Doug Jones

Doug Jones

Template:TOCnestleft Doug Jones is a US Democratic Senator from Alabama.

Background

Doug Jones was born into a blue-collar family in Fairfield, Alabama. He attended law school before joining the staff of late U.S. Senator Howell Heflin. He went on to serve as Assistant U.S. Attorney in Birmingham and later entered private practice. In 1997, Doug Jones was nominated by a Democratic President and confirmed by a Republican Senate to serve as United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. As U.S. Attorney, he led the successful prosecution of two of the Klu Klux Klan members responsible for the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963 that killed four African-American girls.

Senate victory

Record African-American turnout and an outpouring of women and crossover voters disgusted with his GOP foe, accused sexual molester Roy Moore, propelled Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Doug Jones to a special election win in Alabama Dec. 12. Jones will fill the last three years of the unexpired U.S. Senate term of Jeff Sessions, who left to become Trump’s attorney general. “It’s a great day for Alabama,” declared Richard Cohen, president of the Birmingham-based Southern Poverty Law Center, the nation’s leading tracker of racist hate groups and individuals. “We’ve seen through the demagoguery of a man who has been kicked out of office twice for putting his religious beliefs above the U.S. Constitution.”

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee and MoveOn.org said Jones’ win proves, as Ilya Sheyman of MoveOn put it, that “if we can win in Alabama, we can win anywhere.”

“We just helped elect Doug Jones, a civil rights champion—and a pro-choice, pro-health care, anti-Trump Democrat—to the U.S. Senate in Alabama!” she said.

“If we can win in Alabama, we can win anywhere. We can take back the House in 2018—creating a firewall to stop the Trump Republican agenda and hold Trump accountable—and we even have a pathway to take back the Senate, too,” she added.

Adam Green of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, whose members donated funds to Jones, said the race shows Democrats can win if they compete nationwide—something the party did not do during Obama’s terms or in 2016.

“The Republican Party’s attacks on working families and support for candidates like Roy Moore have opened up opportunities for Democrats to win in places they haven’t won in decades,” he added. “The key to winning back control of Congress in 2018 is for Democrats to compete everywhere with inspiring progressives who connect with voters of all political stripes” on issues like living wages and Medicare for All, he said.

News reports added the Democrats did a lot of shoe leather campaigning for Jones, logging 1.2 million voter phone calls and knocking on 300,000 doors—even though, outside of the Alabama Education Association, the party has virtually no structure in the state. Jones is the first Democrat to win an Alabama U.S. Senate seat since Shelby in 1992, before Shelby switched parties.

Trippi

Joe Trippi, a senior adviser for the Jones campaign.

Support for the Council on American Islamic Relations

Doug Jones wrote a letter of support to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on the occasion of their 24th anniversary in September 2018.

Working with DSA

Mobile Democratic Socialists of America, election night, December 12, 2017;

‪Congratulations to Doug Jones on his victory over Roy Moore. We look forward to organizing for progress together.

‬

Birmingham Democratic Socialists of America tweeted out a similar message.

Holding Jone to account

Vegas Longlois is a member of Birmingham Democratic Socialists of America.

Democratic Socialists of America - Birmingham. February 28 at 2:41pm.

Last Sunday (2/25), Members of DSA Birmingham led by Vegas Longlois joined with members of the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice and Indivisible Alabama at Doug Jones' Victory Party to urge him to stand with DACA recipients. After a brief confrontation with one of his staff members, a DACA recipient and member of ACIJ was able to speak with Jones and was promised a meeting in March. Now it's time to hold him responsible. Please call Doug Jones to ask him to stand with DACA recipients!

Our Revolution

The University of Maryland - Our Revolution chapter has been very active since the beginning of the semester. The Chapter produces a weekly podcast featuring progressive campus and community activists, and also hosts regular teach-ins; some recent examples include teach-ins on single-payer healthcare and public financing.

For the 2017 elections the UMD OR Chapter hit the pavement for Lee J. Carter, an Our Revolution-endorsed candidate for Virginia’s House of Delegates in the 50th district. Carter, a democratic socialist, impressively defeated the incumbent, Republican House Majority Whip Jackson Miller.

OR UMD phone banked for Democratic Alabama Senate Candidate Doug Jones on November 20th, who is in a tight race with a Republican candidate.

Progressive support

The DNC invested close to $1 million in the Senate race in Alabama, all of which helped fund voter-contact and organizing efforts to drive up black and Millennial voter turnout. A surge in black-voter turnout helped propel Jones to victory on Tuesday evening.

A broad array of liberal organizations were also working to get out the vote for Jones in the race, including progressive groups such as MoveOn, Democracy for America, and the Working Families Party. MoveOn volunteers sent thousands of text messages encouraging people to vote, while Working Families Party volunteers helped recruit people to phone bank and knock on doors in Alabama.

“I think the real story is that the DNC and traditional institutions in the Democratic Party are not the only game in town. There are a lot of outside groups doing really important work to tap into grassroots energy and activism,” says Joe Dinkin of the Working Families Party.

That could be viewed as further evidence that the Democratic Party’s brand is damaged. A poll released in April found that a majority of the public thinks the Democratic Party is out of touch with the concerns of average Americans, a data point that alarmed some Democrats in Congress and highlights the image problem the party has grappled with in the wake of Trump’s election, even as the president himself remains historically unpopular.

“The darkest times for Democrats are when everyone is jockeying for credit and donor attention rather than just doing the work,” says Ben Wikler of MoveOn. “In Alabama, people were focused on victory.” Wikler says he was “delighted that the DNC hired 30 organizers to support field efforts in Alabama.” “That’s exactly the kind of investment in ground game we need to maximize the 2018 wave,” he says.

Jones ran as a liberal Democrat on a pro-choice and pro-immigrant-rights platform. He did not, however, endorse the kind of progressive agenda championed by Sanders. Our Revolution, the progressive group that spun off from the Sanders presidential primary campaign, did not endorse Jones, though it did congratulate him on his win on Tuesday evening. Sanders congratulated Jones as well.

Muslim/socialist support

Muslim activists Megan Dubeansky and Khaula Hadeed worked to get out the vote for the Dec. 12, 2017 special election for U.S. Senate

"Alarmed by Roy Moore's derogatory comments about Islam", Alabama Muslims turned out in large numbers to vote for Democratic candidate Doug Jones.

More than 20,000 Muslim voters - about the margin of victory for Jones - turned out and voted almost without exception for Jones, said Khaula Hadeed, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Alabama.

"This is a remarkable moment for the Muslim community in Alabama," said Hadeed. "We found hope, empowerment and fellowship amidst a year of derision and discrimination. Thankfully the people spoke and rejected bigotry and racism in favor of solidarity with the most vulnerable among us."

Hadeed joined other minority leaders at Greater Birmingham Ministries on Thursday December 14, who worked to get out the vote in an election that brought together the most marginalized groups, they said.

"It took a whole group of us working together," said Isabel Rubio, executive director of the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama.

"We touched as many people as we could," said Scott Douglas, executive director of Greater Birmingham Ministries, speaking on behalf of the Stand As One Coalition.

"What happened on Tuesday wasn't an accident; it was hard work," said Daniel Schwartz, executive director of Faith in Action Alabama. "When the impossible happens it only whets your imagination for the other things that are impossible."

The press briefing held by a Stand As One Coalition included Scott Douglas of Greater Birmingham Ministries, Isabel Rubio: National Council of La RazaGeneral Board of Directors and Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama, Daniel Schwartz of Faith in Action Alabama, CAIR-Alabama Executive Director Khaula Hadeed, and Pastor Winfield Burks of the Burns Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Other "progressive" help

The DNC, Indivisible, One Nation United, Color of Change, and others sent e-mails to supporters. Democrats like Tim Kaine, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, and Kirsten Gillibrand enlisted their supporters to help Doug Jones.

Alabama Old Left

Federation of Southern Cooperatives

Federation of Southern Cooperatives November 1, 2018 ·

Sen Jones addressing the crowd — in Mount Hebron, Alabama. Doug Jones with John Zippert.

Heirs Property Loan Fund

Federation of Southern Cooperatives October 29, 2019 ·

Breaking News! Senator Doug Jones helps pass amendment to add $5 million to USDA budget to implement Heirs Property Loan Fund. His provision authorized the Farm Service Agency to make loans that will help families resolve heir's property ownership and succession issues.

Jones delivered a moving speech to the Senate on one of the greatest injustices done to African Americans during his call to action for passage of the bill. We are thankful to Sen. Jones for his efforts in justice for black farmers and landowners.

Registration is now open for this year's National Heirs Property Conference to be held in Atlanta Georgia! Click link below to register and gain access to resources and practitioners ready to assist with your Heirs Property concerns. https://www.federation.coop/events

ANSC endorsement

Alabama New South Coalition endorsed Doug Jones for the Democratic Senate primary, above six other Democrats, July 2017.

Greene County radicals

At a time when the Democratic Party has drastically scaled back operations nationwide in conservative bastions like Alabama, it fell to civil rights leaders — including activists and ministers, attorneys and businessmen — to organize and energize black voters to vote for Doug Jones.

The numbers show they got the job done well. As the vote totals rolled in, Selma — the site of storied civil rights and county seat — supplied the coup de grace, delivering nearly 75 percent of Dallas County’s votes to Jones.

This is the place where, in March 1965, peaceful marchers were teargassed and beaten mercilessly by state troopers while the news cameras rolled. The demonstrators were attempting a symbolic 54-mile march to the state capital to demand full voting rights for blacks. National outraged followed the televised brutality, and later that month, the marchers — backed by a federal court order — arrived at the capital 25,000 strong.

The demonstration was seen as a turning point in a national debate that led to passage of the federal Voting Rights Act in August 1965.

The mobilization of black voters across Alabama in the run-up to this week’s election shows Democrats that it’s time to invest more in — and follow the lead of — civil rights leaders.

You could see the movement’s force in Greene County, near the state’s western edge. The area was a hotbed of civil rights activism in the 1960s, when Dr. King and his top lieutenants paid multiple visits.

The torch later passed to local leaders like John Zippert and Carol Zippert, who have spent decades running programs for an organization, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, that helps black farmers get access to credit and land. The Zipperts also publish a newspaper, the Greene County Democrat, that urged voters to the polls.

The county seat, Eutaw, features a casino, Greenetrack, whose CEO is Luther Winn, a politically active businessman who supports the local NAACP and the National Action Network, the organization run by the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Thanks in part to the efforts of Winn, the Zipperts and NAACP activists, Jones carried Greene with an overwhelming 87 percent of the vote, a larger margin than Moore won in any county.

Meeting ANSC

Dr. Carol Zippert; John Zippert, ANSC State President; Gus Townes; Senator Doug Jones; Karen Jones; Attorney Everett Wess; Robert Avery; Attorney Faya Rose Toure; Attorney Sharon Wheeler; Senator Hank Sanders

Doug Jones, Alabama’s newly elected Senator, met with a delegation of Alabama New South Coalition members on Saturday, January 6, 2018, in Birmingham. All of ANSC delegation members played an active role in the ‘Vote or Die Campaign’ to register, educate, mobilize and turnout voters in the December 12, 2017 Special Election, in which Jones defeated Judge Roy Moore.

Jones thanked the ANSC and the Vote or Die Campaign for their support and help in winning a closely fought contest with Judge Roy Moore. He said he appreciated “the early and continuing efforts of ANSC, ANSA and Vote or Die from the beginning of the race, starting at the first primary and continuing all the way through.”

Members of the ANSC delegation expressed congratulations and support to Senator Jones and indicated that they realized that “ a movement orientation was needed not just an ordinary political campaign, to create the excitement and interest, to generate the kind of turnout that was required to win this election.”

Jones said that he would work to represent all of the people of Alabama and he was looking for priority issues to work on that would unite voters – Black and white, urban and rural – in the state.

Jones said he was definitely going to push for reauthorization of CHIP – Children’s Health Insurance Program, which serves 150,000 children in Alabama and 9 million nationwide.

Another priority was working to keep rural hospitals open, which would help places in north Alabama, as well as the Alabama Black Belt, from losing their hospital and having to travel long distances for medical services. Jones said he would work with Congresswomen Terri Sewell, who has proposed adjustments to raise the low reimbursement rates paid to rural hospitals under Medicare and Medicaid.

Jones said building, repairing and improving infrastructure, including more than roads and bridges, and extending to water and waste water systems, broadband communication services and other community facilities. He said that he was trying to get assigned on Senate committees that dealt with these issues.

Jones indicated that he does not support cuts to “entitlement programs” like Medicare, Medicaid and Food Stamps which help low income people to balance the budget.

On Monday, it was announced by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer that Senator Jones would serve on the: Housing, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), Banking, Homeland Security and Government Affairs (HSGAC) and Aging Committees . Senator Jones assured the ANSC delegation that he would have an active and robust staff around the state to provide information and constituent services to people in Alabama. He was still staffing his offices and was still receiving resumes from persons interested in serving on his staff in the state and in Washington. As reported last week, he has chosen Dana Gresham, an African-American, to serve as Chief of Staff. Jones indicated that he might develop a mobile office to travel to rural and more remote communities to provide services to constituents that cannot easily travel to offices in larger cities.

Senator Jones said that he would continue to communicate on a regular basis with the delegation about the upcoming state elections in 2018 and his own re-election campaign in 2020. Jones said that he would participate in the upcoming Bridge Crossing Jubilee in Selma, the first weekend in March, and other activities related to supporting voting rights.

NAACP

In Birmingham, Huntsville, Mobile and Tuskegee, the state’s NAACP chapters hosted get-out-the-vote drives that included rallies, social media outreach and radio ads. “We’re trying to work all angles,” Patricia Mokola, a spokeswoman for the Alabama NAACP, told USA Today before the election. “We’re trying to reach not only African-Americans, we’re trying to reach millennials as well. They will be instrumental in this election.”

The strategy worked. Exit polls show that 96 percent of black voters supported Jones, as did more than 61 percent of voters under 45 years old.

Progressive Turnout Project

Progressive Turnout Project supported Doug Jones in the Senate special election. The organization dispatched eight staff members to Birmingham and mobilized its supporters to knock on doors and make phone calls to voters in the final days of the campaign.

“Republicans have truly lowered the bar by putting their full support behind accused child molester Roy Moore,” said Communication Director Priyal Amin. “We refuse to sit on the sidelines while Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell, and the RNC bankroll such a shameful campaign.”

The group said that since the election of President Donald Trump, there has been a blue wave across the country in local and state elections as voters look for a check on Republican power. Progressive Turnout Project said that on Tuesday, Alabama voters have an opportunity to send a sensible voice to Washington to represent working-class values.

“Doug Jones has time and again demonstrated his strong moral character as a former prosecutor on the right side of justice,” Amin said. “Progressive Turnout Project is proud to support him as he stands up and fights for Alabama.”

Progressive Turnout Project is a grassroots-funded Political Action Committee with a single mission: get Democrats to the polls. PTP designs, tests, and executes specialized voter turnout programs targeting inconsistent Democratic voters in the most competitive districts in the country. In the 2016 cycle, the group raised more than $5 million from more than 93,000 donors and ran programs in 19 congressional races.

"The Alabama Opportunity"

From the Southern Elections Fund website;

Doug Jones has a very narrow path to victory that relies primarily on an increase in the Black vote. Jones will likely require 300K votes to win. This will likely require turnout of an additional 135k Black voters.

Mobilizing the Black vote in Alabama will require efforts from the people with deep roots in the community. Marvin Randolph, President and CEO of Southern Elections Fund, is the country’s leading expert on Black vote mobilization. He has worked on 120 campaigns in 31 states and organized the largest Black voter registration effort in history when the NAACP registered 400,000 Black citizens in 2012. His connections to Alabama extend back over 20 years, and Southern Election Fund is well-positioned to work with Alabama's community-based leaders to conduct an effective Black voter mobilization program.

DeJuana Thompson of Rubix Strategies is our Alabaman "boots on the ground" and long-term political professional who is running the operation from the local level.

To contribute by check, make payable to PowerPAC - SEF and mail to 44 Montgomery St Suite 2310 San Francisco, CA 94104. For wire transfers, please email lisa@powerpac.org.

Council for a Livable World

Council for a Livable World endorsed Doug Jones in his 2017 US Senate bid from Alabama.

Doug Jones is running for Senate in Alabama’s December 12 special election to fill the seat formerly held by Senator Jeff Sessions, who is now the U.S. Attorney General.

Doug’s opponent – Roy Moore – is one of the most unfit candidates for office in recent memory. He was recently accused by numerous women of sexual abuse and misconduct when the women were teenagers and Moore was in his 30s. Moore was previously removed from his position as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court twice for refusing to follow the law regarding separation of church and state, and marriage equality. From his repeated ethics violations, to pocketing over $1 million for himself from a religious charity he ran, to a long list of divisive, hateful, and racist comments that are in the public record – Moore would be an embarrassment not only the people of Alabama, but the entire country.

The Cook Political Report and Nathan Gonzales writing in Roll Call have called the race a “Toss Up,” and Real Clear Politics’ polling average shows a narrow 0.2% lead for Doug.

Patrick, Booker support

Doug Jones, Terri Sewell, Cory Booker

Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell joined Alabama Senate candidate Doug Jones December 10, 2017 at an historic Selma church as part of a home-stretch push for Tuesday's election.

The Jones campaign made another stop in Montgomery, where U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, spoke to a crowd of more than 100 people at Alabama State University.

Booker, appearing with Jones and Sewell, talked about the plight of Alabama's poorest counties and quoted Martin Luther King, Jr.

"When it comes to the long hard march toward justice, nothing is given," Booker said. "King used to say that change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability. It has to be carried in on the backs of good folk. The opposite of justice is not injustice, it is indifference, it is inaction."

In Selma, Jones, Patrick, Sewell and Selma Mayor Darrio Melton appeared outside the Brown Chapel AME Church, where civil rights marchers gathered in 1965 to begin the trek across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday.

U.S. Senator Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, was scheduled to appear with Jones that afternoon at Alabama State University.

Vote or Die Campaign

Rose Sanders

In 2017 Rose Sanders of Selma, co-founder and coordinator of the Vote or Die Campaign, received death threats for the organizing efforts she and her group "engaged in to turn out the African-American vote against racist Judge Roy Moore".

Brennan Center report

Doug Jones spearheaded an effort for Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School that was focused on drastically changing the role of U.S. Attorneys.

Among other things, Jones’s project called on federal prosecutors to reduce or avoid sentences for drug offenders, make decisions about seeking jail time on individual cases based upon federal incarceration levels and use their positions to “spread change” and work with outside “community organizations” to root out the “causes of violence.”

One section of the report seeks to put U.S. Attorneys in the role of social justice warriors who go to schools to preach against “bullying,” coach Little League teams and mentor at risk youths. All this while working to “develop solutions to problems that do not involve prosecutions, such as mediating disputes and participating in school intervention programs.”

The Brennan Center has been the recipient of numerous grants from George Soros’s Open Society Foundations totaling over $7,466,000 from 2000 to 2010 alone.

In 2014, the Center released a 69-page document titled, “Federal Prosecution for the 21st Century,” which was the culmination of a Brennan Center project led by Doug Jones.

The report was specifically based on the results of a Brennon Center initiative co-chaired by Jones calling itself the Blue Ribbon Panel that convened “criminal justice experts, including leaders in law enforcement, prosecutors and public defenders, former government officials, and federal grant recipients, to provide comments on the performance measures” and form the basis of the recommendations in the report.

Jones served as co-chair of the Blue Ribbon Panel and he also wrote the introduction to the report. His name is listed on the cover of the Brennan document.

In his introduction, Jones laments that when he and his colleagues on the panel served as prosecutors, “there was an underlying drive to focus almost exclusively on the enforcement of federal laws without engaging in crime prevention.”

“Federal prosecutors have many tools to create this change,” Jones wrote. “They can use their resources to change prosecutorial practices; their bully pulpit and convening power to change hearts and minds; and their leverage in hiring young prosecutors to pick not only the best and the brightest, but also those with a nuanced view of justice.”

Jones used language reminiscent of the Obama administration’s infamous interagency memos that enacted “prosecutorial discretion” – which was widely regarded as de facto amnesty – when it came to bringing charges against young illegal aliens. Jones wrote that the report’s recommendations “encourage prosecutors to keep in mind the larger purposes of the justice system when recommending sentences, choosing what charges to bring and whom to prosecute, and deciding the terms of plea negotiations.”

The report itself goes on to recommend that “given their enormous power and discretion over charging and sentencing decisions, U.S. Attorneys possess a unique lever to spread change.”

The report states: “Prosecutors are well-positioned to create opportunities to improve public safety while also reducing the nation’s incarceration footprint. They are granted unique authority to make charging decisions, enter cooperation agreements, accept pleas and frequently dictate sentences or sentencing ranges.”

A key goal of the report was to push reduced sentencing for drug offenders. This has also been a major policy aim for George Soros. His Open Society Foundations gave $50 million to the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance, which seeks to decriminalize drug offenses. The Alliance’s main aim, according to its website, is to create a world in which people “are no longer punished for what they put into their own bodies but only for crimes committed against others.”

The Jones-led report opines that “shifting prosecutorial priorities to include focusing on reducing the numbers of people sent to prisons could have a dramatic impact. Not accepting certain types of drug cases, altering charging decisions or recommending diversion or alternative sentences for drug offenders would reduce the number of drug offenders entering the Federal Bureau of Prisons and are well within a prosecutor’s discretion.”

It recommends considering an “alternative sanction” for drug offenders in lieu of prison. “Rigorous studies have shown that drug treatment programs and close supervision, such as federal probation, can both reduce recidivism rates and costs,” the report added.

Movement Voter Project

According to the Movement Voter Project website;

NEW! How We Won Alabama - #TrustBlackWomen & Fund Local Organizing!

How did we pick up a US Senate seat in an off-cycle special election in Alabama? Black Women and their teams on the ground knew what it took to win, and we are honored to have played a small role in supporting them! We worked our networks and identified two local black women leading the way – DeJuana Thompson and LaTosha Brown. With our friends in Solidaire, Women Donors Network, Color of Democracy, and others, we collectively moved more than $500,000 – in less than a month! (We were directly involved in moving about $200,000 of that – with a ton of small-dollar donations!) Most of the funds went through three major local grassroots operations (WOKE VOTE, RIGHTEOUS VOTE, and #BlackVotersMatter) which in turn supported 30+ local groups, 600+ organizers in 17 Alabama counties, as well as a statewide phone bank, peer-to-peer texting, rural black radio, and social media campaigns. We can win anywhere and everywhere when we support local organizing and don’t take communities for granted. But we need early and ongoing investments. You can click here to donate to continued efforts in Alabama. Let’s transform the South (and the whole country)!

Steve Phillips "architect"

Midwest Academy December 13, 2017 ·

Midwest Academy is so honored to give Steve Phillips, Founder of Democracy in Color an award TONIGHT as he was one of the architects of the victory in Alabama.

Phillips support

Stacey Abrams is vying to become the first African American governor in Georgia and some influential donors are putting their money where their mouths are—to the tune of $2.5 million

Donors are stepping up to support the former House Minority Leader for the Georgia General Assembly and State Representative for the 89th House District in hopes of seizing the Republican Party’s stronghold over the state.

San Francisco-based philanthropist, Susan Sandler is spending $1 million to help boost Abrams’ Democratic campaign, according to USA Today. Sandler has also recruited other big donors and has commitments for another $1 million.

The Democrats believe that the red Southern state could turn blue given what happened in Alabama. Seeing Doug Jones lay the groundwork for flipping states and turning deep-red Alabama blue and becoming the first Democrat elected to the Senate in the state in 25 years means anything is possible.

“The upset election of Doug Jones in the Alabama Senate race in December gave a glimpse of a new electoral equation,” Sandler wrote in the memo. “If we elect Stacey, we will show that we know how to win in the South without compromising our principles and beliefs.”

And she knows what she’s talking about.

Sandler and her husband Steve Phillips helped fuel the large voter turnout in the Alabama Senate race. They plan to use the same strategies: a mix of door-to-door outreach, phone calls and advertising to turn the tide on the Georgia governor race.

SEF support

Southern Elections Fund support.

Jones Pushed Felon Voting "Rights"

In December 2011, Doug Jones was one of fifteen signatories on a letter sent to Congress from the Brennan Center for Justice calling for the restoration of “federal voting rights to the nearly four million Americans living, working and paying taxes in our communities who have been disenfranchised because of a criminal conviction in their past.”

The 2011 Brennan Center letter to Congress signed by Doug Jones calls for a blanket restoration of voting privileges to all criminals upon release from prison and return to their communities. The letter states, “People who commit crimes must and will serve all terms of their sentence. But once the criminal justice system has determined that they are ready to return to the community, they should receive both the rights and responsibilities that come with the status of being a citizen. Restoring the right to vote is simply good law enforcement policy.”

Besides the letter, Jones is currently listed on the Democracy Restoration Act (DRA) information page of the Brennan Center’s website as among the “Groups and Individuals who support the DRA.” The act calls for voting rights for felons.

Jones is listed there alongside scores of far-left activist groups funded by George Soros, some of which also have ties to Jones. Those Soros-funded groups include the Alliance for Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union (the recipient of a $50 million Soros grant), Black Youth Vote!, the NAACP and scores of others.

Some of those groups are tied to a successful drive the past few weeks to register convicted felons across the state of Alabama. That effort was led by organization partnered with a Soros-financed group and led by a radical leftist who is the half-brother of the infamous controversial Rev. Al Sharpton.

For decades, Jones has been a champion of voting rights for all criminals, including the most violent offenders, putting him at the radical end of the spectrum on the issue. Back in 2005, he wrote an amici curiae (“friend of the court”) brief on the matter with Eric Holder, who would go on to become Attorney General under the Obama administration. Jones’s 2005 brief, which was written for a Supreme Court case involving the state of Florida for voting for criminals, is featured on Brennan’s website.

Woodfin support

Birmingham mayor Randall Woodfin supported Doug Jones during the 2017 Senate race.

Senate staff

Dana Gresham, a 1989 graduate of A. H. Parker High School, has been tapped for the chief of staff position.

In 2009, he was nominated by then-president Barack Obama to serve as the assistant secretary for governmental affairs, a position Gresham held for all eight years of the Obama administration.

Gresham also served 14 years on Capitol Hill. During 11 of those years, he served in senior staff positions within the Alabama congressional delegation. Before his hiring as chief of staff for Jones, Gresham worked as a consultant for Federal City Council, a nonprofit organization promoting economic development in the Washington, D.C. area.

Jones' team also hired Sonceria Ann Bishop-Berry, who is also from Birmingham, as transitional advisor. Berry is a J. H. Phillips High School and University of North Alabama graduate. She moved to D.C. in 1979 to work for late senator Howell Heflin. Since Heflin's retirement, she has worked for many senators, including Daniel Patrick Moynihan, John Edwards, Tom Carper and as Deputy Chief of Staff to Senator Patrick Leahy.

Katie Campbell, of Montevallo, was selected to be deputy legislative director. Campbells has worked for members in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the senate. She most recently handled health policy for Senator Joe Donnelly.

Mark Libell, who is from Florence, was selected to become the legislative director, a position he has held before with senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia. After Rockefeller's retirement in 2014, Mark has been Assistant Congressional Liaison at the Federal Reserve Board.

References

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