Alabama Senate profile: Campaigns change, but Roy Moore's messages stay constant

The Roy Moore of 2017 is the Roy Moore of 2012 and the Roy Moore of 2010 and 2006 and 2000.

The former Alabama chief justice and current U.S. Senate candidate in a recent interview recapped many themes he's hit over the last two decades, stressing his commitment to a strict constructionist view of the U.S. Constitution with an emphasis on states’ rights and conservative social standpoints.

“What I bring to the job of a senator is what I brought to the job as chief justice and circuit judge,” Moore said. “I have upheld the Constitution. I have upheld the law. I have not made up the law as I go. And I have done what I said I’ll do.”

If that consistency is what endears him to many Republican voters in the state, it’s also a key reason why Moore has run into challenges when campaigning for any statewide office other than chief justice. And as chief justice, it’s led him to decisions over religious displays and same-sex marriage that have twice cost him his job.

But Moore does not regret anything, saying he refused to follow a 2003 federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the Heflin-Torbert Judicial Building because “you can’t order a lower court judge to disobey his oath to the Constitution.”

When it comes to his second removal, triggered by a January 2016 memo that ordered the state’s probate judges to not issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, Moore opts for a more technical explanation, citing a decision by U.S. District Judge Callie V.S. Granade — who struck down Alabama’s same-sex marriage laws before the U.S. Supreme Court did in Obergefell v. Hodges in June 2015 — that noted that lawsuits that tried to maintain the ban were still pending before the court.

“She said in July, nearly six months later, that they existed,” he said. (Granade, however, later issued a permanent injunction against the state’s same-sex marriage laws due to “the failure of the Alabama Supreme Court” to dismiss the challenges “in the face of the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell.”)

As a candidate for the U.S. Senate, Moore says he will fight a “Washington establishment” he claims is holding President Donald Trump back. Moore also criticizes Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., whose Senate Leadership Fund PAC is buying ads on behalf of Sen. Luther Strange.

“McConnell won’t manage me,” he said. “No one will manage me when I go to Washington. I will do what the law provides. I will vote accordingly.”

Those votes would likely be similar to those cast by other Republicans in the race. Moore says he wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act and accuses the “Republican establishment” of “interfering with that,” though he suggests he would be open to delays to allow insurers to adjust insurance policies. Like many other Republican candidates, Moore is noncommittal on cuts to the Medicaid in the health care bills, saying he “would have to see what cuts they’re talking about.”

Moore also said he would “rebuild the military,” supporting increased spending and policy changes, including an attempt to “take away transgender rights in military discipline.”

The former chief justice says “regime changes don’t seem to work well from the perspective of historic analysis” and said he would want Congress to first authorize military actions considered by the president except in emergencies like attacks on the shores. He also said he supports Trump’s immigration policies and ban on travel from Muslim countries. Moore cites his experience as commander of a military police unit during the Vietnam War.

“That’s what I’ll bring to the Senate is an understanding of military discipline, tactics and strategy and whether we need to go to war,” he said. “I’m the only candidate who’s been to war.”

Moore has struggled in previous efforts to win a nonjudicial statewide office, in part because of difficulties reaching beyond his base. Challenging then-Gov. Bob Riley in the 2006 Republican primary, Moore led early polls but ended up finished a distant second to the incumbent. A second attempt at the governorship in 2010 led to a fourth-place finish in the GOP primary.

The former chief justice often struggles to raise money, though he ended the second quarter of the year bringing in $308,612 — close to U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks’ $314,813 haul but well behind Strange’s $2.8 million. His relationship with the business community has been strained since he penned critiques of binding arbitration in two Alabama Supreme Court decisions in 2001. The Business Council of Alabama, which backed Moore in his 2000 Supreme Court campaign, did not support his race for his old job in 2012.

Moore says he would “very much be a proponent of small businesses we have,” with a focus on reducing taxes and regulations.

“I reach out to the business community very much,” he said. “I think businesses in Alabama have been hampered by one major obstacle: federal interference.”

Moore has to this point avoided the battle Strange and Brooks are waging for Trump’s love, but says he would be a vote for the president.

“We know the president was elected in 2016 to make a change,” he said. “He’s trying to make a change, but he’s facing Republican establishment who is not fulfilling their role. I will change that.”

Name: Roy Moore

Age: 70

Residence: Gallant

Party: Republican

Family: Married; four children, five grandchildren

Profession: Attorney

Offices held/offices sought: Alabama Chief Justice, 2001-03 and 2013-2016; Republican candidate for governor, 2006 and 2010; Etowah County Circuit Judge, 1992-2001; Democratic candidate for Etowah County District Attorney, 1986; Democratic candidate for Etowah County Circuit Judge, 1982.