his nickname was big luther, which is not a particularly original nickname when you are 6 9 and your name is luther. what else are they going to call you, tiny? he played varsity basketball at tulane back in his college days, back the day of short basketball shorts. he eventually ended up as attorney general of the great state of alabama when the republican governor of alabama found himself involved in a particularly visceral sex scandal. this is the governor. there were tapes. there were actual publicly released audio recordings of the governor can noodling with his mistress and talking to her quite bluntly about all the different ways he would like to cannoodle with her. alongside the almost unbelievable sex scandal part of it, there were also some serious allegations of misuse of public funds that went along with that sex scandal. but that scandal involving the alabama governor, it ultimately
democrats a chance to try to win control of the senate in 2018 which would give them the right to say yes or no to the nominee. now i know what you re thinking, ooh, democrats, right? up on your hind legislation, nice. but impotent, what can you actually do? you re in the minority. all right. two things to keep in mind here. number one is big luther, who is not there anymore. the junior u.s. senate seat from alabama was held by big luther strange, republican, last year when the senate confirmed the last supreme court justice neil gorsuch. but luther strange is gone now. he has been replace bade democrat, doug jones. so the democrats have 49 seats. with senator john mccain out and home in arizona for health reasons, what that means is if democrats hold together in one big we re not doormats caucus, the only thing they need to block president trump from installing his chosen nominee on the supreme court is precisely one republican vote.
court justice who had twice been thrown off the court for violations of judicial ethics. big luther strange was initially the senator who filled jeff sessions senate seat from alabama, but he didn t even make it a year. he was out by december after just ten scandalous, strange months in office. that republican candidate who beat him in the primary back home, he ended up facing multiple substantive allegations of child molestation in addition to his other preexisting ethics troubles. when it came time in december for not just republicans, but the whole state of alabama to vote for a new full-term u.s. senator, ultimately in that special election in december, alabama decide they d were going to pick a democrat. thanks to big luther strange and his weird fake pledge that he was investigating the sex scandal governor, thanks to the sex scandal governor himself, thanks to roy freaking moore and
him in the legislature that had only been halted by the intervention of his attorney general, that scandal-ridden barely holding on alabama governor looked around in that moment. frankly, he looked up in that moment and decided that of all the good people in the great state of alabama, the one who should get named to that now newly vacant u.s. senate seat was big luther. the attorney general who had taken over the investigation into the governor s sex scandal and thereby stopped him from being impeached. there didn t have to be an election. the governor just got to pick whoever he wanted to fill jeff sessions senate seat. he picked big luther. the day luther was sworn in, luther strange announced actually his office had never had the governor under investigation in the sex scandal at all. he didn t know why anybody had had that impression. and that s how big luther strange got to the united states senate. that s how they do things in alabama republican politics.