The 50 most powerful & influential people in Alabama

[tps_title]Robert Bentley, Governor of Alabama[/tps_title]

Gov. Robert Bentley cruised to re-election in 2014 with 63.56 percent of the vote, a full 3 percentage points higher than Romney garnered in the 2012 presidential election. His approval rating frequently rose into the 70s in his first term, allowing him to accumulate a lot of political capital. He kicked off his second term by spending it on his plan to solve the state’s perpetual budget crisis.

Early in his second term, the governor has shown an increased willingness to use his executive powers to impose his will on legislators who openly oppose his initiatives. He’s occasionally done this in very public ways, like when $100 million in infrastructure funding was pulled from the District of a senator seeking to block his tax proposals, but he’s also done it in more subtle ways, like when he made sure he maintained control of an appointment on the newly formed charter schools commission.

In his fifth year at the helm of Alabama’s state government, Bentley is clearly thinking about what will be his legacy, and he’s repeatedly made it known that he has no plans to be remembered as a “caretaker” governor.