Judge Howard Hawk will be a candidate for re-election after all.
He was snubbed by the Republican Party and his name removed from the Republican primary ballot. After receiving encouragement from friends and others, he announced this week that he will seek re-election as an independent.
Judge Hawk is currently the presiding circuit judge of Marshall County. He’s 54.
He was elected to the legislature in 1994, then re-elected in 1998. He’s been a judge the last 12 years, first a district judge and then a circuit judge.
He’s a former FBI agent. He got his bachelor’s degree from UAB and his law degree from the University of Alabama.
He and his wife Kathy live in Arab and have a 15-year-old son, Griffin. Mrs. Hawk is the chairman of the political science department at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and is a commanding officer in the Navy Reserve.
Judge Hawk issued this statement:
“I was welcomed into the Alabama Republican party in 2010 by Del Marsh, then a top state party official and now president pro tem of the state senate, and Mike Hubbard, then chair of the state Republican party and now Speaker of the House.
“On the first day of qualifying in November 2011, I qualified for re-election. Almost 2 months later and literally days before the end of qualifying, Marshall County Republican Committee Chair Jean Brewer, as an individual, challenged my being listed on the Republican primary ballot.
“Shortly thereafter, and literally minutes before the end of qualifying, Jerry Baker, an Albertville attorney, filed qualifying papers against me.
“The state party’s subcommittee heard Mrs. Brewer’s challenge on the Tuesday following the end of qualifying. This was done 24 hours before the deadline for parties to report their list of candidates to the Secretary of State.
“Neither I nor my attorney were allowed in the room when Mrs. Brewer made her presentation. Press releases and statements by Mrs. Brewer to local papers indicated that she did not allege I had broken any party rule. Rather her allegations were that she did not think I possessed the views of a true Republican. I was removed from the ballot, thereby effectively electing Mr. Baker.
“I and my lawyer ruled out an appeal of the subcommittee’s decision or a lawsuit. Do I think I received a fair hearing: absolutely not. But, due to the timing of Mrs. Brewer’s complaint and the timing of my opponent’s filing of qualifying papers, the subcommittee met only 24 hours before the names of candidates had to be certified to the Secretary of State.
My attorney and I agreed that this timing made either an appeal to the State Party’s Executive Committee or a lawsuit simply impossible.
“I initially said that I had no plans of conducting a petition drive to run as an independent.
“Independent candidates face two obstacles – gaining enough signatures to be on the ballot and overcoming straight ticket voting in the fall. These obstacles are why my opponent and Jean Brewer did what they did when they did it, and those obstacles are why I was initially reluctant to run as an independent.
“I am not wealthy. My child will enter college in 3 years. My current term in office ends in one year. I have money in my campaign fund, but virtually all of that money is the product of my saving as much as I could and then loaning those savings to the campaign fund.
“Therefore, I felt that if I ran as an independent and lost, I would not only be without a job, I would have also tossed away the savings I could use to help with family living expenses and college costs. It is the family of a politician that makes the largest sacrifices, and I felt my 18 years in elected office had cost my wife and child enough.
“My mind was changed by the words of others, both outside my family and within. During these past 2 weeks, I have had a constant stream of unannounced visitors to my home and office in Albertville, telephone calls, letters and emails. Virtually all have encouraged me to run, and virtually all have been Republicans or individuals who primarily vote Republican.
“These individuals were concerned that a small group of cronies was attempting to control the courts and the rest of county, but, to a person, they were visibly mad that the same small handful of cronies had plain and simply stolen their right to vote.
“My family then weighed in. My son put it best when he pointed out that his mother did a tour in Iraq to help give the Iraqis the right to vote for their leaders and then to stick their fingers in ink to show the world they were now free to vote, just like Americans. He pointed out that although his mom returned home, many others did not, and that if the soldiers and sailors of this country can make such sacrifices, surely our family could make the relatively insignificant sacrifices of a political campaign to give the citizens of Marshall County the chance to actually vote for their circuit judge.
“The bottom line – my family and everyone else who talked to me in the last two weeks were right – this is a bigger issue than just my re-election.
“I spent most of my current term working to eliminate duplication in the court system, trying to save the county additional dollars by redefining how court funds could be spent, and using those changes to justify getting Marshall County a new judge starting next year.
“I had planned to spend a fair amount of the next term as presiding judge organizing our newly expanded system in a way to produce the best, most efficient, and fairest courts in the state.
“While I still feel this work is important, there is nothing more important than preserving the people’s right to vote. This is not Russia, North Korea or Iran. This is America.
“My petition drive for ballot access will begin immediately. I must turn in signatures no later than March 13 – the primary election day – but I want to collect the petitions around March 7.“
