Luther Strange

Luther Strange (2017)

Luther Johnson Strange III (* 1. March 1953 in Birmingham , Alabama ) is an American politician of the Republican Party . Strange served as appointed interim senator for his state of Alabama in the United States Senate from February 9, 2017 to January 3, 2018 , after his predecessor Jeff Sessions was appointed US attorney general. Since Strange lost the party primary against Roy Moore , he resigned from the Senate at the end of the 114th Congress .

Family, education and work

Luther Strange lived in Sylacauga until he was six years old when his family moved to Homewood , a suburb of Birmingham. He graduated from Shades Valley High School in 1970 and then studied law at Tulane University . In 1981 he was inducted into the Alabama Bar Association. Immediately afterwards he opened a law firm in Birmingham.

Luther Strange is married and has two sons.

Political career

In 2006 he ran for the office of lieutenant governor of Alabama, was initially able to win the primary elections, but was defeated in the actual election to the Democrat James Folsom junior . Four years later, in 2010, Strange was elected Attorney General of Alabama, a position he assumed in January 2011.

After Jeff Sessions moved from the Senate to the US Department of Justice, Alabama Governor Robert J. Bentley named Luther Strange Sessions's successor in the US Senate. He was sworn in on February 9, 2017. At 206 centimeters tall , Strange is considered the tallest US Senator in history.

For the extraordinary by-election of the Senate seat in December 2017 (for the period up to the end of the regular 2020 election period), Strange faced the right-wing conservative former judge of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy Moore , in the party primary . On September 26, 2017, Strange lost 45.4 to 54.6 percent of the vote in the runoff election, after Moore had already been in the lead in the polls. Moore had been supported by Steve Bannon , Trump's former chief strategist, while federal Republican leaders had campaigned for Strange, including Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Trump. The Washington Post described Strange's defeat as a “political lightning strike” with repercussions on the “civil war” within the Republican Party: It would demoralize those in Congress who would face pre-election challengers from the right-wing populist area.

The Democrat Doug Jones surprisingly won the by-election against Moore and replaced Strange in the Senate on January 3, 2018.

Web links

• Luther Strange in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Luther Strange: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Footnotes

1. ↑ Jonathan Martin, Alexander Burns: Roy Moore Wins Senate GOP Runoff in Alabama. In: The New York Times , September 26, 2017 (English); Alabama Election Results: Roy Moore Advances in Race for US Senate Seat. In: The New York Times , September 27, 2017 (English).
2. ↑ Frauke Steffens: Showdown of the hardliners. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , September 26, 2017.
3. ^ Robert Costa: After Alabama, GOP anti-establishment wing declares all-out was in 2018. In: The Washington Post , September 26, 2017 (English).