The effort to bar Madison County Commission chairman Dale Strong from appearing on the upcoming Republican Party primary election ballot has failed.
The Alabama Republican Party (ALGOP) steering committee met Tuesday evening to consider the validity of ballot challenges brought before it.
As previously reported by Yellowhammer News, an effort was underway among a group of county GOP officials in Alabama’s fifth congressional district to deny Strong ballot access. The GOP executive committees of Morgan and Limestone Counties each passed resolutions signifying their support of the attempt.
The issue at hand concerned Strong and the Madison County Commission’s move to relocate a Confederate monument from courthouse grounds during the height of the 2020 protests.
Attorney General Steve Marshall would go on to file a lawsuit against the commission over the move, alleging that it had violated the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act in transferring the monument from its previous location to a local Confederate cemetery. The matter was later dismissed in court after the commission paid a $25,000 fine to the State of Alabama.
The effort to deny Strong ballot access was led in part by Heritage Protection of North Alabama, which claimed that the candidate’s role in relocating the monument was grounds to prohibit him from running for Congress as a Republican.
Strong maintained that the commission’s decision to relocate the monument was made to protect it from sustaining structural damage during the uptick in disorderly protests.
In a statement provided to Yellowhammer News, Strong asserted that the attempt to preclude him from the GOP primary election ballot was “baseless.”
“I’m glad the Executive Committee saw through this baseless challenge. I am the only candidate in this race that has worked to build the Alabama Republican Party since 1996,” proclaimed Strong. “I’m the only candidate in this race to stand up and publicly support President Trump in 2016 and I’m the only candidate who has a proven public record of pushing FOR Conservative principles and against bad liberal ideas.”
Dylan Smith is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @DylanSmithAL
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