“The current Lieutenant Governor has mismanaged the Senate the past three years,” Dr. Stan Cooke told Yellowhammer after announcing his plans to challenge Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey in the 2014 Republican primary.
Ivey’s primary day-to-day role when the legislature is in session is to preside over the senate. She made the decision during the 2012 legislative session to hire former state corrections commissioner and Chief Deputy Attorney General Richard Allen to be the new Senate parliamentarian. Allen sits next to Ivey and advises her on the senate’s rules, which can be challenging to keep up with. She said at the time her goal was to make the senate run more efficiently.
Cooke calls the hire a “waste of taxpayer money.”
Lt. Gov. Ivey told Yellowhammer this afternoon that Cooke’s accusations sounds like the kind of things she hears from Democrats when she travels around the state, not from her fellow Republicans.
“The legislature’s approval is at an all-time high,” Ivey said. “Voters approve of what the legislature has accomplished — from immigration to pro-life bills.”
Cooke said one of his main reasons for wanting to challenge Ivey is that he doesn’t think she has brought any new ideas to the table to improve the state. He also said he believes the state needs “real conservative leadership” that can cast a vision for the future of economic development in the state.
“Alabama is on the move, the center of world attention,” Ivey said in response. She pointed out the Alabama’s unemployment rate has fallen to 6.3%, which she says is the lowest in the southeast.
Cooke concedes that Alabama’s unemployment rate has fallen, but said that some areas of the state — the Black Belt, Wiregrass and Gadsen/Anniston areas specifically — have been ignored when it comes to economic development. Cooke said he would create “economic zones” in areas of high unemployment. The workforce in these “zones” would be reviewed, and information regarding each area’s available workforce would be used to recruit companies looking for their specific type of skills.
Cooke also said he would advocate for “real education reform,” but declined to get more specific about what that meant. He said he would reveal his plan of the next few months.
When asked if the Alabama Accountability Act would qualify as “real” education reform, Cooke was on the fence.
“It is to early to tell,” he said. “Issues will arise with the implementation of this reform. It would be prudent to wait until after the 2013-2014 school calendar year to make an assessment.”
Ivey said the GOP’s school choice bill puts the focus of education back on what’s best for the students and families.
“The Alabama Accountability Act is a commitment to put investments into the students and looks at the best needs of students,” she said.
Cooke and Ivey will face off in the June primary 2014.
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