, who reported on the campaign as a journalist and then helped to implement the changes as Browder‘s elections specialist. ―We lived for seventy-five years under the old election law, and it was the first time they had gotten through.… It was seen as a major reform, a major victory for people who wanted better elections, better election information, better disclosure.‖59

59 David Plunkett, June 17, 2007.

143 The need for a new law had long been apparent, and Browder was the last in a long succession of well-meaning politicians to try to change it. Yet, as Browder‘s protégé Dr. Jess Brown said, ―When [others] could not put together a legislative coalition to get campaign finance reform enacted, Browder did. It was Browder who was able to convert the ideas of campaign finance reform into statute, to get something passed.… He is the political father of the Fair Campaign Practices Act.‖60

Why did Browder succeed where his predecessors had failed? Ken Hare, the longtime editorial page editor of the Montgomery Advertiser, summed up the consensus of several other observers, including Browder himself: ―I think the real difference was that Browder worked on it,‖ Hare said. ―I mean, he went to the legislature himself on a regular basis and campaigned and twisted arms and asked. He really got over there and rolled up his sleeves and lobbied for it.… And he was willing to compromise on it.‖

Comparing Browder‘s approach to others‘, Hare continued, ―You can get headlines for introducing a really good bill, and maybe even get some positive headlines for saying,

‗I‘m sticking by my guns and standing behind this bill,‘ but Browder didn‘t do that. He compromised and actually got something through, which nobody else had done.‖ And although Republicans were ―not a huge factor‖ in the Alabama legislature at that time,

―there was a very distinct split in the legislature, even then, based on ideology,‖ Hare said, and Browder ―was willing to work with both sides and willing to build public support.… He didn‘t let the ideology get in his way.‖61

60 Jess Brown, Ph.D., Huntsville, Ala., telephone interview with the author, Munford, Alabama, November 30, 2006. 61 Ken Hare, interviewed by the author, Montgomery, Alabama, November 17, 2006.

144 Perhaps a greater legacy than any of the reforms Browder was able to implement as secretary of state was the inspiration the professor-politician continued to provide for the state‘s young people. Artur Davis, Alabama‘s Seventh District congressman, was a senior in high school when he first encountered Browder. He has never forgotten the experience. Davis regards Browder ―as the first politician I met who inspired me to public service.‖

The occasion was a banquet for honor students in Montgomery County in April of 1986: Secretary of State Browder was the keynote speaker, and I remember to this day the challenge he sounded that night. He argued that those of us who lamented Alabama‘s stagnation had our own obligation to improve this state, by taking whatever steps were within our personal power. Glen prodded a room full of overachievers to consider politics or civic life as worthy options.

I left the banquet with an award as the top male honor student in Montgomery County. I also left with a conviction that politics needed to be more than a spectator sport. For planting this seed, and making it plausible, Glen Browder has always been one of my political heroes.62

62 Artur Davis, U.S. Congressman representing Alabama‘s 7th District, ―Response from Congressman Davis,‖ e-mail message to the author, December 12, 2007.

THE NATIONAL STAGE

Before his term as secretary of state was half over, Browder and the political cognoscenti were looking ahead to his next office. Many thought that would be governor. Browder had earned a statewide reputation for intelligence, morality, fairness, and compassion, and his popularity was soaring. For the professor-politician a governorship would come very close to his ―philosopher-king‖ model.

―I had a strong sense of mission about doing good things for Alabama, a positive public reputation, and a decent group of friends who believed in me,‖ Browder reflected in 2007. To win the office, he would have to beat an incumbent governor in 1990 or wait another four years, and in either case, he would have to wrest the Democratic nomination from his former student Jim Folsom, Jr., his predecessor as secretary of state Don

Siegelman, or possibly his AEA ally Paul Hubbert. ―I really wasn‘t scared of competition,‖ he said, ―but winning a gubernatorial race would have been a tough road requiring lots of muscle and money, which I didn‘t have and couldn‘t raise.‖1 With the next scheduled elections nearly two years away, he could afford to put off making a commitment.

The picture changed in December, 1988, when Congressman Bill Nichols died in office. Nichols had represented Alabama‘s Third District, in whose northern end

Browder lived before moving to Montgomery. Browder had left Jacksonville only two

1 Glen Browder, e-mail conversation with the author, September 28-October 2, 2007. 145 146 years earlier and still was revered there as a favorite son. While he considered his chances of winning a gubernatorial race ―iffy,‖ in the congressional race he again had opportunity to run for a vacant office; and this time he was better known than any of his potential opponents. ―I thought I could win the congressional race,‖ he said. ―The Third

Congressional District was perfectly matched to my strengths — a lot of little communities sandwiched mainly between the Anniston-Calhoun County area and the

Montgomery media market; I had a lot of former students in the area; and it seemed manageable without a lot of money.‖ The position would be filled through an early primary in February and a special election in April, so suddenly he had little time to ponder his choice. As obvious as the decision appears in retrospect, at the time it was difficult. ―I had to make a quick decision that I did not want to make,‖ he said. ‖Becky and I went back and forth several times between running for Congress or not; finally, I decided it was too great an opportunity to pass up.‖2

Running for Congress

Browder‘s friends recalled the early days of the campaign as being full of enthusiasm and, as always, short of cash. Jim Main, for whom Browder had consulted in a losing legislative race, contributed office space. Probate Judge Arthur Murray, who the year before had held onto his office partly because he‘d heeded Browder‘s advice on polling, worked in the campaign. Browder even called on Murray‘s wife to manage the campaign office. ―We moved my organization, The Murray Group we‘d called them, and made them into The Browder Bunch,‖ Murray said. ―Glen‘s campaign didn‘t have any

2 Browder, September 28-October 2, 2007.

147 money. In fact, the ladies in the office — volunteers, like my wife and a few more — they put in five or ten dollars and went to the store to buy gem clips and tape and stuff.

They didn‘t even have the money to run an office.‖3

Jim Main, for whom Browder had consulted in his losing legislative race, contributed office space and other administrative help. Anniston businessman Gene

Stedham took care of the campaign headquarters. Former student Deborah Kay Miller and her husband, Jeff, who Browder described as rising young politicos in Montgomery, helped house campaign consultants from outside the area. A longtime friend,

Jacksonville accountant Buddy Treadaway, rented the Browders an apartment in

Jacksonville so they would have a residence in the district; he also volunteered to keep the books for what was to be, despite its impoverished beginning, Browder‘s most expensive winning campaign.

Browder had eight opponents in the Democratic primary. He had the most statewide name recognition, but several of his opponents also had strong support — State

Senator Donald Holmes of Calhoun County threw in his hat, along with State Senator Jim

Preuitt of Talladega County, State Senator Gerald Dial of Clay County and Tuskegee

Mayor Johnny Ford, the only African-American candidate. Newspapers called attention to the strength of the Democratic field, endorsing Browder as ―the best of the best.‖4

Ford and Browder emerged as the two strongest candidates, and although Browder won the most votes in the primary, he was only slightly ahead of Ford, 25 percent to 24 percent.

3 Arthur Murray, interviewed by the author, Anniston, Alabama, October 26, 2006. 4 Editorial, ―Glen Browder,‖ Montgomery Advertiser & Alabama Journal, February 5, 1989; and editorial, ―A congressman we could trust; ‗The best of the best,‘‖ Anniston Star, February 10, 1989.

148 The contest elicited national interest, as Democrats divided along racial lines and Republicans saw an opportunity to grab the seat. Browder, who rose from fifth place to first in preprimary polls, drew a relatively mild but nonetheless undeserved attack as

―the most liberal guy in the state‖ from Republican National Committee Chairman Lee

Atwater.5 Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson made three campaign visits on Ford‘s behalf, including stops in Talladega, Anniston and Jacksonville during the two days before the runoff. Runoff day brought an unexpectedly high turnout across the district, and when the votes were tallied, Browder had swamped Ford, 44,384 to 26,257, a margin of 63 percent to 37 percent.

Anniston Star reporter Jim Yardley wrote a week later that race had been the

―hidden, dominant issue‖ in the runoff. ―The final vote went along racial lines, giving

Browder a big win in the [Third] District where white voters outnumber blacks three to one. In Calhoun County, Browder swept all forty-two of the predominantly white boxes while Ford took all six of the predominantly black ones,‖ even though the African-

American bloc had been solidly in Browder‘s camp in his election as secretary of state.

―Neither candidate did anything to fuel these feelings,‖ Yardley continued. ―Both men ran clean campaigns and avoided making race an issue. In defeat, Ford even went so far as to say the election had been a ‗victory‘ for Alabama because it had proved race was not an issue. Sadly, race was the issue.‖ Yardley interviewed voters at campaign rallies and at the polls, and when he promised not to reveal their names, many confided that the

5 Michael Brumas and Tom Gordon, ―GOP applies Bush tactic to race in 3rd District,‖ Birmingham News, February 17, 1989. The Browder Collection: Box 15, U.S. Congress Campaign 1989.Coincidentally, Atwater also was from South Carolina, and Browder had contacted him about their working together in the late 1970s when Browder was looking for opportunities in South Carolina.

149 race of the candidate was the only issue that mattered to them. Yardley concluded that race alone accounted for the increased turnout in the runoff.6

Ford, to his credit and unlike some of his white primary opponents, turned all his support to Browder in the general election. In Stealth Reconstruction, however, Browder and Stanberry say the entire campaign proceeded according to Browder‘s plan. ―The plan from the beginning was for him to respectfully solicit the friendship of black organizations while deferring to Johnny Ford as their first choice in the Democratic primary and runoff. Afterward, as expected, the entire slate of black endorsements came his way for the crucial showdown with Republican John Rice.‖7

The general election in April 1989 was the first time Browder had any significant opposition from a Republican candidate, and the stakes were much higher. Browder had struggled to raise campaign funds in the primary and he had little black support; but, once he got the Democratic nomination, state and national party leaders told him not to worry about finances or the black vote because they would take care of it; and help poured in from all over the country. ―It was kind of like ‗don‘t ask, don‘t tell‘ on certain matters,‖

Browder said, ―as groups and operatives from both partisan camps invaded east-central

Alabama.‖8

Republicans tried to hang the ―liberal‖ label on Browder. Rice, a state senator from Opelika, falsely accused him of having lectured against the Vietnam War at JSU, criticized the length of his hair (later conceding that his own hair was longer than

6 Jim Yardley, ―Racism was hidden issue,‖ Anniston Star, March 13, 1989 (accessed online October 4, 2007, at http://www.annistonstar.com). 7 Glen Browder and Artemisia Stanberry, ―Stealth Reconstruction: A New Thesis About Quiet, Practical, Biracial Leadership and the Unheroic Transformation of Southern Politics‖ (unpublished draft), 2007, 108. 8 Ibid.

150 Browder‘s), and berated him for failing to publicly support the display of the

Confederate flag. Browder, not above a little name-calling himself, said Rice was a

―radical‖ for wanting to cut Alabama‘s dependence on federal money, which had ―strings attached.‖ ―We‘re not going to let them make this a fight about a liberal against a conservative,‖ Browder told the New York Times‘ R.W. Apple. ―I‘m a moderate conservative, and he‘s so radical that he‘s completely off the table.‖9 The race issue went underground once Browder had secured the nomination, but it did not disappear. Some campaign ―issues‖ were well-understood euphemisms for black and white. Browder didn‘t appeal aggressively for the black vote — given Rice‘s stand on the Confederate flag, he didn‘t have to.

During the month-long campaign for the general election, Browder had more money, more advertising, and more endorsements than Rice. While internal polling showed the two candidates virtually tied coming out of their primaries, Browder steadily pulled ahead. He didn‘t feel comfortable with his lead, however, until a day late in the race when he, Becky and an old friend from Jacksonville, Lamar Denkins, traveled to

Rice‘s home county for a newspaper interview. When they arrived, Becky decided to wait in the car because she was expecting delivery of the latest poll results. When the meeting was over, Becky told Glen, ―You‘ve got a nineteen-point lead,‖ Denkins said.

Browder looked at Becky, he looked at Denkins, and with a slight smile, he said, ―I‘ve got it.‖10

9 R.W. Apple, ―House Race in Alabama Takes on a Biting Tone,‖ New York Times, March 31, 1989 (accessed online October 5, 2007, at: http://www.nytimes.com). 10 Lamar Denkins, interviewed by the author, Anniston, Alabama, October 26, 2006.

151 He did indeed. In the April 4 election, Browder won with 47,229 votes to

Rice‘s 25,008 votes, a 65 percent to 35 percent landslide. He had spent more than

$630,000, the vast majority for advertising. However, Browder admits that even he does not know how much money was spent on his behalf nor, in many cases, who spent it. His unofficial expense summary, compiled after the election, bears these notes:

―Bookkeeping was especially difficult for this Special Election, which crammed a primary, runoff, and general election into a four-month period, followed by related fundraising/spending that extended the rest of the year and into the following cycle.…

This Special Election quickly became nationalized, with the national political parties and numerous entities conducting their own activities independent of the Browder campaign organization.‖

Browder was neither proud nor ashamed of the racial context of the campaign; he merely acknowledged it as a political fact. ―Most white southern politicians who seriously wanted to provide positive biracial leadership during these times knew that an essential part of successful politics was an objective, instrumental, coldly calculating regard for race and racism,‖ he wrote.

While we vigilantly avoided and opposed racist politics, we knew it was there in the heart of a significant minority of our people, both white and black. The race factor cut so deep in our areas that, in addition to substantive merits of the issue, we could make snap political decisions with simple formulistic considerations — i.e. ―How will this play in terms of black/white politics back home?‖ For example, the cookie-cutter plan for winning in my congressional district and statewide was very simple: Get 90 percent of the black vote and all you need is 40 percent of the whites. (I want to note, however, that I received majority black support and majority white support in most of my races.) Accordingly, I kept up with my voting record with this mechanistic formula in mind; and I‘ll bet most other successful white politicians did also.11

11 Glen Browder, unpublished commentary prepared for ―Stealth Reconstruction,‖ 2007, 13.

152 The fruitful relationships Browder developed in Alabama‘s African-American political community provided diplomatic training and a foundation of trust that would serve him well in Congress. As we shall see, the years to come called on him many times to exercise mature leadership and to suppress or disperse threatening racial tensions.

Browder was elected to Congress a total of four times, serving a few months less than eight years. After the 1989 special election, he won the seat in 1990 with more than

74 percent of the vote against Republican Don Sledge. In 1992 he defeated both Sledge and Libertarian Roderic Templeton, gaining slightly more than 60 percent of the vote.

The only time he faced Democratic opposition was in the 1994 race, when he defeated

Anniston grocer Lea Fite for the party‘s nomination with 85 percent of the vote. He went on to defeat Republican Ben Hand in the general election with 63 percent of the vote.

Moving to Washington

Before Browder moved to Washington, he had one last task to perform as secretary of state — he certified his own election. Shortly afterward, Glen, Becky, Jenny, and a cadre of staff and friends headed north. Because he‘d won his office in a special election, he was the only new House member being sworn in. On April 18, Browder took the oath of office from House Speaker Jim Wright of Texas. In his maiden speech to the

U.S. House of Representatives, he said:

I have taken this oath, with personal gratitude to my family; with commitment to the Third District; with reverence for our former Congressman and your colleague, Bill Nichols; with great respect for this institution and with the request that members of this House help me, as this oath prescribes, to ―bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution.‖12

12 Robert B. McNeil, ―Mr. Browder goes to Washington,‖ States News Service, Anniston Star, April 19, 1989, sec. A, p. 1.

153 Thirteen-year-old Jenny was allowed to watch the ceremony from the front row on the House floor, while her mother sat in the gallery. House rules excluded spouses but not children from the floor, Becky explained to Bob McNeil, a wire service reporter who covered Browder‘s swearing-in for the Anniston Star.13 Years later, Becky recalled the ceremony through a flush of tears, again seeing her husband alone in the limelight. ―The proudest moment that I ever had of Glen in Congress was when he was sworn in on the House floor,‖ she said. ―It was a very touching moment. I felt like, ‗He deserves that.‘ And it sounds corny, but I felt honored that the people gave him that opportunity.‖14

Members of The Browder Bunch came to Washington for Glen‘s installation, too, and

Lamar Denkins had a special part in the ceremonies. As Arthur Murray recalled, ―The

House came into session, and it always opens with a prayer. Lamar at that time was a chaplain with the Army Reserve, and he said the prayer.‖15 Denkins was thrilled. ―The honor of giving the invocation when Glen was sworn in was kind of a high point,‖ he said. ―Both the House and the Senate have chaplains. It‘s the chaplain‘s responsibility to either give the invocation or to allow a guest to do it in his place. The speaker of the

House introduced me — I was right up there where the president stands when he gives the State of the Union. It was kind of awesome!‖

Adjusting to the Congressional life was rigorous, both for Glen and for his family. Becky despaired of finding an acceptable place to live and told the New York Times they might

13 Ibid. 14 Becky Browder, interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, October 18, 2006. 15 Murray, October 26, 2006.

154 have to settle for ―an ordinary three-bedroom tent.‖16 Eventually they found a house to rent in a Virginia suburb, where Jenny could attend a good school and Becky could feel safe when Glen was not there. Glen was away from home a lot — he made frequent weekend visits back to Alabama to spend time in his district, and Becky and Jenny usually did not accompany him. When he was in Washington, he typically left home at six thirty a.m. and often worked until midnight or later. Becky volunteered in Glen‘s office several days a week so she could spend more time with her husband, then went home to spend afternoons with Jenny. Once or twice a week, Becky and Jenny came back into town for dinner with Glen in the House members‘ dining room. Becky worried that Jenny did not get to spend enough time with her father. ―When I think back on it,‖ she said, ―there probably were times when Jenny didn‘t see him for several days because he would come in late at night and leave early in the morning.‖ Becky thought the move to Washington was especially hard on Jenny. ―She‘d just made friends in Montgomery and there he goes and runs for the Congress and wins,‖ Becky said. ―She didn‘t complain

— Jenny‘s not a complainer — but I think it was hard.‖17

Walking Softly

Browder had big shoes to fill in Washington, but he knew better than to try to be a

Bill Nichols clone. ―Bill Nichols was a good man and a legend,‖ having served as the

Third District congressman for more than twenty years, Browder said. ―Everybody talked about the challenge of replacing Congressman Nichols, but, really, nobody

16 Richard L. Berke, ―Need for Money Tempers Ethics Drive in Congress,‖ New York Times, June 5, 1989 (accessed online October 19, 2007, at: http://www.nytimes.com). 17 Becky Browder, October 18, 2006.

155 expected me or any of the thirteen candidates to replace Bill Nichols. And actually that was a fortunate thing because politics had changed so much that such stature was impossible to continue.‖18 The changes to which Browder referred created today‘s style of politics, harder, grittier, more demanding, less conciliatory than the country had experienced in previous decades; and it meant that a rookie could expect attacks that would have been unthinkable for the venerable Nichols. The new congressman felt tremendous pressures of the new political environment:

Consider the budget problems after the tripling of the national debt over the past few decades. That meant we had to simultaneously raise revenue somehow, rein in growth, cut spending regarding important national defense, social programs, entitlements, etc. Consider changing party relations — intense, brutal partisanship in Washington and Alabama. Consider changing party identification and competition in Alabama and the Third District. Consider changing campaign tactics and policies, i.e. Lee Atwater and Newt Gingrich. Consider the hardening and contradictions of public attitudes — more demanding, more services, cut spending, hatred for government, hatred of the Clintons, etc. Consider the growing culture wars — abortion, homosexuals, affirmative action, etc. Consider changing media coverage — more scrutiny, exposure, gotcha! … Think about satisfying the D.C. Democrats and the folks here at home, dealing with and raising campaign money in such an environment.19

As a moderate Democrat from Alabama, Browder had to walk a narrow line between the party and his constituency. The Third District, although perhaps not quite as conservative as some other parts of the state, was by no means a liberal stronghold.

Browder recalled a comment from Carl Silverberg, a political strategist the national

Democratic Party had sent to Alabama to help with his campaign: ―My outside guess of the District is that it probably isn‘t as conservative as Bill Nichols was, it‘s just that they

18 Glen Browder, ―Reply from GB RE: New Questions,‖ e-mail message to the author, September 28, 2007. 19 Glen Browder, ―Re: Followup Question,‖ e-mail message to the author, October 19, 2007.

156 re-elected him,‖ Silverberg wrote in his report to Browder. ―Neither am I suggesting you make yourself open to attack as ‗that liberal college professor.‘‖20

Browder did not know how Silverberg had come to work in his campaign and he never talked with him again until attempting to organize the Browder Collection; but he took Silverberg‘s advice to heart and abided by it throughout the rest of his career.

Representing Alabama in Congress

Browder represented Alabama‘s Third District for almost eight years in the

United States Congress (1989-97); and he embraced the job with his usual vigor. He posted voting records of 98 percent or better in each of his first three terms, dropping to

94 percent in his last term while he was running for the U.S. Senate and working to keep open an Army base in his district. In Congress, as had long been his practice, Browder carefully avoided making policy pronouncements until he had considered more than one side of the argument. He consistently characterized himself as moderate to progressive, and his voting record backed him up.

After he left Congress, Browder assembled Congressional Quarterly and National

Journal records to determine the percentage of times he voted in agreement with his party, the opposing party, the president, and a number of lobbies. Overall, the data show that he placed almost perfectly in the middle of the House in terms of liberal-conservative issues. On economic, social and foreign policy issues, his overall votes were more conservative than 54 percent of House members, and, conversely, he voted more liberal than 46 percent of his colleagues. He supported Republican President George H.W.

20 Carl Silverberg, ―Voter Outreach and Demographic Report,‖ the Browder Collection, Box 16: U.S. Congress Campaign 1989.

157 Bush‘s positions 46 percent of the time from 1989 through 1992. He supported

Democratic President Bill Clinton‘s positions 66 percent of the time from 1993 through

1996. Among special interest group rankings, he voted most consistently in support of positions taken by the American Security Council (97 percent), and the National Right to

Life Committee (72 percent). He least often supported positions taken by the American

Civil Liberties Union (26 percent), and the National Abortion Rights League (29 percent). His support for the positions of twelve other interest groups fell between 30 and

70 percent.21

Because Alabama‘s Third District was home to several military bases, he lobbied for a seat on the House Armed Services Committee and received the appointment after a few months. He concentrated much of his energy on defense issues, soon becoming

Congress‘s resident expert on chemical and biological weapons. As chairman of the

Depot Caucus, Browder strongly advocated public-private partnerships in the defense industry as a means of preserving local jobs while reducing peacetime costs and maintaining military facilities that would be needed in time of war. He traveled widely during his Congressional tenure, participating in twenty domestic or international

Congressional delegations and leading eleven of them, usually to study military and national security questions. In 1992, the Army recognized his contributions on behalf of the U.S. military by awarding him its Patriotic Civilian Service Award.

He earned further accolades in his home state. The Anniston Star named Browder its Citizen of the Year for 1990, and he received the Alabama Distinguished Service

Medal in 1993.

21 The Browder Collection: Glen Browder‘s Profile as a U.S. Congressman (1989-96).

158 As the political parties moved farther apart, Browder sought a productive middle ground. Soon after arriving in Washington, he joined the Conservative

Democratic Forum and the Mainstream Forum, two groups of conservative and centrist

Democrats that tried to moderate the influence of the ever more left-leaning Democratic leadership. Later he helped found the more effective Blue Dog Coalition, through which he fostered budget reforms in 1995 and 1996. Much of Browder‘s work in Congress revolved around issues of congressional reform and fiscal responsibility. Even before the advent of the Blue Dogs, he participated in efforts to balance the federal budget and to implement campaign finance reform for Congressional elections.

Politics and Reform in Washington

Browder‘s academic and political background in Alabama had prepared him well for the U.S. Congress. Of course, the issues were more comprehensive and consequential

— the American economy, national security, and international relations. The personalities and egos were bigger — President Bush, Speaker Tom Foley, Majority

Leader Dick Gephardt, and various icons who went simply by the title of Mr. Chairman.

And the pressures were greater — fighting the federal government for people back home, telling the local community that their military installation was going to close, and raising large sums of campaign money. But the game was the same; and the professor-politician was ready for the big leagues — fortunately so, because he would be thrown some curveballs immediately upon moving from Goat Hill to Capitol Hill.

In Alabama, Browder had been a key player on the relatively liberal team that ran the show; and, even as a member of the majority faction, he had found it difficult to

159 implement good-government initiatives. In Washington, he took his seat as an outlier in the dangerous territory of southern white Democrats who often found themselves in the crossfire between their own party and the opposition Republicans; his prospects for meaningful reform under those circumstances were virtually nonexistent.

Browder settled into the congressional system as a quiet, practical politician and exercised his good-government and reform inclinations whenever he got the chance. His position at the center of a polarized Congress allowed him to do the unthinkable — he worked with both sides, and on occasion was able, with a few like-minded colleagues, to broker bipartisan deals that got contentious legislation passed. He usually sided with the

Democrats; however, he discovered that, just as in Alabama, the Democratic establishment was not very enthusiastic about his good-government or reform agenda.

Thus, throughout his congressional service, he helped organize and promote civic issues that were unpopular with his party. He constantly pushed his colleagues, admittedly without much success, to change the way they ran their campaigns and conducted congressional business. However, he and some fellow travelers were successful in other endeavors — dealing with the budget process and defense issues — that he considered positive change for the country.

It was also clear to Browder that race and racism were alive and well — although more subtle and sophisticated — in the national capital. While white leaders in Alabama often pursued progressive government in private concert with black leaders, a candid, cooperative, personalized relationship that, strangely, was facilitated by their shared legacy of hard history, Browder found the course of biracial politics in Congress to be

160 more public and showy, but also more impersonal and cynical. Both Democrats and

Republicans, white and black alike, professed color-blind and civil rights principles; but pertinent transactions often resembled an insider game of crass, race-based politics.

―Maybe I looked at all of this through the eyes of a white southern sentimentalist,‖

Browder said later; ―But, sometimes, racial politics in our national capital seemed just a refined rendition of what happened back in Alabama.‖22

Savvy white southern Democrats — who recognized their peculiar and somewhat schizophrenic circumstances within the Democratic Party and the potential threat

Republican opponents posed — generally had to adopt a coldly calculating mindset to survive in Washington, Browder said. ―It bothered me that I had to deal with the race issue so stealthily and clinically, trying to play the angles tactically for long-term strategic purposes,‖ he said. ―I sometimes asked myself: Am I a dedicated, constrained servant for progressive democracy or a cynical politician?‖23

Browder said that he often looked at his colleagues in the U.S. Congress from areas without the black-white factor and thought to himself, ―They‘ve got an easy job.‖

He even said to them occasionally that, ―You don‘t know what politics is unless you represent and have to secure mixed, majoritarian support from a constituency — made up of a former slave-owner society and a former slave-society — that is still fighting that fight.‖24

22 Glen Browder, ―PP Attachments 12-14-07,‖ e-mail message to the author, December 14, 2007. 23 Browder, ―Stealth Commentary,‖ 13. 24 Ibid.

161 Consequently, just as in Alabama, partisan politics, racial considerations, and reform struggles were core curricula in the professor-politician‘s Washington seminar; and these inextricable factors complicated the national aspect of his civic journey.

Politicking With Bill Clinton

President Bill Clinton was the most intriguing person that Browder encountered during his career. ―Bill Clinton was and is the most gifted leader that I ever dealt with in

Washington or anywhere else,‖ Browder said. ―He was smart and personable, and he wanted to help people and do right for his country and the world.‖ According to

Browder, Clinton was the ultimate politician in dealing with people of differing backgrounds and persuasions:

He was absolutely amazing, whether working with groups or individuals, with powerful politicians or everyday citizens, with whites or blacks, with men or women — you concluded that he‘s your best friend and he‘s going to do what you want. Even ideological die-harders who shook his hand for photo opportunities walked away saying, ―I like that guy‖ or ―You know, he‘s got a point.‖25

Browder, himself a skilled coalition-builder, admired Clinton‘s skill in bringing together people of diverse interests for common, positive purpose:

Nobody, in my experience, was as good at it as he was. He could talk to a local Chamber of Commerce meeting and leave the room with significant support for his business proposals; then he could walk across the hall to an AFL-CIO rally and leave them cheering his fight for labor issues — and the ―whole‖ of these disparate pitches would be his packaged budget plan.26

Browder had ample opportunity to study Clinton as the Arkansan climbed the ladder of state and national politics during the 1970s, ‗80s and ‗90s. They both were early

25 Browder, December 14, 2007. 26 Ibid.

162 players in the Democratic Leadership Council, a group that attempted and succeeded in guiding their national party into the White House, and, early on, Browder fully believed that Clinton was the Democratic Party‘s best hope for electoral success and good governance.

The Browder-Clinton relationship probably took a serious and long-term dive at a

1992 meeting between the presidential aspirant and a few members of the Mainstream

Forum in Washington. In a private, one-on-one conversation after the meeting, Browder told Clinton in no parsed terms that he needed to resolve ―the character issue‖ if he wanted significant southern support. ―Clinton displayed his famous look of red-faced irritation,‖ Browder said, ―and argued that this was all old rumors that had been dealt with and put to rest back in Little Rock.‖27

Congressman Browder was never a close or avid associate of President Clinton, but their worlds overlapped and sometimes intersected in Washington. There were occasional White House sessions on the budget, particularly since Browder was a member of the House Budget Committee and a leading player in the Blue Dog budget effort. Browder also clashed with the president and the House Democrats on campaign finance reform; he once staged a Capitol Hill press conference with a live pig to ridicule

Clinton‘s idea of public funding for congressional campaigns. And, of course, there were regular events at the White House — Christmas parties and miscellaneous social gatherings which usually included individualized photos and quick personal exchanges.

But they were never close, either personally or politically.

27 Ibid.

163 Browder described his early hope and later disappointment in the Clinton presidency in The Future of American Democracy:

Without question in my mind, Bush‘s predecessor, William Jefferson Clinton, could have been America‘s transformational leader for the new century; but, also in my opinion, his tenure can be viewed as the ―Clinterim Presidency.‖ He presided over a nation ripe for turn-of-century redefinition and redirection — the end of the Cold War, unprecedented economic prosperity, and federal budget surpluses — and he possessed impressive political skills for democratic restoration. Just as importantly, he understood and ambitiously pursued his transformational opportunity. However, critical conditions changed early in his tenure (due in great part to his own over-reaching ambition and personal problems), and his masterful skills were diverted toward political survival. As a political scientist who has studied ―the Man from Hope‖ since before his Washington tenure and as a politician who served in Congress during the Clinton administrations, I‘ve been awed both positively and negatively by his performance as president. But I suspect that historians will consider Bill Clinton a bold, talented, interim political leader rather than a transformational ―bridge‖ to the Twenty-First Century.28

A decade after leaving public office, Browder still subscribes to the essence of this paragraph in his earlier book; however, he now offers more sentimental assessment of the former president:

I can now better appreciate the conditions — both personal and political — under which Bill Clinton operated. I‘m convinced he was the best person to lead our country during changing and uncertain times; and he did a good, creditable job as president. Ironically, his two terms in the White House represented an effective mixture of progressive philosophy and practical politics.29

Furthermore, Browder confessed, ―As goofy as it sounds, I can‘t help but like the guy.‖30

28 Glen Browder, The Future of American Democracy: A Former Congressman’s Unconventional Analysis (Lanham: University Press of America. 2002), 198. 29 Browder, December 14, 2007. 30 Ibid.

164 Campaign Finance Revisited

Barely a month after administering Browder‘s oath of office, House Speaker Jim

Wright resigned in an ethics scandal revolving around how politicians could raise money.

A year-long investigation of Wright‘s finances found as many as sixty-nine possible

House rules violations, largely centering on his circumventing limits on gifts and speaking honoraria.31 Wright‘s resignation as speaker on May 31, 1989, and his departure from Congress a month later highlighted a growing sense that ―money was poisoning the political system by making members of Congress beholden to special interests,‖ the New York Times reported.32 Fundraising had become a continuous process for incumbent politicians, and the expense of living in Washington prompted them to search for ways to supplement their personal incomes as well. A young Georgia congressman, Newt Gingrich, led the charge in the House for major reforms in the late

1980s. Gingrich, who filed the complaint against Wright in 1988, said after Wright announced his resignation, ―We want real reform, not just lip service. Business as usual prior to this week is not tolerable if you‘re a Republican. In my judgment, it‘s not tolerable if you‘re a normal American.‖33

There was no quick patch for the problems Wright personified. The efforts to address legal and ethical issues with raising money for both campaign and personal use coalesced into bills to reform campaign financing. The reform measure did not pass until

2002 after more than a decade of bitter debate. Ironically, it was Gingrich himself who

31 Larry J. Sabato, ―Speaker Jim Wright‘s Downfall — 1989,‖ Media Frenzies in Our Time, WashingtonPost.com, March 27, 1998 (accessed online October 19, 2007, at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/frenzy/wright.htm). 32 Berke, June 5, 1989. 33 Ibid.

165 blocked the reform efforts during the decade of the 1990s. Gingrich‘s reversal led many observers to believe that his calls for reform had been nothing more than an early step in his bid to take over Congress, an effort that culminated in the Republican

Revolution of 1994. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, ―Gingrich and some of the other more radical Republicans were out there really denigrating Congress,‖ said Browder‘s legislative aide David Plunkett. ―It wasn‘t so much that Congress was polarized as it was that a group of Republicans was busy undercutting the status of Congress, undercutting the Democratic leadership in Congress, and doing a lot of demagoguery, basically doing things they needed to do if they wanted to take power.‖34

The need for reform was real, no matter what had been its advocates‘ political motivations, and this was an area in which Browder had considerable expertise. Fresh from successfully implementing election reforms in Alabama, the freshman congressman applied his analytical skill and coalition-building talent to the national debate. A major point of controversy was a proposal to limit spending and eliminate exorbitant contributions through public funding of campaigns. Browder could not support outright public financing, but he offered a workable alternative. ―Public financing for a lot of people was a nonstarter because we were running a lot of deficits and it would be a costly program,‖ Plunkett explained. ―In the public eye, it looked like politicians paying themselves to run for office. Glen came back with the compromise that basically would have generated contributions and acted as a public financing restriction.‖ Browder‘s compromise provided that if candidates voluntarily complied with the spending limit, individuals could get tax credits for small contributions to political campaigns. ―So it

34 David Plunkett, June 17, 2007.

166 would work the same as the public financing without that taint of taking tax dollars and giving them to politicians,‖ Plunkett said. ―It was a clever idea. And it was very effective at bringing people on board. We moved campaign finance reform through the

House with those provisions in it several times and just couldn‘t get it all the way through the Senate and to the president.‖35

Browder considered the failure to pass meaningful campaign finance reform during his years in Congress as ―without doubt,‖ his ―most distinctly disappointing experience,‖ he wrote. As in Alabama, Browder found Washington politicians unwilling to change a system that favored their re-election. ―Those of us who championed such change during the 1990s were unable to overcome the forces of resistance who liked things the way they had always been — stacked in favor of incumbents and the entrenched special interests,‖ he said. Browder recalled that some of his campaign contributors had objected to his co-sponsoring another campaign finance reform bill, popularly knows as Shays-Meehan, which Gingrich had prevented from coming to a vote.

―I got into a little trouble, but I didn‘t care. One day when a lobbyist mentioned that they didn‘t like my co-sponsoring the bill, I simply walked over to the House and signed the discharge petition to force the bill out of committee where leadership had buried it.‖36 A version of the bill, with its Senate equivalent McCain-Feingold, eventually was enacted in 2002, and at the time Browder was optimistic that it would help ―unstack that system.‖37 Five years later, however, he was noncommittal about whether the law had

35 Ibid. 36 Glen Browder, e-mail message to the author, October 19, 2007. 37 Glen Browder, ―Professor-Politician — Recollections and Records of an Alabama Reformer,‖ unpublished draft, July 18, 2002.

167 accomplished his goals. ―I don‘t know,‖ he said. ―I think I acknowledged back then that McCain-Feingold was not the answer, but it at least kept the debate going. I don‘t know if we can ever do any more than constrain abuse; but I think the reform process has to be pursued simply to keep the heat on people who would egregiously abuse the system.‖38

Freelancing for the Common Good

Although Browder was drawn irresistibly to national and international issues during his four terms in Congress, he returned to the district every chance he got, often doing work — he called it freelancing — that was outside his purview as a Congressman but which he felt was important for a number of reasons.

Sometimes he embarked on these initiatives because he saw it as a way to make his constituents feel better about their government, sometimes because he saw a job that needed doing, and sometimes because his involvement prodded into action those who already should have been taking care of a problem. Some of his projects seemed gimmicky and superficial; but most were substantive and carried political risks. His standard for freelancing was that his gut told him it was the right thing to do.

Throughout his career, Browder planted apple trees at schools, libraries and parks.

He invited randomly selected constituents into a Citizens Congress, ―where they addressed national issues and drafted national budget recommendations from the perspective of average Americans.‖ Through a program he called Working for Alabama, he helped to rebuild an elderly couple‘s home after it was damaged by a tornado; he

38 Browder, October 19, 2007.

168 worked with parents to renovate a local elementary school; and he helped put a new roof on a cottage at a ranch for troubled teenagers.

These activities were not normally press events; they were usually just things that he enjoyed doing. Browder said he ―liked to spend some special time side by side with common, ordinary people who might appreciate knowing that somebody from the government cared about their lives.‖39

Quite often, however, these events and initiatives took on more serious nature.

Palm Sunday Tragedy

On March 27, 1994, Glen and Becky were in Jacksonville for the weekend.

During Palm Sunday services at Jacksonville United Methodist Church, they heard a loud, frightening roar, and after church they learned from their car radio that a tornado had touched down nearby. The twister had destroyed several houses and Goshen United

Methodist Church, just across the county line north of Piedmont. Browder dropped off

Becky, changed his clothes and headed to Cherokee County, not stopping to consider that it was outside his district. When he arrived, he said later, the dead and injured already had been taken to hospitals. He found a scene of horrific destruction, with ―many people milling around, talking, crying, trying to make sense of such a tragedy. It was one of those times when you try to be a neighbor rather than a politician; you feel useless and obtrusive, but you feel that you need to be there.‖40

39 Glen Browder, interview with Geni Certain, Jacksonville, Alabama, February 19, 2007. 40 Glen Browder, ―Thursday Morning Re: Some Questions,‖ e-mail message to the author, October 18, 2007.

169 News reports in the ensuing days gave the mounting toll: twenty-two people dead, all but two of them in the Goshen church; three-hundred-eighty-three homes destroyed; three churches demolished; more than a thousand homes, schools and businesses damaged; hundreds of people homeless. In recalling why he went to Goshen that day, Browder, normally smoothly articulate, stammered and searched for words. ―I had a bunch of my people there. It was Piedmont people,‖ he said.

We started hearing on the radio that it had hit, so I decided to go up there. Not saying, ―I‘m from the Congress and I‘m in charge,‖ but I just felt that, you know, everybody was going up trying to help people around, just move stuff. I really didn‘t do anything — it was Tom Bevill‘s district — other than just with my presence. Trying to be present without being obnoxious, without being a showy politician and get my picture in the paper. I didn‘t want that. I was supportive to Tom Bevill in doing that, but I didn‘t have a role, other than being a congressman supporting a nearby community. I didn‘t have much of a leadership role in that.41

Browder‘s leadership role emerged when it became clear that while the tragedy of the Goshen deaths was overwhelming, more homes and businesses were destroyed in his own district than in Bevill‘s. After spending Sunday afternoon comforting his neighbors,

Browder toured the devastated area the next day with local emergency management officials and reporters, promising to try to speed federal disaster money. On Tuesday, he toured the area again, this time with Bevill, Governor Jim Folsom, Jr., Alabama‘s U.S.

Senators Howell Heflin and Richard Shelby, Federal Emergency Management Agency

Director James Lee Witt, and Vice President Al Gore. Gore announced that federal money was on its way and that plans for an expanded warning system would be announced later in the week.

41 Glen Browder, interviewed by the author, Anniston, Alabama, May 31, 2007.

170 Within two weeks, Browder announced that an existing warning system for nearby Anniston Army Depot would be expanded to add two sirens in Piedmont. In a mix-up over the months that followed, it appeared that the government had reneged on what local people thought was a promise, but Browder reassured the county that

Piedmont would get its sirens. Meanwhile, Piedmont residents raised thousands of dollars on their own to install seven sirens in addition to the two Browder promised, and the state legislature came through with money to cover the rest of the county. Sixteen months after the storm, the first sirens were installed in Piedmont.

Reuniting Randolph County

At the time of the Goshen tornado, Browder also was keeping close watch on smoldering racial discord in the middle of his district. In late February 1994, the principal of rural Randolph County High School in Wedowee had aroused resentment among both blacks and whites by threatening to call off the upcoming prom if mixed-race couples attended. The principal, Hulond Humphries, backed down the next day and said the prom would go on as planned, but nerves tightened as the national media seized the story. Some sort of eruption seemed imminent. Former students stepped forward with charges about other instances of Humphries‘ racism over his twenty-five-year tenure at the school. White Humphries supporters paraded their cars through tiny Wedowee.

Black protesters staged a sit-in at the school board office. The school board suspended

Humphries and then reinstated him. In mid-March, the U.S. Justice Department stepped in to investigate, and three weeks later the U.S. Department of Education launched its own investigation. The Justice investigation resulted in a motion in federal court calling

171 for the principal‘s dismissal or transfer, and the Education Department ruled that

Humphries‘ actions violated federal civil rights laws. The NAACP, the Southern

Christian Leadership Conference, and the Ku Klux Klan established a presence in

Wedowee, a town of fewer than one thousand residents. All the while, the community twitched under the media‘s incessant probing.

Browder monitored the events through Lamar Denkins, who ran his Anniston office, but neither saw anything to be gained by their intervention, and Browder‘s advisers warned him to stay away.

In early August, however, as the community anticipated the opening of another school year, an arsonist torched the school. Browder could no longer watch from the sidelines. ―When the school burned, that‘s when I decided to go down there and try to do something. Not that the school burning triggered a legal issue for the U.S. Congress, but that violent incident was my personal trigger. Because I thought this is going to get a lot uglier, not a lot better, on its own,‖ Browder said.42 ―Black and white citizens were hurt, angry, and wondering what next — violence, more burnings by whatever nut burned the school, retaliatory burnings by reactionary whites or blacks?‖43 As Denkins recalled,

―People were trying to get Glen to stay out of it. It just came to the point where he felt like it was his responsibility to get involved … where even though there were those people saying he shouldn‘t get involved, he said, ‗You know, I don‘t have a choice. I‘m going to.‘‖44

42 Browder, May 31, 2007. 43 Glen Browder, e-mail message to the author, October 17, 2007. 44 Denkins, October 26, 2006.

172 Browder realized that his showing up in Wedowee with a lot of fanfare could make the situation worse, so he sent Denkins — and he did not speak to the press until he had something positive to report. Browder asked Denkins to contact all the ministers in

Randolph County churches, black churches and white, and come up with a plan to heal the rift in the community. ―My thinking was the only institution that I know of that‘s not wanting a race fight, that‘s got the kids‘ interest at heart, that‘s got the people to handle this issue, are the ministers of these congregations,‖ Browder recalled. The situation was so volatile that even the meetings among clergymen were confrontational, and for some of the ministers the only inducement to come was the congressman‘s participation. ―It was tough,‖ Browder said. ―Most of the white ministers just wanted it to go away … and there was some feeling among the black leadership that they had a role to play in this, and it was not holding hands and saying ‗The Lord‘s Prayer.‘ There were some that were really interested in the race issue. They were ambitious politicians in the pulpit.‖45

Denkins began with just a few but eventually got his group up to twenty-six members, evenly balanced between black and white. ―I spent seventeen straight days down there, working with ministers and school officials, trying to defuse the situation,‖

Denkins said. ―I would set up meetings with the ministers, and Glen would come in on the weekend and meet with them.‖46 The group decided to do three things: They would publish a statement all twenty-six ministers signed, appealing to the people of the community to ―turn a deaf ear to the rabble-rousers and to remember that the best thing for this community and for the kids is to come together,‖ Browder said. Second, they

45 Browder, May 31, 2007. 46 Denkins, October 26, 2006.

173 would preach this message from their pulpits. Finally, they would hold a joint sunrise service at the site of the burned school just before classes began to help get the school year started positively.47

Browder planned to attend the prayer service, but he was detained in Washington for a vote in the House. As it turned out, though, Wedowee residents did not need his presence at the service. It was enough that he had made it happen, and they were grateful. Hundreds came out to the school grounds on the overcast Sunday morning of August 21. They prayed for healing, sang ―Amazing Grace,‖ and lingered to talk and clean up after the service was over.48 Browder was encouraged by what Denkins told him and the reports he read about the service. ―Having the people at the sunrise service I think — you don‘t know what impact you had, but I think it had a lot of impact,‖ he said.

―There was a lot of concern on both sides. Those black and white preachers had never even met each other. And they‘d never talked about these issues. We weren‘t negotiating deals about appointment to the board or the registrars or the school board issue. We weren‘t negotiating deals. We were trying to bring people together. I thought it was a very successful initiative.‖ 49

It was successful enough that Browder took a step further and organized another meeting to talk about reviving the county‘s economy. In late September, he brought in

Neal Wade, head of the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama, to promote a new spirit of cooperation in the interest of reversing the community‘s negative image.

47 Browder, May 31, 2007. 48 Thomas Spencer, ―A town pauses for ‗healing,‘ then goes to work on school,‖ Anniston Star, August 22, 1994, sec. A, p. 1. 49 Browder, May 31, 2007.

174 Browder‘s visibility lent weight to the meeting, but he let Wade do the talking. Wade urged community leaders to work together to create a long-range economic plan. It was the first time in many months that residents of Randolph County had convened to talk about something positive, and they said it felt good. Although some in Wedowee seemed unwilling to relinquish the national spotlight, most of the people in the community appeared relieved finally to be able to drop their defensiveness and start treating their neighbors as friends again.50

Browder acknowledged that it was politically risky for him to insert himself into the Randolph County brouhaha, but it was a risk he felt compelled to take. ―I know some people said, ‗Well, what‘s he messing with that for? That‘s not a federal issue.‘ But I felt I could provide some leadership. There are some things that as a public official you just say, ‗I‘m going to expend some political capital on this because I think I can provide some positive leadership.‘‖51

Unholy Fire

Another such incident occurred two years later when a series of rural church burnings threatened to ignite racial tensions throughout Alabama and across the South.

During 1995 and 1996, more than thirty churches burned in states from North Carolina to

Texas, including at least six in Alabama. Some were ruled accidental, but most were arson. The numbers of white and black churches were almost identical over the entire period, but the fires in black churches appeared to be happening in clusters. When two black churches burned within hours of each other in Greene County, Alabama, just before

50 Jenny Cromie, ―Wedowee makes attempt to unify,‖ Anniston Star, September 25, 1994, sec. A, p. 1. 51 Browder, May 31, 2007.

175 Martin Luther King Day and another burned in Selma days before the anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights march, cries of racism intensified.

As bad as it was, it looked worse. ―It focused on the South, and it was black churches,‖ Browder said. He observed that in most cases the motivation was simple vandalism and that rural black churches were especially vulnerable because they were isolated and built of wood. ―Vandals don‘t do this in the city because somebody will catch them. And you can‘t burn a brick church. Rural, wooden churches with black congregations historically are just part of our landscape.‖52

Browder saw the rash of church burning as a crisis that required leadership at the national level. ―I was checking with the local and state fire officials and with the U.S.

Justice Department, and we knew that race was part of it,‖ he said, ―but the public uproar was entirely focused on white racists burning black churches in the South.‖ In Alabama,

African American politicians and civil rights activists already were criticizing state

Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Governor Fob James for taking a lackadaisical approach to investigating the fires.53 Browder knew this was not simply a white-black problem, and he did not want to let it grow into a major racial crisis. He thought that if it were handled delicately, it might foster a constructive dialogue that could improve

Southern race relations. Browder forged a coalition of two existing groups of

Congressional Democrats to bring the might of the federal government into the effort to stop the arsons. ―It occurred to me that the best way to deal with this and keep this from

52 Ibid. 53 Associated Press, ―Black leaders criticize response to church fires,‖ Anniston Star, March 3, 1996.

176 turning into an ugly racial issue was to get the Blue Dogs54, primarily white and mainly southerners, and the Black Caucus, primarily black and mainly southerners, together on this issue,‖ Browder said. ―So we started meeting together, and we jointly asked the Justice Department to come over and meet with us and investigate this.‖

Browder said that he and his colleagues in Congress recognized immediately that this issue was too big for local and state law enforcement to deal with, and it was only a matter of time before the federal government took over the investigation anyway. ―When you get a bunch of black churches burned, the Justice Department is going to be on top of that.‖ But rather than wait for Justice to intervene, he said, ―some of us felt that we could provide leadership to deal with this issue much more positively. It‘s one of those times when you do something that‘s probably in your best interest, but you know that your constituency needs some help dealing with the problem.‖55

The church burnings were in some respects like the Wedowee situation, Browder said — ―trying to manage a real race problem for good people on both sides without fanning the flames of racism among racists. I recognized the racial aspect of some of these incidents, but I knew that it was wrong and irresponsible to fuel further racist rhetoric (from either whites or blacks), and the best way I knew was to lead the investigatory effort politically. Our efforts discouraged black demagoguery over a ‗racist epidemic‘ while requiring whites to deal with the reality of white racism; and maybe whites and blacks of good faith could process this public issue appropriately.‖56

54 Browder was a founding member of a coalition of moderate House Democrats that came to be known as the Blue Dogs. The Blue Dogs, and Browder‘s participation in the group, are detailed in Chapter VII. 55 Browder, May 31, 2007. 56 Browder, October 18, 2007.

177 Browder averred with some modesty that his freelancing was neither unique among politicians nor especially brilliant leadership. ―But I tried to do it as a general practice,‖ he said, ―looking for ways to be helpful with private, personal influence or public, official intervention when I thought I could help. Sometimes it worked minor miracles; sometimes it made a bad situation better; sometimes it just ticked people off.‖57

The Congressman, the Boss

The same could be said of how Browder ran his Congressional office. Long hours and low pay coupled with the intense concentration required to understand complicated legislative issues could have created a pressure-cooker environment, but

Browder did not let that happen. ―One of the skills you don‘t need in order to win office is personnel management,‖ laughed David Plunkett, one of the few Montgomery staffers who accompanied Browder to Washington. Browder was the rare congressman who possessed that vital skill, Plunkett quickly continued. ―It was a convivial atmosphere,‖

Plunkett said, in no small part because Browder hired competent people and trained them continuously — not how to perform their jobs, but how to think about their jobs. ―Glen was somebody who was good to work for. He would encourage initiative. He would encourage you to think about things, not just react, not just try to find the easy answers.

He would tend to come back to you with questions that made you understand the issues better, made you want to do more of the work that you were doing. He wasn‘t a George

57 Ibid.

178 Patton kind of leader, but his leadership was that he made you want to work for him and he made you want to do good things.‖58

Plunkett said Browder was always accessible to anyone on his staff and relied on

Ray Minter to be the bearer of any unpleasantness. Ten years after leaving office,

Browder admitted with a laugh that Minter was his ―junk yard dog,‖ the man who would get results, no matter whom he had to bite to do it. ―Ray used to tell us that his role was to be the tough guy, he was supposed to crack the whip on us because Glen wouldn‘t.

And then he would come out and tell us how Glen had been chewing him out,‖ Plunkett said. ―I still wonder about that, because I never saw Glen chew anybody out. I think Ray wanted to be the bad cop to Glen‘s good cop in order to keep us all straight.‖

When Browder first went to Washington, he kept all of Bill Nichols‘ staff in place and filled positions with his own hires as people moved on. Most members of Browder‘s staff spoke in some version of a soft, southern drawl. Browder insisted that his staff reflect the district and the state he represented, giving hiring preference to people from

Alabama or those who had strong Alabama connections. ―He wanted them to understand the perspective of the state because no matter what the issue is, you‘ve got to know the people you‘re representing to understand how that issue plays back in the state and affects the state,‖ Plunkett said, his own drawl unhurried by nearly two decades in

Washington. It takes a person who has spent time in Alabama ―to understand how people are going to react to [a bill] and what needs to be done to, if necessary, bring it in line so that it results in a good outcome in Alabama as well as elsewhere in the country,‖

Plunkett explained.

58 David Plunkett, Washington, D.C., interviewed by the author, Munford, Alabama, June 17, 2007.

179 Browder had one hiring policy that he never revealed to anyone else on his staff: He always made sure that the demographics in his office matched the racial demographics of his district and the state. That meant he maintained 25 to 30 percent minority staffing,59 always including an African American receptionist. White constituents who visited him in Washington already knew they had his ear, he said. He wanted to be sure that when African Americans came in, the first person they met conveyed Browder‘s determination to serve their interests equally.

Browder‘s first Washington press secretary was Marti Thomas Doneghy, an

African American woman from Alabama who had been knocking on doors in

Washington for two years when Browder arrived. Browder was the first who gave her a serious hearing. ―Following the election to replace Congressman Nichols, I knocked on the new congressman‘s door very loudly and persistently,‖ she said. ―The chief of staff

[a holdover from Nichols‘ staff] finally took one of my two dozen phone calls, and he gave me what I term a courtesy chat. I could tell where this was going, and that was the usual nowhere.‖ Doneghy was looking for a job on Browder‘s legislative staff, but when she was told the only opening was for a press secretary, she was eager to take it. Her interviewer grew more interested when Doneghy mentioned that she had worked in several local and statewide elections back in Alabama, especially the unsuccessful state auditor campaign of Browder‘s friend Kay Ivey. ―My loyalty and friendship to her, in spite of her losing the black wing‘s endorsement and consequently the Democratic

Party‘s nomination for state auditor, convinced [the interviewer] that perhaps

Congressman Browder might be interested in talking to me further,‖ she said. ―My own

59 The Browder Collection: ―Glen Browder Employees – By Race,‖ updated April 30, 2007.

180 sense of practicality, loyalty, idealism and independence of the usual political crowd for black Alabamians — Joe Reed and the ADC — would be exactly what would get me in the door as a congressional staffer.‖60

Doneghy was aware of her visibility as the media liaison for a white southern congressman, and although Browder did not mention it, she felt that she helped him convey a message of positive change in race relations. ―As a native Alabamian, African

American and female, I think the congressman took great pride in me as his Washington- based congressional press secretary. In many ways he spoke loudly and clearly about his stance on race politics in Alabama by his selection of me as his first congressional press secretary,‖ Doneghy said.61

While Ray Minter had known Browder since his teaching days at JSU, David

Plunkett and his wife Vickie also recognized Browder‘s professor side. ―He was always the academic in a lot of ways. He would talk to you about government, about the structure of government, why we were doing what we were doing,‖ David Plunkett said.

Vickie Plunkett, who took a job in Browder‘s Washington office after her husband had been there a few months, concurred. ―Because he was a political scientist, we would sometimes have discussions about things that were kind of philosophical as opposed to just all work. He was open to having those discussions. One time, with a particular vote,

I knew it was not really what he personally might feel, but yet he knew that politically he had to take that stand if he wanted to survive another day. And so we had a discussion about that, about how can you not vote your conscience. He said a couple of things:

60 Marti Thomas Doneghy, ―Those Questions,‖ e-mail message to the author, December 20, 2007. 61 Ibid.

181 How do you view the United States — is it a representational democracy or a direct democracy? Basically, the answer is it‘s a republic. So we had that kind of discussion.‖62

Browder‘s staff members did not always agree with his middle-of-the-road stance on issues. ―I remember that some of his votes were a bit conservative for me personally,‖ recalled Doneghy, ―but as time has moved on, I can‘t remember what those votes were.‖

Doneghy conceded that Browder voted in accordance with the feeling in his district, but she wondered if the congressman could not have pushed his constituency a bit more to the left. ―He represented a conservative district that I think he could have continued to win and still voted more liberal on some issues,‖ she said.

Browder‘s staff was rife with writers, and although he had long since stopped thinking of himself as a writer, he never hesitated to edit documents his staff produced.

His staff members tolerated his editing with good-natured annoyance, some more than others.

―I was impressed with his creativity and the thinking process that he used often to insert memorable and quotable remarks in my bland press statements,‖ Doneghy said.

―This creativity was important because then, as now, freshman and second-term House members were not given a lot of ink by the media. The press genuinely liked and respected the congressman, and that always made my job easier.‖63

―He‘d take his red pen and bleed all over our letters, making directions and everything,‖ Vickie Plunkett snorted. ―But that‘s the way the system worked. We would

62 Vickie Plunkett, June 17, 2007. 63 Doneghy, December 20, 2007.

182 draft letters, he would proof them and change them to make them say what he wanted to say, but in his case, he did it with a red pen.‖ In some instances, the pen was superfluous. ―Occasionally, I would come to him with a letter where I was just going over the top because I was so aggravated with what the constituent had written to us or the question was so wrong that I just wanted to throw it back at the person,‖ David

Plunkett said. ―And he‘d read it, and he‘d look at me, and he‘d say, ‗Now that you‘ve got that off your chest, write the letter we‘re going to send him.‘ So I would have to go back and rewrite the letter a little bit calmer. He would always look at things in kind of academic perspective and then get you back on the right track.‖64 Not even Minter escaped Browder‘s editing pen. Minter said working for Browder taught him to write, but ―I never, ever sent anything in that wasn‘t marked somewhere, even as time went on and I got better.‖ Minter said that on the one occasion when he received several unmarked letters back from Browder, he simply returned them to his boss for another look. When Browder protested that he‘d already seen those letters, Minter replied that he knew Browder must have been feeling ill when he first read them. ―And sure enough, when I got them back later in the day, they had some marks on them.‖65

One reason Browder had so many writers on his staff was that he had a penchant for hiring journalists. Both David and Vickie Plunkett left newspapers to work for

Browder. Brenda Carr had written for a newspaper before she joined Browder‘s

Montgomery staff. Bob McNeil covered the Alabama Congressional delegation for

States News Service before signing on as Browder‘s Washington press secretary after

64 David Plunkett, June 17, 2007. 65 Ray Minter, March 23, 2007.

183 Doneghy left to work in the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign. It wasn‘t coincidence.

―Oh, yeah, and we know why, too. He told us,‖ Vickie Plunkett said. His own history as a journalist was incidental. ―He said [journalists] have good communication skills, they know the meaning of hard work, and they know how to work for low pay.‖66

Low pay was the only consistent criticism Browder‘s former staff members leveled at him, and they typically made it on behalf of other people, not themselves. ―He was tight with money,‖ admitted Minter, his chief of staff. ―Not for me — I was well taken care of. But I had many conversations with him about that, many conversations. I was well paid, so I was OK. But I did many battles. We talked many times about other folks.‖ The Plunketts told a similar story. ―We were never hurting for money,‖ David

Plunkett said, but he acknowledged, ―Glen was tight.‖ Plunkett explained that Browder was not parsimonious, but rather practiced in his office what he preached in legislation.

It was a point of pride for Browder that he operated his office on less money than he was allocated and every year returned a large percentage back to the treasury.67 In 1996 as a campaign stunt, he announced that he had formed the ―Million Dollar Turnback Club,‖ with himself as the sole member.68 ―He turned back a million and a half dollars over the course of his time in Congress,‖ Plunkett said. ―Sometimes when you think about that, you realize, wait a minute, that was my pay raise he was turning back. But Glen really felt that operating the office in a fiscally responsible manner and showing the public he was doing it was very important. And it was very important for building credibility when

66 Vickie Plunkett, June 17, 2007. 67 Browder returned an average of 24 percent of his Congressional Office Allowance over his eight years in Congress, for a total of $1,499,113; the Browder Collection: ―Browder‘s Stewardship of Public Funds, 1989-96.‖ 68 Press release, March 8, 1996; the Browder Collection: Coalition Budget, FY 1996-97.

184 he talked about balancing the federal budget. I‘ve had people tell me that, ‗Gee, if my boss did that I would quit.‘ But frankly, they didn‘t work for Glen.‖69

Browder‘s staff worked with him and supported him through his relatively short

Washington career, and it is possible to detect a tinge of resentment that their boss is not listed among the prominent names of congressional service. ―He did not get credit for many of his ideas on legislation … so more than once, the headline-grabbing members of the delegation happily took credit for his work,‖ Doneghy said.

As a congressman, as he had been as secretary of state, Browder was more interested in making progress on issues than in gaining personal recognition. However, the professor-politician played pivotal roles in issues of national defense, the federal budget, and the democratic process, with impact that has lasted well beyond his time in

Congress. Although he is revered at home for his efforts to keep Fort McClellan open and to secure health care for Gulf War veterans, he is most widely known for his work to ensure the safe disposal of chemical weapons around the world. Yet, he considers the highlight of his political career to be his 1995 work on the federal budget, which, as we shall see, brought substantial, though short-lived, fiscal reforms.

69 David Plunkett, June 17, 2007.

A BLUE DOG POINTS THE WAY

On the morning of October 26, 1995, readers of the Birmingham Post-Herald may have overlooked the most momentous story of the day. The headline was just three words stacked in a column: ―Houses debate budgets.‖ The understated headline stood in stark contrast to the florid language of the article, which heralded the culmination of a fight that had been building in Congress for the past ten months: ―In what political leaders agreed was a defining moment in the nation‘s history, the Senate and the House opened debate yesterday on massive Republican budget bills that would dramatically remake government while balancing the federal budget.‖1 Republican Senator Bob Dole called this moment the most historic in his thirty-four years in Congress. Senator Tom

Daschle, a Democrat, predicted that this was a day Republicans would soon regret. Was this just inside-the-Beltway rhetoric, or would decisions about the 1996 federal budget have lasting importance to the nation?

In late October of 1995, the federal budget process was in crisis. The national debt was $4.9 trillion and growing by more than $2 billion a year.2 Deficit spending had become chronic — Congress had not balanced a budget since 1969. The largest economic expansion in history offered an opportunity to end deficit spending and pay

1 Joan Lowy, ―Houses debate budget,‖ Scripps Howard News Service, Birmingham Post-Herald, October 26, 1995, sec. A, p. 1. 2 U.S. Office of Management and Budget, ―Historical Tables,‖ Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2006, p. 118 (accessed online December 21, 2007, at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/pdf/hist.pdf ). 185 186 down the debt, but the nation‘s two major political parties were polarized nearly to the point of paralysis. Thus by October 26, the day the House and Senate finally got around to debating their budget proposals, Congress had missed its deadline for passing the fiscal 1996 budget and the federal government was due to shut down in seventeen days. The bills being debated contained the budget provisions of the Republican Contract

With America, which promised to reduce government spending by some $894 billion, balance the budget and cut taxes. Democrats objected to the plan because most of the program cuts came from Medicare, Medicaid, and Welfare, and the tax cuts went to people with incomes as high as $200,000.

The politicians driving the debate were major players, each likely to have a stake in the upcoming presidential election: Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, the Georgia

Republican who had authored the Contract With America; Senate Majority Leader and presumptive Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole; House Minority Leader and possible Democratic presidential contender Dick Gephardt; and President Bill Clinton, who would be running for re-election in 1996. For these men, the fight over the 1996 federal budget ultimately would be eclipsed by other events — in less than the seven years that the budget provisions would cover all but Gephardt would leave office. But for one man, one who had proposed workable compromises at the beginning of the process and doggedly promoted them until they became law more than a year later, the federal budget reforms enacted in 1996 would reflect the greatest achievement of his Washington career. That man was Glen Browder.

187 The professor-politician, now in his fourth term in Congress, was troubled by the growing debt and continuing deficits, but he recognized in the expanding economy an unprecedented opportunity to make long-term reforms in how the country managed its spending. ―I really believe that if you don‘t get control of your budget, whether you‘re a nation, a country, a business, or a family, you lose control of your destiny,‖ he recalled in

2005. ―This is a great disservice to future generations who can‘t vote and make decisions. So I thought we needed to work toward balance. Not because I worship at the altar of a balanced budget, but because I think you do lose control of your destiny. And we needed to introduce some rationality, some accountability, some prioritization in the process. The interest payments that we were paying, somewhere around 15 percent, were almost as large as the Defense budget. That was crazy. That was keeping us from spending money on good programs that people need — child programs, health care, and so forth.‖3

Browder had written to his constituents in April 1994 that the country was emerging from the recession of the early 1990s. He foresaw that the improving economy could reduce the deficit and the nation‘s dependence on credit, enabling Congress to address the long-term problems of health care, Welfare and crime.4 The key, he believed, was taking control of the budget process by implementing discipline and responsibility in spending. Toward this end, he offered two ideas that would form the core of the fiscal reforms implemented in the 1996 budget:

3 Glen Browder, interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, October 13, 2005. 4 Glen Browder, Column for Lee County Eagle, April 1994, the Browder Collection, Box 96: Budget, 1994.

188 Apply savings from spending cuts toward deficit reduction instead of as a down payment on a tax cut. Tie tax cuts to actual progress toward balancing the budget.

Implementing Browder‘s ideas would be an arduous process, and he would not accomplish it alone. Opposition would come from his own party leaders as well as from

Republicans. Ultimately, the power of the swing vote, wielded by a small but tenacious group of moderate Democrats, forced a series of compromises that would put the nation on the path to budget surpluses of a size it had never seen before.

Birth of the Blue Dogs

Browder was never a stereotypical tax-and-spend Democrat. When he arrived in

Washington in 1989, he found a Congress whose spending was not the only thing out of control. ―The public was very angry about taxes and arrogance and corruption in their leaders,‖ he said. Democrats and Republicans were talking about the need for reforms and were pointing fingers at each other, but Browder soon realized his colleagues were not as serious about reform as he was. His membership in the Conservative Democratic

Forum and the Mainstream Forum had not accomplished much, in his opinion, but in late

1994 he helped found a group that would accomplish a lot, particularly in the area of budget reform.5

The group initially called themselves the Coalition; later they came to be known as Blue Dogs. They were twenty-three moderate-to-conservative House Democrats, primarily from southern states. They characterized themselves as the voice of common sense, and as such were a major irritant to the leadership of both parties. The members

5 Browder, October 13, 2005.

189 felt a growing separation from the increasingly liberal Democratic leadership and hoped to move the party back toward the center. They could see that southern voters were becoming disaffected with Democratic liberalism, and a move toward the center was politically expedient both in terms of representing their districts and in retaining their seats in Congress.

Browder and the other House moderates knew that their individual ability to impact policy and to rise to positions of power was limited. ―It was limited in our own party because they weren‘t interested in promoting people like us up the hierarchy or into coveted assignments,‖ Browder wrote. ―Our future was limited too because eventually we would lose, either to a more conservative Republican or a more liberal Democrat.‖6

What they could not accomplish singly they might be able to achieve together.

Thus the Blue Dogs were born. ―We determined that we were going to have to chart our own course,‖ Browder said. ―And we also plighted our troth to each other that we were willing to risk our careers in the Democratic Party. If you‘re going to cross the

Democratic Party and stay a Democrat, you‘re marginalizing yourself. We accepted that and started talking about, ‗How do we build a movement?‘‖7

Talk of changing parties was common as the demarcation between conservative and liberal became more closely identified with party affiliation, making ―conservative

Democrat‖ a contradiction in terms. ―Some of our own party would make obnoxious comments that they wished we‘d go on and switch,‖ Browder said. Even though some

House Democrats appeared ready to usher the Blue Dogs from their midst, the party

6 Glen Browder, unpublished commentary prepared for Stealth Reconstruction, 2007, 15. 7 Glen Browder, interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, January 21, 2005.

190 leaders were anxious to keep them in the pack. As Browder, Charles Stenholm of

Texas, Billy Tauzin of Louisiana, and a few others were forming the Coalition, Browder approached Gephardt, who was then majority leader, and told him what they were doing.

―He was in complete agreement with our strategy,‖ Browder said. ―Do whatever you need to do in order to keep that seat in the D column,‖ Gephardt told Browder. ―You guys perform your major contribution to the cause in helping us reach the magic two hundred eighteen votes needed to put Democrats in control of every facet of House activities; anything beyond that vote is gravy for us.‖8

The Coalition became dramatically more prominent and important in 1995 when, for the first time in forty years, Republicans took a majority of seats in both the House and the Senate. ―We had anticipated that we would be working against a Democratic majority,‖ Browder said. ―We didn‘t know that the Republicans would take over, but it worked out perfectly for us. The Republicans were in the majority, but not enough that they could run roughshod — they had to have some Democratic votes. The Republicans were going to have to work with somebody on the Democratic side. The Democrats, on the other hand, might win a few things or they could impede the Republicans if they could hold all the Democrats, so they had to work with us. It put us in a very good position.‖9

The potential for the defection of twenty-three votes was a wake-up call for some members of the party. The characters of the individuals who had formed the Coalition gave their group credibility as well. ―Many of the Blue Dogs were like Glen Browder —

8 Browder, Stealth Commentary, 15. 9 Ibid.

191 very thoughtful individuals who were positive in their approach, as opposed to accusatory or confrontational,‖ said Browder‘s old friend, Maryland Congressman Steny

Hoyer, who in 2007 became the majority leader after the Democrats retook control of the

House. Hoyer, who was chairman of the Democratic Caucus at the time the Blue Dogs emerged, said the group provided needed perspective in the party. ―I was pleased by it, frankly,‖ Hoyer said. ―I thought they gave us an opportunity to have a voice in the

Caucus that would balance our discussions and represent a significant element in the party. That was important for us to have. To that extent, I thought it was a positive development.‖ That is not to say that Hoyer and the rest of the Democratic leadership agreed with the Blue Dogs‘ positions. ―That would not be the case,‖ he said. ―But,‖ he continued, ―I think the way in which the Blue Dogs went about stating their case was very positive.‖ The Blue Dogs brought to the debate ―a very reasoned and important perspective in terms of balancing our views on spending, on taxes and on priorities,‖

Hoyer said. ―It was a reasoned voice, and it was a voice I think was important to be heard.‖10

The ascendance of the Coalition not only gave pause to the Democratic leadership, Hoyer said, but also held the Republicans to their conflicting campaign promises:

I think the Blue Dogs surprised the Republicans in that they had the courage of their convictions in terms of, ―Look, we‘re for a balanced budget. You‘re not going to get a balanced budget unless you make the tough choices that need to be made. If you want to cut taxes, you cut spending. Or if you want to increase spending, you either raise taxes or cut other objects and, in effect,

10 Steny Hoyer, Washington, D.C., telephone interview with the author, Munford, Alabama, October 22, 2007.

192 keep your balance in the budget. And I think that, frankly, being in a minority, the Democratic Blue Dogs showed their intellectual integrity.11

With the White House occupied by a Democrat and both houses of Congress controlled by Republicans who had a mandate for economic reform, 1995 was a year of extraordinary conflict in Congress from the very beginning. The moderate Democrats who soon would be calling themselves Blue Dogs saw an opportunity to mediate the extremes of both parties and enact what they frequently would label ―common sense‖ legislation, particularly in the coming fight over the Contract With America.

A Difficult Contract

The 104th Congress convened in January with seventy-three new Republican

House members who had signed onto Gingrich‘s Contract With America. Gingrich, who as the new speaker of the House controlled the order in which bills would be considered, intended to get all the provisions of the Contract passed in the first one hundred days of the session.12 To do that, he would need the votes of some Democrats. House Democrats were divided on the Contract. The leadership opposed virtually every tenet, but they followed President Clinton‘s lead. Clinton had his own ideas about ―reinventing government‖ to reduce spending and balance the budget, and with some reluctance eventually he also would offer a tax cut. The Coalition, whose existence was not yet widely known, supported balancing the budget but opposed any tax cuts until that happened. When in January the Republicans offered their Balanced Budget Amendment,

11 Ibid. 12 Associated Press, ―Balanced budget victory,‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, January 27, 1995, sec. A, p. 1.

193 Coalition members voted for it but sided with the Democrats in helping to block language that would have made raising taxes nearly impossible.

David Plunkett recalled:

The Republicans were looking to move a constitutional amendment on budget [which] would have set up a situation where you could cut taxes to zero and nobody would care, but you couldn‘t raise spending. And so basically you could kill all the social services by simply reducing taxes to such a level that there would be no revenues to pay for them. For rural districts, where you‘ve got a lot of people who are reliant on government services … you really could not put up with that. … It was the Blue Dogs‘ basically refusing to support that and refusing to give the Republicans any kind of bipartisanship … that got the Republicans to moderate their proposal.13

In early February, the Blue Dogs made good their pledge to oppose their own party when Clinton introduced a $1.61 trillion budget for fiscal 1996. Browder, as a member of the House Budget Committee, ―lectured‖ Office of Management and Budget

Director Alice Rivlin that there was ―a new mood in Congress.‖ He told Rivlin, ―We favor cutting spending first rather than borrow and spend, tax and spend, even tax cut and spend.‖14

Coming Out Party

The Blue Dogs went public in a Washington news conference on February 14.

―They‘re still Democrats, but twenty-three House members are not exactly in the fold,‖ the Anniston Star reported the next day. ―The separate group … has promised its own agenda, staking out independent positions on everything from tax cuts to Welfare.‖15

13 David Plunkett, Washington, D.C., telephone interview with Geni Certain, Munford, Alabama, June 17, 2007. 14 Alan Fram, Associated Press, ―Democrats: Budget not affordable,‖ Montgomery Advertiser, February 8, 1995, sec. A, p. 1. 15 ―New Coalition wants independence from old party line,‖ Anniston Star, February 15, 1995, sec. A, p. 1.

194 Members of the group, which gave as its official name ―the Coalition,‖ were

Browder and his Alabama colleague Bud Cramer of Huntsville; Blanche Lambert

Lincoln of Arkansas; Gary Condit of California; Nathan Deal of Georgia; William

Lipinski of Illinois; Scotty Baesler of Kentucky; Billy Tauzin and Jimmy Hayes of

Louisiana; Collin Peterson and David Minge of Minnesota; Mike Parker and Gene Taylor of Mississippi; Pat Danner of Missouri; Bill Brewster of Oklahoma; John Tanner of

Tennessee; Charles Stenholm, Pete Geren and Greg Laughlin of Texas, Ralph Hall and

Bill Orton of Utah; and L.F. Payne and Owen Pickett of Virginia. Condit and Deal were co-chairmen. Browder, who was one of three Coalition members on the House Budget

Committee, headed the group‘s budget task force.

The announcement led inevitably to speculation that the Coalition members were preparing to change parties. 16 The Daily Home, a newspaper in Talladega, magnified

Browder‘s comment that identification with the moderate group was ―a way for some, particularly the southern Democrats, to survive.‖17 An editorial the next day suggested that, ―if the Coalition is nothing more than a subterfuge designed to support the

Republican agenda while remaining in the Democratic Party, then they should follow the lead of Richard Shelby, Alabama‘s best-known surveyor of political expediency: Just

16 Ted Bryant, ―Party lines continue to fracture,‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, February 18, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings. Bryant, who, in the years preceding his death in June, 1999, had been the most respected political journalist in Alabama, did not write about the Coalition again in 1996. However, in this column, he issued a surprisingly accurate prediction. He saw the emergence of the Coalition and a recent spate of party switching as the latest evidence of ―party fracturing,‖ which he said was minimizing the importance of political parties to voters — and thus to candidates. Bryant noted that the party switching was about getting elected, not ideology (implying that Coalition members would switch to the GOP if they thought it necessary to retain their seats), and correctly predicted that Alabama and the rest of the South within a few years would be solidly Republican. 17 Associated Press, ―Southern Democrats looking to coalition for political survival,‖ the (Talladega) Daily Home, February 15, 1995, sec. A, p. 1. The Daily Home is owned by the same company as Anniston Star and takes pains to assert its editorial independence from the larger paper, often taking a somewhat skeptical point of view on issues the Star supports.

195 switch.‖18 Although the Coalition members all said they were not considering such a change, the questions turned out to be appropriate, for within the year, five of the original

Coalition members — Deal, Tauzin, Hayes, Parker and Laughlin — did, indeed, become

Republicans.19

While The Coalition still had the attention of the media, Browder announced a proposal to tie tax cuts to actual progress toward balancing the budget.20 The bill, which

Browder introduced on March 8 as the Balanced Budget Dividend Plan, treated tax cuts as a dividend to be earned by meeting yearly deficit-reduction goals. No progress, no tax cut — and tax cuts already in place would be withdrawn in the case of deficit backsliding. The idea gained some support in the House, evolving into an amendment co-sponsored by Coalition member Bill Orton and by Republicans Michael Castle of

Delaware, Fred Upton of Michigan, and Bill Martini of New Jersey.21

A Smaller Slice for Alabama?

While the Blue Dogs supported the 1995 Balanced Budget Amendment, many of them had grave concerns about some of the consequences it portended for their states. In

February, Browder sent a letter to Alabama Governor Fob James and other state officials, warning them that Alabama would have to become a lot more self-sufficient if the

Balanced Budget Amendment were ratified and advising them to appoint a commission

18 ―Coalition members could woo voters with smart solutions,‖ the (Talladega) Daily Home, February 16, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings. Shelby had switched to the GOP the day after the 1994 mid-term elections gave Republicans a majority in the Senate. 19 ―Party switchers, past and present,‖ Inside Politics, CNN, 23 May 2001 (accessed online April 16, 2005, at: http://edition.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/05/23/switchers.list/). 20 Letter to House Members, February 15, 1995; the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Letters. 21 Press Release, ―Bipartisan deficit reduction bill introduced,‖ March 24, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Press.

196 to study the impact the amendment would have on the state. ―The fact that almost one-third of the revenue in Alabama‘s state budget comes from the federal government is only one indicator of the possible importance of the proposed amendment,‖22 his letter said. James never had to act on Browder‘s recommendation, as the Balanced Budget

Amendment failed in the Senate in March, 1995, and again in June, 1996. Nevertheless, balancing the budget remained a major component of the Contract With America, and it continued to influence the budget discussion for months to come.

Enthusiasm for a balanced budget among Browder‘s constituents met a serious challenge when the Birmingham News analyzed Alabama‘s dependence on federal money. The primary sources were Medicare, Medicaid, and Welfare, all targeted for major cuts in Republican budget plans. The newspaper zeroed in on one flash-point issue, school lunch programs, which in the Republican plan would be turned over to the states. The newspaper reported that in some Alabama counties, more than 99 percent of children depended on free or reduced-price meals at school.23 In Browder‘s district, that number amounted to about twenty thousand children.24 Governor James, a Republican- come-lately elected in 1994, said the benefits of a balanced budget would outweigh the hardship caused by reduced federal spending in Alabama, and he contended that all federal money for the state should be delivered in a lump sum, which the state could spend as it saw fit.25

22 ―Browder: Commission needed if budget amendment passes,‖ Anniston Star, February 27, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings. 23 Frank Sikora and Chris Roberts, ―How best to serve school meal programs,‖ Birmingham News, March 19, 1995, sec. A, p. 1. 24 Elizabeth Pezzullo, ―Loss of nutrition?‖ Anniston Star, April 26, 1995, sec. A, p. 1. 25 Chris Roberts and Dave Parks, ―Alabama‘s generous uncle,‖ Birmingham News, February 19, 1995, sec. A, p. 1.

197 Editorial pages in Browder‘s district ridiculed James‘s position and recommended that he take Browder‘s advice about getting some help dealing with the changes that appeared to be coming. ―Anyone who believes that Alabamians are ready to tax themselves more to provide some of these services now paid for by taxpayers who live in other states is not living in the real world,‖ the Daily Home said. ―Alabamians have a long history of detesting taxing themselves almost as much as they detest the federal government.‖26 The Anniston Star said Browder‘s ―sensible idea‖ of forming a commission to deal with the coming budget cuts was falling on deaf ears and that James was not dealing with reality in contending that the state would be happy to run its own school lunch program.27

While educators wrung their hands and wailed that students could not learn if their stomachs were empty and fear-mongering editorial writers warned that children who were not fed at school would become thieves, Representative Tom Bevill of Jasper,

Alabama, summed up the opposition to the Republican Welfare proposal: ―I cannot imagine anything more mean-spirited than taking food away from hungry children.‖28

Alabama‘s four Democrats in the House, Bevill, Browder, Cramer and Earl Hilliard of

Birmingham, asked Gingrich to reconsider the school lunch portion of the Welfare bill,29 but to no avail. The Republican Welfare reform bill passed in the final House vote, but

26 ―What has federal government done for us lately? A lot,‖ the (Talladega) Daily Home, February 21, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings. 27 ―Off-balance(d),‖ Anniston Star, February 28,1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings. 28 Sean Loughlin and Carl Hulse, ―GOP senators are preaching forgiveness,‖ (Florence) TimesDaily, March 13, 1995. The same column ran in the Gadsden Times and the Tuscaloosa News. All three papers are New York Times-owned. The Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings. 29 Associated Press, ―Alabama Democrats ask Gingrich to reconsider school lunch repeal,‖ Selma Times- Journal, March 8, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings.

198 the issue proved too divisive to be settled during 1995. It was carried over to the following year, when the system was completely overhauled along lines the Blue Dogs recommended.

Browder’s Dividend Plan

Meanwhile, the House had passed its annual rescissions bill, which would take back money allocated the previous year but not yet distributed. The bill would cut $17.2 billion, $11.5 billion of which Gingrich proposed to use as a down payment on the promised tax cut. Browder thought it outrageous to use the money saved from spending to pay for a tax cut when the country still expected a

$180 billion deficit. He proposed putting the savings into a ―lock box‖ to be used only to pay down the deficit.

Bowing to Coalition pressure, the House leadership changed the bill to include Browder‘s idea, but backed away from the lock box restriction in the final bill. The bill passed without Coalition support. The Senate a few days later voted unanimously to apply the $13.5 billion in savings from its rescissions bill to the deficit,30 throwing the issue back in the lap of House Republicans.

Although his lock box amendment was now dormant, Browder‘s Balanced

Budget Dividend Plan to tie tax cuts to deficit reduction was gaining momentum in the House. With less than three weeks to go in his one hundred day timetable,

Gingrich was pushing hard to pass the tax cut package before the budget was considered. Moderates of both parties were uncomfortable with that order. ―A

30Jerry Gray, ―Budget cuts must go to deficit, Senate says,‖ New York Times, March 30, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings.

199 number of members said they had a problem voting on a tax package without knowing how we are going to pay for it or having a balanced budget in line,‖

Republican Bill Martini, a co-sponsor of Browder‘s dividend bill, said in the New

York Times. Some three dozen Republicans supported the Coalition in its move to delay the tax cuts until it was clear how they would be paid for, but Gingrich was unmoved. Earlier in the week, about a hundred Republicans had demanded that he scale back a $500 per child tax credit that was part of the Contract, and

Gingrich had responded ―with a firm ‗No.‘‖31

Browder‘s dividend bill was introduced March 28. It would allow tax cuts to take effect as soon as the Congressional Budget Office certified that the budget was on track to balance in 2002 or sooner. The tax cuts would remain in place as long as the budget balanced, but they would be revoked in case of deficit spending. ―Glen‘s idea was that you tied future tax cuts to deficit reduction,‖ said Plunkett. ―The Republicans were pushing through a budget that would have called for reconciliation without taking account of the consequences of what the tax cut would do in regard to deficit reduction.

So the tax cuts were actually going to increase the deficit over time, and anybody looking at it and looking at the numbers would see that.‖

Plunkett continued, ―Glen was pushing to include language in the budget that required them to take account of those future consequences of lost revenues and find sufficient cuts to cover that. We got the Blue Dogs together on that — that gave us a bloc of Democrats who were pushing it — and got together with a group called the Tuesday

31 Jerry Gray, ―House GOP moderates demand delay in tax cut,‖ New York Times, March 25, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings.

200 Group, which was moderate Republicans who were very much concerned about deficits and the national debt.… We worked on that through the spring … and eventually what happened was the Republican leadership was able to reach a compromise with the moderate Republicans, and the bill that finally went out had some language on deficit reduction but didn‘t have the tight limits, you know the tight kind of enforcement that

Glen was looking for.‖32

Browder knew that even though about sixty House members from both parties supported the bill, Gingrich was unlikely to allow it to come to a vote — but neither could Gingrich ignore it. Browder predicted that the Republicans would attempt to pacify the bill‘s proponents by incorporating a ―fig leaf‖ of deficit reduction, lacking the enforcement provisions,33 and that‘s just what happened. The final bill ―articulated the rhetoric instead of the reality of deficit reduction,‖ Browder wrote in the May 1995 issue of Insight on the News magazine. ―The compromise asks only that: Congress adopt a budget that projects balance by 2002 and pass (but not enact) the reconciliation measures called for in that budget; that Congress tell the Budget committees to report on the deficit, but carries no penalty if Congress decides at a future date to forego balancing the budget; and that Congress require the president to submit a balanced budget.‖34

The House passed the tax cut bill, which Gingrich called the ―crowning jewel of the Contract With America,‖ on April 6. Browder voted for the tax cut, explaining that although the bill did not contain everything he wanted, ―the House GOP leadership did a

32 Plunkett, June 17, 2007. 33 Press Release, ―Browder warns of Republican ‗fig leaf‘ on deficit reduction,‖ April 3, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Press. 34 Glen Browder, ―Question: Should the tax cut be tied to deficit reduction?‖ Insight on the News, May 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings.

201 180 degree turn during consideration of the bill and endorsed the concept of what I had been fighting for.‖35 But he was not yet done with his dividend plan, nor with the lock box idea, for that matter.

Blue Dogs Start To Bark

With the passage of the tax cut and the expiration of the one hundred day timetable for the Contract With America, the pace in Washington slowed. Just before

Congress took its spring break, the Coalition held a news conference to tout its influence in shaping the Contract, and the members were wearing lapel pins emblazoned with a picture of a blue dog. They were the talk of the town. Everyone wanted to know how the

Blue Dogs related to Yellow Dog Democrats (an informal title applied to rabidly loyal southern partisans who vowed they‘d vote for an old yeller dog before they‘d vote for a

Republican) and where the picture of the blue dog had come from. ―There‘s a difference between a blue dog and a yellow dog,‖ Browder said at the time. ―A blue dog has a better sense of smell, and a blue dog will bite!‖ 36 The particular blue dog chosen as their mascot was the creation of New Orleans artist George Rodrigue. Rodrigue‘s paintings of his dog, Tiffany, appeared in windows and galleries all over the French Quarter, and

Billy Tauzin had one hanging in his Washington office. ―A blue dog knows the way; a blue dog finds the truth,‖ Rodrigue said.37

35 Associated Press, ―3 state Democrats back GOP tax cut,‖ (Florence) TimesDaily, April 7, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings. 36 Glen Browder, press release, April 19, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Press. 37 Sean Loughlin and Carl Hulse, ―GOP ‗Contract with America‘ leaves losers in its wake,‖ Gadsden Times, April 9, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings.

202 In mid-May of 1995, the Blue Dogs were ready to prove the truth of

Rodrigue‘s description. Still dissatisfied with the Republican proposal and lacking an alternative from the Democrats, the Blue Dogs had drafted their own budget. Like the

Republican plan, it cut spending to eliminate the federal deficit by 2002, but the cuts in social programs were not as deep because it put off a tax cut until the budget was balanced. Although Browder had passed the chair of the group‘s budget task force to

Orton to free himself to defend Calhoun County‘s Fort McClellan in the 1995 base closure round, the Blue Dog budget incorporated his original principles. The first of four proposals to be debated on the House floor, the Coalition plan mirrored the Republican package offered in the Senate by Budget Chairman Pete Domenici of New Mexico. It received one hundred votes, mainly from Democrats. The main Republican bill, sponsored by House Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich of Ohio, passed with two hundred thirty-eight votes, none of them from Blue Dogs.

The Coalition did not give up on its budget proposal. When the Senate passed

Domenici‘s bill, the Coalition sent a letter signed by sixty-five House Democrats to

Domenici and Kasich, asking that the conference committee delay tax cuts until the budget was balanced. To make sure the conferees paid attention, the Coalition made the letter‘s contents public and revived the lock box amendment for good measure. ―We do not oppose tax cuts, but believe that deficit reduction should be the highest priority in the budget debate,‖ the Coalition said.38

38 Press Release, Coalition Budget, FY 1996-97, June 2, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Press.

203 The reconciliation bill, which passed the House and Senate June 29, 1995, omitted the Coalition‘s recommendations. Described as a ―fiscal framework,‖ it did not require the president‘s signature. Clinton, however, warned he would veto specific spending bills that would come later if they followed the Republican plan, which provided the first details of how the Republicans would fulfill the Contract With

America‘s promises to balance the budget and cut taxes. Its proposed $894 billion in savings would come mostly from Medicare, Medicaid and other anti-poverty programs.

In addition, it would eliminate operating funds for mass transit systems, abolish the

Commerce Department and wipe out scores of other programs.

Anticipating a Shutdown

During July, 1995, progress on the budget backed up in the Senate. True to

Coalition predictions, the Contract With America had splintered when the time came to put the promises into spending bills. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Bob

Packwood of Oregon was pushing Democrats on the committee to forge a consensus on

Medicare, but $150 billion separated the most moderate Senate Democrats from the

Republican Medicare targets, and at least three Republican moderates, including

Packwood himself, were ―squeamish about shrinking Medicare enough to cover the $245 billion tax cut‖ the Republicans promised. In the House, Gingrich was resisting efforts to reveal plans for Medicare before mid-September ―to spare lawmakers the chore of

204 defending painful cuts during the August recess.‖ The press noted that time was running out for passing thirteen appropriations bills needed to keep government running.39

It would not be the first time the government had shut down for the lack of an operating budget — shutdowns had happened nine times since 1981, usually lasting only a weekend and having little impact. This time, though, more appeared to be at stake than a few days of inconvenience for tourists at parks and museums. The talk inside the

Beltway was all about the coming ―train wreck,‖ which would close government offices across the country, disrupt financial markets, hurt the dollar overseas, interrupt research projects and interfere with basic services at every level.40

Agreements on tax cuts, Medicare, Medicaid, and Welfare were not necessary to keep the government running, just the thirteen appropriations bills that contained operating budgets. But Clinton was expected to veto six of those bills and allow some federal employees to be furloughed for a few days while the two sides negotiated an agreement. The real fear was that the government would shut down again, and for a longer time, when he also vetoed the bill with the big ticket items.

As time ticked toward the September 30 end of the fiscal year, Browder and his

Coalition colleagues grew frustrated with the lack of progress. Browder told the Daily

Home that he expected all federal agencies except those deemed essential — essential agencies included Anniston Army Depot and the medium security Federal Correctional

39 Scripps Howard News Service, ―GOP‘s ‗Contract with America‘ stalled in Senate,‖ Decatur Daily, July 30, 1995, sec. A, p. 1. 40 Michael Shanahan and Miles Benson, ―The Great Budget Debate,‖ Newhouse News Service, Birmingham News, August 27, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings.

205 Institution in Talladega — would cease operating until the budget passed or until

Congress passed a continuing resolution to allow the government to keep running.

―Essentially, Congress and President Clinton are going to be staring at each other until one of the two blinks,‖41 he said. A last-minute continuing resolution delayed the shutdown until November 14, and the pace of negotiations picked up — with the

Coalition attempting to broker agreements on Medicare, Welfare and deficit reduction.

The Coalition Budget

The Blue Dogs had been working for months on a plan to cut $170 billion from

Medicare, enough to keep the program solvent but with none of the extra reductions the

Republicans wanted to help pay for their tax cut. Announcing the Medicare proposal at a late summer news conference in Jacksonville, Browder said the Coalition probably would miss the September 22 deadline for submitting it to the House Budget Committee.42 In fact, work on the proposal continued for nearly a month past the deadline, but in the end both the Republicans and the Democrats blocked it from coming to a vote. In response to being shut out, the Blue Dogs voted ―no‖ to the proposals offered by both parties. The

House passed the Republican bill, and Clinton vowed to veto it once it passed the Senate.

The Blue Dogs had a backup plan. They had revived their overall budget proposal and written their Medicare package into it. They were calling it the ―Common

Sense Budget‖ and said they hoped to get their entire package included in the House budget debate in late October. The Common Sense Budget incorporated both of

41 Paul Sims, ―Browder: Train wreck coming,‖ (Talladega) Daily Home, September 6, 1995, sec. A, p. 1. 42 Laura Tutor, ―Browder, others consider third Medicare plan,‖ Anniston Star, September 18, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings.

206 Browder‘s original proposals, delaying any tax cuts until the budget was on track to balance (the Balanced Budget Dividend Plan) and earmarking spending cuts for deficit reduction (the Lock Box Amendment). The Coalition plan had none of the $245 billion in tax cuts included in the Republican plan; it cut $100 billion less from Medicare, $95 billion less from Medicaid, $41 billion less from Welfare, $21 billion less from tax credits for the working poor and $9 billion less from farm programs; it contained none of the Republican plan‘s $10 billion in cuts from student loans nor any of that plan‘s $8.7 billion reduction in federal retiree benefits; it saved an additional $96 billion over the next seven years by subtracting 0.5 percent of the change in the consumer price index used to calculate cost of living adjustments for Social Security and other federal benefit programs.43

The Coalition budget was to be introduced in the House on October 26 as the only alternative to the Republican plan. No one expected it to pass. Republicans in the House and Senate already were trumpeting the day as the beginning of historic changes in how government functioned. Democrats were bitter. Alabama Representative Tom Bevill said he wished he could vote against the Republican bill twice.44 For Browder, it was another step in a process that was far from over.

The Blue Dogs had no hope their budget would pass. They did not expect to get any Republican votes, but they thought that if they could gain the support of enough

House Democrats to be considered a viable basis for a compromise after the Republican

43 David Pace, ―Conservative Democrats push budget alternative,‖ Associated Press, Opelika-Auburn News, October 26, 1995, sec. A, p. 1. 44 Brett Davis, ―Coalition says loss is a gain on budget,‖ Huntsville Times, October 26, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings.

207 budget was vetoed. The Republican budget passed the House on a straight party line vote, the Senate passed its version the following day, and President Clinton said he would veto it. The Coalition budget got a respectable seventy-two votes in the House, including some from Republicans, and the Senate version sponsored by Senator Paul Simon of

Illinois got nineteen votes, all Democratic.45

Train Wreck

In the aftermath of the vote, the Democrats and Republicans were poles apart.

The only people talking about compromise were the Blue Dogs and the editorial writers.

Newspapers large and small joined the Coalition in the effort to persuade the White

House and the Republicans to adopt the Common Sense Budget. The Washington Post said the Coalition budget was ―tougher and more credible than the president‘s mushy proposal, but would leave largely intact important federal programs that the Republicans would destroy.… It isn‘t a perfect plan, but it is a far better solution to the deficit problem than any other in sight just now.‖46 The Daily Home wrote, ―To [its] credit the

Coalition has now offered an alternative budget that makes much more sense than the one being pushed either by the Republicans or the one being supported by President Bill

Clinton. The Coalition budget offers a real chance to balance the federal budget without

45 Media Advisory, ―The Coalition And Its Senate Budget Allies Will Meet To Discuss Their Common Sense Budget As A Compromise And Outline A Post-Veto Budget Strategy,‖ Coalition Budget, FY 1996- 97, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Press. 46 ―Coalition budget is the best bet thus far,‖ Washington Post reprinted in the Alexander City Outlook, October 27, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings.

208 cutting so deeply into programs like Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs that offer hope and help to so many of our citizens.‖47

The White House had taken notice of the Coalition budget and had acknowledged that it was the most likely blueprint for an eventual agreement.48 However, reaching a compromise before the deadline would be impossible. The Republicans sent Clinton two continuing resolutions in early November, but he vetoed both. The government shut down at midnight, Tuesday, November 14, 1995. More than eight hundred thousand workers49 were furloughed and government services ranging from Social Security to the

National Parks Service were shut down until further notice.

A Birmingham News editorial said the resolutions had backed Clinton into a corner by including a commitment to balance the budget in seven years. Clinton, holding out for a ten-year plan, called this a ―terrorist tactic.‖ In response, Gingrich questioned

Clinton‘s truthfulness, education and work ethic.50

While Gingrich and Clinton were trading insults in the press, Coalition members continued pushing their budget as a logical compromise.51 They enlisted the support of

Representative Martin Sabo of Minnesota and Senators Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, Charles

Robb of Virginia, and Kent Conrad of North Dakota — all Democrats — and sent a letter

47 ―Browder, Coalition make sense in budget proposal,‖ (Talladega) Daily Home, October 26, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings. 48 Press release, ―Browder urges adoption of the Coalition‘s balanced budget plan,‖ November 14, 1995; the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Press. 49 Kevin R. Kosar, ―Shutdown of the Federal Government: Causes, Effects, and Process,‖ CRS Report for Congress, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, September 20, 2004 (accessed online October 29, 2007, at: http://www.rules.house.gov/archives/98-844.pdf). 50 ―Playing chicken,‖ Birmingham News, November 14, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings. 51 Media Advisory, November 14, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Press.

209 to Clinton urging him to give up his ten-year schedule for balancing the budget in favor of a seven-year goal. The letter implored the president to take another look at their proposal, which demonstrated it was possible to balance the budget in seven years ―while preserving the priorities that we share with you.‖52

The time had come when one side had to blink. Odds were that it would be

Clinton, who had a history of backing down. Coalition members gambled that he would listen to reason rather than stubbornly resisting a compromise while hundreds of thousands of federal employees were on unpaid leave and government services were unavailable nationwide.

Clinton, however, was in no hurry to reopen government offices. Only those employees whose jobs were deemed unessential had been sent home. Defense workers, prison employees and air traffic controllers remained on the job, but without pay. In addition, Clinton had signed six of the thirteen appropriations bills, enabling agencies such as the Army Corps of Engineers, the Veterans Administration, and the Postal

Service to continue operating. And although residents were frustrated that they could not get replacement Social Security cards nor have their passport applications processed, popular blame for the shutdown was being heaped upon the Republicans.53

Clinton stood fast. He said he‘d veto a continuing resolution the House passed the evening of November 15 because the Republicans still insisted on a seven-year schedule for balancing the budget. This time the Coalition‘s Alabama members agreed

52 Media Advisory, ―In Letter To The President The Coalition Asks For Commitment To Balance The Federal Budget In Seven Years,‖ November 15, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Press. 53 Jeff Hardy and George Werneth, ―Government shutdown a big inconvenience,‖ Mobile Press, November 15, 1995, sec. A, p. 1.

210 with the Republicans. ―It‘s time to put an end to the shutdown. It‘s time to stop politicking and get our government employees back to work. And it‘s time for the federal government to get serious about balancing the budget,‖54 said Cramer, whose district included Redstone Arsenal, Marshall Space Flight Center and numerous other federal agencies. The House vote was twelve short of enough to override the veto, so the shutdown continued through November 19, when a Sunday night vote produced an agreeable continuing resolution that brought government employees back to work and gave the budget negotiators until December 15 to work out an agreement.55

Both sides claimed victory in the resolution, and it showed the first real signs of movement. The agreement did not restore good will between the two sides, however, and a Gingrich aide said his boss was more than willing to ―let government offices go dark again if necessary to win the budget battle.‖56

By this time, in late 1995, the Blue Dogs were irritated with the partisan bickering, and some of them were feeling the wrath of federal employees in their districts. Browder and Cramer, whose districts were home to thousands of furloughed federal workers, refused their Congressional paychecks during the shutdown and introduced bills — that played well at home but predictably went nowhere in Congress — to deny pay to House and Senate members and the president during shutdowns. ―If

Congress and the White House can‘t keep the government running, then our salaries

54 David Pace, ―Three Alabama Democrats join GOP in plan,‖ Associated Press, Mobile Register, November 17, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings. 55 Jeff Hardy, ―Browder, Cramer: Freeze leaders‘ pay, too,‖ Mobile Register, November 21, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings. 56 Sean Loughlin and Carl Hulse, ―Government shutdown was only Round 1,‖ (Florence) TimesDaily, November 26, 1995.

211 should be the first items on the chopping block,‖ Cramer said.57 In a letter urging fellow Blue Dogs to support and co-sponsor his bill, Browder called the shutdown ―the height of irresponsibility,‖ and warned that a repeat was possible after December 15.58

December 15 came and went without a budget, and government offices closed.

Because Clinton had by this time signed several more appropriations bills, fewer than three hundred thousand workers were furloughed, but close to half a million whose jobs were rated essential continued to work without pay. This partial shutdown was the longest in history, lasting twenty-two days. The fight had come down to the biggest- ticket items: Medicare, Medicaid, Welfare and education.

Building Consensus at the Center

The country and the Congress, which the Anniston Star characterized as being

―weary of a political process which often seems to be more about bickering and self- aggrandizement than true accomplishment,‖59 were eager for Clinton and congressional leaders to come to terms. Some Democrats said they would like a chance to vote for a balanced budget plan before the next election (nearly a year away), and Billy Tauzin, now a Republican, had organized moderate House Republicans into another Blue Dog group, the Mainstream Conservative Alliance.

Since Clinton‘s veto of the Republican budget package on December 5, the

Coalition had engaged in ―an aggressive effort to build a consensus of support for its

57 Editorial, ―A sensible shutdown,‖ Birmingham News, November 21, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings. 58 Glen Browder, Letter to Coalition members, November 28, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Letters. 59 ―Middling good,‖ Anniston Star, December 5, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings.

212 centrist budget.‖60 They met at different times with Clinton Chief of Staff Leon

Panetta, Labor Secretary Robert Reich, Clinton advisor James Carville, Agriculture

Secretary Dan Glickman and as many lobbyists as could get slots on their schedule.

Members of the group met with the Gingrich and Kasich on the morning of December 7 and with Clinton that afternoon. Clinton, finally, was paying attention. At the meeting, he told the Blue Dogs of a new plan that would balance the budget in seven years. The

Coalition praised the new plan, but members were still uncomfortable with the tax cuts that both the White House and the Republicans offered. A new economic forecast from the Congressional Budget Office supplied some fuel for the Coalition‘s compromise engine. The growing economy had added $100 billion, reducing the necessity for the

Republicans to make such severe cuts in social programs.

If the new economic numbers provided the impetus for an agreement, they did not come in time to avert the second shutdown. While Congress adjourned for Christmas, many government workers had no paychecks over the holidays. Gingrich quashed one continuing resolution, and another was voted down in the House before the shutdown finally ended on January 6, 1996. Browder said it appeared to him that both sides wanted to see the budget standoff extend into the upcoming election season61 — an eventuality he especially wanted to avoid because he was preparing to announce his candidacy for a

Senate seat.

60 Press release, ―In wake of the president‘s veto of GOP budget, House & Senate members point to Common Sense 7-year balanced budget plan,‖ the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Press. 61 Anniston Star, December 29, 1995.

213 A breakthrough finally came at the end of January when a group of moderate

House Republicans offered a new plan to balance the budget in six years with no tax cut.

The Blue Dogs applauded the plan, pointing out its similarities to the Coalition budget.

On February 1, Browder sent a letter to the president asking that he consider tax cuts separately from the budget. Browder was among a group of twenty-six House members, thirteen from either party, who called on the president and the leaders in the House and

Senate to break the impasse by separating the issues of cutting taxes and balancing the budget.

A few days later, President Clinton sent Congress his budget proposal for fiscal

1997. Its major provisions were outlined in a letter to Browder from Treasury Secretary

Robert Rubin.62 Rubin‘s letter made it clear that the budget debacle of 1995 would not be repeated in 1996. The White House budget planners had incorporated the Coalition‘s primary goals in their 1997 proposal: It would balance over seven years, it would use non-partisan estimates,63 and it would terminate its tax cuts if the deficit had not fallen below a target amount.

Meanwhile, agreement on the final bills of the 1996 budget seemed no closer.

Browder and Cramer joined a group calling for an outside mediator for the budget

62 Robert E. Rubin, Letter to The Honorable Glen Browder, March 13, 1996, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Letters. This is Rubin‘s answer on behalf of President Clinton to Browder‘s letter of February 1. 63 A major source of disagreement in the 1996 budget was that the Clinton Administration based its revenue and spending projections on estimates supplied by the Office of Management and Budget, while Congress based its numbers on estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.

214 impasse. ―The country is ready to move on,‖ Browder said. ―We need something to jar the president and the congressional leadership into moving.‖64

Gingrich sent the House members home for the rest of February while the negotiators worked. When they returned to Washington, they brought a new mood to the

Capitol. Five major budgets remained to be passed and the fiscal year was nearly half over, but the House members appeared ready to finish work on the 1996 budget and get started on fiscal 1997.

Coalition Chairman Gary Condit told the National Journal’s CongressDaily on

March 18 that the Blue Dogs and House leaders were close to an agreement on a series of entitlement reforms that ―could form the basis of a new balanced budget plan.‖ The report said Condit‘s comments echoed those of Gingrich a day or two earlier and that while the focus in Congress had ―shifted to other legislation,‖ the Blue Dogs had continued quiet discussions with Republican colleagues about large entitlement reforms.

Gingrich also said that Republican leaders now were considering separating tax cut legislation from the balanced budget plan.65

House Republicans and the Blue Dogs achieved a satisfactory compromise in late

March, and the last of the fiscal 1996 budget bills finally passed on April 26, 1996.66

There were no fireworks to celebrate, only a collective sigh of relief. ―A late federal

64 Jeff Hardy, ―Browder, Cramer back resolution for budget mediators,‖ Mobile Register, February 1,1996, the Browder Collection, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, News Clippings. 65 ―Condit Says Blue Dogs, GOP Nearing Entitlement Deal,‖ National Journal’s CongressDaily, Washington, D.C., March 19, 1996. 66 Public Law 104-134 (accessed online October 29, 2007 at: http://www.nps.gov/legal/laws/104th/104- 134.pdf).

215 budget is better … than no budget at all,‖ a battle-weary Browder told reporters. ―We are halfway through the fiscal year,‖ he said, ―but we do have a budget.‖ 67

Browder said he felt gratified that the Democratic president showed leadership on the budget and embraced the Coalition‘s good-government reforms. Moreover, Browder said, Clinton credited the Blue Dogs for ending the impasse. Not only did the Coalition budget provide the basis for the eventual agreement, but the position of the moderate

Democrats also allowed Clinton to claim bipartisan support for compromise, saving face for his party when he signed the bill. ―Clinton thanked us for what we did and said that he could not have done it without us,‖ Browder recalled. ―He could not have brought the

Democratic Caucus to the table … and he could not have done the deal that we did with the Republicans. The fact is we had Democrats on board, which made it legitimate for him to say he would support the bipartisan package from Congress.‖68

Browder‘s work on the federal budget exemplifies the professor-politician‘s approach to public service. Bringing positive, fiscally responsible principles to the table and employing practical politics to push the agenda, the Blue Dogs forced the president of the United States, the Republican Party‘s congressional leadership, and their own

Democratic Party Caucus to deal responsibly with the fiscal crisis of that period. Within the next fiscal year, the U.S. budget achieved official balance, and surpluses followed for several years thereafter.

By the time the 1996 budget passed, Browder had announced that he would give up his House seat in January, 1997, and he was deep into his race for a Senate seat. The

67 Associated Press, ―Browder lauds budget accord,‖ Anniston Star, April 26, 1996. 68 Browder, October 13, 2005.

216 Alabama press took little notice of his leadership in resolving the budget crisis, so the eventual passage did not help him politically. He had entered the race late, lagged behind his strongest opponent in campaign funding, and lacked the party support he deserved.

But he‘d had little time to worry about his Senate race, because at the same time he was fighting the House leadership and the president over the budget, he also was fighting the

Pentagon to save Fort McClellan.

PLAYING DEFENSE

―I didn‘t go to Washington to fight the Battle of Fort McClellan,‖1 Browder reflected in 2005, ten years after he had lost the last fight to keep the base open. No matter what he intended to do in Congress, however, base closure would dominate his tenure in Washington. He didn‘t know it, but Fort McClellan already was on the inside-

Pentagon list of bases targeted to be closed when he was elected.

He did know that defense issues would be important in his service to his district, where the U.S. military was by far the largest employer. In the southwestern part of the district, Maxwell Air Force Base was an important regional anchor, although the installation itself was in Montgomery, just outside the district as it was then apportioned; and Fort Benning, an Army base at Columbus, Georgia, was a vital economic force for the southeastern portion of the district. More critically, Fort McClellan and Anniston

Army Depot, two interdependent bases, flanked Anniston‘s north and west sides in the most populous area of the district. Fort McClellan was home of the Army‘s Chemical

School and Military Police School, while Anniston Army Depot‘s main mission was tank maintenance. Additionally — and most significantly — the fort housed a training facility where soldiers learned to defend themselves against chemical and biological attack, and the depot sheltered an enormous stockpile of deteriorating Cold War munitions containing nerve and blister agents.

1 Glen Browder, interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, March 26, 2005. 217 218 Browder‘s predecessor, Bill Nichols, had held a seat on the House Armed

Services Committee, and even before Browder‘s election, Senator Howell Heflin of

Tuscumbia, Congressman Ronnie Flippo of Florence, and others in the Alabama delegation lobbied to have Nichols‘ seat on the committee reserved for him. The seat had been filled by the time Browder took office, but he didn‘t have to wait long before he got the assignment he most wanted through what he coyly called ―some opportune developments and politicking,‖2

No sooner had Browder secured his desired seat than he had to begin defending

Fort McClellan. The Army‘s determination to close the base shaped Browder‘s congressional career in ways he could not have anticipated. It diverted his attention from some of the government process reforms he hoped to pursue, but in the recurrent battles to save the fort, he gained expertise in chemical and biological weapons unparalleled among his House and Senate colleagues.

A Crash Course in National Security

The Army began trying to close Fort McClellan in 1989, when Browder was the most inexperienced member of Congress. To defend the base, Browder had to be able to argue authoritatively, forcefully, and convincingly that Fort McClellan was essential to the security of soldiers in the field. The professor-politician had to become the unquestioned expert, and he didn‘t have much time.

2 Glen Browder, interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, November 27, 2007. Browder said another seat on the committee had opened, and although it had been promised to another new House member, he was able to apply the leverage necessary to gain the seat for himself.

219 ―McClellan caused deep research into the doctrine of chemical warfare,‖ said

Ray Minter, who ran Browder‘s Washington office. ―Because you had to get in there in order to fight this thing, you had to get down to the lowest level and understand what the

Army‘s perspective was and what the rest of the world‘s perspective was about using chemical weapons. And that‘s what happened when Fort McClellan went on the closure list — intense study — and the first thing he had to do was study what it was that they did.‖3

―He studied hard,‖ said Vickie Plunkett, Browder‘s primary aide in military affairs. ―He studied the military‘s documents, he read a lot, and he went to all the briefings and listened, took notes. He did his homework — he was a good student. He used all kinds of resources — past congressional bills, the Congressional Research

Service, Library of Congress, National Academies of Science, National Research

Council. And he let the people at the base teach him. He developed relationships with the commanders at Fort McClellan, the Chemical School commanders and base commanders. And he did a lot of travel. He went to places throughout the country and other places in the world where he could see how they carried out their programs, what their challenges were.‖4

Knowledge that Iraq held chemical weapons and concern that these weapons would be used against American soldiers led Browder to travel to Kuwait with congressional delegations during Operation Desert Shield in December 1990 and

Operation Desert Storm in March 1991. He led delegations to Germany and eastern

3 Ray Minter, interviewed by the author, Anniston Army Depot, Bynum, Alabama, May 23, 2007. 4 Vickie Plunkett, Washington, D.C., interviewed by the author, Munford, Alabama, June 17, 2007.

220 Europe in November-December 1992 and December 1993 to study chemical weapons issues, including evidence that American soldiers had been exposed to nerve agent in

Iraq. Also in 1993, he chaired a special House Armed Services Committee inquiry,

Countering the Chemical and Biological Threat in the Post-Soviet World. The same year, he sponsored a section of the 1994 Defense Authorization Act establishing a stronger program for defending against chemical and biological attack. In January 1994, he accompanied a delegation to Russia to discuss that country‘s chemical weapons disposal plans, and he led two more delegations to Russia in July 1994 and November

1995 to monitor Russia‘s progress.

Dr. Paul Walker, the legacy program director for Global Green, the U.S. affiliate of the environmental group Green Cross International, was a professional staffer with the

House Armed Services Committee when he traveled with Browder to Russia in July

1994. Their mission: ―To inspect one of the largest Russian nerve agent stockpiles and discuss the opportunity to work jointly with Russia in destroying it,‖ Walker said. He continued:

We flew to Moscow and were met by senior Russian military officers who flew with us on to the Kurgan Oblast, just north of Kazakhstan, where we spent two days inspecting 5,400 tons of deadly nerve agents in over 2 million artillery shells and missile warheads. One drop of nerve agent will kill an individual in just a few minutes; this stockpile, one of seven large Russian Cold War arsenals, could be used to attack hundreds of cities and kill hundreds of thousands of people.

This historic 1994 on-site inspection of one of the most deadly places on earth — a Russian chemical weapons arsenal on the steppes of Siberia — is just one telling example of the serious commitment of Congressman Glen Browder to do the right thing — in this case, helping rid the world of deadly nerve agents in both Alabama and the remote areas of central Asia. I still recall the curious picture of all delegation members testing their bug-eyed Russian gas masks in

221 a tear gas tent prior to inspecting the stockpile. Little did we know in 1994 that these chemical weapons stockpiles would become potential targets for terrorists such as Al Qaeda just a few years later.‖

Upon return from this grueling congressional trip to Russia and chemical weapons stockpiles in 1994, Congressman Browder and I wrote a memo to the U.S. secretary of defense recommending that we secure these 2 million deadly nerve agent weapons and work closely with Russia to help eliminate them. The United States and Russia signed a bilateral agreement shortly thereafter and have jointly built a multi-billion-dollar destruction facility on the Kazakhstan border which will safely destroy this arsenal over the coming few years. This has been one of the most important and historic steps in global nonproliferation policy in recent history whose impact was underlined all the more by the tragic events of 9/11.5

During his first five years in Congress, Browder accumulated formidable expertise in national security issues, especially concerning chemical and biological weapons. Responsibility to his district drove him to pursue this knowledge, and the time he devoted to it was time he could not spend working on governmental reforms that he felt better suited to address. Nonetheless, by 1995, when he defended Fort McClellan for the last time, he was the undisputed authority in Congress on chemical and biological weapons. ―Understanding these unconventional weapons and national security was a central key in looking out for military installations and the defense-oriented economy of the Third Congressional District,‖ he said.6

Fighting for Fort McClellan

In the late 1980s, the U.S. Defense Department acknowledged that it had far more military bases than it needed. It had been unable to close any bases for a decade because

5 Paul Walker, Ph.D., ―Re: Glen Browder Biography,‖ e-mail message to the author, December 7, 2007. 6 Glen Browder, ―PP Attachments 12-14-07,‖ e-mail message to the author, December 14, 2007.

222 of political and environmental restrictions in the 1977 law governing base closings.7

The end of the Cold War and a declining national economy dictated that the Department of Defense close a large number of bases as a means of reducing long-term defense spending, 8 so in 1988 Congress passed a law allowing the secretary of defense to establish a commission whose twelve members would report back to him with a list for closure or realignment. The defense secretary would approve the commission‘s recommendations and forward them to Congress, which could only accept or reject the list in its entirety. This first Base Closure and Realignment Commission9 recommended closing eighty-six bases. The commission conducted its investigations in secret, and members of Congress from affected states complained that the commission refused to provide adequate substantiation for its recommendations.10 The General Accounting

Office in a 1989 audit of the commission‘s findings noted several errors in the commission‘s analysis and recommended procedural changes for the next round of base closings.11

When in January 1990 Defense Secretary Dick Cheney released a base closure list that included Fort McClellan, Browder had a little advance warning, thanks to a friendship Ray Minter had developed with a neighbor who worked at the Pentagon.

Minter said his neighbor had given him hints that Fort McClellan was in danger, but

7 The Defense Secretary‘s Commission on Base Realignment and Closure, Base Realignments and Closures: Report of the Defense Secretary’s Commission (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1988), 6. 8 Col. Stephen Schwalbe, USAF, ―An Exposé on Base Realignment and Closure Commissions,‖ Chronicles Online Journal, June 10, 2003: 1 (accessed online December 4, 2005, at http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/schwalbe.html). 9 Commonly abbreviated as BRAC. The acronym, pronounced as a word, does not follow the initials of the official name of the commission. BRAC is used for the commission and for the base closure process. 10 Schwalbe, 5. 11 U.S. General Accounting Office, Military Bases: An Analysis of the Commission’s Realignment and Closure Recommendations (Washington, D.C.: GPO, November 1989), 3.

223 Minter did not recognize them as such. First the friend suggested to Minter that

Calhoun County would be better off if its economy were not so dependent on the military. Another time, he offered the opinion that Fort McClellan was more of a burden than a blessing, that it was holding people down more than it was helping them. ―That prompted a philosophical argument,‖ Minter said. ―That probably went on for about two weeks, and then finally he told me: ‗This could be my job, but I‘m going to tell you anyway, just because I think this much of you and Glen. McClellan‘s on the closure list.‘

I called Glen that night and said, ‗I‘ve got some really bad news.‘ When I told him, he was silent for a long time. And he said, ‗Are you sure? Is he sure?‘ And I said, ‗He‘s sure. It‘s going to happen.‘‖12

In the early days of the fight, the local community had little confidence that their young champion in Washington was equal to the task. ―Glen was catching so much hell,‖ Minter said. ―Everybody uptown was saying all the time, ‗If Bill Nichols had been here, this never would have happened.‘ That‘s all we heard, day in and day out.‖ The truth was, Minter related, that Fort McClellan was on the original list in 1988, but former

Alabama Congressman Jack Edwards, who was a co-chairman of the 1988 base closure commission, quietly removed it after Nichols died. Minter quoted Edwards as having told the commission members, ―I could look Bill Nichols in the eye and tell him that this was the right thing to do, but I can‘t look his widow in the eye and tell her that we closed this place after he died.‖ Minter said that even though Edwards explained the sequence of events to the Calhoun County Chamber of Commerce, ―there was still that mindset that if Bill Nichols had been here, this wouldn‘t have happened. It would have happened

12 Minter, May 23, 2007.

224 regardless of who was there,‖ he said. ―As a matter of fact, it would have happened quicker if he had been there.‖13

Such were Browder‘s stakes in this fight. He not only had to find a way to thwart the Army, he also had to prove his mettle to his Third District constituents. He lacked military credentials, but at least he had his seat on the House Armed Services Committee.

Now he asked Chairman Les Aspin for an appointment to the Military Installations

Subcommittee. Comparing notes with other members of Congress who had bases on the list, he found that they all shared a sense that the choice of bases to be closed was arbitrary. Realization dawned that the only way he could hope to make the case for Fort

McClellan was to get the process changed.

Browder organized twenty of these disgruntled House members into a coalition that they called the Fairness Network. Together, they began pushing to reform the base closure law.14 Browder and Aspin wrote new legislation which would change the structure of the commission to a maximum of eight members appointed by the president and would prescribe objective guidelines for evaluating bases to be closed or realigned.

Browder served on the House-Senate conference committee that ironed out the final bill

President George H.W. Bush signed into law in November 1990. The new law authorized three BRAC rounds two years apart as a way of assessing bases‘ military value and depoliticizing base closings. It replaced the existing process for closing military installations and stopped all action on Cheney‘s recommendations.

13 Ibid. 14 Glen Browder, interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, September 26, 2005.

225 Even as the press back in Alabama hailed Browder‘s victory in his first effort to save Fort McClellan, he warned that the celebration might be short-lived. ―There is no way we can guarantee one hundred percent protection for Fort McClellan or any other bases in the country against future defense adjustments,‖ Browder said. ―But we are mandating that if Fort McClellan reappears on next year‘s new base-closure candidates list, then any final decision must be based on a fair and open process.‖15

The fort did appear on the new list Cheney recommended in 1991 for closing, but the seven-member commission rejected the recommendation, five votes to two. Mindful of the concern that chemical weapons might have been used against American soldiers in the Persian Gulf War, the commissioners maintained the Army needed the live chemical agent training that was done only at Fort McClellan. No other community had agreed to allow the dangerous training. When the commission removed Fort McClellan from the closure list, again the local community cheered Browder for saving the fort, even as one commissioner noted that the Army could ―try again in two years.‖16

The Army sought to close only two major bases in 1993, and Fort McClellan was one of them. Ironically, the new defense secretary was Les Aspin, Browder‘s Armed

Services Committee colleague who had sponsored the BRAC-enabling legislation.

Aspin‘s recommendation to the commission noted that Fort McClellan had ―the least amount of facilities and smallest population‖ of any of the Army‘s individual training schools and was ranked ninth of thirteen installations in its category.17 Live agent

15 Mike Stedham and Craig Whitlock, ―For now, a reprieve,‖ Anniston Star, October 18, 1990, sec. A, p. 1. 16 ―19 minutes of TV drama,‖ Anniston Star, July 1, 1991, sec. A, p. 1. 17 U.S. Department of Defense, 1993 Defense Base Closures and Realignments (Washington, D.C.: GPO, March 12, 1993) 24.

226 training was still a consideration, and the Army proposed to keep the Chemical

Defense Training Facility (CDTF in Army parlance) open at Fort McClellan but move all other operations to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.

Browder‘s staff compiled data showing that the cost savings of moving Fort

McClellan‘s other missions would be eroded by additional expenses required to maintain the CDTF as a stand alone operation. The commissioners voted six to one to remove Fort

McClellan from the closure list. They agreed that live agent training should not be separated from the Chemical School and instructed the Army to secure the necessary permits before attempting to move either the Chemical School or the CDTF again.

Economics, however, was a minor factor in the decision to keep Fort McClellan open in 1993, Browder said in a 2005 interview. At the time of the base closure hearings,

Browder was in his second year as chairman of the two-year special House inquiry,

Countering the Chemical and Biological Threat in the Post-Soviet World. He had uncovered information that would provide a strong reason for keeping Fort McClellan open but was too sensitive for public disclosure. Browder arranged to give secret testimony to the base closure commission members in a ―bug-free room.‖ He revealed the Soviet Union had been conducting its own live agent training and Russia was continuing that program. Just as significant, he also told the commissioners, about one hundred people had died from chemical exposure during each year of the Soviet and

Russian training. Browder‘s information about the Soviet and Russian program made clear not only the necessity of continuing U.S. training, but also the deadly consequences when the training was not conducted to the Fort McClellan standards. Browder said,

227 ―There was no facility in the world comparable to the CDTF at Fort McClellan for quality and safety of training.‖18 Browder said that it was his secret testimony soon after the end of the Cold War that persuaded the commission to keep Fort McClellan open at least two more years.

The General Accounting Office report on the Army‘s 1993 evaluations, however, provided guidance on how to succeed in closing the base in the next round. The GAO was pushing the Defense Department to find ways to consolidate similar missions and saw such an opportunity in moving Fort McClellan‘s Chemical School, CDTF and

Military Police School to Fort Leonard Wood, where the Army‘s Engineers School was located.19 In its next attempt to close Fort McClellan, the Army would emphasize the efficiency gained from consolidating these missions.20

The Last Battle

Long before the 1995 base closure list was announced, Browder knew that if Fort

McClellan were on the list, efforts to save it would have little chance of succeeding. The

Pentagon was playing hardball as never before, and the Army was getting better with its argument. Even as he prepared his case and lined up allies in Washington, he counseled the folks back home to prepare for life without the fort.

In 1995, Congress was in a budget-cutting frenzy. The House of Representatives was implementing its Contract With America, which called for both a tax cut and a plan

18 Glen Browder, interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, December 20, 2005. 19 U.S. General Accounting Office, Military Bases: Analysis of DOD’sRecomendations and Selection Process for Closures and Realignments (Washington, D.C.: GPO, April 1993), 68. 20 Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, Report to the President (Washington, D.C.: GPO, July 1, 1995) chapter 1, p. 1.

228 to balance the budget. Deficit spending had become routine, and the national debt approached $5 trillion. With the Cold War over, budget cutters looked hungrily at the bloated defense appropriation, dreaming of the Peace Dividend deep cuts could bring.

In that context, Secretary of Defense William Perry directed a ―deep BRAC‖ for 1995, intended to close many more bases in all services to reduce total capacity at least 15 percent.21

The military used the same criteria for evaluating bases as it had in the two previous rounds: military value, return on investment and impacts on the existing and receiving communities. Incorporating criticisms from the GAO audits of the two previous rounds and under intense pressure to present recommendations that would be upheld by the commission, the Army had honed its procedures for arriving at objective evaluations.22

Browder was now the recognized congressional authority on chemical and biological warfare.23 He used the full weight of this reputation to try to convince Army,

BRAC and Clinton administration decision-makers that Fort McClellan was critical to national security. Browder hoped that growing concern about international terrorism would compound the credence of his arguments — word was beginning to leak out that

American troops had been exposed to Iraqi chemical weapons during Operation Desert

Storm, and the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and

21 Maj. Gen. John P. Herrling, U.S. Army Chief of Staff, Memorandum for Commanders, TRADOC Installations, ―Preparation for Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) 95‖ (Fort Monroe: Department of the Army, February 1994) 1; the Browder Collection, Box 131, BRAC 1994. 22 Ibid. 23 Glen Browder, Countering the Chemical and Biological Weapons Threat in the Post-Soviet World, U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Armed Services (Washington, D.C.: GPO, February 23, 1993).

229 the release of sarin nerve gas in the Tokyo subway system both happened within a month of the BRAC list announcement.

Knowing the Army and the BRAC commission would be unmoved by pleas of economic devastation to the local community, Browder framed his arguments solely on national security issues:

Moving the CDTF would detract from the nation‘s readiness to combat a chemical or biological attack because live agent training would halt for the seven to ten years required to duplicate the facility elsewhere. Either duplicating it or maintaining it as a stand alone facility at Fort McClellan would eliminate much of the cost savings gained by closing the base. Alabama environmental permits for live agent training already were in place; other states were unlikely to grant such permits; and the Army was under orders to secure the necessary permits in the destination state before it proposed to move either the Chemical School or the CDTF. The CDTF was crucial in U.S. compliance with the international Chemical Weapons Convention, which had been signed in 1993. Fort McClellan had the only facility at which international inspectors could receive live agent training. Closing the facility would signal to other countries that the United States was not serious about compliance. Support from Fort McClellan was specified in the state environmental permits for chemical weapons disposal at Anniston Army Depot, where some 4.5 million pounds of munitions containing sarin, VX nerve agent and mustard agent awaited construction of an incineration facility to destroy them. Withdrawing McClellan‘s support would jeopardize the incineration permits and delay destruction of the weapons, extending the danger to the local populace and reneging on the Chemical Weapons Convention requirement to destroy chemical weapons stockpiles by 2007.24

The Army, however, had learned to counter all the arguments for keeping Fort

McClellan open. Army officials made a secret deal with Missouri Governor Mel

Carnahan in mid-February 1995 to expedite environmental permits for live agent

24 Glen Browder, letter to Secretary of Defense Les Aspin, March 9, 1993, the Browder Collection, Box 144, Chemical Demilitarization 1992.

230 training.25 The Army recommended moving the CDTF with the Chemical School to

Fort Leonard Wood, saying the expense was reasonable. And it contended that the promised emergency support for Anniston Army Depot could come from other Defense

Department resources.26

As in previous rounds, Browder had early indications that Fort McClellan would be on the Army‘s closure list. His staff had been compiling data and preparing counterarguments for more than a year before the list was announced on February 28.

His public statements in the days leading up to the announcement were resolute.

Responding to a list leaked to the New York Times in late February, he conceded to the

Anniston Star that the list was ―probably authentic‖ and that getting Fort McClellan removed again would be ―a long shot.‖27 On the same day, he told the Birmingham News that he wouldn‘t be surprised if Fort McClellan were not on the final list, but that

Anniston would survive even if the base closed. ―At this point, we just have to be patient,‖ he said. ―We‘re veterans and we know the process.‖28 The morning before

Perry sent his list to the commission, Browder told the Birmingham News that if the base were on the list, ―We‘ll roll up our sleeves and take our case back to the base-closure commission.‖29

When it became clear that the Army would be willing to bear the expense of duplicating the CDTF and could get the necessary permits, Browder aggressively shifted

25 Thomas Hargrove and Peter Copeland, ―Deal imperils McClellan,‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, February 28, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 123: BRAC Clippings/Fairness Network. 26 BRAC 1995, chapter 1, p. 2. 27 Eric Larson, ―Browder unready to sound alarm just yet,‖ Anniston Star, February 26, 1995, sec. A, p. 1. 28 Rose Livingston and Michael Brumas, ―McClellan may face military ax once again,‖ Birmingham News, February 26, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 123: BRAC Clippings/Fairness Network. 29 Michael Brumas, ―Fight for McClellan on again,‖ Birmingham News, February 28, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 123: BRAC Clippings/Fairness Network.

231 his focus to security issues surrounding Anniston Army Depot. After Perry announced his recommendations, Browder published a lengthy statement in the Anniston

Star in which he vowed he would do ―everything in [his] power‖ to block construction of the incinerator at the depot. He told the newspaper that saving the fort was his first priority but, failing that, he would oppose the incineration permits, ask the Senate to put off ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention and seek to force the Army to move the depot‘s stockpile to Missouri.30 Most people the newspaper interviewed thought

Browder was bluffing, particularly about moving the stockpile, and years later he admitted that he was.31 However, in the heat of battle, he was willing to carry his bluff onto the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. On March 3, he introduced a bill that would repeal the prohibition against transporting chemical weapons across state lines and would require the Army to move the Anniston stockpile with Fort McClellan.

―I think what he was doing was making a bigger point about if you‘re going to remove the Chemical School from here, just go on, just take it all,‖ said Vickie Plunkett.

―This is very simplistic, but you‘re taking the good and leaving the bad.‖32

David Plunkett agreed that Browder was emphasizing his safety concerns, but he said Browder also was venting the feelings of the people of his district. ―That‘s a case where … you express the frustration and the anger of the people in the state, and then you

30 Eric Larson, ―The battle is joined; Browder vows: No fort, no incinerator,‖ Anniston Star, March 1, 1995, sec. A, p. 1. 31 Browder, September 2005. 32 Vickie Plunkett, Washington, D.C., interviewed by the author, Munford, Alabama, June 17, 2007.

232 come back and do the right thing. Sometimes the right thing is to give expression to the populace through a bill that you know will never pass the full House.‖33

As expected, Browder‘s bill died in committee because it was ―too controversial.‖34

Browder was eloquent in his outrage at the treatment his home district was receiving at the hands of the Army. ―For more than forty years, the Pentagon has dumped its chemical garbage on Alabama, and Fort McClellan promised to be our

‗rescue squad‘ in case there was any problem,‖ he said. ―Now they want to shut down the rescue squad and strike a match to that stockpile.‖35 He accused the Defense

Department of looking for loopholes to get out of its responsibility to provide emergency support for the depot, and asserted, ―It‘s not their decision to make. The decision is going to be made by the State of Alabama, the Alabama Department of Environmental

Management. Not by the Pentagon.‖ Moving the stockpile, he said, was no more dangerous than removing the safeguards that Fort McClellan provided.36

For the next three months, Browder met often with the local support team and with the BRAC commissioners. Hopes rose and fell with each news report. But when the BRAC commission met in late June to vote on Fort McClellan, the news was the worst possible.

33 David Plunkett, Washington, D.C., interviewed by the author, Munford, Alabama, June 17, 2007. 34 Rebecca Wiener, ―Cash cutoff for chemical weapons dies in committee,‖ States News Service, Anniston Star, May 5, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 123: BRAC Clippings/Fairness Network. 35 Eric Larson, ―Browder makes good on threat,‖ Anniston Star, Anniston, March 3, 1995, sec. A, p. 1. 36 ―Browder restates pledge to link chemical missions at AAD, McClellan,‖ Jacksonville News, March 8, 1995, 1.

233 The eight commissioners divided evenly on whether to close the base, which would have saved the base in previous BRAC rounds; however, the commissioners had decided at the start of this final effort to change policy so that a tie went to the Army.

What was worse, two of the commissioners had personal connections to Missouri and did not recuse themselves. The chairman was former Illinois Senator Alan Dixon, who in

1995 was a senior partner in a St. Louis-based law firm. Commissioner S. Lee Kling was a St. Louis insurance executive and banker. Both voted to close Fort McClellan.37 The commissioners did take into account the need to maintain live agent training, so they changed one aspect of the Army‘s recommendation — they would keep the CDTF open at Fort McClellan until the new facility was operational in Missouri, a decision that would prolong the closing process and delay redevelopment in Alabama.38 The commission said in its report to the president that the Army would ―use the best available assets to provide the necessary support to Anniston‘s demilitarization mission,‖39 but did not specify what those assets were. Its recommendation was that the Army retain

―minimal essential facilities‖ to meet its obligation for emergency support for Anniston

Army Depot.‖40

At this point, the only thing that could save Fort McClellan was the personal intercession of President Clinton. Browder appealed to the president but conceded that removing bases from the list would be politically risky for Clinton. ―If he takes

California off the list, what does he tell Texas? If he takes Alabama off the list, what

37 Eric Larson, ―Money, politics beat fort arguments,‖ Anniston Star, June 29, 1995, sec. A, p. 1. 38 Thomas Hargrove, ―McClellan closure could be years in making,‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, June 26, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 123: BRAC Clippings/Fairness Network. 39 BRAC 1995, chapter 1, p. 1. 40 Ibid, 2.

234 does he tell California,‖ Browder said.41 He told his constituents that Anniston must

―plan for a future of uncertainty with the eventual closure of Fort McClellan as a likely possibility.‖42 As expected, Clinton did not intervene during the two weeks before the commission sent him its recommendations. He approved the list and sent it to Congress, which also approved it.

Closure

In months following the decision to close Fort McClellan, Browder was more involved than he wanted to be in the fractious debate over how to minimize the economic impact of the loss of the base and start the redevelopment process. As various organizations vied for standing to be the official agency to receive redevelopment grants,

Browder worried that the community‘s efforts were ―inadequately focused, overly fragmented and lacked sufficient public support.‖43 Although he was in the middle of an intense fight over the federal budget and he needed to get serious about running for the

Senate, the community sorely needed Browder‘s coalition building skills to get the development process moving in the right direction.

The process would have been slow, painful, and complicated under the best of circumstances, but it was hindered even more with the emergence of details the Army had overlooked or suppressed during the BRAC hearings. The base had to be cleaned up, or remediated, before the land and buildings could be turned over for civilian use. The

41 Eric Larson, ―Browder has faint hope now,‖ Anniston Star, June 27, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 123: BRAC Clippings/Fairness Network. 42 Stephanie Desmon, ―Won‘t give up on fort; Browder plans final effort for McClellan,‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, June 27, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box 123: BRAC Clippings/Fairness Network. 43 Glen Browder, ―What should we do after BRAC decision?‖ Anniston Star, July 25, 1995, sec. A, p. 1.

235 cost and time required for remediation had not been included in the expense estimate for closing the base. Not only did the base have contamination from the chemical and smoke training that had been conducted there, it also had many undeveloped acres whose hillsides had been used as targets for artillery training and now were minefields of unexploded ordnance. Just walking through the woods at Fort McClellan could be deadly. Remediation was going to add years to the redevelopment schedule.

Fort McClellan closed on schedule in 1999 at an estimated cost to the Army of

$231 million and an annual savings of $40.6 million.44 The estimated cost to the local community was $600 million a year,45 the largest impact of any closure in the 1995

BRAC round.46 In 2006, the General Accounting Office declared that the Anniston-area economy had recovered 94 percent of the civilian jobs lost in closing the fort. The report did not address the economic loss of the removal of two thousand military personnel, nor the loss of civilian jobs in the private sector that had been supported by the military‘s presence in the community.47

Toxic Terror at Anniston Army Depot

All the while the Army was attempting to close Fort McClellan, it also housed a few miles away in semi-subterranean igloos at Anniston Army Depot a stockpile of Cold

War chemical weapons sufficient to kill every man, woman, and child in the United

States. Browder and Minter realized very early the looming danger of this toxic stockpile

44 BRAC 1995, chapter 1, p. 1. 45 Larson, June 29, 1995. 46 BRAC 1995, chapter 1, p. 2. 47 ―Observations on Prior and Current BRAC Rounds,‖ Military Base Closures, Statement Before the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, United States Government Accountability Office, Washington, D.C., May 3, 2006.

236 and the struggle that lay ahead, based on the deteriorating condition of the weapons, a

Chemical Weapons Stockpile Destruction Program enacted during Bill Nichols‘ tenure, and the requirements of the Chemical Weapons Treaty which U.S. President George

Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed in 1993. They knew that this was going to be another gut-wrenching struggle for themselves and their constituents; and they did not look forward to dealing with this problem on top of their Fort McClellan burden.

Housing the chemical weapons stockpile was a minor aspect of the work at

Anniston Army Depot, which actually contributed more to the local economy than did the fort across town. The base‘s primary mission was tank maintenance, and it excelled at that mission, Browder said. ―The workers at this installation performed vital functions for decades, quietly preparing America‘s tracked military vehicles and other weaponry for any and all activities around the globe,‖ he said.48 Although various base closure rounds menaced Anniston Army Depot as well as Fort McClellan, eventually the depot would see a net gain in jobs and missions from the process.

The loss of jobs and the damage to the economy were secondary to worries about safety at Anniston Army Depot, however. Concern about the danger of catastrophic explosions and escaping nerve gas spanned a range from mere awareness to genuine terror, and the impending loss of Fort McClellan raised the level of fear in every citizen.

The Army began pushing in the early 1990s for local and state permission to build a state of the art incineration plant at Anniston Army Depot to dispose of the chemical weapons stockpile. A prototype incinerator already was being tested on Johnston Island,

48 Browder, December 14, 2007.

237 an atoll in the Pacific, and the first mainland copy was under construction at Deseret

Chemical Depot at Tooele, Utah. Opinions about whether to allow the Anniston incinerator to be built ran hot on both sides. No one disputed that the weapons had to be destroyed, but some people believed that incineration was not the way to go about it.

They worried that deadly nerve or mustard gas would be released into the air if one or more of the increasingly unstable weapons exploded while being transported or dismantled, and they did not trust the Army‘s assurances that toxic fumes would not be discharged from the incinerator‘s smokestack. They wanted the Army to switch to a different disposal method that did not require incineration. The most often cited alternative was a method of neutralization, which would reduce the chemicals to a less toxic state. The Army had committed to incineration years earlier and now maintained that none of the alternative methods had been sufficiently developed and tested, so that switching to one of them would delay the disposal process. Local incineration proponents agreed that changing plans would cost valuable time during which a dangerous chemical leak became increasingly likely, and they looked longingly at the promise of a large number of high paying construction and engineering jobs.

The Anniston chemical weapons demilitarization program indeed was big business, which helped the area economically while the controversial incineration process proceeded during the 1990s. Even as the chemical destruction program continued, however, Anniston area leaders and activists continued their contentious, divisive debate; the local community continued to argue with the Army; and occasional skirmishing broke out among Washington politicians. In one example, the Republican Congress,

238 continuously looking for ways to balance the federal budget while funding a tax cut, in 1995 turned a miserly eye on the chemical weapons disposal program. GOP

Representative Jay Dickey of Arkansas proposed building only three incinerators rather than seven and transporting the stockpiles from other storage sites to these regional disposal centers. The sites to which Dickey proposed to move all the nation‘s remaining chemical weapons were Tooele, Utah, which was close to coming online, Anniston, which was closest to starting construction, and Pine Bluff, Arkansas, which was scheduled to begin after Anniston.49

Such a move would require that Congress repeal the prohibition against transporting chemical weapons across state lines, (an action which Browder, in a fit of pique, had proposed a few months earlier to try to force the Army to take Anniston‘s stockpile to Missouri when it closed Fort McClellan). Browder had been bluffing, but

Dickey, apparently, was serious, and Browder had to quell this idea. He told reporters that Congress probably would try to authorize a feasibility study in the Defense

Authorization Budget, but he said he did not want even to investigate the possibility of transporting chemical weapons because he was concerned that the Army would misinterpret a directive to study as an endorsement. Although Browder sat on both the

House Budget Committee and the House Armed Services Committee, the Republicans controlled Congress and he was unable to keep Dickey‘s proposal out of the Defense

Authorization Bill. Fortunately, he also got a seat on the House-Senate conference

49 Eric Larson, ―Browder will fight proposal to consolidate incineration,‖ Anniston Star, August 18, 1995, sec. A, p. 1.

239 committee and from there was able to eliminate wording that would have allowed the feasibility study from the final bill in mid-November.

Since 1996, Browder‘s last year in Congress, the Chemical Weapons

Demilitarization Program has proceeded successfully and without serious accident.

Chemical weapons destruction at the Anniston facility began August 8, 2003, and by mid-December 2007, more than one-third of the dangerous agents and weapons had been eliminated, including all of the sarin and almost half of the VX nerve agent.50

Although ultimately Browder lost his ―Battle of Fort McClellan,‖ he led the way for his community to relieve its toxic terror; and along the way he helped the Cold War powers to find a path to finally eliminate their stores of dangerous chemical weapons.

Gulf War Syndrome

Having learned so much about the effects of chemical and biological weapons during his work with Fort McClellan and Anniston Army Depot, Browder recognized the possibility of exposure when Desert Storm veterans during the Iraqi operations of 1991 began displaying a strange set of apparently unrelated symptoms.

Some of Browder‘s constituents serving in the conflict presented him with convincing argument and some evidence that American soldiers had come into contact with chemical agents while in the Persian Gulf area. In his visit to the Czech Republic in

1993, he had learned from Czech defense officials and a field commander (whom he interviewed personally) that Czech soldiers had detected low levels of nerve and mustard agent early in the war. He also had learned that British veterans of the Persian Gulf were

50 Mike Abrams, CMA Anniston Public Affairs Office, ―Anniston Update,‖ e-mailed to the author December 17, 2007.

240 experiencing symptoms similar to those of their American counterparts. Furthermore,

Browder had discovered that the Pentagon had hard evidence of chemical incidents.

In February, 1994, Browder requested that the United Nations turn over any reports it had about chemical weapons found in Iraq after the Gulf War. Browder‘s inquiry prompted the U.S. Defense Department to examine its records and interview veterans, with the eventual result that the United Nations acknowledged Iraqi stores of chemical weapons had been damaged or destroyed, presumably by Coalition bombing, during Desert Storm.51 He also introduced legislation to help veterans get health care and to establish an independent investigation with testimony before Congressional committees. The investigations eventually confirmed that Coalition forces likely had been exposed to mustard and nerve agents at several locations in Iraq, including up to ninety-nine thousand soldiers in the vicinity of an Iraqi munitions dump at Khamisiyah, which U.S. Marines destroyed shortly after the war. Faced with this mounting knowledge, the Clinton administration took a number of steps to determine whether U.S. veterans had been exposed to chemical weapons and to provide for their health care.

Among them:

August 1995 — President Clinton created the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans‘ Illnesses. November 1996 — The Secretary of Defense established the position of Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses to focus ongoing Department of Defense investigations and expand the investigation into Gulf War veterans‘ complaints of undiagnosed illnesses. January 1998 – President Clinton created the Presidential Special Oversight Board for the Department of Defense Investigations of Gulf War Chemical and Biological Incidents to provide recommendations based on its review of

51 Glen Browder, ―Chronological Fact Sheet on Chemical/Biological Issues,‖ September 28, 2005, the Browder Collection.

241 Department of Defense investigations into possible detections of, and exposures to, chemical or biological weapons agents, and environmental and other factors that may have contributed to Gulf War illnesses.52

Immediately after the war and for the next decade, the military was cautious about confirming chemical exposure and it appeared to be dragging its feet in finding ways to treat veterans‘ mysterious illnesses. In 1995, a Defense Department medical spokesman reported that the distribution of Gulf War veterans‘ illnesses matched that in the civilian outpatient population and that as a group Gulf War veterans were not significantly disabled.53 Defense Department investigations over the next several years discounted the multiple incidents of detections of chemical agents as ―false positives‖ 54 that were misinterpreted by undertrained personnel.55

The Alabama National Guard sent more soldiers to the Persian Gulf than any other state, and when the returning veterans complained that they were sick and the Army was not listening, Browder believed them. In commentary for the Birmingham News, he detailed the symptoms of what had begun to be called Gulf War Syndrome: ―inexplicable combinations of ailments such as headaches, depression and fatigue, shortness of breath, memory loss, hearing loss, weight loss, rashes, pain, diarrhea, bleeding, heart

52 William Winkenwerder Jr., Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs) and Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness) for Gulf War Illnesses, Medical Readiness, and Military Deployments US Department of Defense, ―US Demolition Operations at Khamisiyah, Final Report,‖ 2001131-0000012 Ver. 3.0, April 16, 2002 (accessed online October 23, 2007, at: http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/khamisiyah_iii/index.htm). 53 Stephen Joseph, U.S. Department of Defense Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs), August 1, 1995 (accessed online October 23, 2007, at: http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=157). 54 ―Updated paper provides insights into Fox vehicle capabilities, limits,‖ GulfLINK, Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses, March 27, 2001 (accessed online October 23, 2007 at: http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/news/na_fox_info_27mar01.html). 55 ―DoD completes investigation into chemical incidents reported by 11th Marines,‖ GulfLINK, Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses, May 31, 2001 (accessed online October 23, 2007 at: http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/news/na_11marines_ii_31mar01.html).

242 problems….‖ He pointed out some of the veterans‘ wives were showing the same symptoms and a higher than normal number of their newborns had birth defects.

Browder was frustrated that the Pentagon and the Veterans Administration downplayed the possibility that soldiers had been exposed to chemical weapons, and he was outraged that veterans were not getting attention or help from the government. He wrote that while

Congress and the Veterans Administration [now Veterans Affairs] had begun research and treatment initiatives, these steps were ―only an awkward, stumbling beginning. The key to really dealing with the nightmare,‖ he wrote, ―is for the Defense Department to start talking straight with the men and women it sent into the Persian Gulf.‖56

In 1994, Congress allocated $10.6 million for Gulf War illness research, and by the summer of 1995 more than thirty such programs had begun, the Montgomery

Advertiser reported. Changes in eligibility requirements at VA hospitals authorized free medical care to veterans with illnesses possibly related to Persian Gulf service. Three

VA hospitals were set up as Gulf War Syndrome referral centers, and the VA hospital in

Birmingham became the fourth in 1995.57 Veterans, however, still were getting the runaround instead of the care they needed, and Browder contended the Pentagon was purposely blocking the release of the research money Congress had appropriated. ―We‘re going to get that money, and we‘re going to short-circuit that bureaucratic mumbo- jumbo,‖ he told a gathering of veterans in Phenix City, Alabama, across the state line

56 Glen Browder, ―‗Mystery illnesses‘ and stonewalling from the Pentagon,‖ Birmingham News, December 20, 1993, sec. A, p. 1. 57 Sean Selman, ―A New Battle: Alabama vets face domestic fight over Gulf War Syndrome,‖ Montgomery Advertiser, October 15, 1995, sec. A, p. 1.

243 from Fort Benning.58 Browder took two veterans to the Pentagon to meet with

Defense Department comptroller James Hamre in September 1995, ostensibly to discuss the Pentagon‘s refusal to spend the research money. Hamre refused to meet with

Browder and the veterans, calling the confrontation a pretext for a press event. Hamre accused Browder of trying to make him ―a potted plant in a public relations campaign,‖ and Browder countered, ―The Defense Department has been stonewalling this issue from the beginning.‖59

This late in his career, Browder was well known at the Pentagon, having three times beaten back the Army‘s efforts to close Fort McClellan before losing the final battle in the summer of 1995. He had not concealed his contempt for the Third District‘s treatment at the hands of the base closure commission, and if he had made any political enemies during his career, they were at the Pentagon. ―He had a number of run-ins with the Department of Defense,‖ David Plunkett recalled. ―There were a few times where there would be generals walking out of those hearings wanting to know how he got that information and why he‘d been able to use it. He would look for problems where he could find them and he would try to address them.‖60

Browder never was able to get the Department of Defense to accept any responsibility. However, he was one of the first public officials to bring these problems to light; and he was able to gain widespread recognition that Gulf War veterans‘ healthcare problems were not being addressed adequately. The controversy continues even today.

58 Dave Parks, ―Persian Gulf vets mad at lack of treatments,‖ Birmingham News, August 20, 1995; the Browder Collection: Box 148, Gulf War Syndrome. 59 Michael Brumas, ―Pentagon refusing to meet Browder on vet ills,‖ Birmingham News, August 31, 1995, sec. A, p. 1. 60 David Plunkett, June 17, 2007.

244 Looking Back

More than a decade after his defense experiences, Browder has mixed feelings.

He is convinced he fought good fights for Fort McClellan, Anniston Army Depot, veterans, and his constituents. He is proud of the work for a rational base closure process, strengthening chemical and biological defense for military forces, getting rid of the dangerous chemical weapons stockpile, and pushing the Pentagon to pay attention to mysterious ailments after the Gulf War.

However, Browder and his staff members still harbor bad feelings about the last fight for Fort McClellan. They took personal offense at the Army‘s persistence in shuttering the base. Vickie and David Plunkett and Ray Minter gave vent to opinions that were heard often around Anniston — that the Pentagon had a grudge against Browder for standing up to the military on various matters and that the commission was frontloaded in favor of Missouri:

―It felt like the Army doesn‘t get it,‖ said Vickie Plunkett. ―You know, we have fought this battle. We have told them — basically the Congress and the commissions have said no. But it got personal. It‘s like, OK, Glen‘s beaten them at their own game, and so they‘re just gonna keep coming after it.‖

―In ‗91 and ‗93, the commission had basically the same committee members,‖

Minter said. ―And then in ‗95 it changed. I think that was the difference. They were hell bent. It just kept coming back. They were hell bent.‖

―The way they finally closed McClellan was to jury-rig the appointments of the commission,‖ said David Plunkett. ―They put in a commission chairman and put in

245 commissioners that they knew they could get the right result out of, because Glen was not going to lose on the arguments. Vickie, Ray and Glen had put together too strong a case, too strong a strategy. And I think that the powers that be recognized that they had to find another avenue in order to close that base. And they still ended up with a draw.‖

―It came down to politics rather than a national security argument,‖ said Vickie

Plunkett. ―The alliances that other members of Congress built with the third chairman were what carried the day as opposed to the national security argument. Glen approached the base closure this way: that we will absolutely do the best job we can to defend this base. Because one, we believe it that our argument is right, and two, it‘s the right thing to do. Constituents will expect no less. But if we lose, the world will not come to an end.

To this day, I‘m not convinced that it was the right decision [to close McClellan], but that‘s my personal opinion. And I‘m not objective.‖

Browder dismissed the possibility that closing Fort McClellan was any kind of personal vendetta, and he accepted the politics as part of the package. ―I don‘t think you can take politics out of anything,‖ he told a reporter at the time. ―It may be strange to hear me say this, but the base closure process has been about as fair a trial as we are going to get.‖61

Browder did not fault the process he had helped to author. He compared the

BRAC process to instant replay in football — the Defense Department made the calls as it saw them, and the commission reviewed whether the calls were correct. ―It‘s the best

61 Larson, June 27, 1995.

246 process we could come up with,‖ he said. ―The courts don‘t guarantee justice, just a chance to be heard.‖62

Any remaining bitterness he felt about the decision to close Fort McClellan stemmed from the fact that the Department of Defense took so long and wasted so much of the local area‘s time and energy, because of its incompetence and arrogance:

My resentment against the Army is that they didn‘t shoot true and straight the first time and get it over with. The Pentagon put up such a sorry case that we were able to beat them at their own game every time. If they were so determined to shut that base, they should have developed a good plan and convinced the commission in 1991; then everybody — the military people and the local community — could have moved on with their lives without so much anger, frustration, and exhaustion.63

Playing defense took a lot of time and diverted Browder‘s attention from serious reforms that were close to his heart. However, in some ways, his national security activities and accomplishments reflected the professor-politician‘s original motivation for public service, combining both practical and philosophical aspects. In the process of protecting local constituency concerns about base closure and chemical weapons, he helped fundamentally reform the way in which the Defense Department handled its changing mission as the Cold War dissipated. He played a brief but important role in military mission and infrastructure adjustments to the collapse of the Soviet Union; and he focused the country‘s attention on weapons of mass destruction as global terrorism took hold.

62 Browder, September 2005. 63 Ibid.

247 The continuing battles with the Defense Department, as well as the intransigent unwillingness of Congress to accept his reform ideas, had taken their toll, however. Browder was tired of House politicking. He was ready to do something else.

UP OR OUT

Browder entered his fourth term in Congress thinking it might be his last. He had won re-election easily in 1994 (despite having both Democratic and Republican opposition); and he was confident that he could remain in the House until he decided to relinquish his seat. But the professor-politician felt a growing sense that it was time to move on.

From the beginning, he had planned to spend no more than ten years in the House, and as his five-year anniversary approached, he realized he didn‘t want to spend another five years doing the same sort of job. ―I wasn‘t sure what I really wanted to do,‖

Browder said. But, he said, ―I knew for sure I didn‘t want to stay in Congress much longer, much less forever. I wanted something that would be different and challenging and worthwhile and would allow us to live a family life. I figured one term in the U.S.

Senate would be that something and that I could do something else afterwards.‖1

He had not grown cynical, he was not physically fatigued, he was not feeling a financial strain, and his House seat was not threatened by growing Republicanism.2 At the same time, though, he did not relish the prospect of defending Fort McClellan a fourth time; campaign finance reforms and a balanced budget amendment, about which

1 Glen Browder, ―Back from GB Sat Afternoon Re: What Were You Thinking?‖ e-mail message to author, November 3, 2007. 2 Glen Browder, ―Professor-Politician: Recollections and Records of an Alabama Reformer‖ (unpublished draft), 2002, 34. 248 249 he cared deeply, had not been enacted; and party polarization made every vote a bitter battle.

Browder had come to Washington as a reformer, and he now realized that the

House of Representatives was not the best place from which to launch the kinds of changes he advocated, observed Dr. Jess Brown, the Alabama political scientist who had been Browder‘s student. ―Glen was genuinely interested in electoral reform, more efficient and honest elections,‖ Brown said. ―Congress was never as ripe a place for him to nurture his real passion, making sure the electoral process is something that will legitimize the government. Congress wasn‘t a platform for Glen‘s passion.‖3

Browder was feeling burned out. After twelve years in politics, he wrote, ―it was time for me to consider something different — either move to the Senate, where service is more in line with the role of a philosopher-king, or get out of politics, where perhaps I could address more effectively some of my concerns about the future of American democracy.‖4

Browder was facing the most difficult decision of his career. The Coalition was just getting organized and had not yet flexed its muscles. Republicans had taken control of the House and Senate, and the Democratic leadership was far to Browder‘s left. His fellow conservative Democrats were rushing to the other side of the partisan aisle.

Browder‘s instincts told him he should remain a Democrat, but he felt pressured to consider switching parties. ―There were several things we [southern Democrats] had to consider,‖ he wrote. ―First, of course, was the fact that the Democrats had gotten so

3 Jess Brown, Ph.D., Huntsville, Ala., telephone interview with the author, Munford, Alabama, November 30, 2006. 4Browder, ―Professor-Politician,‖ 36.

250 liberal and out of step with our constituencies; they pressed you to do things that your constituencies didn‘t like; they especially put you in a tough spot at home by always pushing high profile things for blacks and liberal core groups instead of our conservative white bases; and when they came south, they ended up in black churches and pushing liberal causes — making it awfully hard for us to deal with conservative Republican attacks on us as Teddy Kennedy Democrats or Jesse Jackson Democrats or National

Democrats. We did the best we could to avoid getting damaged by these things, but we always had to worry about getting beaten by a Republican in the general election. Then, as time marched on and we tried to pursue a southern course within the Democratic Party, we had to worry that some liberal would beat us in our own primary.‖5

Why did Browder remain a Democrat? ―Part of that was philosophical,‖ he wrote. ―My background and philosophy inclined me toward the Democratic Party … but at least half of my sticking was stubbornness — I considered myself more than an opportunist and I just did not want it on my political tombstone that I switched parties to hold on to some stupid office and power and perks. Besides, I knew that, with the moderate, reform course I had chosen, I would have the same trouble with the

Republicans that I had with Democrats: The core Right didn‘t like me any more than the core Left; and the moneyed special interests in both parties had no strong, positive feeling for me.‖6

On a Sunday in late November 1994, Browder telephoned an old friend, political consultant Ed Ewing, to talk over some of these concerns. Ewing provided a sounding

5 Glen Browder, unpublished commentary prepared for ―Stealth Reconstruction,‖ 2007, 14. 6 Ibid.

251 board but did not offer specific advice. A few days later, as he continued thinking about what Browder had told him, Ewing composed a letter that addressed Browder‘s questions more directly. Ewing concurred that switching to the GOP would be a mistake for Browder, and he advised against leaving the Democrats to become an independent because with liberals and Yellow Dogs voting Democratic and the Religious Right voting

Republican, that left too small a group to elect an independent candidate, even one with

Browder‘s credentials. ―I think there is a significant group of conservative independents

(myself included), Ewing wrote, but ―are there enough of us to win against the Democrat and the Republican? Furthermore, what would it do to your committee assignments and your ability to get things done for your people?‖ Ewing said he understood Browder‘s need to make a decision, and to make it quickly. ―I know the dilemma, and I am very concerned about the picture that is unfolding,‖ he said. Ewing told Browder, ―You must set about publicly distancing yourself from Clinton as soon as possible. Now, what form that should take, I don‘t know,‖7 but switching parties was not the way to do it. ―Maybe leading an in-party rebellion is the best course,‖ Ewing concluded. ―Let the voters see you fighting against the things they find so distasteful about the way things have been going, both with the party and with the country.‖

Browder took Ewing‘s counsel to heart. He stayed with his party and stepped up his activities with the Coalition, making it clear to Democrats in Washington and at home that he did not take marching orders from the president. As for his Senate aspirations, there was no hurry to make a decision. He would remain in the House for one more term,

7 Ed Ewing, Tel-Ed Communications, letter to Glen Browder, November 30, 1994; the Browder Collection, Box 23: U.S. Senate Campaign.

252 and if a Senate seat opened up during the next two years, he would decide whether to run when the time came.

A Senate Seat Opens

In the spring, Alabama‘s senior senator, Howell Heflin, announced that he would retire when his term ended in 1996. Heflin did not discuss his plans with Browder, but

Browder was not surprised by the senator‘s decision, as Heflin‘s health had begun to decline. ―Senator Heflin never said anything to me, but I thought he might retire,‖

Browder said. ―I was not eager to rush him because I knew that the earlier he announced his intention not to run, the earlier I‘d have to announce my intention, and the earlier other possible opponents would start campaigning (probably against me); and I would have to start raising and spending money sooner than I wanted to do that. So the longer

Heflin delayed, the better it was for me.8

Heflin‘s announcement came at the end of March 1995, a very busy time for

Browder. Browder‘s Balanced Budget Dividend Plan bill was being debated in the

House, and with Fort McClellan back on the base closure list, the Alabama Department of Environmental Management was threatening to pull the state permits for the chemical weapons incinerator at Anniston Army Depot. Announcing plans to abandon his House seat, especially with the general election nearly two years in the future, would have created questions about Browder‘s commitment to the two biggest projects of his congressional career. He had neither the time nor the money to campaign. His announcement would have to wait, so his decision could wait also.

8 Browder, November 3, 2005.

253 The Alabama press and state politicos thought Browder was an obvious candidate and were eager for him to make it official. Browder, however, would not be hurried. He would decide whether to run based on two major questions: First, had the

Republican Party gained such a majority in the state that no Democrat could win the seat; and, second, could Browder raise enough money to compete? All the political insiders in

Alabama were asking each other the same questions. Eventually, most of them —

Browder included — came to the same conclusion that political scientist Brad Moody voiced in the Anniston Star when Browder formed an exploratory committee in May: ―I think his chances are as good as any other Democrat‘s,‖ Moody said. ―A lot of it depends on how contested the primary is.‖9

A Toe in the Water

Browder was the first Democrat to make a move toward running when he set up his exploratory committee. He insisted that he had not yet decided to run and that the committee‘s purpose was to find out whether he should. He had a legitimate concern that he had voted with House Republicans enough times that the national and state

Democratic Party would not support his candidacy. He asked his exploratory committee to determine not only whether a Democrat could win, but also whether he was an appropriate candidate for the party. Setting up the exploratory committee gave him the means to answer those questions, publicly expressed his interest without committing him to run, and allowed him to start raising money. With this cushion, Browder could put off launching a campaign while he worked on the budget and base closure in Washington.

9 Sean Reilly, ―Browder serious about Senate run,‖ Anniston Star, May 4, 1995. Brad Moody, Ph.D., is a political science professor at Auburn University‘s Montgomery campus.

254 After the base closure commission delivered its knockout punch to Anniston,

Browder was determined not to let this defeat become his political downfall. In one week in mid-July he announced a new $200 million contract for a public-private partnership at

Anniston Army Depot and a few days later announced that the city of Piedmont, Etowah

County, and St. Clair County each would get two emergency warning sirens, paid for with federal funds. The timing was coincidental, and the programs were no more than a tiny bandage on the economic gash carved by the loss of Fort McClellan, but they showed the folks back home that Browder was still protecting their jobs and safety.

With the BRAC round over, Browder began spending more time in Alabama. He wanted to provide leadership for the foundering fort redevelopment efforts, and, perhaps more urgent though less critical in the long term, he had to reassure residents that the

Army would not be allowed to ship more chemical weapons into the state.

Although he had not yet announced his candidacy for the Senate, his speeches denouncing the regional incineration proposal had the distinctive look and feel of the campaign stump. On one such occasion, Browder and state Senator Doug Ghee hired a dump truck and drove it to the depot gate. Standing on the bed of the truck with a replica of an M55 rocket at his side and a gas mask strapped on his hip, Browder swore he would never allow Alabama to become the dumping ground for the rest of the country‘s chemical weapons.10 A local Republican politician derided Browder‘s theatrics, saying he and Ghee were trying to score political points on a serious issue, which was true. But

10 Elizabeth Pezzullo, ―Browder: No more weapons for depot,‖ Anniston Star, August 23, 1995, sec. A, p. 1.

255 no one could seriously challenge Browder‘s credibility on base closure or chemical weapons.11

Others had tried. Days after he went public with his exploratory committee for the Senate race, one of Browder‘s opponents from his first Congressional race blasted him in a letter to the editor of the Birmingham Post-Herald. Ted McLaughlin, a perennially unsuccessful political candidate who now wanted a seat on the Fort

McClellan redevelopment board, asserted that Browder was ―in no position‖ to criticize the Army for its determination to close Fort McClellan because he had not served in combat. McLaughlin called Browder‘s Senate bid — which Browder had not yet decided to make — ―a slap in the face to the tens of thousands who have served and continue to serve their country.‖12 Incineration opponents complained in the Anniston Star and the

Birmingham News that Browder betrayed a promise when he backed down from his threat to block the incinerator permits if Fort McClellan closed and charged that he had set up Anniston to become a regional center for chemical weapons disposal.13 Rufus

Kinney, an English professor at Jacksonville State University and a leader in the anti- incineration drive, accused Browder of being dishonest and questioned his ability to offer leadership appropriate for the U.S. Senate.14 ―There‘s no question in anybody‘s mind that this [incinerator] will be the last one built, and it will be the eastern site,‖ Kinney told

11 Paul Sims, ―Browder: Alabama won‘t become dumping ground,‖ (Talladega) Daily Home, August 24, 1995, sec. A, p. 1. 12 Ted McLaughlin, letter to the editor, Birmingham Post-Herald, May 25, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box Box 30, U.S. Senate Campaign, 1996 Campaign Information, News Clippings. 13 Marie Welch, letter to the editor, Anniston Star, September 28, 1996; Brenda Lindell, letter to the editor, Anniston Star, September 29, 1995; Dr. S. Marshall, letter to the editor, Anniston Star, October 2, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box Box 140, Chemical Weapons Threat, Clippings. 14 Rufus Kinney, letter to the editor, The Anniston Star, October 30, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box Box 140, Chemical Weapons Threat, Clippings.

256 a Birmingham News reporter. ―Browder knows that better than anybody. He has sold us down the river, and he is counting on the passivity of the people to get away with it.‖15

The criticism had no impact on Browder‘s local standing. Despite scattered attacks from his home district through the summer and fall, Browder‘s polling was finding support for his Senate run. The biggest uncertainty that prevented his announcing a formal candidacy was money. Jim Bennett, Browder‘s Montgomery campaign finance reform colleague, decided against entering the race because he expected that candidates would have to spend at least $5 million on their campaigns, the Anniston Star reported.

In the same article, columnist Sean Reilly pointed out that political insiders did not doubt

Browder‘s qualifications but did doubt his ability to raise that kind of cash. ―Browder, not too surprisingly, downplayed the issue,‖ Reilly wrote. ―Previously preoccupied with the fight to save Fort McClellan, he said, he hasn‘t concentrated on raising money.‖

Although Browder had recently hired a fundraiser and he conceded to Reilly that ―the chances are very high‖ that he would run, he did not announce his candidacy.16

Browder also hired media consultant Frank Greer, an Alabama native who had worked with Bill Clinton‘s 1992 presidential campaign. Tom McMahon, Howell

Heflin‘s press secretary, said, ―Bringing in somebody like that shows Browder is serious about the race.‖ Browder told reporters during an August visit to Alabama, ―Those who

15 Rose Livingston, ―Anniston group: Browder betrayed area,‖ Birmingham News, October 2, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box Box 140, Chemical Weapons Threat, Clippings. History has proved Kinney‘s assertion false. The Anniston facility was the third of five incinerators built. Later incineration facilities were constructed at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and Umatilla, Oregon. Stockpiles in Aberdeen, Maryland, and Newport, Indiana, are being destroyed through a neutralization process. No chemical weapons or stockpiled agents have been moved across state lines to disposal facilities. However, chemical end products of agent neutralization and metals and plastics left over from incineration have been transported from disposal sites to out-of-state landfills. 16 Sean Reilly, ―Have lotsa dough or don‘t seek office,‖ Anniston Star, July 23, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box Box 30, U.S. Senate Campaign, 1996 Campaign Information, News Clippings.

257 are considering running for the Third Congressional District seat, my advice to them is to start making plans.‖ But he did not announce his Senate candidacy.17

By late September, Browder‘s two main rivals in the Democratic primary,

Birmingham political science professor and pollster Natalie Davis and state Senator

Roger Bedford of Russellville, had entered the race. When a reporter interviewing

Browder about the looming government shutdown asked about his Senate aspirations,

Browder said he was 99 percent sure he would run.18

But this was not a good time for Browder to launch a campaign — the federal budget train wreck was imminent, fort redevelopment looked like another disaster, the depot problem was heating up, and he was still short of money. The Senate announcement would have to wait until after the first of the year.

In With Both Feet

When Browder decided it was time to get into the race, he brought out a position paper in the form of a report from his exploratory committee. Predictably, the report showed a Democrat could win the seat — if that Democrat were Glen Browder. ―Polling data indicate that voter loyalty for both parties has declined, and that Democrats and

Republicans enjoy near parity in voter support,‖ committee chairman and respected state

Democrat Tom Woodall wrote in his report to Browder. ―I conclude that the general election will be competitive if you are the Democratic nominee.‖ Echoing Browder‘s

17 Eric Larson, ―Browder won‘t say it, but he is moving toward full campaign,‖ Anniston Star, August 16, 1995, the Browder Collection, Box Box 30, U.S. Senate Campaign, 1996 Campaign Information, News Clippings. 18 Frederick Burger, ―Browder: Budget snafu won‘t derail government long,‖ Anniston Star, September 26, 1995, sec. A, p. 1.

258 appeal to independent voters that Ed Ewing had described more than a year earlier,

Woodall continued, ―Democrats must have a nominee who can expand their base to include a large number of voters with weak party loyalty or no party loyalty. Also, I believe in the U.S. Senate race, many Alabamians will vote based upon candidate qualities, not party image.‖ Woodall cautioned that the extreme diversity within the

Democratic Party could make a Browder victory difficult in the primary, but he said it would benefit Browder in the general election ―if this diversity can be mobilized against the GOP.‖19

Woodall‘s report, while it did contain legitimate polling results, was not what it appeared to be. Although purportedly it was directed to Browder to help him decide whether to run, it was in actuality a message to voters. Browder later described it as a campaign device, ―designed for external consumption.‖20 Citing the opinions of voters the committee had questioned, the report listed the points that would become Browder‘s campaign message:

Browder‘s record in Congress showed he could work with both sides in an extremely partisan atmosphere, but he took marching orders from neither. Browder was a ―low key workhorse‖ rather than a ―slick show horse.‖ Browder had a track record in Montgomery and Washington of fighting campaign finance irregularities ―and related corruption.‖ Browder was seen as defending the legacy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt without promoting the liberalism of 1972 presidential candidate George McGovern. A Browder candidacy would be an opportunity for the middle class to elect a senator who was ―neither a millionaire nor a captive of special interests.‖

19 W. Thomas Woodall, ―Browder Exploratory Committee Report,‖ January 23, 1996, the Browder Collection, Box Box 30, U.S. Senate Campaign, 1996 Campaign Information. 20 Glen Browder, ―Re: question about Tom Woodall‘s Report,‖ e-mail message, November 4, 2007.

259 Woodall capped his summary with a quote he attributed to an elderly

Democratic Party activist: ―I like Browder. He ain‘t a liberal, a loudmouth, a lawyer or a loser.‖21

Browder‘s exploratory committee reported back with the answers he wanted on

January 23, 1996. Two days later, on the same day that Congress and the president averted a third government shutdown, Browder announced his candidacy from the steps of the Statehouse in Montgomery. He described himself as a centrist, a reformer, and a

Democrat. ―I will challenge the partisan extremes and special interests on the left and the right,‖ he said.22 He acknowledged that he would be vulnerable in the primary, but he comfortably pre-empted questions about why he was still a member of a party that was far more liberal than he. Browder said, ―I‘m a Democrat and not a switcher.‖23

Roger Bedford contradicted Browder‘s claim to be an agent of reform, characterizing Browder as a proponent of the status quo. ―If people like the way things are in Washington, they‘ll vote for the congressman. If they don‘t like it, they‘ll vote for me,‖ he said.24 Bedford had begun his attacks on Browder even before Browder officially entered the race. His favorite target was the point where Browder perceived that he was most vulnerable, party loyalty. But on at least one occasion, Bedford tried to have it both ways. First criticizing Browder for not voting with Democrats often enough

21 Woodall, January 23, 1996. 22 Phillip Rawls, Associated Press, ―Browder announces Senate candidacy,‖ Dothan Eagle, January 27, 1996, the Browder Collection, Box Box 30, U.S. Senate Campaign, 1996 Campaign Information, News Clippings. 23 John Anderson and John Peck, ―Browder enters race for Heflin‘s Senate Seat,‖ Huntsville Times, , January 26, 1996, the Browder Collection, Box Box 30, U.S. Senate Campaign, 1996 Campaign Information, News Clippings. 24 Rawls, January 27, 1996.

260 in the House, Bedford then went on to claim that, if elected to the Senate, he would not toe the party line either.25

With Browder officially in, the race shifted into high gear. Newspapers pegged

Browder as the frontrunner, but noted that Bedford and Davis had a considerable head start in fundraising.26 Even though every major newspaper and most of the smaller ones endorsed Browder as not only the best choice to represent the state in Washington but also the only electable Democrat, he was not able to overcome the funding deficit. ―It just takes massive amounts of money, and it‘s very difficult for someone like Glen,‖ said

Ray Minter. ―Truthfully, Glen never raised a lot of money. He always ran campaigns cheaply. And he was a master of it. He was a master strategist.‖27

A Strategy of Limited Resources

With limited financial support, Browder‘s campaign strategy this time more than ever before depended on his positive reputation, volunteer labor, and free media.

The strategy outlined a positive message that would present Browder as ―A New

Kind of Leader,‖ focusing on his fiscal responsibility, his childhood in poverty, his independence from the Washington establishment, and his stance on ―bread and butter issues,‖ including education, Medicare and Medicaid, and jobs and economic opportunity. It also outlined negative messages about Browder‘s strongest opponents.

Roger Bedford would be characterized as a practitioner of ―politics as usual,‖ a ―dirty

25 Chris Collins, Montgomery Advertiser, January 26, 1996, the Browder Collection, Box Box 30, U.S. Senate Campaign, 1996 Campaign Information, News Clippings. 26 Frederick Burger, ―Battle royale for Senate race begins,‖ Anniston Star, January 27, 1996, sec. A, p. 1. 27 Ray Minter, interviewed by the author, Bynum, Alabama, May 23, 2007.

261 campaigner,‖ ―slick,‖ and ―phony.‖ Browder‘s message about Natalie Davis would be that she was ―too liberal, feminist; can‘t win in the general election.‖28

Hoping to remind voters across Alabama of the respect and good will he‘d generated as secretary of state, Browder revived his Apple Corps to organize, advertise, canvass and contribute in any way they could, including participating in and publicizing

Browder‘s Working For Alabama projects. His campaign consultants asked Browder‘s

Washington staff to make sure the congressman received ―news coverage about his work on behalf of the district at least once per week.‖29 The consultants also divided the state‘s sixty-seven counties into three tiers based on population and history of Democratic voting, with specific instructions for how to maximize free media in each county. And even though Browder needed statewide support, the campaign concentrated considerable effort in the Third Congressional District. ―We can‘t guarantee a place in the runoff by maximizing turnout in the Third C.D., but we can lose our place by not doing so,‖ a campaign memo read.30

A full page of Browder‘s professional campaign strategy memo was devoted to winning the African American vote. Browder and his advisors knew they could not count on the African American bloc, which had been so crucial to his secretary of state and congressional races, until and unless he made it to the general election. For the primary, the best they could hope to do was to prevent any of Browder‘s opponents from gaining the endorsements of all three of the state‘s major black organizations and to gain

28 Browder for Senate campaign strategy, the Browder Collection, Box Box 30, U.S. Senate Campaign, 1996 Campaign Information. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid.

262 the support of a significant number of black ministers. Browder expected African

Americans to comprise as much as 30 percent of the votes in the primary, but two-thirds of them would be in Birmingham, where Davis and Bedford were strong. His goal was

―simply to cut into that vote, denying either Bedford or Davis the ability to sweep it completely,‖ and to ―reach out to even those community leaders who have already committed to Bedford or Davis so that we can pick them off should their candidate not make it into the runoff.‖ Browder also planned to appeal to rural and suburban black churches, conjecturing that Bedford and Davis would fight it out for the inner city congregations.

Browder and his advisors recognized some serious weaknesses in the African

American element of their strategy. They were not sure that there were enough friendly suburban black churches to offset the number of inner city churches expected to go to

Bedford and Davis. More significantly, they did not know whether the black vote could be divided, as they hoped, and they could only speculate to what extent black voters would turn out for a runoff.

As it turned out, the African American vote was not monolithic. The Jefferson

County Citizens Coalition, led by Birmingham‘s African American Mayor Richard

Arrington, endorsed Browder. The Birmingham chapter of the New South Coalition gave co-endorsements to both Browder and Bedford, but the statewide organization‘s endorsement went to Bedford. However, the Alabama Democratic Conference, with

Browder‘s old friend Joe Reed at the helm, threw its support to Bedford, and not even a personal letter from Congressman John Lewis of Georgia could change sway Reed.

263 Lewis, who spent his childhood in Troy, Alabama, before becoming a leader in the civil rights movement in the 1960s, reminded Reed that Browder‘s career was ―filled with examples of his commitment to Civil Rights and equal rights for all Americans,‖ including, Lewis wrote, votes to extend the Civil Rights Act, fund historically black colleges and universities, raise the minimum wage, and increase funding for the student loan program, Head Start, the school lunch program and other programs important to the

African American community. ―Recently,‖ Lewis wrote, ―Glen was instrumental in organizing a meeting between the Congressional Black Caucus and primarily white southern Democrats to take a stand against the wave of … church burnings across the

South.‖31 It became clear as the campaign progressed that the plan for splitting the black electorate achieved only limited success.

Years later, Reed conceded to Browder and his Stealth Reconstruction collaborator Artemisia Stanberry that he had reconsidered his decision to back Bedford.

―Glen Browder was a good secretary of state and a good congressman,‖ Reed said. ―He would have been — should have been — a great senator. I told some of our folks that we may have made a mistake.... But we had a couple of important things he didn‘t vote for.

No question in my mind, Glen would have beaten Jeff Sessions if we had backed him in the primary.‖

Despite failing to attract significant African American support, Browder‘s overall strategy was working in terms of advancing his qualifications and generating free media coverage. An independent poll in April showed that Browder led all Democratic

31 John Lewis, congressman representing Georgia‘s 5th District, letter to Joe Reed, chairman, Alabama Democratic Conference, May 15, 1996; the Browder Collection: Box 25, U.S. Senate Campaign.

264 candidates in positive name recognition and led Bedford by nine percentage points among likely voters in the Democratic primary.32 However, he still lagged far behind in campaign funds, and Bedford, his major opponent, added the support of the state‘s powerful Trial Lawyers Association and organized labor to the endorsements of the two largest African American political groups.

The campaign strategy worked well enough to get Browder a second-place finish in the June 4 primary, but he was far behind Bedford. Bedford gained 44 percent of the vote to Browder‘s 29 percent; and Bedford soon received the endorsement of Davis, who finished third with 23 percent. Marilyn Quarles Bromberg finished last with 4 percent.

Browder faced a steep climb in the runoff against a politician whose main differences with him were not in policy, but in personality and the size of his campaign treasury.

Political experts across the state continued to say that Browder could win the general election where Bedford could not, but Browder‘s chances of getting into the race against

Republican Jeff Sessions were looking dim. Browder would have to dig all the way to the bottom of his political toolbox and come up with some mud.

Going Negative

The race between Browder and Bedford had started out negative, with Bedford attacking Browder on the day Browder announced his candidacy. Browder was no innocent in this regard, however. He had amassed information to be used against

Bedford and his campaign strategy had listed attack points before Browder himself entered the race.

32 ―Alabama Poll Survey Report,‖ Mason-Dixon Political/Media Research, Columbia, Md., April 1996; the Browder Collection:

265 Although he was willing to do it if necessary to win, negative campaigning did not fit with Browder‘s public persona or with his private image of himself. As other races turned progressively nastier, Browder sought to set himself and the Senate race apart by offering a written pledge to keep the campaign if not positive, then at least honest. ―The people of Alabama deserve a Senate campaign based on real issues and accurate information,‖ he said in announcing his Fairness Pledge in late February. ―The presidential campaign already has turned into a nasty game of negative attack ads, and we need to try to set a different, positive course here in Alabama for the Senate race.‖

Browder‘s Fairness Pledge said he would refrain from false or misleading attacks on his opponents, would use no appeal to voters based on the race, religion, age or gender of his opponents, and would provide written documentation to back up any advertisement that criticized an opponent‘s record. Browder challenged the other candidates to sign the same pledge, sure that his own record would hold up to close scrutiny if he could prevent his opponents from making vague or unsubstantiated charges against him. As his old

Montgomery friend Charles Carr said, ―Glen is one of those guys that if he and Becky and Jenny lost the family parrot and the town gossip found it, he wouldn‘t have anything to worry about. That‘s the kind of guy he is.‖ Browder‘s friend, Pete Conroy of

Jacksonville, introduced a resolution to the state Democratic Party that it adopt the

Fairness Pledge so that all Democratic candidates would have to abide by it. The party adopted Conroy‘s resolution unanimously, giving Browder the protection he wanted.

Significantly, Browder‘s pledge did not prohibit comparative attack campaigning, but it did require that charges be backed up with evidence. Browder won points with the

266 press, however, for taking the high road, so journalists were surprised when he began attacking Bedford as the primary votes were being tallied. ―The result [of the primary vote] has put Browder in an unusual position — on the attack,‖ Elizabeth Pezzullo wrote in the Anniston Star. ―Before the final votes were counted on the night of the primary,

Browder fired the first shots in a campaign that Browder himself had pledged would remain unsullied.‖ Browder accused Bedford of being in bed with special interests, particularly the trial lawyers who in large part were financing Bedford‘s campaign. A few days later, Browder told the press that Bedford had missed 48 percent of the votes in the Alabama Senate over the past year, compared to Browder‘s 98 percent voting record in the U.S. House. Soon after that, Browder launched a television commercial attacking

Bedford for having owned shares in a gambling casino.

Bedford, now on the defensive, called Browder‘s shots mudslinging, and, harking back ten years, he said that Browder also had missed a large number of votes in the

Alabama legislature while running for secretary of state. He called Browder a hypocrite for violating his fairness pledge. Browder pointed out that his pledge did not keep him from saying negative things if they were true and hauled two cartons of files documenting his charges against Bedford to the white marble steps of the Alabama Statehouse. ―I call these the Bedford Files,‖ he said. ―And I‘m here to tell my opponent, ‗Senator Bedford, you can run but you can‘t hide.‘‖33

Although, by their own admission, Browder and Bedford held many similar political views that would distinguish them as centrists in Washington, newspaper

33 Elizabeth Pezzullo, ―Browder comfortable with deliberate style,‖ Anniston Star, June 23, 1996, sec. A, p.1.

267 endorsements drew stark differences between the two politicians. Before the primary, they said Browder was experienced, capable, moderate, and most of all, electable; while

Bedford, they said, was a mere pawn of the trial lawyers, and Davis just too, too liberal.

In the race to the runoff, the press began portraying Bedford as a back-slapping, glad- handing campaigner and Browder as a thoughtful, deliberate moderate who after a debate was in a bigger hurry to get back to Washington for a House vote than to shake the hands of potential runoff voters.34 It was exactly the picture Browder had hoped for, but it appeared not to make any electoral difference in the shrinking, liberal pool of Democratic primary voters.

A Landslide Loss

Browder lost the nomination in the runoff by a wide margin, 137,763 votes (63 percent) to 81,901 votes (37 percent). It was his first career defeat, after a dozen contested victories. A great part of Browder‘s problem, besides being outspent four to one, may have been the fact that the Democratic runoff attracted even fewer participants than the first primary; and that smaller turnout trended in a liberal direction.

The 1996 Senate race was the most expensive of Browder‘s career, although not much more expensive than his special election for Congress in 1989. He spent a total of

$750,000 — $543,000 for the primary, $159,000 for the runoff, and another $48,000 paying off debts after the race. Bedford, having raised and spent four times as much,35 lost to Republican Jeff Sessions in the general election.

34 Thomas Spencer, ―Congressman lashes out at Bedford during first runoff debate,‖ Anniston Star, June 11, 1996, Sec. A, p.1. 35 Thomas Spencer, ―Browder‘s downfall,‖ Anniston Star, June 30, 1996, sec. A, p. 1

268 Every one of Browder‘s friends and political comrades had his own ideas about why Browder lost the Senate race, and the number one reason they all gave was money. Bedford had it, and Browder didn‘t. Why?

―Because he wasn‘t willing to do what it took to win,‖ Ray Minter said bluntly.

―It‘s a fact. He would have had to get on the phone and raise money, which he despised totally during his entire time.… He felt it was very, very difficult to call and ask for money because he didn‘t want to have an obligation to them as time went along.‖

Dean Buttram, who joined his former professor‘s campaign as a member of

Browder‘s Apple Corps, said when it came to raising money, Browder was ―probably the worst I have ever seen.… He‘s even hesitant for you to say, ‗Come on, we gotta go meet somebody because they‘ll give us a check.‘ He‘s very reserved about that and very hesitant to do that. I remember a particular person in Jefferson County that liked him and wanted to give money, and Browder basically just wanted to have lunch and talk issues.

That wasn‘t why I had him there. But you‘ve got to be much more aggressive in fundraising to get the funds you‘ve got to have.‖

Browder‘s reticence to ask for campaign contributions frustrated his friends, but if it was a failing, it was one he preferred to the alternative. ―I can say without question that the toughest part of public service is money — begging people with special interests for campaign contributions today knowing that tomorrow you are going to have to make critical decisions and votes weighing their interests against those of other special interests

(or the general interest),‖ he wrote. ―I found it very distasteful asking people for money when I probably was going to vote in their favor; I found it equally impossible to ask

269 someone for money when I disagreed with them and most likely was going to vote against their position. Not only was campaign fundraising personally demeaning, it also conveyed impropriety to the public.‖36

As much as Browder hated soliciting money, he cherished the letters that accompanied small contributions from individuals he had met and often whom he had helped over the years. Invariably, the writers regretted not being able to send more.

―This is not nearly the amount I would like to give, but it‘s all I can afford. Good luck. Call if I can help,‖ a typical letter read.

―Enclosed is a small contribution,‖ said another. ―We wish it could be more. We will call friends and family in Cullman County. Some will not need to be convinced that

Glen is the man, but they need to be prompted to get out and vote.‖

And another: ―We are talking to everyone we come in contact with and asking them to vote for you. I am getting some relatives in Heflin, Al., registered to vote. They have promised to vote for you!‖

Browder‘s work on behalf of veterans and Fort McClellan prompted some contributions. From a Cleburne County World War II veteran, who like Browder‘s father, he pointed out, was a housepainter: ―Everyone admits you were the strongest support Ft. McClellan had and we all greatly appreciate your great ability and the attempts you made.‖ And from the parent of a Persian Gulf veteran: ―To my good friend

Mr. Browder, I have not forgot what you did for me when my son was in the Persian Gulf war. I had no news from him, as well as other parents whose son was in his unit. You

36 Browder, ―Professor-Politician,‖ 32.

270 called me back with news when no one else would believe me. … So please count on me in any way I can. I‘m good labor for your goals.‖

And from a woman in Texas who was sorry she could not vote for Browder but wanted to contribute to his campaign because she was still grateful for a long-ago favor:

―I have never forgotten your kindness when your office went out of its way to help me locate interferon pills for my cat Sadie who had leukemia.… I am enclosing a picture from Purina Special Cat Chow that looks just like Sadie.‖37

Browder‘s assessment was that his own politics cost him the nomination. He argued that his political reforms, his fiscal policies, his ideological centrism, and his bipartisan history, the very things that would have made him electable against a

Republican, made it impossible for him to win the Democratic nomination. Even though

Bedford‘s stance on most key issues mirrored Browder‘s, Bedford was a party loyalist who was perceived to be more liberal and who diligently cultivated nationally powerful

Democrats and monied interests.

Political scientist Jess Brown agreed with and expanded upon Browder‘s premise.

―Browder had a reputation for crossing party lines — he‘s a bipartisan individual, not blindly partisan — which brought him early successes in the Democratic Party. Now that is increasingly difficult,‖ Brown said. ―Thirty years ago, Roger Bedford could not have beaten Browder. I‘m not sure Howell Heflin could survive now.‖

37 Private correspondence to Glen Browder and Browder For Senate, Inc., contained in the Browder Collection, Box 25: U.S. Senate Campaign, Letters to Glen Browder. The letters are quoted with Browder‘s permission. However, it was not possible to contact the authors for permission to quote their letters, so their names are not used here.

271 Brown explained that the growth of the Republican Party in Alabama in the late 1980s and early 1990s made it much more difficult for a conservative Democrat to be elected. ―By the 1990s, Three R‘s ruled the state: Race, Religion and Republicans, as the national Democratic Party was no longer the defender of white racism,‖ Brown said.

―Since the emergence of the Republican Party in Alabama, it is more difficult to become the Democratic nominee because conservative groups give money and time to the

Republican nominee, not conservative Democrats.‖ Five groups control the Democratic

Party in Alabama, Brown said, and a candidate must have the backing of three of them to win the Democratic primary: AEA, trial lawyers, the Alabama State Employees

Association, the New South Coalition and the Alabama Democratic Conference. Bedford got the endorsements of all five.

What could Browder have done differently to change the outcome of the Senate primary? ―He could have spent less time on Fort McClellan and more time pandering to groups and raising money,‖ Brown said. But he would not do that. ―He finally told me,‖

Brown recalled, ―‗I‘ve gotta do what‘s right and live with myself.‘ He stayed in

Washington working on the fort issue. He cost himself votes by focusing on McClellan

— he couldn‘t campaign in Florence or Dothan. Everybody misses the politics. He would have been better off politically to be at the Rotary meeting in Anniston.

―He didn‘t want to pander to retail politicking to raise big bucks,‖ Brown continued. ―His own moral rudder wouldn‘t let him raise the money for massive TV time. Alabama Republicans were so glad they didn‘t have to face Browder in this

272 election. Somebody like Browder with a moral rudder — most politicians don‘t want such a deep moral rudder among them.‖38

Breaking Up the Team

Browder and his staff knew in July that they would not have their jobs in January.

It was a sad six months, but it gave them longer leads than they would have had if

Browder had lost a November election. One by one, they all found new jobs and moved on. ―When he lost the Senate race, it was like breaking up a family,‖ recalled Vickie

Plunkett.

Bob McNeil — a steady ―old head‖ who capped his long newspaper career by serving as Browder‘s administrative assistant the last two years — decided to retire to his

Virginia home. Debbie McBride, Browder‘s scheduler and a holdover from the Bill

Nichols years, continued her service to the Third Congressional District on the staffs of

Browder‘s successors, Bob Riley and Mike Rogers. Most other Browder staffers remained employed in some aspect of public affairs in Washington or Alabama. Several stayed on the congressional staffs of his successors or took jobs with other representatives, senators, administrative agencies, lobbying organizations, or government contractors in the private sector.39

The Plunketts decided to remain in Washington. ―Vickie had some pretty attractive offers because of her work on base closure and her work on chemical weapons,‖ David recalled. After a brief stint with the Defense Department, Vickie spent five years working for Texas Representative Solomon Ortiz, who had co-chaired the

38 Brown, November 30, 2006. 39 Glen Browder, ―Additions for GB bio,‖ e-mail message to the author, May 10, 2008.

273 Depot Caucus with Browder. ―I walked in to interview with the chief of staff, and he looked up and said, ‗Oh, I know you.‘ And that was kinda it,‖ she said. Later she took a job with a defense contractor, but in January 2007, Ortiz lured her back to work for the

Armed Services Committee, which he chaired. For most of the past decade, David has been a top aide for Tennessee Congressman Bart Gordon. In 2007, he left Capitol Hill to work as a professional staffer with the Center for Science in the Public Interest.40

William Killough, who had met the Browders at JSU, left his executive assistant‘s position in Washington before the end of Browder‘s congressional tenure. He spent a year traveling around the world, photographing children, and even helping Mother

Theresa briefly in Calcutta. He now lives and works in the private sector back home in

Talladega County.

Lamar Denkins, an original Browder supporter and neighbor in the 1980s, had left a job with the local mental health center to work as a field representative for Browder in

1993. After the 1996 senate campaign, Denkins went to work at the chemical weapons incinerator at Anniston Army Depot; since 2002 he has worked for Rep. Mike Rogers in the same Third District seat which Browder had vacated six years earlier.41

Sheila Gilbert, a career classroom teacher who assisted Browder throughout all his campaigns, had taken a position with the new congressman in 1989. After the 1997

Senate campaign, she left her job as Browder‘s district field director to work at Anniston

Army Depot, where she continues to help in managing the chemical weapons destruction program.

40 David and Vickie Plunkett, Washington, D.C., telephone interview with the author, Munford, Alabama, June 17, 2007. 41 Lamar Denkins, interviewed by Geni Certain, Anniston, Alabama, October 26, 2006.

274 Ray Minter had left Browder‘s Washington office in 1992 so that his sons could grow up as he had in rural Alabama. He returned to Calhoun County and worked with Gilbert and Denkins in Browder‘s Anniston office, concentrating on military issues.

Thanks to the expertise he had gained during his time with Browder, he too found a job with Westinghouse as preparations to build the incinerator ramped up at Anniston Army

Depot. He soon got an opportunity to move to the depot itself, and after a short period working in the business office developing the type of public-private partnerships

Browder had fostered, Minter became the chief of staff.

Like Killough, Denkins, Gilbert, and the Plunketts, Minter gained valuable professional knowledge and contacts through long association with the Browder. He looked back to his early days in Washington and recalled sage advice given him by a lobbyist who had earlier worked for another Alabama congressman. ―I had not been in

D.C. more than three weeks or so and this guy came in to see me,‖ Minter said. ―He told me, ‗Ray, let me tell you something. All day every day, you‘ll be putting out fires.

You‘ll never get caught up. It‘ll never slow down. But when it‘s over — and it will be over at some point — you‘re new and you know you‘re here forevermore, but it will be over — learn something about one of the committees. Take your pick, whatever it is, but learn something about it. That way, you‘ll have a marketable skill when you leave.‘‖

Minter took the advice and chose the House Armed Services Committee, zeroing in on depot operations. ―I really was concerned about two things, taking care of Fort

McClellan and taking care of Anniston Army Depot,‖ he said. ―I learned a great deal in

275 that time, having served on that committee, that helped me immensely to come to work here.‖

Reminiscing about his years in Washington did not tempt Minter to go back now that his sons are grown, but he admitted that sometimes he missed it. ―We had a lot of good times,‖ he said. ―Glen really did not want to run for that congressional seat,‖ he said, musing about the chain of events that had taken them both to the nation‘s capital.

―That was not in his thought process to begin with, and he had a lot of consternation about it as to whether he wanted to do it or not. It was right at the last minute that he decided to get in. He thought the politics in Washington were in absolute gridlock and that the real answers to all the questions were at the state level. And I think that was probably true. When he veered off and went to Washington that changed the whole landscape. And he liked it once he got up there. He liked it a lot.… That‘s the major leagues. That‘s the bigs when you get up there. Powerful people are interested in what goes on up there. It was interesting every day.‖42

Most other Browder staffers have remained in some aspect of public affairs in

Washington or Alabama. Several stayed on the congressional staffs of his successors —

Republicans Bob Riley and Mike Rogers — or took jobs with government contractors in the private sector.

Browder spent his last six months in Congress continuing the work that was most important to him, working toward a balanced budget and providing assistance for Gulf

War veterans. He was disappointed that Congress had not achieved a balanced budget while he was in office, but, unknown to him at the time, the principles he and his fellow

42 Minter, May 23, 2007.

276 Blue Dogs brought to the budget process in 1995 and 1996 led to budgets that not only balanced but showed surpluses for the remaining years of the decade. Similarly, his efforts to get Congress to help veterans suffering from Gulf War Syndrome languished in

House committees as late as September, 1996. Thanks to his efforts, however, the veterans‘ complaints were getting the attention of the administration. In November,

1996, the secretary of defense appointed a special assistant for Gulf War illnesses, and in

January, 1998, the president created a special oversight board to keep watch on Defense

Department investigations into the possible causes of Gulf War illnesses.

In September 1996, Browder‘s colleagues in the House and Senate recognized his contributions in formal farewell ceremonies. In the House, Ron Dellums of California, who as chairman of the House National Security Committee (formerly the House Armed

Services Committee) had worked closely with Browder, offered a resolution recounting

Browder‘s defense contributions:

In 1992, Glen chaired a committee inquiry into countering the chemical and biological weapons threat in the Post-Soviet World that led to legislation that for the first time integrated and focused a desperate set of under-funded chemical, biological defense programs.

In addition, he has undertaken major initiatives to improve the safety of our chemical weapons destruction program and championed the cause of Persian Gulf War veterans in seeking to learn the extent to which they may have been exposed to chemical agents during that conflict. As chairman and co-chairman of the House Depot Caucus, Glen has provided the inspiration and leadership to set the Department of Defense on a path that will establish a comprehensive depot maintenance policy while assuring continued public sector participation in the $15 billion maintenance budget at nineteen facilities.

As a tribute to Glen, I will always remember him as the member who had the foresight to quietly, purposefully, and effectively pursue the issues of chemical, biological weapons defense and the future of public depots before

277 they came into vogue as issues of the day. In doing this, he leaves us all better prepared to deal with these intractable issues in the future.43

Retiring Senator Howell Heflin read this poignant tribute into the Congressional

Record:

Mr. President, I want to pay tribute today to another of the many outstanding Members of Congress who will be leaving as the 104th Congress draws to a close. That Member is my good friend from Alabama‘s Third Congressional District, Representative Glen Browder.

… Throughout his seven and a half years in Congress, he has been a loyal friend to the people of his district and an outspoken leader on national defense issues. He approaches his job with a deliberative, studied, and professorial approach that has helped him make the right decisions for his constituents and for the nation as a whole.

… Congressman Browder fought tenaciously to keep Fort McClellan open. He led two successful Base Closure Commission battles to defeat the ill-advised effort of the Army and the Department of Defense to close it. As the home of the chemical corps of the Army and of the only live-agent train- ing facility in the world, Fort McClellan garnered his unyielding support. Senator Shelby and I were totally supportive of Congressman Browder‘s lead- ership, but his studied expertise in the field of defensive chemical warfare allowed him to make arguments on what was in the best interests of the nation, in addition to the one based on the anticipated detrimental effects to the local economy.

I will never forget his superb presentation to the Base Closure Commission in a classified hearing on the need for live-agent training as well as the threat of chemical warfare from terrorist nations around the world. The third BRAC round led to a decision to finally close Fort McClellan, since the vote was a tie vote and a majority was necessary to take action to keep a base open. He was an excellent field marshal throughout each of these battles.

Glen Browder also won many battles for the Anniston Army Depot and Fort Benning, a portion of which is located in the southern part of his district.

Congressman Browder has done an excellent job of balancing the various needs of his diverse district and has looked after the interests of the entire

43 Ron Dellums, ―Hearing Before the Committee on National Security, House of Representatives,‖ September 25, 1996, Full Committee Consideration of Committee Resolutions Honoring Members Leaving the House at the End of the 104th Congress, (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1997).

278 State of Alabama. As a member of the House Armed Services and Science, Space, and Technology Committees, he has fought for our national security and for continued funding for the space program, which has a large presence in north Alabama.

He has also compiled a conservative legislative record, while at the same time supporting the Democratic Party leadership on most crucial votes. His district contains the largest number of textile and apparel businesses in the nation, and he has always fought for the interests of this industry as well as its workers.

His district contains Tuskegee University, Jacksonville State University, and Auburn University. He has consistently and strongly supported both higher education in general and the particular interests of these outstanding institutions of higher learning.

I am proud to have been able to serve with Congressman Browder in the Alabama delegation over the last seven years. It has been a pleasure to work with him on base closure and other vital issues. He is a proven leader who will be sorely missed when the 105th Congress convenes early next year, but I am confident that we will see him in other leadership roles in the future. I congratulate him and wish him well.44

As the November 1996, general election approached, Browder‘s interest lay not in the Senate race, but in the Third District contest between Democrat Ted Little and

Republican Bob Riley. Although he had endorsed and campaigned for Little, Browder briefed Riley on chemical weapons disposal at Anniston Army Depot, the redevelopment of Fort McClellan and other military issues critical to the Third District a few weeks before the election. They spoke again the day after Riley won the seat, and Browder told a reporter that he was not worried about the transition. He had learned the job by doing it, and Riley would too, he said. ―There are a lot of issues continuing, regardless of who‘s in office,‖ he said. ―It‘s a matter of the new member stepping up and getting out in the water.‖45

44 Howell Heflin, Tribute to Glen Browder, Congressional Record, September 26, 1996. 45 Laura Tutor, ―Changes and their effects on 3rd District,‖ Anniston Star, November 11, 1996, sec.A, p.1.

279 Browder did not announce his own plans until December, when he accepted a year‘s assignment as Secretary of the Navy Distinguished Visiting Professor of National

Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterrey, California. ―It gives me an opportunity to put into practice what I have learned as a member of Congress,‖ he told the Anniston Star, and to ―interact with the future military leaders of this country.‖ He was still on unpaid leave from Jacksonville State University, and he planned to donate all his papers from his public service career to the library there. He and Becky would keep their home in Jacksonville and they would maintain their ties to Alabama, he said. But for now, the professor-politician was looking forward to helping future military leaders better understand how Congress makes decisions about the military. More than that, he said, he was pleased to have a new job that would pay the bills.46

46 Richard Coe, ―Browder to teach in California; Jacksonville representative to be Naval school professor,‖ Anniston Star, December 6, 1996, sec. B, p. 1.

THE ROAD AHEAD

The time had come and Browder was ready to move on. ―All in all, I had an idea from the beginning that I couldn‘t last forever in politics because my public life was built primarily on my civics commitment rather than real political terra firma,‖ he wrote. ―The viability of my career as a professor-politician depended, to a great extent, on my own personal civic drive; and it couldn‘t last forever.‖1

Browder turned fifty-four years old a few days after he walked out of his congressional office for the last time in December of 1996. He was starting a new life, but it would not be a life divorced from his long held passions. Politics and public office had been not the ultimate goal for the professor-politician, but a period of preparation for the important work ahead.

The world, on the verge of eliminating its largest caches of chemical weapons and at the same time under renewed threat of their use in terrorist attacks, would not allow

Browder‘s knowledge to go dormant. After the international Chemical Weapons

Convention took effect in April 1997, obligating countries with stockpiles to destroy them by an agreed upon deadline, Browder was invited to share his expertise around the globe. During his first year after Congress, he traveled to Switzerland and Russia to explain the necessity of destroying the stockpiles and the lessons learned from Anniston‘s experience. He returned to Russia three more times from 1998 to 2004, monitoring the

1 Glen Browder, ―Professor-Politician: Recollections and Records of an Alabama Reformer‖ (unpublished draft), 34-35. 280 281 Russians‘ progress and offering guidance for their efforts to destroy the aging Soviet chemical stockpiles.

His colleague and friend in these efforts, Dr. Paul Walker of Global Green, praised Browder‘s continuing efforts on behalf of chemical demilitarization:

One of the largest challenges facing the nation in the 1990s, which still goes on today, was the safe and sound demilitarization of obsolete weapons stockpiles left after the Cold War and the clean-up of closing and badly polluted military installations. Congressman Browder was one of a very few members of Congress who rolled up his sleeves and tackled these major and complicated problems directly with both boundless energy and thoughtful intent.…

Browder has been deeply missed in Washington, D.C., and especially on the House Armed Services Committee since he left the Congress ten years ago, but he left an indelible mark of honest, hard-working, and intelligent public service which will never be forgotten. When we all celebrate, for example, the elimination of the last chemical weapon in the United States and Russia over the next decade, I hope that Glen Browder can join the party, for he deserves much of the credit for this important step forward in global and homeland security.2

Browder was in equal demand for his perspectives on democratic civil-military relations, national security issues, depot capabilities and defense budgeting. His position at the Naval Postgraduate School provided a base to influence future military leaders and from which he traveled and lectured in Germany, Italy, Romania, Honduras, Colombia,

Mongolia, Senegal, and South Africa.

During his ten years at NPS, Browder drew on his congressional experience to teach the structure and schedule of the Congress, including details of the authorization and appropriation process, how Congress and the Defense Department interact, the roles of staffs and congressional hearings, the roles of the president, the Office of Management

2 Paul F. Walker, ―Re: Glen Browder Biography,‖ e-mail message to the author, December 17, 2007.

282 and Budget, the secretary of defense, the service secretaries, the senior military leadership and the Congress in preparing budgets and legislation, according to Richard

Elster, who was the academic dean and provost of the Naval Postgraduate School during

Browder‘s tenure there. Browder‘s students at NPS ―were from all of the U.S. military services and from many allied nations,‖ Elster said, and Browder advised many of them on student projects, papers and Master‘s theses. His role at NPS went beyond teaching, however, Elster said. The graduate faculty were expected to pursue their own scholarly activities, and Browder wrote prodigiously during those years. More than that, the leadership at NPS relied on Browder as an advisor. ―His guidance greatly influenced how NPS presented itself to Washington, D.C., and particularly to the Hill,‖ Elster said.

―His advice was extremely important to NPS leadership during the last two Base

Realignment and Closure reviews. His advice was also critical to NPS‘s success in launching its Homeland Security and Defense initiatives in the wake of the events of

September 11, 2001.‖3

In 1999, Browder accepted an offer from Jacksonville State University to return as the school‘s Eminent Scholar in American Democracy. JSU shared him intermittently with the Naval Postgraduate School, and he also lectured for a short time as a Visiting

Fellow at Harvard University.

William Meehan, whom Browder had known when they both were young assistant professors at Jacksonville, was JSU‘s new president, and he was eager to bring

Browder back. ―When the opportunity arose that Glen would consider coming back here and we could possibly share him with the Naval Postgraduate School … it was too good

3 Richard Elster, e-mail message to the author, June 11, 2008.

283 to pass up,‖ Meehan said. ―So I took it to the trustees and his colleagues in Political

Science and they said, ‗yes, get him back here,‘ and we certainly did.‖4

With extensive teaching responsibilities and frequent invitations to speak throughout the country and internationally, Browder was busier than he ever had been.

Yet when he approached Meehan, he‘d brought an idea for another project that he hoped to launch from Jacksonville. He called it the American Democracy Project, and saw it as a means to teach high school and college students to think about their government.

Browder‘s own understanding of American Democracy had dawned as he sat as a boy on a curb folding papers and reading headlines. It developed depth as he read Plato and Tocqueville in college, and it flourished during his years of teaching and consulting.

But as Browder looked around at the democracy he revered, it began to flash warning signals. What Tocqueville had described as ―the Great Experiment,‖ had taken a dangerous turn, Browder perceived. The future of American democracy was in peril. If it were to survive, future generations would have to think and talk seriously about important and unsettling aspects of their democratic experiment. Preparing them for that experience would be Browder‘s most important undertaking.

The Future of American Democracy

Browder had been grappling for many years with the idea that American democracy might be dying, and since leaving Congress he had wrestled it into a seminar that he began presenting to high school and college students — and to anyone else who would attend and listen. His goal was to provoke ―a national discussion about the future

4 William Meehan, Jacksonville, Alabama, telephone interview with the author, Gulf Shores, Alabama, July 6, 2007.

284 of American democracy‖ in hopes of helping students ―in their appreciation of the strengths — as well as the fragilities and limitations — of the ‗Great Experiment‘ of

American history,‖ he wrote in the preface to The Future of American Democracy,5 the book that grew out of these seminars.

Browder‘s book drew high praise from both academic and professional colleagues.

Leon Panetta, who was President Clinton‘s White House chief of staff, called The

Future of American Democracy ―a wakeup-call for our democracy.‖ Panetta, who regularly invites Browder to speak at the Leon and Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public

Policy, continued, ―This nation was built on the principle that leadership would find the necessary consensus to advance the national interest. That principle has been lost in the current battles over power, parties and politics. This book challenges all of us to awake to the civil illness in our midst and restore the fundamental strength of our democracy.‖6

Alan Ehrenhalt, executive editor of the scholarly journal Governing, said, ―Glen

Browder is one of a rare breed in American politics: He genuinely combines serious scholarship and a commitment to public service. Browder is one of the most thoughtful and practical critics of the governmental inertia that plagues us these days, and all of his recommendations are worth reading and paying attention to.‖7

Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia‘s Center for

Governmental Studies, said Browder was the rare academician who ―combines

5 Glen Browder, The Future of American Democracy: A Former Congressman’s Unconventional Analysis (Lanham: University Press of America. 2002), Preface. 6 Leon Panetta, back cover endorsement, Future of American Democracy. 7 Alan Ehrenhalt, back cover endorsement, Future of American Democracy.

285 theoretical knowledge with practicality,‖ choosing words dear to Browder‘s heart.

―In this remarkable book,‖ Sabato continued, ―he challenges every citizen, especially the young, to think anew about America‘s democracy. Students will love it!‖8

In The Future of American Democracy, Browder describes a people who have stripped their government of its ability to govern, who have no interest in electing leaders who will lead, and who mistake their fragile democracy for an impermeable world- bending force:

America is changing in ways that are important and unsettling for the future of American democracy. Inevitable limitations of the … natural environment and national authority — and growing philosophical tensions over democratic ideals, cultural values, and principles of governance — are transforming the American democratic system. With the two central forces of American democracy — a favorable natural environment and expanding national government — gone awry, our civic mix of people, politics, and government no longer works the way it has in the past; and, despite economic strength and international power, we seem to be tiring of the Great Experiment itself.

In short, arguably, America may be dying! Thus it is time for a serious national dialogue about America — including some alternative scenarios and the possibility of a transformational ―New America‖ — in the Twenty-First Century.9

Browder‘s premise is intentionally provocative. ―The demise of America is an unpleasant thought,‖ he acknowledges, ―but that is my compelling ‗what if‘ question after three decades in public life.… My rhetorical inquiry does not represent projection of national death; in fact, I have almost mystical confidence in America and American democracy. But I believe that analyzing America‘s democratic destiny — thoroughly, critically, and perhaps terminally — is the central public debate of our time.‖

8 Larry J. Sabato, back cover endorsement, Future of American Democracy. 9 Browder, Future of American Democracy, Introduction.

286 Browder sees a growing divergence between what he called Traditional

America, ―a historically dominant white society, rooted in rural, small town, middle regions, which subscribes to religious convictions, community values, and relatively conservative government,‖ and Emerging America, ―a growing eclectic society of relatively liberal and historically disadvantaged citizens in urban and coastal areas who are inclined toward social diversity, moral tolerance, an activist government.‖ While

Traditional America ―asserts its right of national control,‖ he writes, Emerging America

―boldly defines itself as the future of our nation.‖ Clashes between these two Americas, he says, threaten to intensify into a philosophical civil war.

The blame for America‘s ―civic distemper,‖ Browder says, defies conventional wisdom. ―Most commentators blame our government, politicians, and political institutions (and a few criticize the public) for America‘s civic problems. While I hold these participants accountable for their actions, I also see them all as struggling players in a ‗fixed‘ game of stud poker democracy in which the trump cards — an unfavorable systemic environment and a philosophical civil war — are stacked against our people, politics, and government.‖ At the same time, he also contradicts popular notions of the causes for America‘s problems. They are not, he says:

… terrorism, political scandals, declining morals, liberalism, conservatism, abortion, pornography, homosexuality, prayer in the schools, affirmative action, breakup of the family, crime, drugs, racism, incivility, talk radio, television, Hollywood, crooked politicians, campaign money, negative campaigning, the special interests, party politics, budgetary squabbling, media scrutiny, or any of a variety of hot-button issues and villains. These issues and villains are important; some are corrosively controversial (but others are simply objectionable nuisances or trivial diversion). Many of them derive, in part, from the fundamental dysfunctions of the American system; in turn, they infect our national environment with political toxins and seriously exacerbate

287 our civic ills. Expectedly, our public debate and media tend to focus disproportionately on them. But they are, from an analytic perspective, merely coincidental or spurious elements of our unhealthy situation.10

Browder cautions that we must not allow these distractions to divert us from the real question of America‘s future. The important question, the one he continues to ask,

―is whether American democracy can continue its magic for the long run.‖ He poses the question not to instill fear that the nation he loves is dying, but to inspire a public discussion about the future of American democracy. He is particularly interested in carrying a message to young people that — ―with a healthy mix of philosophy and politics, vision and practicality — an individual can make things better.11

His life is the proof of his philosophy.

10 Browder, Future of American Democracy, 61. 11 Glen Browder, ―Re: Finishing the Last Page,‖ e-mail message to the author, November 10, 2007.

EPILOGUE

Glen Browder candidly says he is happy to be an ex-politician.

He looks back on his days in public office with great affection and no hint of regret, his ambition satisfied at last. ―Every day in Montgomery and Washington was a seminar in American democracy, and I would have paid for those privileges and experiences,‖ the professor-politician writes, unselfconsciously resuming the vernacular of the academician.1

―My political science background proved very pertinent and helpful to my political career,‖ he says. ―Unfortunately,‖ he adds, ―this systematic approach consumed valuable time and attention; it also presented nagging dilemmas that could never be resolved expeditiously or philosophically. My political career probably would have been more enjoyable if I had junked some of my academic inclinations and followed the wisdom of the sports commercial — just do it.‖2

Others have mourned the end of Browder‘s political career, but he does not. ―I rode that horse as far as it would carry me,‖ he said with a grin during our last interview in November 2007.3 When his ride was over, he was glad to get off.

1 Glen Browder, ―Professor-Politician, Recollections and Records of an Alabama Reformer,‖ (unpublished draft), 32. 2 Browder, ―Professor-Politician,‖ 33. 3 Glen Browder, interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, November 27, 2007. 288 289 Yet, he clearly relishes not only the work he did in the service of the state and nation, but also the memory of the many battles he won and lost, and the dozens or hundreds of lifelong friendships he made along the way. On a walking tour of

Montgomery in the summer of 2007, some eighteen years after he last worked in the state capital, he ran into old friends at every stop. Invariably, the women hugged him and the men pumped his hand. Those who didn‘t yet know him stood in line to be introduced.

He approached them with warmth and said his own name as if he only half expected it to be recognized: ―Hello, I‘m Glen Browder. I used to work here.‖ He was once again the politician in his element. It was easy to imagine him on the campaign trail, and most of the people we met hoped or wished that were the case.

But perhaps more than any of that, he treasures the opportunities his work brought him to make a difference in the lives of the young people he met. Students such as Ray

Minter and Kelvin Cunningham, who probably would not have participated in politics beyond voting, had they not lucked into a Browder class; those such as Jim Folsom, Jr., and Mike Rogers, who were destined for careers in politics and accepted precious guidance at critical points in their lives from a professor with both academic and practical knowledge; and those like Artur Davis, who never studied under Browder but nonetheless discovered in him a hero.

Browder considers that his life‘s work, the job he does best, a job he continues to do. Standing under the majestic portico of the antebellum Alabama Statehouse, where

Jefferson Davis and George Wallace each looked out to face their coming troubles a hundred years apart, Browder spoke once more of the potential for a single individual to

290 make government work as it should, if only that person has civic vision and the courage to act on it.

―Civic vision is power,‖ Browder said. ―Civic vision is power in several ways. It really prepares you for dealing with the political world. But it also impacts the people and the events of the political world. Because when they see that you come to the game with civic vision, they respond a little differently to you. I think sometimes it‘s like that social desirability response set,‖ the professor-politician said. ―They try to appear more civic and democratic and philosophical than they really are.‖4

Some months later, he returned to this favorite theme, reflecting upon the impact his career in public service had made. ―I think it had a positive impact because they saw that I was serious about this. And I think it had a positive impact because it gave them a chance to redefine themselves. I discovered that a lot of people I approached seemed to rethink their roles and saw a chance to do something bigger than what they had done before.‖ It did not always work that way, Browder conceded, but, he said, ―I think that‘s one of the things that really helped me with Governor Wallace. I think coming to the game with civic vision causes people to play the game with you and talk with you because they know that‘s what you want to hear. But for most people it makes them think about it and makes them make a choice — maybe they can do something better than just pave roads and get government contracts.‖5

4 Glen Browder, interviewed by the author, Montgomery, Alabama, June 25, 2007 5 Browder, November 27, 2007.

291 It is not surprising that of all the awards and accolades that have come his way over the years, Browder is most pleased with those he received from the two schools he loves best, Jacksonville State University and Presbyterian College.

At the end of 2005, JSU extended to him the status of Emeritus Professor of

American Democracy with the following commendation:

Whereas, The Faculty, Staff, and Students of Jacksonville State University recognize Dr. John Glen Browder for his exemplary service to the University: Whereas, Dr. Browder began his career at Jacksonville State University in 1971 and is retiring as Eminent Scholar in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration; Now therefore be it resolved, that upon his retirement we take this opportunity to thank Dr. Browder for his loyalty and to commend him for his years of service at this University. (December 31, 2005.)

He also was proud when his alma mater, Presbyterian College, earlier the same year, bestowed upon him an honorary doctorate in Public Service:

―Whereas, Glen Browder has distinguished himself as an alumnus of Presbyterian College, embodying the college‘s motto, dum vivimus servimus — while we live, we serve — through his careers in public service and political science … Therefore, be it declared that the Board of Trustees and the faculty of Presbyterian College do, on this day — the seventh day of May in the year of our Lord, two thousand and five — bestow upon John Glen Browder, honoris causa, the degree of Doctor of Public Service.‖ (May 7, 2005.)

It is as yet unclear whether Browder is ready to be an ex-professor. Although he has changed from Eminent Scholar to Professor Emeritus at JSU and ended his work at the Naval Postgraduate School, he still keeps his campus office in Brewer Hall and can be found there every day. He continues to read, research, write, and speak about politics, national security and the future of American democracy, and he is a favorite source of

292 political insight for the Alabama media. He has time to focus on things that have always intrigued him.

―Now, too,‖ he says, ―I can call my wife at four o‘clock and ask, ‗Becky, what would you like to do tonight?‘‖6

6 Browder, Professor-Politician, 36.

APPENDIX A: GLEN BROWDER’S PROFESSIONAL PRESENTATIONS, PAPERS, PUBLICATIONS, AND OTHER CITATIONS

Lecturer, ―Eminent Scholar Public Lecture Series on the Future of American Democracy,‖ Jacksonville State University.

Instructor, ―Civil-Military Relations in the United States,‖ Jacksonville State University.

Instructor, ―Seminar on the Relationship Between Congress and the Department of Defense,‖ Naval Postgraduate School.

Guest lecturer, ―The Future of American Democracy,‖ ―Election 2000 and the Future of American Democracy,‖ ―Is America Dying?,‖ ―Politics as a Vocation,‖ ―Congress and Taxes,‖ ―Congressional Committees in the Budget Process,‖ ―The Defense Budget Process in Congress,‖ ―The Budget as an Instrument of Legislative Control,‖ ―Representational Linkages between Congress and the Military,‖ ―Reflections on Civil-Military Relations by a Former Legislator,‖ and ―The Chemical Weapons Convention and CW Demilitarization‖ in various academic seminars and forums.

1971 Author, ―Political Style Among Grassroots Party Activists in a Southern Suburban Community,‖ delivered at the Southern Political Science Association annual meeting, Gatlinburg, Tenn.; November 11, 1971. Author, ―Southern Party Workers and the Development of Two-Party Politics: Some Findings from DeKalb County, Georgia,‖ South Carolina Journal of Political Science; (1971, 16-26).

1972 Author, ―Public Opinion and Grassroots Politics: A Behavioral Analysis of the Linkage Process,‖ delivered at Southern Political Science Association annual meeting, Atlanta, Ga.; November 2, 1972. Author, ―Motives and Grassroots Party Activism: A Reappraisal of the Amateur,‖ International Review of History and Political Science; (August, 1972, 99-105). Co-author, ―The Suburban Party Activist: The Case of Southern Amateurs,‖ Social Science Quarterly; (53, June, 1972, 168-175).

293 294 1973 Author, ―The Reform Experience: Southern Democratic Party Organizations and the Delegate Selection Guidelines,‖ delivered at the Southern Political Science Association annual meeting, Atlanta, Ga.; November 2, 1973. Co-author, ―Use of the Newsmedia for Political Communication: A Linkage Survey,‖ delivered at the Southern Regional Popular Culture Association annual meeting, Atlanta, Ga.; September 23, 1973. Author, ―Citizen Impact on City Policy: An Analysis of Differential Representation,‖ delivered at the Southwestern Social Science Association annual meeting, Dallas, Texas; March 22, 1973. Author, ―Representation at the Community Level: An Empirical Analysis of the Linkage Process,‖ delivered at the Alabama Academy of Science annual meeting, Huntsville, Ala.; April 7, 1973.

1974 Author, ―Race and Representation in a Southern Community: The Coming of a Negro Revolution?‖ Politics 1974: Trends in Southern Politics, Tinsley E. Yarbrough, editor, (Greensville, N.C.: East Carolina University Publications, 1974, 51-61). Co-author, ―Some Effects of Father-Absence on the Political Socialization of Children: An Inquiry Regarding Knowledge, Efficacy, and Cynicism,‖ delivered at the Southern Political Science Association annual meeting, New Orleans, La.; November 7, 1974. Author, ―Contemporary Currents in Alabama Politics,‖ delivered at the Alabama Political Science Association annual meeting, Auburn, Ala.; April 20, 1974. Author, ―Teaching Democracy in the College Classroom: A Preliminary Inquiry,‖ delivered at Alabama Academy of Science annual meeting, Birmingham Ala, April 6, 1974.

1977 Director, ―Quality of Life in Alabama: Are We Really That Bad and Where Do We Go From Here?‖ (Conference sponsored by the Alabama Committee For the Humanities and Public Policy, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and JSU), 1977. Author, ―Voting Behavior in the United States,‖ delivered at the Robert A. Taft Institute of Government Seminar, University of Alabama at Birmingham; Birmingham, Ala.; July 22, 1977, and July 30, 1976. Chairman, ―Dimensions of Voting: Some Considerations Regarding Registration Turnout,‖ Alabama Political Science Association annual meeting, Tuscaloosa, Ala.; April 22, 1977.

295 1978 Chairman, ―Socialization, Interest Groups Transformed, and the Political Process,‖ Southern Political Science Association annual meeting, Atlanta, Ga.; November 11, 1978. Discussant, ―Political Factionalism,‖ The Citadel Symposium on Southern Politics, Charleston, S.C.; February 16, 1978.

1979 Author, ―The Political Scientist as Professional Consultant: Practices, Trends, and Questions,‖ delivered at the 1979 meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, Gatlinburg, Tenn.; November 2, 1979. Chairman, ―Politics of the Contemporary South: Substance and Methods of Study,‖ Alabama Political Science Association annual meeting, Montgomery, Ala.; March 23, 1979.

1980 Author, ―Surveying as a Political Instrument,‖ delivered at the 1980 meeting of the Alabama Chapter of the American Planning Association; Point Aquarius Ala.; August 21, 1980. Discussant, ―The Voting Rights Act of 1965,‖ Panel at The Citadel Symposium on Southern Politics, Charleston, S.C.; March 28, 1980.

1981 Discussant, ―Dynamics of Political Participation,‖ Southern Political Science Association annual meeting, Memphis, Tenn.; November 6, 1981. Author, ―Political Scientists as Delegates and Alternates: The Democrats‖ (part of a collection of articles on the 1980 Democratic and Republican national conventions), PS; Winter, 1981, 10-11.

1983 Discussant, ―Decision Makers and Decision Making in the South,‖ Southern Political Science Association annual meeting, Birmingham, Ala., November 3, 1983.

1984 Panelist, ―Mass Media in Public Affairs,‖ Public Affairs for Future Leaders Conference (program for high school students sponsored by the University of Alabama in Huntsville); Huntsville, Ala.; November 13, 1984 (also 1983 and 1982).

1992 Author, ―Foreword,‖ Biological Weapons: Weapons of the Future? Center for Strategic and International Studies; l992. Author, ―Alabama Voices: Browder Wants Unburdened Balanced Budget Proposal,‖ Montgomery Advertiser; June 5, 1992.

296 1993 Author, ―Mystery Illnesses and Stonewalling from the Pentagon,‖ Birmingham News; December 20, 1993. Author, ―It‘s No Time To Let Up On Arms Control,‖ Christian Science Monitor, December 8, l993. Chairman, ―Countering the Chemical and Biological Weapons Threat in the Post-Soviet World: Special Inquiry into the Chemical and Biological Threat;‖ Committee on Armed Services, U.S. House of Representatives; February 23, 1993. Author, ―Chemical And Biological Weapons: A Global Threat,‖ Applied Science and Analysis Newsletter; February l0, l993.

1994 Author, ―Campaign Finance Reform: The Real Reason It Failed,‖ The Hill; October 12, 1994. Author, Campaign Finance Reform … Let‘s Take It One Pocket as a Time,‖ Anniston Star; May 14, 1994. Author, ―Campaign Reform — Honestly,‖ Campaigns and Elections; May, 1994. Author, ―Should Congress Ban Campaign Contributions By Political Action Committees? No,‖ The American Legion; March, 1994.

1995 Author, ―What Should We Do After the BRAC Decision?‖ Anniston Star; July 1995. Author, ―Question: Should the tax cut be linked to deficit reduction? Yes: Make reducing the deficit our highest priority,‖ Insight On The News; May 22, 1995.

1996 Author, ―Destroy The U.S. Chemical Weapons Stockpile … Before The Poison Leaks All Over Us,‖ Washington Post; November l, l996. Author, ―We‘re Playing With Nerve Gas,‖ San Jose Mercury News; November 4, 1996. Author, ―Government Must Play Role in Depot Management: It‘s Important To Forge Public-Private Partnerships,‖ Roll Call, April 29, 1996. Author, ―Ending The Depot Dilemma: It‘s Time To Sensibly Think Through A Privatization Policy,‖ Armed Forces Journal International; April, 1996.

1997 Participant, ―Public Hearing on Chemical Weapons Destruction,‖ organized by Green Cross Russia, Kurgan Oblast, Russia; August, l997. Participant, ―Coral Breeze Flag/General Officer Seminar,‖ hosted by USCINCPAC at Honolulu, Hawaii; July 30-3l, l997. Lecturer, ―Defense Planning and Budgeting: The Roles of the Defense and Budget Committees, U.S. Armed Services Committee‖ for ―Security in Democratic Societies: A Seminar for Parliamentarians,‖ sponsored by the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies and the North Atlantic Assembly, Garmisch, Germany; July 16, 1997.

297 Participant, ―The Chemical Weapons Convention as a Key Part of Global Security Policy,‖ conference sponsored by Forum East-West, Bern, Switzerland; February 17- 18, 1997. Author, ―Achieving Real Reform: First, Get Everybody Talking Constructively,‖ Roll Call, March 17, 1997.

1998 Presenter, ―The Congressional Perspective,‖ Department of Defense Maintenance Symposium, Fort Worth, Texas; October 19, 1998. Presenter, ―Emerging Defense Budget Priorities‖ and ―Structuring the Defense Budgeting Process‖ in Seminar on National Security Priorities and Defense Decision-Making conducted by the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Civil-Military Relations at Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; September 22-23, 1998. Presenter, ―Congress and Civil-Military Relations in a Democracy‖ and ―The Budget and Civil-Military Relations in a Democracy,‖ in Seminar on Civil-Military Relations conducted by the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Civil-Military Relations at Bogota, Colombia; August 24-28, 1998. Author, ―Where Have All the Strategists Gone?‖ Military Training Technology; February- March 1998. Participant, Congress to Campus Program (conducted by Former Members of Congress Association) for Richard C. Lugar Program in Politics and Public Service of Denison University, at Granville, Ohio; February 17-19, 1998. Planner and Participant, ―Professional Military Education for the 21st Century Warrior,‖ conference sponsored by Office of Naval Research and Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif.; January 15-16, 1998.

1999 Participant, ―Overarching Issues Assessment,‖ an Office of the Secretary of Defense project (contracted through ICF Kaiser International) to provide independent assessment of the United States Chemical Demilitarization Program; 1998-1999. Author, ―Lessons learned from the Twentieth Century,‖ special millennium essay Published by the Montgomery Advertiser as ―Century Not One in Which State‘s light Shone Bright‖); December 31, 1999. Reviewer, ―New volume brings needed update on politics in Dixie‖ (Southern Politics in the 1990s by Alexander Lamis); Anniston Star, Nov. 14, 1999. Presenter, ―Is America Dying?‖ paper delivered at the Southern Political Science Association annual meeting, at Savannah, Ga.; November 4, 1999. Keynote Address, ―American Perspectives on Security in Europe,‖ United States Information Service NATO Tour Alumni Conference at Naples, Italy; October 7, 1999. Presenter, ―Legislatures, Defense Policy, and Civilian Control,‖ and ―Defense Budget Process: Legislature,‖ in Seminar on Civil-Military Relations conducted by the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Civil-Military Relations at Dakar, Senegal; September 13-17, 1999.

298 Moderator, ―Is There an Ideal Balance Between Parliament and Government?‖ and ―To What Extent Should Committees Be Involved in the Budgetary Process?‖ in ―Security in Democratic Societies — A Seminar for Parliamentarians,‖ sponsored by the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Parliamentary Assembly, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany; July 26-30, 1999. Presenter, ―Civil-Military Relations‖ and ―The Media and National Defense‖ in seminar on Civil-Military Relations conducted by the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Civil-Military Relations at Tegucigalpa, Honduras; February 22-26, 1999.

2000 Participant, ―lessons from the American Experience in Chemical Weapons Destruction,‖ Public Forum sponsored by Green Cross Russia on Challenges to Implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention in Russia, Moscow, Russia; November 13-14, 2000.

Presenter, ―American Dominance: The Limits of Power,‖ joint conference, ―Between Dominance and Resentment: New Challenges for Transatlantic Relations,‖ sponsored by Atlantik-Brucke and the Southern Center for International Studies, Atlanta, Ga.; September 23, 2000. Presenter, ―Life and Times of a ‗Philosopher-Politician‘‖ and ―The Future of American Democracy,‖ seminars at Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, Calif.; June 21, 2000. Presenter, ―U.S. Constitutional Concepts for Civilian Control,‖ ―U.S. Legislative Process,‖ and ―Legislative Linkages Between MOD and Parliament,‖ program for Croatia Traveling Contact Team Presentations conducted by the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Civil-Military Relations at Zagreb, Croatia; May 22-23, 2000. Panelist, ―The South in Congress,‖ The Citadel Symposium on Southern Politics, Charleston, S.C.; March 3, 2000. Presenter, ―Beyond Serving as a ‗Rubber Stamp‘: Benefits and Risks of an Activist Legislature,‖ ―Committee and Subcommittee Organizational Arrangements for Defense Budgeting,‖ ―Overseeing the Budget‘s Implementation: Issues for Parliament,‖ ―So Much To Do, So Little Time: Establishing Oversight Priorities for Parliament,‖ seminar on Civil-Military Relations conducted by the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Civil-Military Relations at Capetown, South Africa; February 24-27, 2000. Author, ―Review/Essay: The Republicans;‖ Anniston Star; January 30, 2000.

2001 Author, ―Congress and the Pentagon: Civil-Military Relations for a New Millennium,‖ chapter in Inside the House: Former Members Reveal How Congress Really Works, edited by Louis Frey, Jr., and Michael T. Hayes (Former Members of Congress Association and University Press of America, Inc.; 2001).

299 Author, ―Lessons from the American Experience in Chemical Weapons Destruction,‖ in Green Cross Russia, A Public Forum: Russian Problems in Implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention — Current Issues and Perspectives at Year-end 2000 (Moscow: Rakus Publishers, 2001). Author, ―A Toxic Legacy,‖ Moscow Times (August 13, 2001); also Published in St. Petersburg Times (August 24, 2001). Moderator, ―Parliament‘s Role in Preventing Corruption Within the Security Forces,‖ Anti- Corruption Initiative sponsored by the Marshall Center at Bucharest, Romania; December 6-8, 2001. Presenter, ―Congress and the Military,‖ Air War College Faculty Orientation Conference, at Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Ala.; July 25, 2001. Participant, International Flag Raising Ceremony for Chemical Weapons Destruction Complex, Shchuch‘ye, Kurgan Region, Russian Federation; June 8, 2001. Participant, ―Air War College National Security Forum,‖ Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Ala.; May 28-June 1, 2001. Chair, ―Russian and American Chemical Weapons Destruction,‖ Global Green Legacy Forum, at Washington D.C.; April 25, 2001. Discussant, ―Vulnerability and Strategic Behavior in the House and Senate,‖ Western Political Science Association, at Las Vegas, Nev.; March 15, 2001.

2002 Author, The Future of American Democracy: A Former Congressman’s Unconventional Analysis (University Press of America, Inc., 2002). Presenter, ―The Future of American Democracy,‖ James Madison Center, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Va.; November 26, 2002. Luncheon speaker, ―The Future of American Democracy,‖ Partnership Youth Council, Council for Excellence in Government, Washington, D.C.; November 23, 2002. Guest speaker, ―The Future of American Democracy,‖ DC Environmental Network, Friends of the Earth, Washington, D.C.; November 22. Guest lecturer, ―The Future of American Democracy,‖ Ethics and Values in Public Policy Course, Public Policy Institute, George Washington University, Washington, D.C.; November 20, 2002. Presenter, ―U.S. Chemical Weapons Destruction: Views from Washington and Alabama,‖ National Dialogue Forum on Russian Implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, Moscow, Russian Federation; November 11-12, 2002. Guest lecturer, ―The Future of American Democracy,‖ International Independent University of Environmental and Political Sciences, Moscow, Russian Federation; November 11, 2002. Discussant, ―The Parties in Congress,‖ and ―Racial and Partisan Change in the South,‖ Southern Political Science Association, Savannah, Ga.; November 6-9, 2002. Featured guest, ―Is America Dying?‖ Alabama Public Radio, Tuscaloosa, Ala.; October 29, 2002. Featured guest, ―The Future of American Democracy,‖ For the Record, Alabama Public Television, Montgomery, Ala.; October 28, 2002.

300 Lecturer, ―The Future of American Democracy,‖ Alabama Democracy Forums at various sites throughout Alabama; September-October, 2002. Presenter, ―Legislatures and National Defense,‖ ―Case Study: Issues in the Organization of Joint Forces,‖ ―The Media and the Military,‖ Program on Legislatures and the Armed Forces, conducted by the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Civil- Military Relations at San Salvador, E1 Salvador; September 9-13, 2002.

2003 Guest Author, ―Evening with the Author,‖ Roddenbery Memorial Library, Cairo, Ga.; November 11, 2003. Author, ―Phenix City Story: Author Reopens Old Wounds in Patterson Case,‖ Book Review, Anniston Star; November 9, 2003. Author, ―Guiding the Great Experiment: California‘s Recall and America‘s Democratic Destiny,‖ Anniston Star; October 26, 2003. Presenter, ―The Transformation of American Democracy,‖ Congressional Intern Program, Leon and Sy1via Panetta Institute for Public Policy, Seaside, Calif.; September 24, 2003. Author, ―Guiding the Great Experiment: California‘s Recall and America‘s Democratic Destiny,‖ Monterey County Herald, Monterey, Calif.; September 14, 2003. Organizer and Presenter, ―The Uncertain Future of American Democracy: And Is California an Unsettling Vision of America‘s Democratic Destiny?,‖ Capitol Hill Briefing and Discussion sponsored by California Institute for Federal Policy Research and broadcast by C-SPAN, Washington, D.C.; August 21, 2003. Author, ―Writing the Book I Wanted To Write,‖ Journal of the Alabama Writers’ Forum (Spring 2003). Guest author, ―The Future of American Democracy,‖ Florida Roundtable on Florida Radio Networks, March 27, 2003. Visiting Fellow, ―Southern Politics and the Future of American Democracy,‖ Institute of Politics, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; March 10- 21, 2003. Presenter, ―The Future of American Democracy,‖ Patrick Henry Chapter of League of the South, Montgomery, Ala.; January 14, 2003.

2004 Speaker, ―The Future of American Democracy,‖ Pi Sigma Alpha, Auburn University, Auburn, Ala.; November 29, 2004. Keynote Address, ‖It Matters: Engage. Participate. Vote,‖ Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, Calif.; September 23, 2004. Presenter, ―The Transformation of American Democracy,‖ Congressional Intern Program, Leon and Sy1via Panetta Institute for Public Policy, Seaside, Calif.; September 21, 2004. Author, Study Guide for “The Future of American Democracy;” August, 2004. Author, ―Toxic Politics: Alarm Bells for Chemical Weapons,‖ International Herald- Tribune; July 5, 2004.

301 Presenter, ―The Future of American Democracy,‖ College Student Officials Program, Leon and Sy1via Panetta Institute for Public Policy, Seaside, Calif.; June 18, 2004. Presenter, ―U.S. Chemical Weapons Destruction: A Congressional Perspective on Weapons Destruction,‖ National Dialogue Forum on Russian Implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation; May 25-27, 2004. Planner and Participant, ―Fate of Democracy: A Live Interactive Discussion on How California Is Changing the Face of American Democracy,‖ California State University Dominguez Hills, Carson, Calif.; February 26, 2004.

2005 Guest lecturer, ―Congress and the Legislative Process‖ and ―The Future of American Democracy,‖ Presbyterian College, Clinton, S.C.; Oct. 6-7, 2005. Author, ―Guiding the Great Experiment: California‘s Recall and America‘s Democratic Destiny,‖ column reprinted in California Dreams and Realities: Readings for Critical Thinkers and Writers, by Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon (Bedford/St. Martins, 2005). Guest lecturer, ―Congress and the Legislative Process‖ and ―Elements of Political Science‖ classes at Presbyterian College, Clinton, S.C.; October 6-7, 2005. Presenter, ―The Transformation of American Democracy,‖ Congressional Intern Program, Leon and Sy1via Panetta Institute for Public Policy, Seaside, Calif.; September 20, 2005. Presenter, ―The Future of American Democracy,‖ College Student Officials Program, Leon and Sy1via Panetta Institute for Public Policy, Seaside, Calif.; June 15, 2005. Author, ―Entrenching Democratic Minority: The Democrats Are Destined To Be the Minority Party in a Rational/National Two-Party System as Long as They Forfeit the Solid South,‖ electronic manuscript on Emerging Democratic Majority weblog; June 10, 2005. Participant, Journalists Roundtable on Southern Politics, University of North Carolina; June 5-6, 2005. Author, ―Winning Back the South by Embracing White Southern Culture,‖ Op-Ed article, Mobile Register; May 22, 2005. Author, ―Democrats‘ Real Southern Problem,‖ Op-Ed article, Mobile Register; May 15, 2005. Author, ―The Real Southern Problem and My Democratic Party‘s Future,‖ SouthNow Program on Southern Politics, Media, and Public Life; April, 2005. Participant, Congress-to-Campus Program, Golden West Community College (Huntington Beach, Calif.), Orange Coast Community College (Costa Mesa, Calif.), and Coastline Community College (Fountain Valley, Calif.); April 11-12, 2005. Author, ―Memo to Howard Dean: The Real Southern Problem and our Party‘s Future,‖ Emerging Democratic Majority weblog; March 28, 2005.

2006

302 Presenter, ―The Transformation of American Democracy,‖ Leon and Sy1via Panetta Institute on Public Policy, Seaside, Calif.; September 21, 2006.

Panelist, ―leadership in a Time of Challenge and Change,‖ Leon and Sy1via Panetta Institute on Public Policy, Seaside, Calif.; June 15, 2006. Presenter, ―What I Learned About My Own Collection as I Processed It,‖ Association of Centers for the Study of Congress, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Conn.; May 20, 2006. Panelist, ―Alabama Politics: Election 2006,‖ Alabama Political Science Association annual meeting; Tuscaloosa, Ala.; April 28, 2006.

2007 Reviewer, ―Controversial book analyzes lobbies, calls for fresh course in Mideast relations,‖ (The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt) Anniston Star, December 30, 2007.

APPENDIX B: SELECTED PUBLICATIONS, PAPERS, AND PRESENTATIONS FEATURING, QUOTING, OR REFERENCING GLEN BROWDER

1983 Melinda Gorham, Christopher Bell and Karen Middleton. ―Barron‘s Write-In Win Tops Races,‖ Huntsville Times, November 9, 1983. Michele MacDonald. ―Barron pulls off big write-in victory to keep Senate seat,‖ Birmingham News, November 9, 1983.

1989 R.W. Apple. ―House Race in Alabama Takes on a Biting Tone,‖ New York Times, March 31, 1989. Associated Press. ―Democrat Elected to Alabama Seat,‖ New York Times, April 5, 1989. Peter Applebome. ―GOP‘s Southern Hopes Set Back in Alabama,‖ New York Times, April 6, 1989. ———‖GOP Tide Rises in the South, but Democrats Say It Will Ebb,‖ New York Times, April 15, 1989. Brett Davis. ―Glen Browder Finds Some Influence in First Few Months as Congressman,‖ Huntsville Times; August 14, 1989.

1990 Robert B. McNeil. ―Browder Becomes Specialist on Closing of Military Bases,‖ Lee County Eagle; October 17, 1990.

1992 Brad Roberts. Biological Weapons: Weapons of the Future? The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1992.

1993 Sam Hodges. ―Jax State: A Maker of Movers and Shakers,‖ Mobile Register, November 14, 1993.

1994 Nicol C. Rae. Southern Democrats. Oxford University Press; 1994. ―Russia To Get More U.S. Aid in Destroying Chemicial Arms,‖ New York Times; January 12, 1994. G. McBride. ―US Takes Gulf War Illnesses Serious1y,‖ BMJ: Informed Consent in Medical Research; February 19, 1994.

303 304 Andrew L. Wright. ―At the K-School, A Lesson in Diplomacy: Russian, U.S. Politicians Exchange Views on Government,‖ Harvard Crimson; September 12, 1994. Glen D. Locklear. ―Issues of Depot Maintenance: Changes for the Future,‖ National Defense University; 1994.

1995 Jack Nease. ―Tax Cuts Would Only Worsen Deficit,‖ Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel; February 13, 1995. William Kristol. ―The Primacy of Tax Cuts,‖ John M. Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs; March 30. 1995. Lisa Leiter. ―The Blue Dogs Have Their Day: Conservative Democratic Legislators,‖ Insight on the News; June 5, 1995. Bruce W. Nelan. ―The Price of Fanaticism,‖ Time, April 3, 1995. Douglas Pasternak. ―The Hunt for a Better Canary: Deterring Toxic Terror,‖ U.S. News & World Report, April 3, 1995. Eric Pianin. ―House GOP leaders Move Closer to Passing Tax Cut,‖ Washington Post; April 4, 1995. ―The War on the National Deficit Could Yield Literacy Casualties,‖ Report on Literacy; April 27, 1995. Glynn Wilson. ―Nerve Gas Incineration Back on Congressional Front Burner in Light of Base Closure Decision,‖ UPI; August 1995. Canadian Security Intelligence Service. ―Postscript: Chemical Terrorism in Japan,‖ Chemical and Biological Terrorism, CSIS/SCRS, 1995.

1996 James G. Gimpel. Legislating the Revolution: The Contract with America in Its First 100 Days; Allyn & Bacon, 1996. James M. Glaser. Race, Campaign Politics, and the Realignment in the South. Yale University Press; 1996. Patrick Jasperse. ―Klug, Others Call for Mediator on Budget,‖ Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; February 1, 1996. Jill Smolowe. ―Chemical Time Bombs,‖ Time, February 12, 1996. Chris Early. ―Safety Top of Mind for Program Leaders,‖ East Oregonian.info; February 26, 1996. Thomas E. Ricks. ―On American Soil: The Widening Gap Between the U.S. Military and U.S. Society,‖ John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, Harvard University, May 1996. J. Michael Browder. ―Privatization and the Defense Worker‘s Opposition: Sometimes Privatization is a Good Idea … and Sometimes It‘s Not,‖ PM; September - October 1996. ―Back to Classroom: Browder Could Again Serve State.‖ Montgomery Advertiser; Dec. 10, 1996.

305 ―Alabama Loses a Leader With Browder‘s Defeat.‖ Opelika-Auburn News; June 30, 1996. Michael Brumas. ―Browder takes job as prof in California.‖ Birmingham News, December 6, 1996.

1997 C. Lawrence Evans and Walter J. Oleszek. Congress Under Fire: Reform Politics and the Republican Majority. Houghton Mifflin Company; 1997. Kevin Howe. ―Ex-lawmaker Offers Insider‘s View at NPS,‖ Monterey County Herald, January 15, 1997. David Hess and R.A. Zaldivar. ―Critics Disagree on How to Fix System: Some ‗Cures‘ Could Make It Worse,‖ Pioneer Press; January 15, 1997. ―Wir Sind Schon Jetzt Halb Tot,‖ August 8, 1997. Jim Campbell. ―Campaign Finances Are A Problem in Alabama, Too,‖ Alabama Forum, 1997.

1998 David S. Sorenson. Shutting Down the Cold War: The Politics of Military Base Closure. Palgrave McMillan, 1998. Elizabeth Pezzullo. ―Browder Named to Oversight Panel,‖ Anniston Star; Jan. 29, 1998. ―NPS Professor Named to Chemical Weapons Disposal Oversight Board,‖ Campus News, Naval Postgraduate School; February 19, 1998. Dave Parks. ―Browder Teaches Navy Postgrads in California,‖ Birmingham News, May 4, 1998. Tim Pryor. ―A Study in Contrast: Fob James: Alabama Governor Takes his Own Path,‖ Anniston Star; October 25, 1998. David Pace. ―South Shaping Up as Key Battleground for Control of House in 1998,‖ AP; 1998.

1999 Albert J. Mauroni. Chemical-Biological Defense. Praeger, 1999. Harold P. Smith, Jr. ―Cooperative Dismantlement of Russia‘s Chemical Arsenal,‖ Digest of the Russian Journal Nuclear Control, Winter 1998/1999. Al Harris. ―Judge Dean Buttram,‖ Gem of the Hills; Spring, 1999. ―Dr. Glen Browder Returns as Eminent Scholar.‖ Gem of the Hills, August 12, 1999. ―Lecture Series: ‗Is America Dying?‘‖ JSU News Wire; August 20, 1999. Buffy Smith. ―Browder Visits Africa on Trip Sponsored by Congress,‖ JSU News Wire; September 10, 1999. Kathleen M. Vogel. ―Tools To Catalyze International Assistance for Russian Chemical Weapons Destruction,‖ The Nonproliferation Review, Fall, 1999. Alger Carlton Harris, ―Home Sweet Home: Dr. Glen Browder Returns to Jacksonville State University, a place Where He Calls Home,‖ Gem of the Hills, Fall 1999.

306 2000 Albert J. Mauroni. America’s Struggle with Chemical-Biological Warfare. Praeger, 2000. Stephen K. Scroggs. Army Relations with Congress: Thick Armor, Dull Sword, Slow Horse. Praeger, 2000. Russ Henderson. ―Party Officials Give Switcher Cold Shoulder,‖ Anniston Star; March 31, 2000. Mulholland. ―Report Details Growth of U.S. Chem-Bio Push,‖ Defense News; April 17, 2000. Jamie M. Eubanks. ―Browder Discusses Chemical Weapons Destruction with Gorbachev,‖ JSU Newswire; Dec. 7, 2000. ―JSU to Focus on School Violence and Baby Boomers,‖ JSU Newswire; 2000. ―Postscript: Chemical Terrorism in Japan,‖ Canadian Security Intelligence Service; 1999. Pete Conroy. ―Dugger Mountain Legislative Summary,‖ JSU‘s Environmental Policy and Information Center (http://epic.jsu.edu/dugger/duggerlegislation.html).

2001 John C. Kuzenski. Eye of the Storm: The South and Congress in an Era of Change. Praeger, 2001. Barbara Honegger. ―Browder Addresses CWC Forum, Briefs Gorbachev,‖ Naval Postgraduate School Campus News, January 25, 2001. Bruce Lowry. ―One Democrat, One Republican — Sense and Sensibility,‖ Anniston Star; May 13, 2001. Jonathan B. Tucker. ―Russia‘s New Plan for Chemical Weapons Destruction,‖ Arms Control Today, July/August 2001. Jose Musse Torres. ―Terrorismo en Venezuela: Preparados Para Ataques Con Armas De Destruccion Masiva?‖ Venezuela Analitica Editores; August 20, 2001. ―Browder Speaks Out On Terrorism,‖ Anniston Star, September 27, 2001. Chloe Albanaseus. ―A Lesson In Democracy: With New Book, Rep. Browder Takes Firsthand Experience to the ‗Young People,‘‖ Roll Call; October 11, 2001. Christian R. Grose. ―‗Pork‘ Projects and Racial Representation in Congress,‖ American Political Science Association; 2001.

2002 ―Browder and Local Teachers Initiate American Democracy Project in Calhoun County School System,‖ JSU News Wire; August 12, 2002. ―Browder to Lead Democracy Forums Throughout Alabama,‖ JSU News Wire; August 28, 2002. ―Taking a Look at Democracy in America,‖ Jacksonville News, September 5, 2002. ―Area Students Ponder the Future of American Democracy,‖ Anniston Star, September 11, 2002. ―Former U.S. Congressman to Discuss America‘s Uncertain Democratic Future in US Talk,‖ University of Alabama News, October 10, 2002.

307 ―Browder Discusses Democracy‘s Direction,‖ Crimson White, October 17, 2002. Amanda Minor. ―Eminent Scholar Visits Chelsea High,‖ Chelsea Etimes; October 23, 2002. ―Browder to Lead Forum on Democracy,‖ Selma Times-Journal; October 31, 2002. ―Browder Returns to Capital as Author,‖ Birmingham News, November 30, 2002. ―Eminent Scholar Glen Browder Concludes Public Lecture Series in Alabama, Moscow, Washington,‖ JSU News Wire; Dec. 5, 2002.

2003 Ear1 Black and Merle Black. The Rise of Southern Republicans. Belknap, 2003. ―Scholar, Former Congressman Advocates Public Debate on American Democracy,‖ Naval Postgraduate School; 2003. Tom Gordon. ―State Democrats To Evaluate ‗Farm System,‘‖ Birmingham News; January 9, 2003. ―Browder Invited as Visiting Fellow at Harvard University,‖ JSU News Wire; January 21, 2003. ―Kennedy School of Government‘s Institute of Politics Announces Spring Fellows,‖ Harvard University Announcement, January 16, 2003. Dana Beyerle. ―Browder Takes on America‘s Future in New Book,‖ Associated Press, February 1, 2003.). Emmett Reeder. ―Ex-Congressman: Is Democracy Dying?‖ Decatur Daily, February 2, 2003. Jennifer Ginsberg. ―Students ‗Shadow‘ Anniston Government Officials for a Day,‖ Anniston Star; February 9, 2003. ―The Fate of Democracy: Discussion,‖ California State University New Release, California State University Dominguez Hills, February 26, 2003. ―Browder Expounds on ‗Is America Dying?‘‖ Jacksonville News, March 20, 2003. Dr. William Meehan. ―Town and Gown: Interview with Glen Browder,‖ Jacksonville News; March 20, 2003. Paul Rilling. ―A Scarred Democracy: Browder Examines the Loss of Civic Virtue and Other Ills,‖ Anniston Star, March 23. 2003. Dr. William Meehan. ―Town and Gown: Interview with Mike Rogers,‖ Jacksonville News; April 24, 2003. ―Browder Presents ‗Future‘ Analysis on Capitol Hill,‖ JSU News Wire; August 15, 2003. ―American Democracy‘s Uncertain Future — And Is California An Unsettling Vision of our Democratic Destiny,‖ California Institute for Federal Policy Research Announcement, August 21, 2003. ―Post-California Recall — Former Lawmaker Suggests Nationwide System for Voters to Put Issues on the Ballot,‖ Mobile Register, August 22, 2003. ―Browder and Classroom Educators Initiate ‗Future Democracy Course of Study;‘‖ JSU News Wire; September 2, 2004. Jim Wyatt. ―Former Congressman to Speak to Library Friends on Veterans Day,‖ Cairo (Ga.) Messenger; October 29, 2003.

308 ―Glen Browder Second Author Program in November: Former U.S. Congressman from Alabama to Speak,‖ Friends of Roddenbery Memorial Library; 2003. ―Emerging vs. Traditional Where It All Happens First,‖ Sacramento Bee, September 28, 2003. Also in Oakland Tribune, September 30, 2003; San Gabriel Valley News, September 30, 2003; Alameda Times-Star, October 2, 2003; San Mateo County Times, October 2, 2003; Daily Review, October 2, 2003; The Argus, October 2, 2003; Tri-Valley Herald, October 2, 2003. ―Nineteen-Year-Old To Run for Talladega Mayor,‖ Anniston Star; 2003.

2004 ―Fate of Democracy Engages Students and Community,‖ Dominguez Hills Dateline, California State University Dominguez Hills, March 8, 2004. ―Scholar, Former Congressman lets SSU Students Know the Future of American Democracy Matters,‖ Sonoma State University News Release, August 20, 2004. ―Browder and Classroom Educators Initiate ‗Future Democracy Course of Study,‘‖ Jacksonville State University News Release, September 2, 2004. Fred Wertheimer. ―Holding Congress Accountable,‖ Common Cause magazine; Fall, 1993.

2005 John N. Randolph. The Battle for Alabama’s Wilderness: Saving the Great Gymnasiums of Nature. University of Alabama Press, 2005. ―Congressmen Come to OCC,‖ Orange Coast College Coast Report, Costa Mesa, California, April 13, 2005. Jennifer Bacchus. ―Baxley No-Show at APSA Due to Weather,‖ The Chanticleer. April 14, 2005. ―Browder Attends Memorial Service for Howell Heflin,‖ Gadsden Times; April 15, 2005. Dana Beyerle. ―Howell Heflin Remembered as a Unique Person,‖ Tuscaloosa News; April 15, 2005. ―Browder To Be Awarded Honorary Doctorate from Presbyterian College,‖ JSU News Wire; 2005. ―PC To Hold 2005 Commencement Exercises on May 7,‖ Presbyterian College; April 29, 2005. Al Cross. ―Southern Politics Full of Intrigue,‖ (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal; June 12, 2005. Rob Jordan. ―America the Free: Our Heritage of Diverse Ideals Brings the Nation Together,‖ Anniston Star; July 3, 2005. Jared Allen. ―Browder Takes Lessons to a Wider Audience,‖ Roll Call, July 11, 2005. Sherry Kughn. ―Grandma Tired, Happy, a Little Sad,‖ JSU News Wire; 2005. Jeff. Donn. ―Commission to Review Base Closings Plan,‖ AP; August 24, 2005.

2006 Dennis Love. My City Was Gone: One American Town’s Toxic Secret, Its Angry Band of Locals, and a $700 Million Day in Court. William Morrow; 2006.

309 Albert J. Mauroni. Chemical Demilitarization: Public Policy Aspects. Praeger; 2006. M.J. Ellington. ―Attack of the Negative Ads: In Nasty Campaign War, Voters Lose, But the Messages Work (Even If You Don‘t Realize It),‖ Decatur Daily; October 22, 2006. Bob Davis. ―Newsmaker Profile: Blue Dogs Rising — Browder Sees ‗Revival‘ of Centrist Democrats,‖ Anniston Star; November 11, 2006. 2007 ―Progressive Book Club: The Real Southern Problem,‖ Raising Kaine Virginia’s Online Progressive Community, February 26, 2007, http://www.raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=7321. Laura Tutor. ―Exporting American Democracy: Could the Founding Fathers sell something no one wants to buy?‖ Anniston Star, July 7, 2007. Joey Kennedy. ―Glen Browder still working in background,‖ Birmingham News, July 18, 2007. Markeshia Ricks. ―Board wants lawmakers not to work for 2-year college system,‖ Anniston Star, August 7, 2007. Anna Keefe. ―Congressman Rogers speaks at TMB,‖ Chanticleer, September 20, 2007. Nick Cenegy. ―Profile: Sue Bell Cobb — The Chief,‖ Anniston Star, October 7, 2007.

2008 Nancy Benac. ―Dems try to divine a way for Clinton to win,‖ Anniston Star, February 18, 2008. Pete Conroy. ―An Alabama injustice that‘s now corrected,‖ Anniston Star, March 23, 2008.

APPENDIX C: CHARTS AND TABLES

CHART 1: Browder Political Career.

CAMPAIGN CONSULTANT (1970s-80s).

DEMOCRATIC PARTY ACTIVIST (1970s-80s). Calhoun County Democratic Executive Committee. Alabama State Democratic Executive Committee. Alternate Delegate to Democratic National Convention.

MEMBER, ALABAMA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES (1982-86). House Judiciary Committee. House Constitution and Elections Committee. House Ways and Means Committee. Joint Interim Committee on State Constitutional Revision.

ALABAMA SECRETARY OF STATE (1987-89).

MEMBER, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES (1989-96). 101st Congress (1989-90): House Public Works and Transportation Committee. House Science, Space, and Technology Committee. House Armed Services Committee.

102nd Congress (1991-92): House Armed Services Committee. House Science, Space, and Technology Committee.

103rd Congress (1993-94): House Armed Services Committee. House Budget Committee.

104th Congress (1995-96): House Armed Services Committee. House Budget Committee.

310 311 TABLE 1. Browder Electoral Record*

1982 DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY Alabama State Legislature (House District 57) Votes Percent Glen Browder 3,140 42.1% Charley Baker 2,197 29.5 Ted Grogan 1,075 14.4 Ronald Chandler 879 11.8 Ken Bundrum _ 164 2.2__ 7,455 100.0%

1982 DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY RUNOFF Alabama State Legislature (House District 57) Votes Percent Glen Browder 4,342 52.9% Charley Baker 3,865 47.1_ 8,207 100.0%

1986 DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY Alabama Secretary of State Votes Percent Glen Browder 365,163 51.5% Annie Laurie Gunter 343,613 48.5 708,776 100.0%

1986 GENERAL ELECTION Alabama Secretary of State Votes Percent Glen Browder (D) 644,492 61.4% JimWhatley (R) 405,189 38.6_ 1,049,681 100.0%

1989 DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY United States Congress (Third Congressional District of Alabama) Votes Percent Glen Browder 14,701 24.7% Johnny Ford 14,434 24.3 Jim Pruitt 10,153 17.1 Charles Adams 9,831 16.5 Gerald Dial 5,767 9.7

312 Donald Holmes 3,929 6.6 Ted McLaughlin 372 0.6 Mike Sprayberry 242 0.4 Robert Emerson 112 0.2_ 59,451 100.0%

1989 DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY RUNOFF United States Congress (Third Congressional District of Alabama) Votes Percent Glen Browder 44,384 62.8% Johnny Ford 26,257 37.2_ 70,641 100.0%

1989 GENERAL ELECTION United States Congress (Third Congressional District of Alabama) Votes Percent Glen Browder (D) 47,229 65.4% John Rice (R) 25,008 34.6_ 72,237 100.0%

1990 GENERAL ELECTION United States Congress (Third Congressional District of Alabama) Votes Percent Glen Browder (D) 91,678 74.6% Don Sledge (R) _31,281 25.4_ 122,959 100.0%

1992 GENERAL ELECTION United States Congress (Third Congressional District of Alabama) Votes Percent Glen Browder (D) 119,175 60.3% Don Sledge (R) 73,800 37.3 Roderic Templeton (L) 4,570 2.3_ 197,545 100.0%

313 1994 DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY United States Congress (Third Congressional District of Alabama) Votes Percent Glen Browder 86,949 85.1% Lea Fite _15,257 14.9_ 102,206 100.0%

1994 GENERAL ELECTION United States Congress (Third Congressional District of Alabama) Votes Percent Glen Browder (D) 93,919 63.6% Ben Hand (R) 53,752 34.4_ 147,671 100.0%

1996 DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY United States Senate (Alabama) Votes Percent Roger Bedford 104,549 44.0% Glen Browder 69,569 29.3 Natalie Davis 54,707 23.1 Marilyn Bromberg 8,431 3.6_ 237,256 100.0%

1996 DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY RUNOFF United States Senate (Alabama) Votes Percent Roger Bedford 137,763 62.7% Glen Browder 81,901 37.3_ 219,664 100.0%

*Compiled from Democratic Party, Secretary of State, and media reports; there may be minor variations among the sources. This presentation does not include the delegate selection process for the 1980 Democratic National Convention (when Browder was elected as an alternate delegate) and the 1983 Special Election for the Alabama Legislature (when Browder had no opposition); nor does it include other uncontested primaries and general elections..

314

TABLE 2: Browder Congressional Career Voting Percentages (All Roll-Call Votes)

Congress/Session Voting Percentage 101st Session (1989-90) 99% 102nd Session (1991-92) 98% 103rd Session (1993-94) 98% 104th Session (1995-96) 94% Mean Voting Percentage 97%

TABLE 3: Browder Voting Record On Economic, Social, Foreign Policy Issues (Liberal-Conservative Scores)*

1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 Career

Economic 46% 48% 52% 56% 48% 47% * * * L/C 53% 51% 46% 42% 51% 51%

Social 43% 34% 37% 36% 40% 40% * * * L/C 57% 64% 61% 63% 60% 49%

Foreign 36% 39% 38% 36% 51% 49% * * * Policy L/C 64% 59% 62% 63% 42% 49%

OVERALL L: 42% 40% 42% 43% 46% 45% 53% 51% 46%

OVERALL C: 58% 58% 56% 56% 54% 50% 47% 49% 54%

*Scores indicate voting record relative to all Members of Congress; for example, in 1989, Browder’s economic score was more liberal than 46% and more conservative than 53% of the House membership. Scores for the 104th Congress were available only in the Overall category; the overall scores for other years were calculated by averaging Economic-Social-Foreign Policy. Career median was calculated by averaging yearly scores.

315 TABLE 4: Browder Presidential Support Scores Compared To House Democrats And House Republicans (And Immediately Preceding/Subsequent Scores For Nichols And Riley)* Year Pres. Dems. Repubs. Nichols 1988 Reagan 25% 57% 47% Year Pres. Dems. Repubs. Browder 1989 Bush 36% 69% 55% 1990 Bush 25% 63% 41% 1991 Bush 34% 72% 41% 1992 Bush 25% 71% 45% 1989-92 Bush 30% 69% 46% 1993 Clinton 77% 39% 76% 1994 Clinton 75% 47% 77% 1995 Clinton 75% 22% 53% 1996 Clinton 74% 38% 58% 1993-96 Clinton 75% 37% 66% Year Pres. Dems. Repubs. Riley 1997 Clinton 71% 30% 23% *Yearly scores for Nichols, Browder, and Riley do not include absent votes; 1989-92 and 1993-96 scores calculated by averaging yearly scores.

316 TABLE 5: Browder Party Support Scores Compared To House Democrats, House Republicans, Southern Democrats (And Immediately Preceding/Subsequent Scores For Nichols And Riley)* Year Dems. Repubs. So.Dems Nichols 1988 80% 74% 73% 63% Year Dems. Repubs. So.Dems Browder 1989 81% 73% 68% 69% 1990 81% 74% 74% 75% 1991 81% 77% 70% 76% 1992 79% 79% 65% 77% 1993 85% 84% 76% 77% 1994 83% 84% 74% 76% 1995 80% 91% 74% 56% 1996 80% 87% 73% 60% Career* 81% 81% 72% 71% Year Dems. Repubs. So.Dems Riley 1997 82% 88% 76% 97% *Yearly scores exclude absent votes; career score compiled by averaging the yearly scores.

TABLE 6: Browder’s Stewardship Of Public Funds (Congressional Office Allowance), 1989-96*

%Unspent Year Allowance Spent Balance (Returned) 1989* $414,856 $388,632 $26,224 6%

1990* $575,202 $565,158 $10,044 2%

1991 $868,015 $642,692 $225,323 26%

1992 $863,816 $695,229 $168,590 20%

1993 $890,094 $626,618 $263,476 27%

1994 $890,094 $591,040 $299,054 34%

1995 $838,128 $639,138 $198,990 24%

1996 (Mid-Oct $862,223 $554,817 $307, 406 36% estimate)

Total $6,202,428 $4,703,324 $1,499,113 24% *Does not include franking for 1989 and 1990.

317 TABLE 7: Browder Interest Group Ratings (Selected Congressional Scorecards)*

1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 Career* AFL-CIO 63% 50% 82% 58% 58% 78% 75% 55% 65%

American 58% 58% 50% 48% 52% 62% 46% 58% 54% Conservative Union

American Security 100% 100% 90% 90% 100% 100% * * 97% Council

American Civil 30% 30% 35% 35% 13% 13% 25% 25% 26% Liberties Union Americans for 44% 33% 30% 45% 20% 25% 45% 40% 40% Democratic Action Christian Voice/ * * 54% 54% 79% 79% 71% 53% 65% Coalition Consumers Federation of 75% 50% 67% 47% 40% 50% 25% 69% 53% America Leadership Conference on 67% 64% 50% 39% 44% 60% 60% 60% 53% Civil Rights League of Conservation 80% 63% 41% 44% 45% 42% 31% 38% 48% Voters NAACP * * 50% 50% 30% 30% * * 40% National Abortion * 35% 60% 20% 15% 20% 26% * 29% Rights League National Council * 60% * 60% * 70% 80% 60% 66% Of Senior Citizens National Education 63% 64% 69% 69% 63% 59% 59% 64% Association 63% National Right to * * * 25% 89% 89% 84% * 72% Life Committee National Taxpayers 39% 19% 18% 37% 28% 41% 39% 46% 33% Union U.S. Chamber 70% 71% 56% 50% 36% 75% 67% 69% 63% Of Commerce

* Some scores not available. Most career averages were obtained from the groups; when not available from a group, career scores were calculated by averaging the available yearly percentages.

SOURCES

Books Applebome, Peter. Dixie Rising: How the South Is Shaping American Values, Politics, and Culture. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1996. Atkins, Leah Rawls. Developed for the Service of Alabama: The Centennial History of the Alabama Power Company, 1906-2006. Birmingham: Alabama Power Company, 2006. Browder, Glen. The Future of American Democracy: A Former Congressman’s Unconventional Analysis. Lanham, Mass.: University Press of America, 2002. Flynt, Wayne. Alabama in the Twentieth Century. Tuscaloosa, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 2004. Flynt, Wayne. Poor But Proud: Alabama’s Poor Whites. Tuscaloosa, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1989. Frady, Marshall. Wallace. New York: Random House, 1976. Frederick, Jeff. Stand Up For Alabama: Governor George Wallace. Tuscaloosa, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 2007. Gaillard, Frye. Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement That Changed America. Tuscaloosa, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 2004. Hayman, John and Clara Hayman. A Judge in the Senate: Howell Heflin’s Career of Politics and Principles. Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2001. Jackson, Harvey H. III. Inside Alabama: A Personal History of My State. Tuscaloosa, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 2004. Plato. The Republic. Penguin Classics edition. Translated by Desmond Lee. London: Penguin Books, 2001. Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America. Penguin Classics edition. Translated by Gerald E. Bevan. London: Penguin Books, 2003.

Government Publications Browder, Glen. ―Countering the Chemical and Biological Weapons Threat in the Post- Soviet World.‖ U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Armed Services Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1993. Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission. ―Report to the President.‖ Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1995. Defense Secretary‘s Commission on Base Realignment and Closure. ―Base Realignments and Closures: Report of the Defense Secretary‘s Commission.‖ Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1988. Dellums, Ron. ―Hearing Before the Committee on National Security, House of Representatives,‖ September 25, 1996, Full Committee Consideration of

318 319 Committee Resolutions Honoring Members Leaving the House at the End of the 104th Congress. Washington: GPO, 1997. Governor‘s Education Reform Commission, ―First Annual Report to Governor George C. Wallace and the Alabama Legislature,‖ 1985. Heflin, Howell. ―Tribute to Glen Browder.‖ Congressional Record, September 26, 1996. Herrling, Maj. Gen. John P. ―Preparation for Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) 95.‖ Fort Monroe: Department of the Army, 1994. U.S. Department of Defense, 1993 Defense Base Closures and Realignments. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1993. U.S. General Accounting Office. ―Military Bases: Analysis of the Commission‘s Realignment and Closure Recommendations.‖ Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1989. U.S. General Accounting Office. ―Military Bases: Analysis of DOD‘s Recommendations and Selection Process for Closures and Realignments.‖ Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1993. United States Government Accountability Office. ―Observations on Prior and Current BRAC Rounds, (Statement Before the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission)‖. Washington: GPO, 2006.

Interviews Baker, John. Interviewed by the author, Montgomery, Alabama, June 25, 2007. Browder, Becky. Interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, October 18, 2006. Browder, Glen. Interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, January 21, 2005. ———. Interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, March 12, 2005. ———. Interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, March 25, 2005. ———. Interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, March 26, 2005. ———. E-mail message to the author, September 25, 2006. ———. Interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, September 26, 2005. ———. Interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, October 13, 2005. ———. Interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, December 20, 2005. ———. Interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, March 14, 2006. ———. E-mail message, January 22, 2007. ———. Interviewed by the author, Anniston, Alabama, May 31, 2007. ———. Interviewed by the author, Montgomery, Alabama, June 25, 2007 ———. E-mail message to the author, August 13, 2007. ———. E-mail conversation with the author, September 28-October 2, 2007. ———. E-mail message to the author, October 17, 2007. ———. E-mail message to the author, October 18, 2007. ———. E-mail message to the author, October 19, 2007. ———. E-mail message to author, November 3, 2007. ———. E-mail message, November 4, 2007. ———. E-mail message to the author, November 10, 2007. ———. Interviewed by the author, Jacksonville, Alabama, November 27, 2007. ———. E-mail message to the author, December 11, 2007. ———. E-mail message to the author, December 14, 2007.

320 ———. E-mail message to the author, May 10, 2008. ———. E-mail message to the author, June 7, 2008. Brown, Jess. Interviewed by the author via telephone, November 30, 2006. Buttram, Dean. Interviewed by the author, Centre, Alabama, November 9, 2006. Campbell, Jim. Interviewed by the author, Anniston, Alabama, March 25, 2005. Carr, Brenda. Interviewed by the author, Huntsville, Alabama, November 22, 2006. Carr, Charles. Interviewed by the author, Oneonta, Alabama, April 16, 2007. Cheatham, Rex. Interviewed by the author, Huntsville, Alabama, June 4, 2007. Cramer, Bud. Interviewed by the author via telephone, October 31, 2007. Cunningham, Kelvin. E-mail message to author, December 10, 2007. Davis, Artur. E-mail message to the author, December 12, 2007. Denkins, Lamar. Interviewed by the author, Anniston, Alabama, October 26, 2006. Doneghy, Marti Thomas. E-mail message to the author, December 20, 2007. Elster, Richard. E-mail message to the author, June 11, 2008. Ewing, Ed. Interviewed by the author, Wetumpka, Alabama, November 15, 2006. Folsom, Jim, Jr. Interviewed by the author, Birmingham, Alabama, June 21, 2007. Hare, Ken. Interviewed by the author, Montgomery, Alabama, November 17, 2006. Hoyer, Steny. Interviewed by the author via telephone, October 22, 2007. Hubbert, Paul R. Interviewed by the author, Montgomery, Alabama, June 25, 2007. Johnson, Gerald. Interviewed by the author, Montgomery, Alabama, June 25, 2007. Killough, William. E-mail message to the author, December 10, 2007. Main, Jim. Interviewed by the author, Montgomery, Alabama, June 25, 2007. Meehan, William. Interviewed by the author via telephone, July 6, 2007. Minter, Ray. Interviewed by the author, Anniston Army Depot, Bynum, Alabama, March 23, 2007. Murray, Arthur. Interviewed by the author, Anniston, Alabama, October 26, 2006. Plunkett, David. Interviewed by the author via telephone, June 17, 2007. Plunkett, Vickie. Washington, D.C., Interviewed by the author, Munford, Alabama, June 17, 2007. Prince, Steve. E-mail message to the author, September 24, 2007. Reed, Joe. Interviewed by the author, Montgomery, Alabama, June 25, 2007. Rogers, Mike. Interviewed by the author via telephone, June 21, 2007. Rowe, Wayne C. E-mail message to the author, January 4, 2008. Stephens, Bill. E-mail message to the author, December 5, 2007. Teague, John. Interviewed by the author, Montgomery, Alabama, November 15, 2006. Walker, Paul . E-mail message to the author, December 7, 2007. Wallace, George Jr. E-mail message to the author, December 3, 2007.

Journals and Periodicals ―Browder Bill wins passage,‖ Vocal Voice, Vol. 1, No. 6, June, 1984. Browder, Glen. ―Campaign Reform — Honestly.‖ Campaigns & Elections, May 1994. ———. ―Ending The Depot Dilemma; It‘s Time To Think Sensibly Through A Privatization Policy,‖ Armed Forces Journal International, April 1996.

321 ———. ―Make Reducing The Deficit Our Highest Priority,‖ Insight on the News, May 22, 1995. ———. ―Race and Representation in a Southern Community: The Coming of a Negro Revolution?‖ Politics 1974: Trends in Southern Politics. Greensville, N.C.: East Carolina University Publications, 1974. ———. ―Should Congress Ban Campaign Contributions by Political Action Committees?‖ The American Legion, March 1994. ―Glen Browder, Secretary of State,‘ Alabama Magazine, January/February 1978. Greenhaw, Wayne. ―Editor‘s Note.‖ Alabama Magazine October 1987, 4. Harris, Alger Carlton, ―Home Sweet Home,‖ Gem of the Hills, Fall 1999. Wunnicke, Pat. ―Financing educational excellence.‖ State Legislatures Vol. 11, No.8, 1985, 16-19. Newspapers Alabama Farmers Bulletin, 1987. ―Lien filing system certified.‖ Alabama Farmers’ Bulletin, December 1, 1987.

Alabama Journal, 1985-1993. Abbott, Terry. ―Election reform bill may pass next session.‖ Alabama Journal. November 7, 1985. ———. ―Election reform bill may pass next session.‖ Alabama Journal, November 7, 1985. Associated Press. ―Browder says state voting lists must be ‗cleaned up,‘‖ Alabama Journal, December 2, 1987. ———. ―Commission expected to greet teacher-pay plan ‗with open arms.‘‖ Alabama Journal, January 30, 1985. Bentley, Emily. ―Gunter nixes opponent‘s challenges.‖ Alabama Journal, April 16, 1986. ―Browder eyes secretary of state job.‖ Alabama Journal. September 6, 1985. Dennis, Nancy. ―Group upset with funding for pamphlet.‖ Alabama Journal. September 30, 1985. ———. ―State treasurer says publication not intended to be campaign plug.‖ Alabama Journal, Editorial, ―Backing Browder.‖ Alabama Journal, February 22, 1987. ———. ―Browder for Congress.‖ Alabama Journal, Oct. 17, 1990. ———. ―Browder for Congress.‖ Alabama Journal, Oct. 8, 1992. ———. ―Campaign Candor.‖ Alabama Journal, November 11, 1985. ———. “Computer Cleaning.” Alabama Journal, February 16, 1989. ———. ―Disclose funds.‖ Alabama Journal, November 6, 1987. ———. ―Easier registration.‖ Alabama Journal, January 13, 1988. ———. ―For Mrs. Gunter.‖ Alabama Journal, May 27, 1986. ———. ―Hair harangue.‖ Alabama Journal, March 21, 1989. ———. ―Money Matters.‖ Alabama Journal. September 10, 1985. ———. ―No open primary.‖ Alabama Journal, February 22, 1988. ———. ―Support for reform.‖ Alabama Journal, December 22, 1987.

322 ———. ―Turning the tables‖ Alabama Journal, January 19, 1988. Editorial cartoon. ―Financial disclosure goal.‖ Alabama Journal, September 28, 1988. ———. ―Just how tough a disclosure law do you want?‖ Alabama Journal, November 5, 1987. Mueller, Martha. ―Board backs computerized registration.‖ Alabama Journal, December 8, 1988.

Alabama Journal & Montgomery Advertiser, 1985-1993. Dendy, Lori Allen. ―Ex-cooking instructor trims fat from bloated voting lists.‖ Alabama Journal & Montgomery Advertiser, January 22, 1989. Editorial. ―Stay Angry.‖ Alabama Journal & Montgomery Advertiser, March 22, 1987. ———. ―Glen Browder.‖ Alabama Journal & Montgomery Advertiser, Feb. 5, 1989. ———. ―Glen Browder.‖ Alabama Journal & Montgomery Advertiser, March 26, 1989 McFadden, Joe. ―A little knowledge may be a comfort.‖ Alabama Journal & Montgomery Advertiser, August 10, 1986. ———.‖For Alabama kids, it‘s first things first.‖ Alabama Journal & Montgomery Advertiser, November 16, 1985. ———. ―Glen Browder.‖ Alabama Journal & Montgomery Advertiser, November 26, 1986. ———. ―Mouse that roared to defeat Gunter.‖ Alabama Journal & Montgomery Advertiser, May 22, 1986. ―Under the Dome.‖ Alabama Journal & Montgomery Advertiser, April 10, 1987.

Alexander City Outlook, 1987-1997. Browder, Glen. ―Browder Amendment could draw strong bipartisan support.‖ Alexander City Outlook, March 31, 1995. Editorial, ―Browder pushing for election reform.‖ Alexander City Outlook, June 4, 1987. ———. ―Coalition budget is the best bet thus far.‖ Alexander City Outlook, October 27, 1995. Jones, Melanie. ―Browder: Budget every American‘s problem‖, Alexander City Outlook, 21 April 1995. ———. ―New Congress may cut services.‖ Alexander City Outlook, January 1, 1995. King, David. ―Committee column off target.‖ Alexander City Outlook, Augus 13, 1988. ———.‖State overrun with committees.‖ Alexander City Outlook, July 30, 1988. ———.‖Voters confused by primary rules.‖ Alexander City Outlook, March 29, 1988. Op-ed. ―Browder claims data on state budget are false.‖ Alexander City Outlook, February 15, 1995.

Andalusia Star-News, 1987-1997. Editorial. ―Campaign act needed.‖ Andalusia Star-News, February 23, 1988. ———. ―Clean up elections.‖ Andalusia Star-News, December 23, 1987. ———. ―Taking voting public.‖ Andalusia Star-News, February 9, 1988.

323

Anniston Star, 1977-2008. Associated Press. ―Black leaders criticize response to church fires.‖ Anniston Star, March 3, 1996. ———. ―Browder lauds budget accord.‖ Anniston Star, April 26, 1996. ———. ―New agency aids victims hit by crime.‖ Anniston Star, December 2, 1985. ———. ―PACs support Sessions, lawyers backing Bedford.‖ Anniston Star, April 20, 1996. ———. ―Proposed bill would delay plan to close fort.‖ Anniston Star, July 27, 1990. Bourg, Cliff. Letter to the editor. Anniston Star, July 14, 1995. Browder, Glen. ―Let‘s take it one pocket at a time.‖ Anniston Star, May 15, 1994. ———. ―Hard facts are for the Fort‘s mission here.‖ Anniston Star, March 1, 1995. ———. ―What should we do after BRAC decision?‖ Anniston Star, July 25, 1995. ―Budget talks may spill into the weekend.‖ Anniston Star, December 29, 1995. Burger, Frederick. ―Battle royale for Senate race begins.‖ Anniston Star, January 27, 1996. ———. ―Browder calls for funds disclosure.‖ Anniston Star, April 2, 1986. ———. ―Browder: Budget snafu won‘t derail government long.‖ Anniston Star, September 26, 1995. ———. ―Browder hires a former student.‖ Anniston Star, March 1, 1986. ———. ―Browder pushing for reform.‖ Anniston Star, November 4, 1987. ———. ―Calhoun lawmaker is making a name.‖ Anniston Star, February 2, 1986. ———. ―Disclosure law awaits Hunt‘s pen.‖ Anniston Star, September 23, 1988. ———. ―Glen Browder seeks role in making policy.‖ Anniston Star, July 26, 1987. ———. ―Heavily amended disclosure bill before joint panel.‖ Anniston Star, September 21, 1988. ———. ―Lawmakers silent on contributions.‖ Anniston Star, November 15, 1987. ———. ―Panel approves disclosure bill; sponsors hope it will be law soon.‖ Anniston Star, April 19, 1988. ———. ―Politicians and money: an Alabama quandary.‖ Anniston Star, August 30, 1987. ———. ―Politics makes odd bedfellows.‖ Anniston Star, August 4, 1985. ———. ―Senators at brink of brawl, Anniston Star, May 9, 1985. ———. ―Service-man: Browder for U.S. Senate.‖ Anniston Star, May 8, 1996. ———. ―State Demo chief to send out ballots on disclosure rules.‖ Anniston Star, December 4, 1987. Burns, Robert. ―Proposal to alter closing list blasted. Anniston Star, July 6, 1995. Butler, A.P. Letter to the editor, Anniston Star, August 27, 1982. ―Chandler, Grogan endorse Baker.‖ Anniston Star, September 14, 1982. Clark, Brooks. Letter to the editor. Anniston Star, November 2, 1995. Coe, Richard. ―Browder sounds off on warning sirens.‖ Anniston Star, February 16, 1995. ———. ―Browder to teach in California; Jacksonville representative to be Naval school professor.‖ Anniston Star, December 6, 1996.

324 ———. ―Deadline Aug. 1 to pick board for fort.‖ Anniston Star, July 21, 1995. ———. ―DOD official: Don‘t hinder fort reuse with red tape.‖ Anniston Star, July 19, 1995. ———. ―Leaders stand unified facing fort-less future.‖ Anniston Star, July 7, 1995. ———. ―— Leaders create board to decide fort strategy.‖ Anniston Star, July 18, 1995. ———. ―Rep Browder joins new centrist coalition.‖ Anniston Star, February 14, 1995. Cromie, Jenny. ―— Anniston tries to brace for loss of fort‘s dollars.‖ Anniston Star, July 9, 1995. ———. ―Wedowee makes attempt to unify.‖ Anniston Star, September 25, 1994. Cromie, Jenny, and Richard Coe. ―McClellan‘s fate next up for base commission.‖ Anniston Star, June 23, 1995. DeMonia, Robin. ―Browder picks two for election reform.‖ Anniston Star, April 22, 1987. Dunn, James A. ―Ready, set go … looking to Calhoun County‘s future.‖ Op-ed. Anniston Star, August 2, 1995. Editorial. ―A congressman we could trust; ‗The best of the best,‘‖ Anniston Star, Feb. 10, 1989. ———. ―A political weakness.‖ Anniston Star, November 17, 1987. ———. Budgeted to death – Closed. Anniston Star, February 28, 1995. ———. ―Democratic list has a standout.‖ Anniston Star, Feb. 13, 1989. ———. ―Fort Grief.‖ Anniston Star, March 1, 1995. ———. ―Ft. Recovery; Hanging together.‖ Anniston Star, July 14, 1995. ———. ―Glen Browder: his heart and home are here.‖ Anniston Star, March 3, 1989. ———. ―Honors for Browder.‖ Anniston Star, April 26, 1985. ———. ―Marauders: Suffer the little ones.‖ Anniston Star, April 2, 1996. ———. ―Middle way — A better federal budget.‖ The Anniston Star, May 17, 1995. ———. ―Mid-icare — It‘s broke, but what will fix it?‖ Anniston Star, September 22, 1995. ———. ―Middling good.‖ The Anniston Star, December 5, 1995. ———. ―Mixed bag; Dizzying budget ups and downs.‖ Anniston Star, January 16, 1996. ———. ―No mud pies; Clean Glen Browder.‖ Anniston Star, March 8, 1996. ———. ―Off-balance(d).‖ Anniston Star, February 28, 1995. ———. ―Pentagone.‖ Anniston Star, July 3, 1995. ———. ―Playing politics with our area‘s military bases.‖ Anniston Star, March 23, 1989. ———. ―Priorities — Family and money.‖ Anniston Star, December 12, 1995. ———. ―Pro-crime: How we robbed ourselves.‖ Anniston Star, August 12, 1994. –—— ―Reality bites; defanging the Depot snake.‖ Anniston Star, October 5, 1995. ———. ―Risk-time: Our chemical fire-watch.‖ Anniston Star, August 11, 1994. ———. ―Sen. Browder: The man in the middle.‖ Anniston Star, January 26, 1996. ———. ―Shell game?‖ Anniston Star, February 10 1995. ———. ―Show Who? Environmental desertion.‖ Anniston Star, March 2, 1995.

325 ———. ―Sole arsenal; The Fort‘s timely defense.‖ Anniston Star, April 4, 1995. ———. ―Solid ef-fort; Sharing in McClellan.‖ March 3, 1995. ———. ―The barrage of non-issues in this campaign; Waiting for a statesman.‖ Anniston Star, March 15, 1989. ———. ―The call for a better climate for democracy.‖ Anniston Star, June 24, 1986. ———. ―The first team.‖ Anniston Star, July 7, 1995. ———. ―The heart of reform is the will of the voters.‖ Anniston Star, October 23, 1987. ———. ―The no-show; Bedford goes A.W.O.L.‖ Anniston Star, June 14, 1996. ———. ―We endorse … Glen Browder for secretary of state.‖ Anniston Star, May 9, 1986. ———. ―We insist; A smudge on Army green.‖ Anniston Star, March 7, 1995. Edwards, Bill. ―Browder seeking campaign reform.‖ Anniston Star, November 7, 1985. ———. ―Candidates aiming at each other.‖ Anniston Star, May 5, 1986. ———. ―Voters select Browder for secretary of state.‖ Anniston Star, June 4, 1986. Elkins, Ken. ―Browder takes oath of office.‖ Photo. Anniston Star, January 20, 1987. Funk, Tim. ―Politicians stir with spring.‖ Anniston Star, April 12, 1982. Glass, Barbie. Letter to the editor. Anniston Star, October 17, 1995. Goolesby, Ted. Letter to editor. Anniston Star, November 2, 1986. Hicks, Lawrence. Letter to the editor. Anniston Star, September 3, 1982. Kinney, Rufus. Letter to the editor. Anniston Star, October 30, 1995. Kondracke, Morton. ―Coalition voices becoming stronger?‖ Anniston Star, April 1, 1995. Larson, Eric. ―Alabama officials go to war over depot jobs.‖ Anniston Star, Augist 3, 1995. ———. ―Army developing new plan for depot backup.‖ Anniston Star, August 20, 1995. ———. ―Browder critical of bill to cut funding for incinerator.‖ Anniston Star, September 22, 1995. ———. ―Browder defends destruction program.‖ Anniston Star, October 4, 1995. ———. ―Browder has faint hope now.‖ Anniston Star, June 27, 1995. ———. ―Browder makes good on threat.‖ Anniston Star, March 3, 1995. ———. ―Browder may seek probe of EMA.‖ Anniston Star, October 4, 1995. ———. ―Browder staves off move to transport weapons.‖ Anniston Star, November 13, 1995. ———. ―Browder, team plot fort-saving strategies.‖ Anniston Star, March 6, 1995. ———. ―Browder unready to sound alarm just yet.‖ Anniston Star, February 26, 1995. ———. ―Browder will fight proposal to consolidate incineration.‖ Anniston Star, August 18, 1995. ———. ―Browder won‘t say it, but he is moving toward full campaign.‖ Anniston Star, August 16, 1995. ———. ―Commission gets off to lenient start.‖ Anniston Star, June 22, 1995. ———. ―Congressmen optimistic; say there‘s no guarantee.‖ Anniston Star, June 2, 1995.

326 ———. ―Cost of fort shutdown keeps on growing.‖ Anniston Star, August 24, 1995. ———. ―Depot dodges bullet, wins survival battle.‖ Anniston Star, May 11, 1995. ———. ―Federal workers out to avoid possible budget ‗train wreck‘.‖ Anniston Star, September 27, 1995. ———. ―Fort defenders argue case to base-closure commission.‖ Anniston Star, April 4, 1995. ———. ―Fort‘s role in case of emergency considered.‖ Anniston Star, March 26, 1995. ———. ―General Dynamics to upgrade Fox vehicles at depot.‖ Anniston Star, July 10, 1995. ———. ―Incineration debate refocuses on transportation.‖ Anniston Star, November 5, 1995. ———. ―Is it worth it? Some question fight to save McClellan.‖ Anniston Star, March 5, 1995. ———. ―How many jobs does the depot stand to gain?‖ Anniston Star, June 18, 1995. ———. ―Less time to argue fort‘s case this time.‖ Anniston Star, April 4, 1995. ———. ―Missouri grants Army permits to build facility.‖ Anniston Star, April 12, 1995. ———. ―Money, politics beat fort arguments.‖ Anniston Star, June 29, 1995. ———. ―More work for Depot; BRAC decision leaves less for Anniston than thought.‖ Anniston Star, June 23, 1995. ———. ―Pentagon: Shut fort.‖ Anniston Star, February 28, 1995. ———. ―Power struggle; Leaders at odds over future of Fort McClellan Property.‖ Anniston Star, June 29, 1995. ———. ―Prepared for the worst? Oregon, Utah officials echo Calhoun EMA‘s complaints about chemical burn program.‖ Anniston Star, November 5, 1995. ———. ―Sims calls on other officials to join push for incinerator.‖ Anniston Star, October 24, 1995. ———. ―‗60:40 or fight‘: Defense spending bill threatens depot‘s future.‖ Anniston Star, September 27, 1995. ———. ―Smoke: Obstacle to moving chemical school?‖ Anniston Star, May 20, 1995. ———. ―The battle is joined; Browder vows: No fort, no incinerator.‖ Anniston Star, March1, 1995. Larson, Eric, Frederick Burger and Associated Press, ―Military pay to rise 2% by Jan. 1.‖ Anniston Star, December 29, 1995. Larson, Eric, and Richard Coe. ―Diversity marks fort reuse board makeup.‖ Anniston Star, August 1, 1995. ———. ―Heflin: We need just one more vote to save the fort.‖ Anniston Star, June 21, 1995. Lewiski, Ray. Letter to the editor. Anniston Star, April 1, 1986. Lindell, Brenda. Letter to the editor. Anniston Star, September 29, 1995. Marshall, S. Letter to the editor. Anniston Star, October 2, 1995. McDonald, Robin. ―Victims of crimes form unit.‖ Anniston Star, October 11, 1983. McNeil, Robert B. ―Mr. Browder goes to Washington.‖ Anniston Star, April 19, 1989. McNeil, Robert B., and Craig Whitlock. ―Browder: Is it skill or luck?‖ Anniston Star,

327 Mullan, Sheila. ―Browder easily wins state post.‖ Anniston Star, November 5, 1986. ———. ―Browder wants new laws.‖ Anniston Star, October 24, 1986. ―New Coalition wants independence from old party line.‖ Anniston Star, February 15, 1995. ―19 minutes of TV drama. Anniston Star, July 1, 1991. Pace, David. ―‗Blue Dogs‘ object to GOP tax, health, cuts.‖ Anniston Star, January 11, 1996. ———. ―Browder, Cramer back alternative budget developed by conservative Democrats.‖ Anniston Star, May 17, 1995. ———. ―Browder plan links tax cuts to deficit.‖ Anniston Star, April 4, 1995. ———. ―Browder: Tokyo cult has links to New York.‖ Anniston Star, March 25, 1995. ———. ―Browder tries to pre-empt tax cut plan.‖ Anniston Star, March 10, 1995. ———. ―Browder supports ‗fairer‘ budget plan.‖ Anniston Star, May 17, 1995. ———. ―Lawmakers make last plea to save McClellan.‖ Anniston Star, June 29, 1995. Pezzullo, Elizabeth. ―Browder comfortable with deliberate style.‖ Anniston Star, June 23, 1996. ———. ―Browder: No more weapons for depot.‖ Anniston Star, August 23, 1995. ———. ―Loss of nutrition?‖ Anniston Star, April 26, 1995. Poovey, Bill . ―New disclosure rule hailed.‖ Anniston Star, December 16, 1987. Powell, Gerald. Letter to the editor. Anniston Star, October 30, 1995. Pryor, Tim. ―Piedmont to get funding for new sirens … at last.‖ Anniston Star, July 2, 1995. ———. ―— Siren for Goshen; Eighteen months after tragedy, community gets warning siren.‖ Anniston Star, November 10, 1995. ———. ―Siren group hopes Browder visits bearing federal money.‖ Anniston Star, July 1, 1995. ―Redevelopment meeting tonight.‖ Anniston Star, July 6, 1995. Reilly, Sean. ―Browder one of 23 in House labeled as ‗Blue Dog Democrats‘.‖ Anniston Star, April 20, 1995. ———. ―Browder serious about Senate run.‖ Anniston Star, May 4, 1995. ———. ―Europe, deficit cited in closure.‖ Anniston Star, February 7, 1990. ———. ―Have lotsa dough or don‘t seek office.‖ Anniston Star, July 23, 1995. ———. ―State ups ante on effort to keep McClellan open.‖ Anniston Star, July 21, 1990. Rogers, Mike. Letter to the editor, Anniston Star, September 3, 1982. Sherman, Mike. ―Candidates feel inflation pinch.‖ Anniston Star, November, 1978. Skidmore, Dave. ―Bipartisan House group insists on linking tax cut to deficit.‖ Anniston Star, March 24, 1995. Smith, Allen. Letter to the editor, Anniston Star, September 1, 1982. Spencer, Thomas. ―A financial frost chills Pinhoti.‖ March 13, 1995. ———. ―A town pauses for ‗healing,‘ then goes to work on school.‖ Anniston Star, August 22, 1994. ———. ―Browder: Tops among Blue Dogs.‖ Anniston Star, January 14, 1996.

328 ———. ―Browder to run for Senate.‖ Anniston Star, January 26, 1996. ———. ―Browder‘s downfall.‖ Anniston Star, June 30, 1996. ———. ―Congressman lashes out at Bedford during first runoff debate.‖ Anniston Star, June 11, 1996. ———. ―Noll to take expertise to new location.‖ Anniston Star, July 14, 1995. Staff and wire. ―Briefing only adds to bases drama.‖ Anniston Star, June 16, 1995. ———. ―Clinton blasts the politics of base closings.‖ Anniston Star, July 13, 1995. ———. ―Groups scramble, spend to defend Alabama bases.‖ Anniston Star, February 13, 1995. ———. ―Fort‘s loss would cost lives.‖ Anniston Star, June 20, 1995. ———. ―Hearing boosts chances for fort.‖ Anniston Star, June 15, 1995. ———. ―Heflin may stall chemical school move.‖ Anniston Star, July 14, 1995. ———. ―Options to weapon incineration sought.‖ Anniston Star, July 14, 1995. ———. ―States trade barbs over fort closure.‖ Anniston Star, June 13, 1995. ———. ―What next for McClellan?‖ Anniston Star, June 25, 1995. Stedham, Mike, and Craig Whitlock. ―For now, a reprieve.‖ Anniston Star, October 18, 1990. Storey, James T. Letter to the editor, Anniston Star, August 27, 1982. ―Swearing In.‖ Anniston Star, November 11, 1982. Thornton, Bob. ―Busting inaccuracy.‖ Anniston Star, October 13, 1995. Tutor, Laura. ―Browder, others consider third medicare plan.‖ Anniston Star, September 18, 1995. ———. ―Changes and their effects on 3rd District.‖ Anniston Star, November 11, 1996. ———. ―Workers: ‗They‘re holding us hostage.‖ Anniston Star, December 31, 1995. Tye, Larry. ―Candidates stump for seats in Legislature.‖ Anniston Star, July 8, 1982. ———. ―Holmes and Campbell are victors; Baker, Browder face runoff fight.‖ Anniston Star, September 8, 1980. Uhlman, Marian. ―JSU professor benefits from political lesson.‖ Anniston Star, September 9, 1982. ———. ―Personalities spice District 57 runoff.‖ Anniston Star, September 23, 1982. Weiner, Rebecca S. ―Alabama Congressmen support tax cut measure.‖ The Anniston Star, April 6, 1995. ———. ―Cash cutoff for chemical weapons dies in committee.‖ Anniston Star, May 25 1995. ———. ―Closure panel closing the doors.‖ Anniston Star, June 12, 1995. ———. ―Panel chairman says fort won‘t close unless permits secured.‖ Anniston Star, March 2, 1995. ———. ―Panel sets June permit deadline for base closure.‖ Anniston Star, March 8, 1995. Welch, Marie. Letter to the editor. Anniston Star, September 28, 1995. ———. ―Cash cutoff for chemical weapons dies in committee.‖ Anniston Star, May 5, 1995.

329 Willens, Patricia. ―Browder, state delegates oppose weapons ban.‖ Anniston Star, August 10, 1994. Yardley, Jim. ―Browder Recalls Roots.‖ Anniston Star, March 5, 1989. ———. ―Racism was hidden issue.‖ Anniston Star, March 13, 1989.

Army Times, 1995. ―Rep. blasts plan for Army museum.‖ Army Times, March 27, 1995. Maze, Rick. ―Museum plan survives Hill vote.‖ Army Times, May 29, 1995.

Athens News Courier, 1986. Editorial, ―Decision time is here.‖ Athens News Courier, June 1, 1986.

Atmore Advance, 1987. Editorial, ―Browder has right idea about election reform.‖ Atmore Advance, June 10, 1987.

Auburn Bulletin, 1988-1990. Editorial. , ―Browder choice for re-election.‖ Auburn Bulletin, Oct. 24, 1990. ———. ―Disclosure law top session legislation.‖ Auburn Bulletin, October 5, 1988.

Birmingham News, 1982-2008. Anderson, Curt. ―Closed briefing held on chemical school.‖ Birmingham News, June 16, 1995. Archibald, John. ―Anniston Depot sirens to guard area ravaged by Piedmont tornado.‖ Birmingham News, July 2, 1995. Associated Press. ―Browder uses tree planting in campaign.‖ Birmingham News, February 14, 1986. ———. ―Disposal site still may be at Anniston.‖ Birmingham News, August 19, 1995. ———. ―Handling of Gunter complaint stirs ire.‖ Birmingham News, November 23, 1985. ———. ―Heflin hopes to keep chem school going for now.‖ Birmingham News, July 14, 1995. ———. ―Secretary of state race still up in air.‖ Birmingham News, June 5, 1986. Bailey, Stan. ―Secretary of state hopefuls see need for some election reforms.‖ Birmingham News, October 28, 1986. Bailey, Stan and Michael Jennings. ―Zeigler says he‘ll retire ‗watchdog‘ for runoff.‖ Birmingham News, June 4, 1986. Browder, Glen. ―‗Mystery illnesses‘ and stonewalling from the Pentagon.‖ Birmingham News, December 20, 1993. ―Browder not happy with Medicare reforms.‖ Birmingham News, September 19, 1995. Brumas, Michael. ―Alabama Demos express outrage at GOP colleagues.‖ Birmingham News, Jan. 4, 1996. ———. ―Anniston gets plum from base closures; But McClellan‘s fate still unknown.‖ Birmingham News, June 23, 1995.

330 ———. ―Base closure panel OKs hearing on McClellan.‖ Birmingham News, June 13, 1995. ———. ―Browder: Chemical stockpile should be relocated.‖ Birmingham News, March 3, 1995. ———. ―Browder, Cramer predict compromise, Birmingham News, October 26, 1995. ———. ―Browder questioning McClellan closing costs.‖ Birmingham News, August 27, 1995. ———. ―Browder says Clinton favoring California on base closing issue.‖ Birmingham News, July 8, 1995. ———. ―Browder wants lawmakers‘ pay to feel pinch, too.‖ Birmingham News, December 14, 1995. ———. ―Clinton doesn‘t sway state‘s GOP lawmakers.‖ Birmingham News, Jan. 24, 1995. ———. ―Fight for McClellan on again.‖ Birmingham News, February 28, 1995. ———. ―GOP group to work with conservative Democrats.‖ Birmingham News, 30 November 1995. ———. ―Lawmakers talk to Pentagon on base closures; Alabama delegation underscores importance of facilities in state.‖ Birmingham News, January 27, 1995. ———. ―McClellan fate still up in air.‖ Birmingham News, March 1, 1995. ———. ―McClellan ordered closed.‖ Birmingham News, June 24, 1995. ———. ―Pentagon refusing to meet Browder on vet ills.‖ Birmingham News, August 31, 1995. ———. ―Shelby: Clinton shouldn‘t reject list for California bases.‖ Birmingham News, June 29, 1995. ———. ―Tax cut, budget bombast to grow.‖ Birmingham News, September 3, 1995. ———. ―3 Alabama Demos vote with GOP.‖ Birmingham News, November 16, 1995. Brumas, Michael and Tom Gordon. ―GOP applies Bush tactic to race in 3rd District.‖ Birmingham News, February 17, 1989. ―Democrats scramble to rescue crime bill.‖ Birmingham News, August 12, 1994. Duvall, Sam. ―‗Needs outrun resources‘ so Browder will cut budget 5% — despite morale.‖ Birmingham News, February 20, 1987. Editorial, ―An historic budget.‖ Birmingham News, 29 October 1995. ———. ―A sensible shutdown.‖ Birmingham News, November 21, 1995. ———. ―Bad idea: It‘s unfair to make Anniston Army Depot the nation‘s chemical weapons dumping ground.‖ Birmingham News, August 25, 1995. ———. ―Be prepared; Safety of citizens near chemical weapons incinerator must be assured.‖ Birmingham News, November 6, 1995. ———. ―Better Campaigns.‖ Birmingham News, October 6, 1987. ———. ―Browder‘s right.‖ Birmingham News, April 4, 1995. ———. ―Cleaning Up Political Campaigns.‖ Birmingham News, December 20, 1987. ———. ―Cleaner Campaigns.‖ Birmingham News, Feb. 16, 1988. ———. ―Closing Fort McClellan; Economic development officials must plan for future under difficult circumstances.‖ Birmingham News, June 27, 1995.

331 ———. ―Encouraging election fraud.‖ Birmingham News, September 21, 1985. ———. ―Election Reform.‖ Birmingham News, August 12, 1986. ———. ―For secretary of state.‖ Birmingham News, May 21, 1986. ———. ―For secretary of state.‖ Birmingham News, October 23, 1986. ———. ―Must Purge The Voter Rolls.‖ Birmingham News, December 9, 1988. ———. ―Orwell and deficit.‖ Birmingham News, April 9, 1995. ———. ―Party Registration.‖ Birmingham News, February 26, 1987. ———. ―Playing chicken.‖ Birmingham News, November 14, 1995. ———. ―Politics aside; Rep. Glen Browder should stay after the Pentagon.‖ Birmingham News, September 5, 1995. ———. ―The Silver Lining.‖ Birmingham News, September 24, 1988. ———. ―The U.S. Senate races; Glen Browder a bright, electable candidate for Democrats.‖ Birmingham News, May 19, 1996. ———. ―Using Her Office To Seek Office.‖ Birmingham News, April 23, 1986. Gordon, Tom. ―Browder giving vote-reform measure extra push with poll.‖ Birmingham News ———. ―Two-party system in state gets credit for key legislation.‖ Birmingham News, January 1, 1989. ———.‖Demos vote on tighter campaign disclosure rules.‖ Birmingham News, December 4, 1987. ―How best to serve school meal programs.‖ Birmingham News, March 19, 1995. Jennings, Michael. ―Browder eggs Gunter on but gets no show but his.‖ Birmingham News, May 6, 1986. ———. ―Browder‘s low key, yet takes on big gun: Opponent Gunter.‖ Birmingham News, May 28, 1986. ———. ―Gunter says she used honoraries in campaign.‖ Birmingham News, April 22, 1986. Kennedy, Joey. ―Politics may have doomed Army‘s Fort McClellan after all.‖ Birmingham News, July 7, 1995. ―Lawmakers make pitch for poultry center funds.‖ Birmingham News, March 21, 1995. Lawrence, Jill. ―Maverick Democrat helps GOP write its budget plan.‖ Birmingham News, May 4, 1995. Lindley, Tom. ―Absentee ballots — Browder to probe charges of irregularities.‖ Birmingham News, July 6, 1988. ———. ―Bennett urges use of computer to get dead people off voter list.‖ Birmingham News, December 8, 1988. Livingston, Rose. ―Anniston chemical weapons plan to be factor in McClellan review.‖ Birmingham News, March 23, 1995. ———. ―Army draws fire for way McClellan shift planned.‖ Birmingham News, April 5, 1995. ———. ―Browder blasts FEMA costs at chemical arms stockpiles.‖ Birmingham News, February 16, 1995. ———. ―Browder calls for emergency preparedness probe.‖ Birmingham News, November 3, 1995.

332 ———. ―Browder: Fort land won‘t get cleaned up.‖ Birmingham News, June 27, 1995. ———. ―Browder still pushing incinerator.‖ Birmingham News, October 4, 1995. ———. ―Browder tells depot workers not to celebrate yet on jobs.‖ Birmingham News, March 7, 1995. ———. ―Western communities protest Army incinerating plans.‖ Birmingham News, November 8, 1995. Livingston, Rose, and Michael Brumas. ―Anniston group: Browder betrayed area.‖ Birmingham News, October 2, 1995. ———. ―McClellan may face military ax once again.‖ Birmingham News, February 26, 1995. ———. ―State makes threat if McClellan closes.‖ Birmingham News, March 2, 1995. Orndorff, Mary. ―Browder returns to capital as author.‖ Birmingham News, November 30, 2002. Pace, David. ―Browder: Pentagon threatened retribution.‖ Birmingham News, May 1, 1995. ———. ―Browder‘s fiscal blitzkrieg batters Army brass.‖ Birmingham News, June 17, 1995. ———. ―Browder suspects Army blitzed his museum amendment.‖ Birmingham News, June 10, 1995. ———. ―New year will test both Democrats and Republicans.‖ Birmingham News, January 1, 1996. Palmer, Gary J. Letter to the editor. Birmingham News, April 6, 1995. Parks, Dave. ―Persian Gulf vets mad at lack of treatments.‖ Birmingham News, August 20, 1995. Roberts, Chris and Dave Parks. ―Alabama‘s generous uncle.‖ Birmingham News, February 19, 1995. Scarritt, Tom. ―Editorial Notebook.‖ Birmingham News, May 17, 1986. Shanahan, Michael and Miles Benson. ―The Great Budget Debate: Clinton, GOP test political wills over spending cuts.‖ Birmingham News, August 27, 1995. Sikora, Frank. ―Secretary of state checks for abuse of absentee votes.‖ Birmingham News, August 24, 1988. Sikora, Frank, and Dave Parks. ―How best to serve school meal programs.‖ Birmingham News, March 19, 1995. Skidmore, Dave. ―House OKs Republican tax cut bill but plan faces Senate, possible veto.‖ Birmingham News, April 6, 1995. Smith, Jerry L. ―Community must cope with life after Fort McClellan.‖ Birmingham News, October 29, 1995 Staff and wire. ―Missouri action may hurt McClellan chances.‖ Birmingham News, April 12, 1995 ―200 million Army truck work slated for Anniston.‖ Birmingham News, July 10, 1995. Washington Bureau. ―Browder wants official apology for vets.‖ Birmingham News, September 1, 1995.

333 Birmingham Post-Herald, 1978-2005. Associated Press, ―Balanced budget victory.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, January 27, 1995. ———. ―Ethics Commission clears Mrs. Gunter; procedure disputed.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, November 26, 1985. Bragg, Rick. ―City loses trust; Anniston leery of Army promises.‖ Birmingham Post- Herald, April 10, 1995. Browder, Glen. ―He wants to clean up elections.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, October 13, 1986. Bruer, Frank. ―Disclosure rule urged of state Democrats.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, December 4, 1987. ———. ―Pickings are poor in 2 state offices.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald. August 5, 1985. Bryant, Ted. ―Blocking disclosure bill isn‘t smart.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald. May 3, 1988. ———. ―Commission appointed to seek reform of state election laws.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, March 20, 1987. ———. ―Disclosure bill makes it a good session.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, September 24, 1988. ———. ―Disclosure still in pre-Watergate mode.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, December 3, 1987. ———.‖Got election reform on agenda.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, November 7, 1985. ———. ―Numbers show decline of solid South.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, June 29, 1987. ———. ―Official total puts Browder in office.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, June 9, 1986. ———. ―Party lines continue to fracture.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, February 18, 1995. ———. ―Political fund disclosures edge closer.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, March 24, 1988. ———. ―Political litter subs for ingenuity.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, May 5, 1986. ———. ―State voter lists need major scouring.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, December 6, 1988. Desmon, Stephanie. ―Civilian wages war to save Fort McClellan.” Birmingham Post- Herald, May 1, 1995. ———. ―Meeting held; Supporters fight to save McClellan.” Birmingham Post- Herald, April 5, 1995. ———. ―Won‘t give up on fort; Browder plans final effort for McClellan.” Birmingham Post-Herald, June 27, 1995. Editorial. ―A pair for Senate race.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, June 11, 1996. ———. ―For Congress.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, February 10, 1989. ———. ―For secretary of state.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, May 27, 1986. ———. ―For secretary of state.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, October 28, 1986.

334 ———. ―Helping election officials.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, December 23, 1988. ———. ―Pig-trough politics.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, October 1, 1987. ———. ―Removing a hurdle.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, January 18, 1988. ———. ―Voters right to decide denied.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, Feb. 9, 1988. Hargrove, Thomas. ―Anniston could gain 1,000 jobs.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, June 23, 1995. ———. ―Battle for fort is lost; Clinton OKs base closures.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, July 14, 1995. ———. ―Browder would make balanced budget a tax cut prerequisite.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, March 29, 1995. ———. ―Capitol Hill optimistic about new session.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, March 13, 1996. ———. ―Commission‘s new focus good news for McClellan.‖ Birmingham Post- Herald, June 21, 1995. ———. ―Computer proposed as ballot box guard.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, December 8, 1988. ———. ―Hearing may help save fort.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, June 13, 1995. ———. ―McClellan closure could be years in making.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, June 26, 1995. ———. ―Missouri approves permits; Chemical facility could be moved.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, April 12, 1995. ———. ―State to get election list administrator for cleanup.‖ Birmingham Post- Herald, December 22, 1988. ———. ―Terrorism gives hope for McClellan.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, May 1, 1995. ———. ―Weapons plan opposed; Browder criticizes making Anniston depot chemical repository.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, August 21, 1995. Hargrove, Thomas, and Peter Copeland. ―McClellan safe, Army says.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, February 10, 1995. ———. ―Deal imperils McClellan.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, February 28, 1995. ―Irregularities charged — Suit filed in Talladega voting.‖ Birmingham Post-Herald, September 9, 1978. Lowy, Joan. ―Houses debate budgets; GOP bills would alter government.‖ Birmingham Post Herald, October 26, 1995. Lucke, Jamie. ―Disfavor will aid election reform, legislator says.‖ Birmingham Post- Herald, August 9, 1986. McLaughlin, Ted. Letter to the editor. Birmingham Post-Herald, May 25, 1995.

Chanticleer (Jacksonville State University), 1986-1997. ―Browder begins campaign for Secretary of State.‖ Chanticleer, March 6, 1986.

Cherokee County Herald, 1995. Dean, Terry. ―Browder tells fears of taking action on chemical weapons.‖ Cherokee County Herald, September 6, 1995.

335

Childersburg Advance, 1978. ―Court action taken over election.‖ Childersburg Advance, September 14, 1978.

Chilton County News (Clanton, Alabama), 1988. ―New program adds to state‘s general fund.‖ Chilton County News, July 7, 1988.

Christian Science Monitor, 1992. Browder, Glen. ―It‘s No Time to Let Upon Arms Control.‖ Christian Science Monitor December 8, 1992.

Clanton Advertiser, 1992. Editorial. ―Rep. Browder has made the most of his stay in Congress.‖ Clanton Advertiser, October 28, 1992.

Clarke County Democrat, 1987. Cox, Jim. ―Election reform would help restore confidence, says Secretary of State.‖ Clarke County Democrat, May 21, 1987. ———. ―New registrars chairman talks about priorities.‖ Clarke County Democrat, December 17, 1987. Editorial, ―Disclosure bill is bright spot.‖ Clarke County Democrat, September 29, 1988.

Clinton Chronicle, 1982. Holder, Molly. ―P.C. Graduate Elected To Alabama House of Representatives.‖ Clinton (S.C.) Chronicle, November 18, 1982.

Community Press (Millbrook, Alabama) 1988. ―Just the facts, please.‖ Community Press, January 14, 1988.

CongressDaily, 1995. ―Rep. Bill Orton, D-Utah, has replaced Rep. Glen Browder, D-Ala., as chairman of the budget task force of The Coalition.‖ CongressDaily, May 12, 1995. ―Condit Says Blue Dogs, GOP Nearing Entitlement Deal.‖ CongressDaily, March 19, 1996.

Crimson White (University of Alabama), 1995. Pace, David. ―Nerve gas plan may get second look.‖ Crimson White, October 9, 1995.

Cullman Times, 1987-1997. Associated Press. ―Bachus: Hunt won‘t push voter registration this session.‖ Cullman Times, February 25, 1987. Tucker, Michael. ―Absentee law changes will simplify vote.‖ Cullman Times, June 3, 1987.

336

Daily Home (Talladega, Alabama) 1978-1997. Associated Press. ―Browder accuses Clinton of playing politics with fort.‖ Daily Home, July 14, 1995. ———. ―Browder supports savings bill.‖ Daily Home, March 16, 1995. ———. ―Lawmakers question rising costs, safety of weapons inc.‖ Daily Home, July 14, 1995. ———. ―Piedmont area to get tornado sirens.‖ Daily Home, July 4, 1995. ———. ―Plan to study transporting chemical stockpiles dropped.‖ Daily Home, November 14, 1995. ———. ―Southern Democrats looking to coalition for political survival.‖ Daily Home, February 15, 1995. ―Controversial Sample Ballot To Get Scrutiny Of State Demo Chairman.‖ Daily Home, August 29, 1978, Editorial. ―Answer to Medicare crisis somewhere between left and right.‖ Daily Home, September 19, 1995. ———. ―Browder, Coalition make sense in budget proposal.‖ Daily Home, October 26, 1995. ———. ―Browder honored.‖ Daily Home, Aug. 6, 1990. ———. ―Browder says ‗work together,‘‘ Daily Home, Nov. 29, 1990. ———. ―Browder stops raid on the taxpayers‘ pocketbook.‖ Daily Home, June 19, 1995. ———. ―Browder‘s Right.‖ Daily Home, June 20, 1988. ———. ―Browder‘s is best tax cut proposal.‖ Daily Home, April 5, 1995. ———. ―Coalition members could woo voters with smart solutions.‖ The Daily Home, February 16, 1995. ———. ―Disclosure act has ‗teeth,‘‖ Daily Home, February 23, 1988. ———. ―Incinerating AAD‘s chemical weapons makes sense.‖ Daily Home, October 6, 1995. ———. ―Glenn Browder.‖ Daily Home, Oct. 29, 1992. ———. ―Gulf War vets deserve fair treatment from Defense Department.‖ Daily Home, September 1, 1995. ———. ―It‘s logical to keep Fort McClellan open.‖ Daily Home, March 6, 1995. ———. ―Three chemical destruction sites not enough.‖ Daily Home, August 22, 1995. ———. ―What has federal government done for us lately? A lot.‖ Daily Home, February 21, 1995. Editorial cartoon, ―I wonder how the updating of the state‘s voter rolls is coming…‖ Daily Home, December 8, 1988. Kendrick, O. Letter to the editor. Daily Home, March 24, 1995. Moseley, Robert. ―Voter lists reveal chance of abuse.‖ Daily Home, January 26, 1989. Pace, David. ―Alabama tossed a plum as vote on McClellan closes in.‖ Daily Home, June 23, 1995. Reeves, Jay. ―Base closing commission meets today.‖ Daily Home, April 4, 1995.

337 Sims, Paul. ―AAD preparing workers for possible government shutdown.‖ Daily Home, September 20, 1995. ———. ―Browder: Alabama won‘t become dumping ground.‖ Daily Home, August 24, 1995. ———. ―Browder: If McClellan moves, AAD not safe.‖ Daily Home, April 14, 1995. ———. ―Browder: Train wreck coming.‖ Daily Home, September 6, 1995. Wright, Regina. ―Bailes Says Teague Ballot Not Fraudulent.‖ Daily Home, August 30, 1978. ———. ―Candidate Charges Fraudulent Sample Ballot.‖ Daily Home, August 28, 1978.

Daily Mountain Eagle (Jasper, Alabama), 1987-1997. Editorial. ―Cutting costs.‖ Daily Mountain Eagle, February 23, 1987 ———. ―Deadlines.‖ Daily Mountain Eagle, July 2, 1987.

Decatur Daily, 1987-1997. Anderson, Curt. ―Hunt, Baker prefer no party registration.‖ Decatur Daily, March 1, 1987. Associated Press, ―Education reform sponsor says he‘s no expert.‖ Decatur Daily, April 2, 1984. Blomeley, Seth. ―Cramer, Bevill OK most of GOP pact.‖ Decatur Daily, April 30, 1995. Editorial. ―Find crossover vote solution.‖ Decatur Daily, February 14, 1988. ———. ―Fort McClellan; Army has obligation to state.‖ Decatur Daily, March 10, 1995. ———. ―Glen Browder.‖ May 26, 1996. ———. ―Glen Browder: Senate race helps Democrats.‖ Decatur Daily, March 6, 1996. ———. ―The Coalition — Cramer smart to acquire new label.‖ Decatur Daily, February 16, 1995. Loomis, Jay. ―State official says Alabama badly needs election reform.‖ Decatur Daily, September 10, 1987. Schmickle, Sharon. ―Blue Dog Democrats howling in the House.‖ Decatur Daily, May 17, 1995. Scripps Howard News Service, ―GOP‘s ‗Contract with America‘ stalled in Senate.‖ Decatur Daily, July 30, 1995.

Demopolis Times, 1988. Editorial, ―Party primaries private affairs.‖ Demopolis Times, January 24, 1988.

Dothan Eagle, 1987-1997. Editorial. ―An olive branch.‖ Dothan Eagle, November 30,1995. ———. ―Say you‘re sorry.‖ Dothan Eagle, September 7, 1995. ———. ―The open primary.‖ Dothan Eagle, February 22, 1988.

338 Homa, Valerie M. ―State joins farm product filing system.‖ Dothan Eagle, December 3, 1987. Kirkland, Kay. ―State Elections Group To Be Formed.‖ Dothan Eagle, March 18, 1987. Pace, David. ―Lawmakers challenge Army claim on permits.‖ Dothan Eagle, June 13, 1995. Rawls, Phillip. ―Browder announces Senate candidacy.‖ Dothan Eagle, January 27, 1996.

Fort Payne Times Journal, 1987. Editorial. ―Open primaries?‖ Fort Payne Times-Journal, February 26, 1988. Nichols, Gary. ―Secretary of State visits in Rainsville.‖ Fort Payne Times-Journal, Nov 25, 1987. Poovey, Bill. ―Baker calls for financial disclosure.‖ Fort Payne Times-Journal, November 4, 1987.

Franklin County Times, 1987. Lightsey, Ken. ―Election reforms are a good idea.‖ Franklin County Times, November 8, 1987.

Gadsden Times, 1985-1997. Associated Press. ―Senator plans bill to update voting lists.‖ Gadsden Times, December 9, 1988. ———. ―Time is enemy of crossover bill.‖ Gadsden Times, June 26, 1987. Editorial. ―Bill & Charlie Show with a new cast.‖ Gadsden Times, February 14, 1988. ———. ―Browder hits nail on head.‖ Gadsden Times, July 12, 1987. ———. ―Browder snubbed.‖ Gadsden Times, September 7, 1995. ———. ―Congressional spending.‖ Gadsden Times, April 26, 1995. ———. ―Democrats need more than pep talk.‖ Gadsden Times, Sept. 30, 1987. ———. ―Easy solution to crossover voting.‖ Gadsden Times, October 26, 1987. ———. ―Election law reform.‖ Gadsden Times, August 10, 1986. ———. ―Election reform.‖ Gadsden Times, February 24, 1986. ———. ―Endorsement for U.S. House, Senate: Glen Browder and Frank McRight; Howard Hawk and Kerry Rich.‖ Gadsden Times, May 27, 1996. ———. ―Glen Browder for Congress.‖ Gadsden Times, October 24, 1990. ———. ―For secretary of state.‖ Gadsden Times, May 27, 1986. ———. ―For secretary of state.‖ Gadsden Times, October 29, 1986. ———. ―Nerve gas incinerator.‖ Gadsden Times, October 12, 1995. ———. ―Shelby, and now Browder, Cramer?‖ Gadsden Times, February 19. 1995. ———. ―State campaign law.‖ Gadsden Times, November 8, 1985. ———. ―The best solution to crossover voting.‖ Gadsden Times, April 14, 1987. Kinney, Rufus. Letter to the editor. Gadsden Times, November 9, 1995. Loughlin, Sean, and Carl Hulse. ―GOP ‗Contract with America‘ leaves losers in its wake.‖ Gadsden Times, April 9, 1995.

339 ———. ―Southerners could swing balance on budget debate.‖ Gadsden Times, December 25, 1995. Maise, Gina. ―Army depot may receive more jobs.‖ Gadsden Times, June 23, 1995. Powell, Andy. ―Panel members: Election laws need revamping.‖ Gadsden Times, March 29, 1987. Reeves, Jay. ―Fort‘s fate weighed by panel.‖ Gadsden Times, April 5, 1995. Weiner, Rebecca. ―Browder offers legislation to block McClellan closure.‖ Gadsden Times, March 4, 1995. Willens, Patricia. ―Alabamians join in sidetracking bill.‖ Gadsden Times, August 12, 1994. Zumwalt, Norman. ―Browder conducts ‗great undebate‘.‖ Gadsden Times, May 6, 1986. ———. ―Browder makes a hit with former colleagues.‖ Gadsden Times, February 20, 1987. ———. ―Great Ice Cream War erupts in chamber.‖ Gadsden Times, April 20, 1986.

Hamilton Journal Record, 1988. ―Court order may have significant impact on Alabama elections.‖ Hamilton Journal- Record, October 20, 1988.

The Hill Browder, Glen. ―The real reason it failed.‖ The Hill, Oct. 12, 1994.

Huntsville Times, 1985-1997. Anderson, Curt. ―Browder issues call for election reform.‖ Huntsville Times, August 8, 1986. Anderson, John, and John Peck. ―Browder enters race for Heflin‘s Senate seat.‖ Huntsville Times, January 26, 1006. Antmann, Walter A. Letter to the editor. Huntsville Times, October 26, 1995. Associated Press. ―Browder to fight weapons disposal.‖ Huntsville Times, March 1, 1995. ———. ―Browder urges stockpile opposal.‖ Huntsville Times, August 24, 1995. ―Browder: Plan would hurt state.‖ Huntsville Times, Feb. 20, 1995. Burkey, Martin. ―Army incinerator caught on planning snag.‖ Huntsville Times, August 3, 1995. Childs, Brenda. ―Browder: Overcoming ‗name‘ opponent was major hurdle.‖ Huntsville Times, June 5, 1986. Davis, Brett. ―Callahan joins GOP Mainstream Conservative Alliance.‖ Huntsville Times, November 30, 1995. ———. ―Coalition attacks partisan feuding.‖ Huntsville Times, 11 March 1995. ———. ―Coalition hopes its budget will get attention.‖ Huntsville Times, December 10, 1995. ———. ―Coalition says loss is a gain on budget.‖ Huntsville Times, October 26, 1995.

340 ———. ―Cramer, Bachus among first to furlough workers.‖ Huntsville Times, November 15, 1995. ———. ―Demo Coalition plugs along in obscurity.‖ Huntsville Times, August 13, 1995. ———. ―Former blue dog weighs rallying GOP moderates.‖ Huntsville Times, August 17, 1995. ———. ―For the U.S. Senate.‖ Huntsville Times, May 30, 1996. ———. ―Of blue dogs and honors for helping children.‖ Huntsville Times, November 12, 1995. ———. ―On the budget, a compromise appears likely.‖ Huntsville Times, October 29, 1995. ———. ―Our dithering president.‖ Huntsville Times, July 9, 1995. ———. ―State base in BRAC talks.‖ Huntsville Times, June 12, 1995. ———. ―St. Louis‘ move to Redstone ‗sound‘.‖ Huntsville Times, June 9, 1995. Editorial. ―End crossover voting.‖ Huntsville Times, October 23, 1987. ———. ―State help at the polls.‖ Huntsville Times, September 15, 1988. ———. ―Straighten out voting mess.‖ Huntsville Times, February 8, 1988. ———. ―Super Tuesday, super mess.‖ Huntsville Times, February 22, 1988. Hollis, Guy. ―Crossover Vote Law May Come Soon.‖ Huntsville Times, June 28, 1987. ———. ―Election Laws: Reform Loses Appeal After Elections.‖ Huntsville Times, March 1, 1986. Hollon, Marian. ―Career Ladder Battle Healthy, Sponsor Says.‖ Huntsville Times, November 10, 1985. Rawls, Phillip. ―Browder as surprised as anyone about his June 3 victory.‖ Huntsville Times, June 15, 1986. ———. Phillip Rawls, ―Panel OKs voter list overhaul.‖ Huntsville Times, February 15, 1989. ―State converting business records to computer.‖ Huntsville Times, February 3, 1989. Steiner, Fritz. Letter to the editor. Huntsville Times, October 26, 1995. Woodard, Jeff. ―State now counting county votes by computer, ending paperwork.‖ Huntsville Times, November 24, 1988.

Huntsville News, 1987-1995. Editorial, ―You are what you sit on.‖ Huntsville News, July 29, 1987. Fram, Alan. ―GOP budget proposal approved.‖ Huntsville News, June 30, 1995. Ferry, Bill. ―Officials have mixed feelings on BRAC‘s effects on state.‖ Huntsville News, March 1, 1995. Laing, Eric A. II. ―City awaits BRAC vote; Could be as early as today.‖ Huntsville News, June 23, 1995. Schwendener, Susan. ―Coalition pushing ‗common sense,‘‖ Huntsville News, November 15, 1995.

Jacksonville News, 1980-2008. ―Browder encourages unity.‖ Jacksonville News, June 28, 1995.

341 ―Browder restates pledge to link chemical missions at AAD, McClellan.‖ Jacksonville News, March 8, 1995. ―Browder supporters write en masse.‖ Jacksonville News, September 1, 1982. ―Candidate relinquishes regular salary.‖ Jacksonville News, August 25, 1982. ―Glen Browder earns slot as alternate delegate.‖ Jacksonville News, March 19, 1980. Editorial, ―A nice change.‖ Jacksonville News, March 11, 1987. ———. ―Good shot, Glen.‖ Jacksonville News, June 21, 1995. ———. ―Let‘s send Glen to Congress.‖ Jacksonville News, March 1, 1989. ———. ―Once more into the brink.‖ Jacksonville News, March 8, 1995. Finley, Angie Ayers. ―Browder opens campaign headquarters.‖ Jacksonville News, April 2, 1986. ———. ―Browder returns to JSU.‖ August 18, 1999. Kinney, Rufus. Letter to the editor. Jacksonville News, November 15, 1995. Tiller, Pati. ―Browder takes stand on incineration bill.‖ Jacksonville News, September 27, 1995. ———. ―Elected leaders seek answers on Fort McClellan.‖ Jacksonville News, July 19, 1995. ———. ―Incinerator calls for talks with reps, says Ghee.‖ Jacksonville News, November 1, 1995. ———. ―Leaders discuss fort land use possibilities.‖ Jacksonville News, July 12, 1995. ———. ―Third ‗at bat‘: McClellan‘s future again in question.‖ Jacksonville News, March 8, 1995.

Lee County Eagle, 1994. Editorial. ―Browder choice for re-election.‖ Lee County Eagle, Oct. 24, 1990. Herring, Rodney D. Letter to the editor. Lee County Eagle, May 28, 1995.

Linden Democrat-Reporter, 1987. Editorial, ―Register babes at birth.‖ Linden Democrat-Reporter, July 2, 1987.

Lowndes Signal (Fort Deposit, Alabama) 1988. Election ‗Dinosaur‘ Victim To Progress.‖ Lowndes Signal, December 1, 1988.

Madison County Record (Huntsville, Alabama), 1987. Noel, William. ―Browder unveils state election reform plans.‖ Madison County Record, December 17, 1987.

Mobile Press, 1985-1997. Editorial. ―Elections reform laws needed.‖ Mobile Press, November 15, 1985. Hardy, Jeff, and George Werneth, ―Government shutdown a big inconvenience.‖ Mobile Press, November 15, 1995. Pace, David ―Three Alabama Democrats join GOP in plan.‖ Mobile Press, November 17, 1995.

342 Staff and wire. ―Chemical weapons may be sent to Anniston depot for incineration.‖ Mobile Press, August 18, 1995.

Mobile Press-Register, 1985-1997. Associated Press. ―Browder campaigning for secretary of state.‖ Mobile Press-Register, February 16, 1986. Calhoun, Victor. ―Candidate with a peel.‖ Photo. Mobile Press-Register. February 16, 1986. Helms, Dave. ―Glen Browder hands out apples at nursing home.‖ Mobile Press-Register, February 16, 1986. Nicholson, Gilbert. ―Browder stumps for election reform.‖ Mobile Press-Register, December 18, 1987.

Mobile Register, 1985-1997. Associated Press. “Clinton blasts, OKs base closings.‖ Mobile Register, July 14, 1995. Editorial, ―Political funding reforms required.‖ Mobile Register, November 6, 1987. ———. ―Support purging of voter lists.‖ Mobile Register, January 10, 1989. Hardy, Jeff. ―Browder, Cramer back resolution for budget mediators.‖ Mobile Register, February 1, 1996. ———. ―Browder, Cramer: Freeze leaders‘ pay, too.‖ November 21, 1995. ———. ―Congressional reaction follows party lines.‖ Mobile Register, June 8, 1995. ———. ―Moderate Democrats contend both sides spurned compromise.‖ Mobile Register, October 20, 1995. ———. ―Republicans say response favorable.‖ Mobile Register, November 18, 1995. ———. ―Their boast: Party lines mean little.‖ Mobile Register, April 11, 1995. Hodges, Sam. ―Jax State: A Maker of Movers and Shakers.‖ Mobile Register; November 14, 1993 Pace, David. ―McClellan is marked for closing.‖ Mobile Register, June 24, 1995. ———. ―Three Alabama Democrats join GOP in plan.‖ Mobile Register, November 17, 1995. Reeves, Jay. ―Panel wants Legislature to tackle crossover voting issue.‖ Mobile Register, April 21, 1987.

Montgomery Advertiser, 1985-1997. Alpert, Mark. ―Gunter, Browder Trade Barbs over Campaign Funds.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, May 6, 1986. Anderson, Curt. ―Alabama accused of ‗guerrilla tactics‘.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, June 14, 1995. Associated Press. ―Church members to celebrate new sirens.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, November 12, 1995. ———. ―Closure timing makes recover all the harder.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, June 27, 1995. ———. ―Final secretary of state tally still pending.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, June 6, 1986.

343 ———. ―Gunter concedes defeat in secretary of state office.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, June 7, 1986. ———. ―Gunter‘s Use of State Money Criticized.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, April 23, 1986. ———. ―Mrs. Gunter Rejects Debate Challenge.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, April 17, 1986. ———. ―Reasonable Solution.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, September 16, 1987. ―Browder Considers Race.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, September 6, 1985. ―Browder helping form Medicare plan.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, September 20, 1995. Browder, Glen. ―Browder Wants Unburdened Balanced Budget Proposal.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, June 5, 1992. Brown, Carol. ―Lawmakers Preparing Bills for 1987.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, March 24, 1987. ———. ―New Democratic Caucus Tackles Election Reform.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, December 10, 1987. Cason, Mike. ―Browder praises ‗Blue Dog‘ budget.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, January 12, 1996. Collins, Chris. Montgomery Advertiser, January 26, 1996. Cork, Betty. ―Education Reformer Calls for New State Leadership.‖ Montgomery Advertiser. November 18, 1985. ———. ―Hunt To Bring School Reform New Approach.‖ Montgomery Advertiser. September 28, 1987. ———. ―State Needs New Leadership, Browder Says.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, May 9, 1986. Fram, Alan. ―Democrats: Budget not affordable.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, February 8, 1995 Editorial. ―Back To The Classroom.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, December 10, 1996. ———. ―By Himself — Hilliard Out Of Step With Delegation.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, February 14, 1995. ———. ―Clean Voting Lists.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, December 4, 1987. ———. ―Coming Clean.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, June 1, 1988. ———. ―Disclosure at Last.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, September 26, 1988. ———. ―Do Democrats want to win?‖ Montgomery Advertiser, June 9, 1996. ———. ―Drawing a Crowd.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, May 8, 1986. ———. ―Don‘t Hide Donations.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, April 18, 1986. ———. ―Fight Consolidation; Do Not Import Chemical Weapons.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, August 25, 1995. ———. ―First Priority.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, June 5, 1986. ———. ―For Sale.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, March 27, 1988. ———. ―Glen Browder.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, May 27, 1986. ———. ―Glen Browder: Superior Record Should Continue.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, Oct. 19, 1990. ———. ―Keeping The Faith.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, December 9, 1988. ———. ―Money Talks.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, February 3, 1986.

344 ———. ―Not Just Words.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, August 7, 1986. ———. ―Operation Absentee.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, August 25, 1988. ———. ―Outdo Each Other.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, February 18, 1988. ———. ―Patch The Roof.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, November 17, 1987. ———. ―Probe Absentees.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, July 7, 1988. ———. ―Remove The Dead.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, February 15, 1989. ———. ―Right Thing To Do.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, June 10, 1988. ———. ―Shabby Treatment; Gulf War Vets Deserve Better.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, September 11, 1995. ———. ―Surface Attraction.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, November 27, 1995. ———. ―The Great Debate.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, January 30, 1995. ———. ―Time to Get Mad.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, November 9, 1987. ———. ―Timing‘s Everything.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, May 26, 1987. ———. ―Top of the Agenda.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, January 23, 1987. ———. ―Turn It In.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, March 18, 1995. ———. ―Unaware; Fort Essential To Weapon Incineration.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, March 8, 1995. Editorial cartoon, ―Ahem.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, January 19, 1988. ―Ethics Probe Requested.‖ Montgomery Advertiser. October 1, 1985. ―Faith In Elections Lacking, Poll Says.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, December 17, 1987. Herring, Amy. ―Centralized filing system to monitor farm crop liens.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, February 22, 1987. ———. ―Dust Still Lingers Over Crossover Voting Fray.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, June 2, 1987. ———. ―House Rejects Senate‘s Version Of Yearly Finance Disclosure Bill.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, September 21, 1988. Jones, Wilhelmina R. Letter to the editor. Montgomery Advertiser, July 22, 1995. Pace, David. ―Mayors: Use base to train against chemical terrorism.‖ June 20, 1995. ———. ―Pentagon official blasts Browder.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, August 31, 1995. Palmer, Jim. ―What‘s wrong with this picture.‖ Editorial cartoon. Montgomery Advertiser, November 5, 1987. Parkman, Melanie. ―Browder To Create Elections Unit.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, March 18, 1986. Poovey, Bill. ―Registrars Told To Clear Bogus Names From Lists.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, December 3, 1987. Roberts, Peggy. ―State Makes ‗Great Step Forward‘ With Computerized Business Data.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, February 3, 1989. Selman, Sean. ―A New Battle: Alabama vets face domestic fight over Gulf War Syndrome.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, October 15, 1995. Staff and wire. ―Base panel vote axes McClellan.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, June 24, 1995. Uhlenbrock, Tom. ―Officers: McClellan should keep school.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, March 25, 1995.

345 Wilhide, Peggy. ―House Blacks Oppose Bill‘s Evaluation Program. Montgomery Advertiser, February 4, 1985. ―Voter Drive Features ‗Red-Light Specials.‖ Montgomery Advertiser, January 12, 1988.

Montgomery Independent, 1988-1989. Editorial roundup, ―Browder turns voter registration in to a ‗special,‘‖ Montgomery Independent, January 21, 1988. Taylor, Sandra Baxley. ―A mixed-bag sampling of Alabama sentiments.‖ Montgomery Independent, December 15, 1989.

New Times (Mobile, Ala.), 1988. Editorial, ―Abuse or Use?‖ New Times, July 7, 1988

New York Times, 1989-1995. Apple, R.W. ―House Race in Alabama Takes on a Biting Tone.‖ New York Times, March 31, 1989. Berke, Richard L. ―Need for Money Tempers Ethics Drive in Congress.‖ New York Times, June 5, 1989. Editorial. ―Inching Toward a Budget Deal.‖ New York Times, December 4, 1995. Gray, Jerry. ―House GOP moderates demand delay in tax cut.‖ March 25, 1995. ———. ―Budget cuts must go to deficit, Senate says.‖ New York Times, March 30, 1995. Pear, Robert. ―Once Ignored, a Middle-Ground Budget Advances.‖ New York Times, November 11, 1995.

Opelika-Auburn News, 1987-1997. Christaldi, Mario. ―Browder: Chemical attack could happen in United States.‖ Opelika- Auburn News, March 26, 1995. Editorial. ―Alabama loses a leader with Browder‘s defeat.‖ Opelika-Auburn News, June 20, 1996. ———. ―A positive step.‖ Opelika-Auburn News, December 22, 1988. ———. ―Congress cannot spend tax money it doesn‘t have.‖ Opelika-Auburn News, October 29, 1995. ———. ―Conservative Democrats are a profile in courage.‖ Opelika-Auburn News, February 21, 1995. ———. ―The Right Step.‖ Opelika-Auburn News, March 26, 1987. ———. ―U.S. Senate: Democrat Browder, Republican McRight.‖ Opelika-Auburn News, May 30, 1996. Pace, David. ―Conservative Democrats push budget alternative.‖ Opelika-Auburn News, October 26, 1995. Radelat, Ana. ―Browder joins group of breakaway Democrats.‖ Opelika-Auburn News, 15 February 1995. Washington Bureau. ―House votes down rival budget plan backed by Browder.‖ Opelika- Auburn News, October 27, 1995.

346 (Oxford) Midweek, 1986. ―Browder wants Gunter to disclose campaign contributions.‖ Midweek, April 4, 1986.

Piedmont Journal, 1987. “Browder, Heflin, Witt Announce Two CSEPP Sirens To Be Installed With Federal Funds.‖ Piedmont Journal, July 12, 1995. “Fort Closure Sends Out Shockwaves In Calhoun County.‖ Piedmont Journal, June 28, 1995. “Open Container Law And Sirens Eyed By City.‖ Piedmont Journal, September 13, 1995. Weatherbee, Greg. ―Siren System To Be Operational Dec. 5.‖ Piedmont Journal, November 22, 1995. Weatherbee, Lane. ―Election Question Could Arise.‖ Piedmont Journal, November 11, 1987. ———. ―It Seems That Glen Browder Is Doing Well In Montgomery.‖ Piedmont Journal, November 18, 1987.

Prattville Progress, 1987. Plunkett, David. ―Browder seeks election financing disclosure reforms.‖ Prattville Progress, November 24, 1987. ———. ―Registrars continue purge of lists in preparation for busy election year.‖ Prattville Progress

Roll Call, 2001. Albanesius, Chloe. ―A Lesson in Democracy: With New Book, Rep. Browder Takes Firsthand Experience to the ‗Young People.‘‖ Roll Call, October 11, 2001. Kahn, Gabriel. ―‗The Coalition,‘ a Virtual Third Party For House, to Draft Own Legislation.‖ Roll Call, February 16, 1995.

Sand Mountain News (Rainsville, Alabama), 1987. ―State a leader in new farm procedure to aid ag industry.‖ Sand Mountain News, December 3, 1987.

Selma Times-Journal, 1988-1995. Associated Press. ―Alabama Democrats ask Gingrich to reconsider school lunch repeal.‖ Selma Times-Journal, March 8, 1995. ———. ―Missouri lawmakers say Alabama resorts to ‗subterfuge‘ on chemical training school.‖ Times-Journal, June 13, 1995. ———. ―President confers with advisors on base closings.‖ Selma Times-Journal, July 9, 1995. Editorial. ―Browder best choice among Democrats.‖ Selma Times-Journal, June 4, 1996. ———. ―Here‘s hoping.‖ Selma Times-Journal, February 9, 1988.

347 The South Alabamian (Jackson, Ala.), 1988. Editorial, ―Rules explicit on votes.‖ The South Alabamian, January 28, 1988.

Southern Democrat (Oneonta, Alabama), 1987. Glasscox, Stan . ―Party Registration — When it comes to reform, ‗Keep it simple, stupid,‘‖ Southern Democrat, June 10, 1987.

Sumter County Journal, 1988. Editorial, ―New disclosure law makes good sense.‖ Sumter County Journal, October 5, 1988.

Sumiton Community News, 1988. ―Thousands register to vote at Wal-Mart.‖ Sumiton Community News, February 3, 1988.

TimesDaily (Florence, Alabama), 1986-1997. Andreas, Bob. Letter to the editor. TimesDaily, March 4, 1995. Associated Press. ―3 state Democrats back GOP tax cut.‖ TimesDaily, April 6, 1995. Boliek, Brooks. ―Voting list horror stories told.‖ TimesDaily, May 20, 1987. ―Browder, Crosslin to discuss state election process.‖ Times Daily, May 17, 1987. Editorial. ―Election endorsements — Secretary of State: Glen Browder.‖ TimesDaily, May 18, 1986. ———. ―Glen Browder.‖ TimesDaily, November 26, 1986. ———. ―Good case for good list.‖ TimesDaily, May 21, 1987. ———. ―New coalition.‖ TimesDaily, February 16, 1995. ———. ―Seats in Congress.‖ TimesDaily, May 26, 1996. Isom, Paul. ―Election reform Browder‘s goal.‖ Times Daily, May 24, 1987. Kransdorf, Leonard. ―Crossover voting proposal nearly finished: Browder.‖ TimesDaily, March 19, 1987. Loughlin, Sean, and Carl Hulse. ―GOP senators are preaching forgiveness.‖ TimesDaily, March 13, 1995. ———. ―Government shutdown was only Round 1.‖ TimesDaily, November 26, 1995. ———. ―Some Democrats find new life in deadlock.‖ TimesDaily October 29, 1995. Weiner, Rebecca S. ―Committee tries to tie up budget alternative.‖ TimesDaily, May 17, 1995. ———. ―Wrangling dominates the process.‖ TimesDaily, May 18, 1995.

Thomasville Times, 1987. Editorial, ―Watching politicians will be interesting ….‖ Thomasville Times, November 5, 1987.

Tracks (Anniston Army Depot), 1995. Williamson, Stan. ―FOX vehicle upgrade work to be done at ANAD.‖ Tracks, July 13, 1995.

348 Troy Messenger, 1987. Ingram, Bob. ―Runoff anniversary recalled.‖ Troy Messenger, June 30, 1987.

Tuscaloosa News, 1986-1997. Associated Press. ―Chemical school officials warn move would harm readiness.‖ Tuscaloosa News, June 20, 1995. Editorial. ―Bravo to state Demos.‖ Tuscaloosa News, December 16, 1987. ———. ―Browder fine candidate.‖ Tuscaloosa News, October 29, 1986. ———. ―Browder sets example.‖ Tuscaloosa News, February 23, 1987. ———. ―Democrat: Browder.‖ Tuscaloosa News, May 26, 1996. ———. ―Peace dividend.‖ Tuscaloosa News, June 28, 1995. ———. ―Reform: Browder‘s quest ambitious.‖ Tuscaloosa News, March 22, 1987. ———. ―State voter list needs purging.‖ Tuscaloosa News, December 23, 1988. ———. ―Timely Investigation.‖ Tuscaloosa News, July 7, 1988. ———. ―Voting upgrade plan worth a try.‖ Tuscaloosa News, December 9, 1988. ———. ―We‘ll pass on this.‖ Tuscaloosa News, August 21, 1995. New York Times News Service. ―Southern Republicans rethink tax break.‖ Tuscaloosa News, March 26, 1995. States News Service. ―State congressmen adhere to party lines on welfare.‖ Tuscaloosa News, March 25, 1995. Weiner, Rebecca. ―Browder addresses U.S. threat from chemical weapons.‖ Tuscaloosa News, March 25, 1995.

Tuskegee News, 1992. Editorial. ―Clinton, Browder get endorsements.‖ Tuskegee News, Oct. 29, 1992.

West Alabama Gazette, 1985 Bryant, Ted. ―Oh, that‘s fund raising.‖ West Alabama Gazette, September 10, 1987. Bobo, L. Peyton. ―Election, political system reform needed; politicians say it must come from the people.‖ West Alabama Gazette, November 5, 1987. ———. ―Evidently, legislators need public demand to pass laws prohibiting unethical behavior.‖ West Alabama Gazette, October 8, 1987. Editorial, ―Browder bill would mean better politics.‖ West Alabama Gazette, November 14, 1985. ———. ―Details of retirement should be known.‖ West Alabama Gazette, August 1, 1985. Ingram, Bob. ―Fire guts Wallace‘s second home, only place he has to live is mansion.‖ West Alabama Gazette, July 18, 1985.

Valley Times-News (Lanett, Alabama), 1987. Goggins, Kennon. Letter to the editor, Valley Times-News, July 15, 1987.

349 Washington Post, 1995. Pianin, Eric. ―GOP Claims Accord on Tax Cut; House Leaders Persuade Moderates to Back Plan.‖ Washington Post, April 4, 1995. Pianin, Eric and Kenneth J. Cooper. ―Clinton‘s Skills Help Lift Budget Package; Senate Challenge Looms.‖ Washington Post, March 20, 1993.

Wilcox Progressive Era (Camden, Ala.), 1988. ―Registering voters at Walmart could increase problems here.‖ Wilcox Progressive Era, January 20, 1988

Wiregrass Today (Dothan, Alabama), 1987. Anderson, Curt. ―Illegal voting reform pushed.‖ Wiregrass Today, October 22, 1987. Claybrook, Clint. ―Browder calls for election reform.‖ Wiregrass Today, March 18, 1987.

Online Resources ―Analytic Guidebook for the Browder Collection,‖ http://www.jsu.edu/library/collections/browder_collection/ BrowderCollectionGuidebook.pdf. Anderson, Beth. ―Constitutional reform rally gives students history lesson,‖ http://accr.constitutionalreform.org/news/alex_100302.html. Brown, Jess. ―Legislative provisions in the constitution of Alabama — Evolution, commentary, and prescription.‖ http://accr.Constitutionalreform.org/symposium/provisions.html. ―Party switchers, past and present,‖ Inside Politics, CNN, http://edition.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/05/23/switchers.list/. Conroy, Pete. ―Dugger Mountain Legislative Summary.‖ http://epic.jsu.edu/dugger/duggerlegislation.html. ———. ―An Alabama injustice that‘s now corrected‖ http://www.annistonstar.com/opinion/2008/as-insight-0323-0-8c21t3737.htm. Gulflink, Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses. ―DoD completes investigation into chemical incidents reported by 11th Marines.‖ http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/news/na_11marines_ii_31mar01.html. ———‖Updated paper provides insights into Fox vehicle capabilities, limits.‖ http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/news/na_fox_info_27mar01.html. Kosar, Kevin R. ―Shutdown of the Federal Government: Causes, Effects, and Process.‖ CRS Report for Congress, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. http://www.rules.house.gov/archives/98-844.pdf. Joseph, Stephen. U.S. Department of Defense Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Health Affairs). http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=157. League of Women Voters of Alabama. ―A History of Attempts to Reform the 1901 Alabama Constitution.‖ http://www.lwval.org/ConRef_History_09.03.02_p.html.

350 McDonald, Michael P. ―Redistricting Summary.‖ http://elections.gmu.edu/Redistricting/Al.htm. ―Party switchers, past and present,‖ http://edition.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/05/23/switchers.list/. Sabato, Larry J. ―Speaker Jim Wright‘s Downfall — 1989.‖ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- srv/politics/special/Clinton/frenzy/wright.htm. Schwalbe, Stephen. ―An Exposé on Base Realignment and Closure Commissions,‖ Chronicles Online Journal, June 10, 2003. http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/schwalbe.html Smith, Jack. ―No way to run a state,‖ http://accr.constitutionalreform.org/news/euf_041403.html. Stevenson, Tommy. ―The one time a write-in actually won an election,‖ http://www.tidesports.com/article/2006609240320). Stewart, William H. ―Reform of the Alabama Constitution,‖ http://accr.Constitutionalreform.org/symposium/reformwhs.html. U.S. Office of Management and Budget, ―Historical Tables,‖ Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2006, http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/pdf/hist.pdf . Winkenwerder, William, Jr. ―US Demolition Operations at Khamisiyah, Final Report,‖ http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/khamisiyah_iii/index.htm.

The Browder Collection (Cited materials from Glen Browder‘s public service career that may not be available in any other archive.)

Alabama Alliance of Business and Industry Scorecard, the Browder Collection: Glen Browder‘s Profile as Alabama State Legislator, 1982-86. Alabama Citizens Action Program Scorecard, the Browder Collection: Glen Browder‘s Profile as Alabama State Legislator, 1982-86. Alabama Education Association Scorecard, the Browder Collection: Glen Browder‘s Profile as Alabama State Legislator, 1982-86. ―Alabama Poll Survey Report.‖ Mason-Dixon Political/Media Research, Columbia, Md., April 1996; the Browder Collection: Browder for Senate campaign strategy. Box 30, U.S. Senate Campaign, 1996 Campaign Information. Browder, Glen. ―ACS survey report for Senate District 18.‖ Box 9: Consulting Activities 1970s-80s, August 1977. ———. ―An Open Letter From Becky Browder.‖ for publication in the Jacksonville News, Box 12: Campaigning for the Alabama Legislature 1982 (and Special Election of 1983), Newspaper Campaign Ads, 1982. ———. ―Citizen Impact on City Policy.‖ Southwestern Social Science Association, Dallas, l973. ———. ―Chronological Fact Sheet on Chemical/Biological Issues.‖ September 28, 2005.

351 ———. ―Do‘s and Don‘ts for Dealing with Media.‖ Box 9, Consulting Activities 1970s-80s. ———. ―Downfall and Tyranny.‖ Box 1: Browder Early Background (1943-71), Edmunds High School files, 1959-61. ———.Letter to Coalition members, November 28, 1995, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Letters. ———. Letter to Don Siegelman, July 5, 1988, Box 49: Alabama Secretary of State, 1987-89. ———. Letter to George Wallace; November 30, 1982, Box 35: Alabama Legislature, 1982-83, Alabama Legislative Issues/Correspondence 1983. ———. Letter to Les Aspin, March 9, 1993, Box 144, Chemical Demilitarization 1992. ———. Matrix of client interview (4x6 inch index card). Box 9: Consulting Activities 1970s-80s. ———. Personal Profile. Box 12: Campaigning for the Alabama Legislature 1982 (and Special Election of 1983), The Glen Browder Story, 1982. ———. Political advertisement, Jacksonville News. Box 12: Campaigning for the Alabama Legislature 1982 (and Special Election of 1983), Newspaper Campaign Ads, 1982. ———. ―Professor-Politician: Recollections and Records of an Alabama Reformer‖ (unpublished draft), 2002. ———. ―Public Opinion and Grassroots Politics.‖ Southern Political Science Association. Atlanta, l972. Browder, Glen, and Ted Klimasewski. ―Calhoun Profile.‖ Box 9: Consulting Activities 1970s-80s, Dead Cases File, undated. ———. ―Industrial Development Study.‖ Box 9: Consulting Activities 1970s-80s, Dead Cases File, undated. ———. ―Cost of Completing Parts II, III, and IV of the Application to Establish a Branch Bank in Alexandria.‖ Box 9: Consulting Activities 1970s-80s, Dead Cases File, June 22, 1977. Campaign literature and advertisements. Box 9: Consulting Materials 1970s-80s, John Teague case files. Correspondence from contributors to Glen Browder and Browder For Senate, Inc. Box 25: U.S. Senate Campaign, Letters to Glen Browder. Ewing, Ed. Letter to Glen Browder, November 30, 1994. Box 23: U.S. Senate Campaign. Governor‘s Education Reform Commission, ―First Annual Report to Governor George C. Wallace and the Alabama Legislature.‖ Summer 1985; Box 39: Education Reform. H.493 By Campbell, White (L), Brooks and Butler, Feb. 11, 1988. Box 49: Alabama Secretary of State. Letter to House Members, February 15, 1995. Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Letters. Lewis, John. Letter to Joe Reed, May 15, 1996. Box 25, U.S. Senate Campaign.

352 Media Advisory, ―In Letter To The President The Coalition Asks For Commitment To Balance The Federal Budget In Seven Years.‖ November 15, 1995, Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Press. Media Advisory, November 14, 1995. Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Press. Media Advisory, ―The Coalition And Its Senate Budget Allies Will Meet To Discuss Their Common Sense Budget As A Compromise And Outline A Post-Veto Budget Strategy.‖ Coalition Budget, FY 1996-97. Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Press. Press release, Alabama Secretary of State‘s Office, Feb. 12, 1988, Box 49: Alabama Secretary of State. Press Release, ―Bipartisan deficit reduction bill introduced.‖ March 24, 1995. Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Press. Press release, ―Browder urges adoption of the Coalition‘s balanced budget plan.‖ November 14, 1995. Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Press. Press Release, ―Browder warns of Republican ‗fig leaf‘ on deficit reduction.‖ April 3, 1995. Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Press. Press release, ―In wake of the president‘s veto of GOP budget, House & Senate members point to Common Sense 7-year balanced budget plan.‖ Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Press. Press release, Coalition Budget, FY 1996-97, April 19, 1995. Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Press. Press Release, Coalition Budget, FY 1996-97, June 2, 1995. Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Press. Press release, Coalition Budget, FY 1996-97. March 8, 1996. Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Press. Rubin, Robert E. Letter to The Honorable Glen Browder, March 13, 1996. Box 102: Blue Dog Coalition, Coalition Letters. Siegelman, Don. ―Certificate of Thanks from Alabama Secretary of State,‖ May 20, 1985. ———. Letter to Secretary of State Glen Browder, July 7, 1988, Box 49: Alabama Secretary of State, 1987-89. Silverberg, Carl. ―Voter Outreach and Demographic Report.‖ Box 16: U.S. Congress Campaign 1989. ―Why Can‘t Johnny Read?‖ Newspaper ad for Billy Atkinson (opposed John Teague for the Democratic nomination for Alabama Senate District 19). Box 9: Consulting Activities, 1970s-80s. Woodall, W. Thomas. ―Browder Exploratory Committee Report.‖ January 23, 1996. Box Box 30, U.S. Senate Campaign, 1996 Campaign Information.