From AP Studios in downtown Montgomery.

I'm Todd Stacey.

Welcome to Capitol Journal.

We are just days away from the big general election coming up on Tuesday.

And coming up later in the show, I'll welcome both of the candidates running for Alabama governor, Republican Tommy Tuberville and Democrat Doug Jones.

You'll want to stick around for those interviews.

But first some news to get to this week.

The Alabama Corrections Institution Finance Authority on Thursday approved the construction contract for the second planned new men's prison.

It will be built in Escambia County.

You may remember the first new prison is being constructed in Elmore County.

And that project is far behind schedule and overbudget.

The state body in charge of funding new prisons voted 6 to 1 to move forward with the construction of the Escambia Project.

That vote comes after the group moved earlier this month to issu more than $190 million in bonds to fund that second prison.

Which brings the total cost of the Escambia Escambia facility close to an estimated $1 billion.

But immediately after that vote, in a surprise move, House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter released a letter to Governor Kay Ivey calling on her to halt that project.

He referenced that troubled Elmore County prison with its delays and overruns, saying moving forward with a new prison project without investigating what happened on the first one would be irresponsible.

The letter said, quote, committing taxpayers to another financial obligation under these circumstances without addressing the cost overruns, delays and apparent failures in project management, is an unacceptable risk to public funds and a failure of fiscal accountability.

To make matters worse, you will be exiting office in less than three months, leaving the next administratio to clean up the mess, end quote.

The governor did not respond directly to that letter, but called the vote a major positive step for dealing with Alabama's prison problems.

She said, quote while I cannot speak for others, I am someone who refuses to kick the can down the road.

We are not only doing what is required by law, but also what is right and necessary.

I'm prou we are officially moving forward with construction on this second facility.

Public safety is a priority for my administration and the legislature, and I'm proud of wha we have accomplished together.

End quote.

That is not something you see every day between two of the state's top leaders.

Well, it is probably not lost on you that it's cold and flu season right now.

I've been under the weather some myself.

State health official want Alabamians to be prepared to fight off infections before they turn dangerous.

Randy Scott spoke with state health Officer Doctor Scott Harris and has this story.

We know flu season is coming.

It's not quite here yet, as of the middle of October, but it's going to be here very, very soon.

Doctor Scott Harris is getting the word ou to people that now's a good time to get ready for airborne illnesses.

And when the state health officer sends out warnings about health matter is a good thing to take action.

Flu is really a serious illness.

It comes so often, regularly, and we know so many people who are affected that we tend to almost minimize how serious it is.

But flu is a major cause of hospitalization and death in Alabama.

It's that time of the year again.

Seasons are changing.

That means in some cases, leaves are changing color or they're falling off trees.

It also means football is being played, and in some cases, baseball is being played.

It also means airborne illnesses are around us.

Many of the health field are telling people to take precaution and do whatever they can to protect themselves from those illnesses.

Doctor Harris in the Alabama Department of Public Health staff are doing what they ca to let people know how serious this is.

We expect to lose some Alabamians to flu this year like we do every year.

And what's interesting about the fact is that we have vaccines that are really good at preventing hospitalization.

We have medication that people can take that improves their chances of getting over the flu really quickly.

That can even keep them from spreading it to other people.

One of the biggest tools against illnesse such as the flu, RSV and Covid, our shots with the flu mutating every year.

Last year, protectio would not have the same effect on a possible new strain.

Health officials are watching for flu season.

What scientists do is they g to the other side of the world and see what type of flu strains are circulating over there in the spring, in our springtime and summertime.

Then they come back and make the vaccine in anticipation of what they think we'll see in the fall.

Health care official say if you still have questions, you should talk to your doctor.

They are also educating peopl on what is and what isn't real when it comes to protecting themselves.

This time of the year, for instance, Doctor Harris says there isn't one shot you can take that will fight both the flu and Covid at the same time.

That's not a product that's available right now.

It might be in the future.

It's certainly, okay for someone to take each of those individual vaccines at the same time on the same day.

If it's, something that you should take, talk to your doctor about what's right for you.

But as of now, those are separate shots.

Not a single shot.

In Montgomery.

Randy Scott, capital journal.

Thank you.

Randy.

44 new Alabama state troopers are preparing to hit the road this week following their graduation from the Alabama law enforcement agencies latest training class.

Governo Ivey hosted a reception Tuesday honoring the trooper graduates.

The final trooper class of her administration.

Ivey and Aliyah Secretar Howell Taylor have made growing the trooper ranks a top priority over the last several years.

The class brings the total number of troopers graduating under Ivey to 504 across 19 classes.

Secretary Taylor says the new troopers will serve across all seven Aliyah Troup statewide, with assignments including marine patrol and protective services.

The governo was also in Demopolis this week at the new Alabam School of Healthcare Sciences.

She addressed the inaugural class that includes students from all over the state who will reside there on campus and train for careers in the health care field.

The Alabama School of Healthcare Sciences is our state's newest residential high school, dedicated to building the next generation of health care leaders.

Each of you ism is in the vanguard of the next generation.

You're the first to blaze this new trail and leave your mark of success for generations.

Who will follow Alabama's new generation of health care professionals have answered the call saying the construction will be complete.

But let me be clear the new school is already here.

It is present with each of you.

Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama is investing approximately $450 million into its Montgomery facility.

The company announced the investments this Wednesday, saying that they will support future vehicle production, expand engine manufacturing and advanced next generation propulsion technologies.

The announcement came during a special event at Ma attended by the governor, Sout Korea's ambassador and Hyundai executives, state officials and other community leaders.

So for more than two decades, Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama has been proud to call Montgomery home.

Together with our team members, supplier partners, educational institutions, state and local leaders, we have built one of the most successful automotive manufacturing operations in North America.

Madame ambassador H. May also represents the strong and enduring partnership between the Republic of Korea and the state of Alabama.

For more than 20 years, that partnership has created opportunities, strengthened communities and demonstrated what can be achieved when people work together for a shared vision.

Hyundai is a major reason that Korea is Alabama's fourth largest trading partner.

Last year, two way trade between Korea and Alabama totaled $6.4 billion.

Folks, when it comes to manufacturing in America, Hyundai in Alabama sets the standard cutting edge automobile design.

Endless innovation and performance, and staying in front of consumer demand.

O paved the way for Hyundai's growing dominance in the North American market, and I'm always proud to point out that Alabama workers are a vital part of Hyundai's winning team.

Our state's business friendly climate and our proven workforce combined with President Trump's economic strategy, are working.

I need a half billio dollar investment in new vehicle production and engine expansion capabilities.

We'll keep Hyunda at the forefront of automobile development in America for years to come.

Okay, that's the news of the week.

Coming up next are my interviews with Tommy Tuberville and Doug Jones.

As you know, we've interviewed most all candidates for statewide office over the last few months here on Capitol Journal.

We do this because we want voters to be informed when going to the polls on Tuesday.

And now all of those interviews can be found in one convenient place on our website.

Just go to AP, tv.org and you can watch all of those in-depth candidate conversations.

Of course, you can also find them on our Capitol Journal YouTube page if that's your thing.

We'll be right back.

You can watch past episodes of Capital Journal online anytime at Alabama Public Television's website.

App tv.org.

Click on the online video tab on the main page.

You can also connect with Capital Journal and link to past episodes o Capital Journal's Facebook page.

Welcome back to Capitol Journal.

Joining me next is U.S.

Senator Tommy Tuberville, the Republican nominee for Alabama governor.

Coach thanks for coming on the show.

Todd, good to see you again.

Absolutely.

Well, we're we're having all the candidates on.

We're here to the, you know, last couple of days before the election.

And our our purpose here we try to give viewers a good idea of these candidates, the running for governor.

You run for the top job.

So let me just ask you the very basic question.

Why are you running?

Why do you want to be Alabama governor?

Well, I've been representing the state of Alabama and the people of Alabam for six years now, and the U.S.

Senate didn' take me long to figure out that that's a that's kind of lik an individual contractor being a Senate.

You, you can get things done, but not a whole lot.

And so we looked at this situation about two years ago and started looking at, can we serve the peopl of Alabama better in the Senate or come home and be a part of state government?

Now, this is a hard job.

It's going to be a lot harder than a Senate job.

People don't realize that.

I mean you got a lot of responsibility.

We've been putting together a plan now for going on two years and talking.

A lot of people talking to people here in state government here.

Talk to governors all over the country, especially the ones that are in the United States Senate now that were governors before they were senators.

It is a hard job, complicated.

I like hard jobs.

I like putting together a game plan.

We've done that.

We put a game plan out on the internet.

You can look and see.

It's 22 pages long and it's hard.

And, you know, it's all about the people.

So I felt like.

And as I told President Trum when I told him, I'm going back to the state of Alabama and try to be the governor, he asked me why.

I said, because you're sending the power and the money back to the states, which it should be.

And I want to be there to help and help put it all together to make Alabama a better place to live.

You mentioned your service in the Senate.

Your your finishing right almost six years now.

Are there experiences fro the Senate, your work up there that you think can translat well into serving as governor?

Yeah.

First of all you got to have federal money to to make it as a state government.

And but you got to know people and it's about your relationships.

It's about more of a relationship with the people on both sides of the aisle.

That's in the Senate, because appropriations is going to be huge for us.

For the next eight years.

We're going to grow We want to grow the right way.

But the other thing is, knowing President Trump, I've got to be very good friends with him.

He's probably put 20 to $30 billion in our economy just in the first year and a half of his second term, a huge, huge first state.

And it's going to continue to grow.

Now, most of those are government jobs which Space Command and and Coast Guard Academy.

Now we we need to get in white collar jobs.

We need to get white collar jobs.

Come to the state, not just in the, urban areas, but rural areas.

My my goal is to grow the entire state, to have jobs for young people when they get to high school or college, where they'll stay in state, raise a family.

And when you do that, it brings in a bigger and better tax base.

And so I'm excited about it's all about planning, just like coaching.

I mean, it's about the people that you put in all the different agencies.

I think we have 22 agencies here in the state.

We've been talking to people, interviewing people would talk to people in the positions now.

And again, going back t what I've talked about earlier was the former governors that are now in the Senate.

I've spent hours talking to them about what was good, what didn't work in your state, what what worked?

What advice do you have about prisons or about law enforcement or about economy?

It it has been a learning experience, basically doing two jobs at one time.

Well, if you get elected.

What?

Because you, you know, elections on November 30th don't take off until January.

But if you get elected, what would day one look like?

What would week one look like under the Tuberville administration?

Well, putting together your your your what I call coaching staff, you got to have people in place that are going to do the job that your head coach or your governor can't do it.

I mean, what you've got to do is you got to make a plan.

You got to hire people for that plan in each agency, then give them the opportunity to hire people, to make a difference.

But we want people that that want to do it.

They want to do it for the right reasons.

They want to do it for Alabama, the people of Alabama.

We have a great opportunity here.

You know, the golden age is coming through.

President Trump Manufacturing's coming back.

But there's a lot of things we have to do.

Law enforcement, health care, infrastructure, all those things had to be put in place and we need to make a plan.

We have got that plan ready to go from day one.

We're not going to walk into office if elected.

We'r not going to walk into office.

And in general, we're going, okay, now what do we do?

We know what we're going to do, how we're going to do it.

We don't have all the peopl in place yet that we won't hire because w we hadn't jumped a gun on that.

But we want to make sure that we do it the right way.

And again, you can't just roll the dice.

You got to have that plan.

You'r talking about state government.

You made some headlines talking about those.

What what the Trump administration came i and did it at the federal level, kind of saying you wanted to do a similar type thing in Montgomery with state government.

Can you be specific about that?

I mean, what what can we expect here in the capital city for, you know, because that doe raise some eyebrows around here, like, well, what's what's going to go on?

What's what, what does he mean by dodging state government.

Well, you know, state government by looking at all your agencies and do you have the righ agencies working with each other against each other?

We will probably combine some agencies.

We're not looking at at, at telling people you no longer have a job.

We might move people to other positions.

We want people to have jobs.

You know, we want people that has been in government that knows what to do.

Doing, to continue doing what they're doing but hopefully at a better pace.

We hope to raise salaries, with this DOJ's move.

But DOJ's does not mean that you're just going in.

Hey, we're just going to cut all this out.

We're going to cut all.

That's not we're talking about.

We're talking about getting people in the right spots.

Well, because because those when it was, you know, maybe it was well intended in terms of efficiency, but it came with a lot of unintended consequences, including here in Alabama.

You know, you had UAB and others getting cut.

So, should people not maybe make the direct comparison to DOJ's?

It's more of an example.

Well, I think my efficiency.

Yeah, I think Todd DOJ's was met with President Trump and his his group.

And I was in on some of that, watched it with Elon Musk when he first came in.

You remember we're coming out of Covid and there were so many people in the federal government that weren't coming to the office.

I mean, they're working from home and they had a side job on the side.

And so if you can work two jobs at one time, I mean, that didn't sit well with people that were suppose to be giving 100% to that job.

And so there was a lot of people that that that didn't make it through the cut.

And what what happened, if you remember, they said, listen, we'll give you 2 or 3 years, to make that decision.

If you want to stay in government, you got a job.

If you don't, then we'll we'll pay you, pay you for a year or so, and you move on down the road and do whatever you were doing on the side.

But we're not looking to come in here and cut a bunch of people out.

We want to make sure people are in the right spot.

They're helping and doing things that makes the state better.

Let me ask you about education.

Because of all the issues, on the table.

Education is probably you can actually impact education more than about anything else.

And, you know, there's been some good news lately.

You know, we we went through a lot of trouble in the, you know, 20 tens and everything.

But, you know, after the Literacy Act, the reading scores are up.

So how is governor?

Because every governor would want to come in and enact changes and things like that.

So how do you balance, bringing new ideas and changes while also preserving some of the things that have, you know, building on tha progress that's already there?

Yeah.

There's more ways to skin a cat than one.

And I've visi quite a bit with doctor McKee.

I think he's done a good job.

And, I think things ar changing, though, in education.

I like what, Governor Ivey's done with the reading and the writing.

We've got a lot better proficiency there.

I hate seeing these these these states like California that, kids are 35, 36% of the kids have have reading problems, and but they're still graduating.

And we want our kids to be abl to read and write, number one, because if you can't read and write, you can't learn.

And so I think that's good.

But we're moving into a different age now where we need to keep an eye on what's going on.

Okay.

Through 12 I want to go back from the ninth through the 12th grade and start doing Vogue, start teaching kids how to use their hands, girls and guys to be able to learn a little bit about, you know, welding and plumbing and electricity, home EC do those things where they might really enjoy it.

And then when they get out, hey, I'll go to junior college and go one year and then I can get me a job welding or plumbing because we're 500,000 electrician short.

Same thing with plumbers.

It is, if we're going to grow, we have to have young people that can work in these manufacture and plants that are going to move here.

I have to promise from that.

My number one job, once we get this going is governor is recruiting manufacturing to come to the state.

But I can't tell him, hey, come here.

And and we're going to provide your jobs through education the next few years.

We want them ready to go at that time.

Let me ask you about the Chew's act, because this is one of the issues that you and your opponent Doug Jones, have differed on.

You've been vocally supportive of the Chew's act and school choice in general.

Normally I ask you specifically because the one complaint about the cheesecake the one criticism about the two that I hear from Democrats and Republicans is accountability, that, okay, if you take the scholarship or whatever you call it the education savings account, to go to a private school under the law.

But there's no like, statistics and, accountability measures that follow that.

Do you think that could change?

Do you think that's something that you would want to, look at if you become governor in terms of accountability on the choose, keeps coming up.

We want to make sure it's working.

And, you know, you don't d something just to be doing it.

Just say, hey this is a better way to do it.

We need competition.

You know, the the public schools across the country, we have some good and some bad in this state.

I've been in almost all of them in my in my career coaching.

And, we have some problems in some areas.

All you have to do i look at the scores of young men and women coming out of some of these schools.

And so if you, create competition from to some of these schools, seeing that, hey, we're having kids leave here because the parents don't have confidence that their kids are getting the education it's going to take for them to have a a better life when they get out.

And so, I think it'll all even out at the end of the day.

Right now, we we've had a jump, of what, 12,000 kids that have left this year?

On top of the ones that left in the past of going out of the public schools, possibly to a private school, it's grown but it eventually will even out.

But I just want the teachers and administrators to kno that if you've got kids leaving, going to other schools, you got a problem.

You need to correct that problem, and we will will correct that problem.

But that's up to the administration.

Administration evaluating teachers, counselors, people that are in the job, those jobs.

I guess the the complaint comes from like taxpayer money.

If you're using taxpayer money, should that should that private school meet the same standards as the public schools that do have that accountability measures?

Yeah, they should be accredited.

Obviously, everybody's going to be going to be held accountable.

And again, the one big thing that we hav to do in this country, Todd, is, you know, I've dealt with it and on the federal level up there, and we've seen states that basically said to the kids belong to the teachers, and and the schools are totally wrong.

The kids belong to parents.

Parents need to make the decision on what school that the kids need to go to, what need what they need to be taught.

Are they doing the right things at the schools that they're and give them a give them a choice?

I mean, it's that this this country's about freedom.

And give them that choice and making the decision for the future of their kids, because I think they know a heck of a lot more about it than the teachers do.

It's interesting you say that because, anecdotally, when the passage of the literacy that when, you know, you got to be able to read to pass third grade, it automatically leads to parents being engaged because they don' want their kids to be held back.

So parental engagement is a is a big one.

Switching gears, we'll ask you about data centers.

This is cropped up is lik a huge issue in the last year.

We kind of surprised everybody.

This past session.

We've been talking about it has some mixed messages at the beginning, maybe more, proliferating data centers, okay.

With it in general.

But you clarified that message to be, you know, talking about restrictions in a, in a recent campaign.

Can you just walk me through what your position would be regarding data centers if you were that, if you were the governor?

Well, first of all, data centers are are going to be a thing of the past year in a couple of years.

This shouldn't be an issue that we're looking 15, 20 years down the road.

We have close to 5000 already in this country.

We have probably close to 30 big ones and small ones in the state.

It was not done.

Very good marketing by the data centers when they started coming out and saying, okay, we're going we're going to start putting data centers and in different places, because I've been in a lot of them in Virginia, there's five, six, 700.

In Virginia, it's unbelievable how many they have up there.

The big thing is we we need to understand is, first of all, we're not going to raise if governor, we're no raise power rates.

They're too high.

They are, matter of fact, we need to go down on the power rates they use about much water as a golf course.

So that's a fallacy.

They're people look at the uses all the water.

No it doesn't.

It's that that's just a bad marketing, situation that didn't come right from the data centers.

And the noise, very low noise, that there's more noise in this room right here if you go into a data center.

So a lot of things were fals because of China putting things on social media because they don't want u to outrun them in the app field.

If that happens I know they're in trouble.

So we just need to evaluate it.

And you know, I come out and and first when I first said this was talk, no, the sheriff's I said, you know, we got to find better ways to, to fund law enforcement, to help training, help equipment to help pay better salaries.

And one thing could come from these data centers that are moving in, by the way, we've already got a lot, and they're going to pay a lot of taxes when they come in.

And that's when I said that.

And all of a sudden coaches form, poor data centers.

But I'm also for the mayors and the city councils making their own decision.

We're not going to put one there unless unless they're the ones that makes it.

It is not the governor.

Governor's totally out of it.

Yeah, I guess that's the what the what you hear from the local folks is, well, why don't we have the authority and everything?

Is that something the legislature should take a look at?

Yeah.

Probably should.

And here's the thing to a lot of people are saying, you know, the if it's not in the city, will the county and the county commissio has that say so.

No, they don't.

If it's on private land and it's not zoned, nobody but that, that individual, that own that land has a say so about it.

And so that probably needs to be looked at from the state level of okay, what do we need to do here to make sure that we do it the right way?

Because there's situations where, they can do whatever they want if they ca get the power, the water, and, and, get the people to come in and put the data center, the one here in Montgomery, what, over $70 billion that's going to play a tremendous amount of tax money to the school system.

And I think that's one of the biggest, biggest, positives about data centers coming in, paying all those taxes for many, many years.

You mentioned power rates.

You know, the legislature just did this overhaul of the PSC.

You know, agree with it don't agree with it, whatever.

But part of that plan I heard came from you, and that was including an energy secretary in the cabinet.

Everybody kept saying, well, this is something that came from, Coach Tuberville.

What what is your idea about this energy secretary?

If you were a governor, what would that involvement be in terms of working through that energy secretary with the Public Service Commission?

Yeah, the legislature pretty much asked me, coach, what do you think about, a, person that oversees all the power in the state whether it's gas, whether it's electricity, new gas lines, new power lines, coming in, you have to have somebod that's that's basically created that can oversee all that.

Now they got they got to be on top of it.

And, I said, hey, if you're going to if you're going to do it, I'd be all for it.

And that's how I got involved in it.

No, I didn't have anything to do with the legislation to push it through or no did I have anything to do with adding the to the PSC board.

That was basically up to the legislature.

So they did it.

I think it we got to look at it once.

If we do get elected, we'll have somebody that knows what the heck's going on because there's nobody there's very few in the country that has a secretary of, of energy.

But with all the things going on now, the growth we're probably goin to look at putting this person also in charge of water in the state.

You know, we have a lot of water, but we want to make something, make sure somebody when I' recruiting a group to come in, say it's a, whatever type of manufacturing, I want to be able to go to him.

Do we have enough water?

Do we have enough power?

How many lines we're going to have to run?

How much gas pipe are we're going to have to run to get to this area?

Because this how much gas they need?

What better than to have somebody that's on top of it every day?

And if we don't have it, can we get it done?

It all has to be evaluated and all has to be a plan.

Just like the Dot with road all over the state and bridges, they have to make a plan for 2030 years.

Same thin with the Department of Energy.

Well, we got a few minutes left, but I have to ask you about the issue of gambling.

This is a perennial issue.

The legislature's.

Ever since I've been here, I've heard it.

Well, I mean, well, yeah, you were called the riverboat gambler back in the day.

It's a perennial shoot.

The legislature has taken a couple of bites at a couple of swings, if you will, but it's never passed.

And when I say gambling, I'm talking about casinos.

Sport betting and and lottery.

Yeah.

And you've you've kind of said conceptually, you know that people ought to vote.

What?

And to be clear, if the legislature did something, it wouldn' even come to your desk, right?

It goes straight to the voters.

But I've always said that in order in order for something like that to pass, it would probably take a governor being involved.

So what conceptually do you support, not support in terms of a a gambling plan?

You know if the legislature were to act, what would you be okay with or not?

Okay.

Well, I think the governor's offic should be on top of everything in terms of how it's all put together.

Now, you've seen what's happened with the medical marijuana being a total disaster.

I mean, if you're going to do it, if you're going to pu it out in front of the people, that's going to vote for it in a referendum from the governor's offic to the legislature, you sit down and say, okay, let's put i all together, let's do it right.

Let's don't have to go back and change this or that.

Put it all together.

Whether it's lottery, whether it's casinos, I don't care what it is, and I'm not a gambler.

And so either way for me would be fine.

But I want to do what the what the people at Alabama want to do.

And I'm not I'm not tell people that I'm not going to stand in the way of it, but I'm not going to go out there and promote it unless we get a, a complete, overlook of ho we want to do it from day one, not just roll the dice and do piece by piece.

Let's put it out there and see if the people want to vote for it.

And if they pass it, we know we're going to do it the right way but can't have it all together.

It's going to take a year or so to get that done.

Something to watch for sure.

Look, we're out of time, but if folks want it, you mentioned your plan.

If folks want to learn more about your campaign, is there a website they can go to the website?

Matter of fact, it's a 22 page plan is pretty complicated.

In fact, of of gettin to affordability in this state.

We want people to hav more money tied in their pocket.

We want to get as much taxes out of the way.

And I know everybody said, well, politicians talk about cutting taxes.

We all pay too many taxes.

It's way too many taxes out there.

But I want people to have more money in their pocket, give them opportunity to live a better life.

And so we have affordability.

We have education, we hav infrastructure, we have energy.

You can go on there tonight and read it.

Ads take a while to read it, because this is a planet we put together for heck, going on two years.

And it's somethin that we just hadn't put together and just said that we might do this.

This is this is what we believe in.

This is what we've got by doing all the research around other states, this work, things that have done work well and things I hadn't worked well, and tried to put it togethe to make sure people understand what I'm all about.

I'm not coming in here to say, hey, I'm governor.

I'm not doing it.

I'm coming here to help.

And, we're going to put a total team together, and it's going to the years are going to go by fast.

It's going to it's going to be, a challenge.

But we've got great talent in this state.

We want them to work together t make it possible for everybody that lives in this state, to raise a family, to have a lot of freedom and be able to put God in their heart.

That's one thing we're going to do.

We are going to be a, a God loving state because I've been in a Washington, DC for six years, and the Democrats never bring up God.

And folks, if we don't do that if we don't put God back in our our country, and we can do that here in Alabama, because we have a lot of Christians, a lot of people believing in and, and the things that made this country and state great.

We can get back to that, and even more and be an example for the entire country.

Look, thanks so much for your time and good luck on Tuesday.

Thank you.

We'll be right back.

You're watching Alabama Public Television.

And you.

Welcome back to Capitol Journal.

Joining me next is former U.S.

Senator Doug Jones, Democratic nominee for Alabama governor.

So there you go.

Thanks for coming on the show.

It's always great to b with you.

Thanks for having me.

Absolutely.

Well here we are in the thick of it.

Yeah.

Days away until the election.

So let me ask you what I ask all candidates.

And that is, why do you want to be governor of Alabama?

You know, I really think that the governor's offic in the next few years is going to set a tone for Alabama in a different way.

We've got a lot of challenges in Alabama, and people are hurting out there right now, and they're looking for a governor, a governmen that I think is more responsive.

And I've said that from day one, I'm not being critical of Governor Ivey, but I think that a governor that is out with people more doing the things like we've been doing in the campaign, we've done just almost probably by the time we do this, two dozen town halls, I think we need a government more responsive to people in the legislature.

I think this the state government right now is co-opted by a lot of special interest.

I want to see more citizen involvement.

More citizen engagement.

And I think Alabama's potential is just not being achieved.

We have done some nice things in here.

We've got some achievements in education, but in terms of quality of life, in terms of workforce, in terms of health care delivery, we are still at the bottom rung.

We're still high on infant mortality weren't high and maternal mortality s many things just do not change.

And I think people are lookin for a change in state government to make their kitchen table issues more tuned into what they're concerned about.

Well let's go a little deeper on that.

So say you win.

What does.

Of course there's a little while before you actually take office which is good.

You get a little Yeah.

Little preparation time.

What does day one look like.

Or maybe to be a little more fair.

What does week one look like o the Doug Jones administration?

Well, you know I think there's a lot of things that I want to do, and some of it will be helping with the I want to have a very active legislative affairs office that will work with the legislature.

I know the limitations of a governor, and it isn't.

It is not the same as being the president United States, where you can just issue executive orders, but to the extent possible, and I want to do a number of things.

I want to expand the eligibility of Medicaid to let people know that I'm very serious about expanding Medicaid in this state.

We have gone too long and missing out on too many federal dollars, and our health care delivery system need to be better than they are.

I want to do that, and I think the governor can do that early on.

Obviously, it has to be funded with the legislature to ask.

Yeah, it has to be funded by the legislature, and I understand that.

But the fact of the matter is, we've not had a champion for Medicaid expansion.

And our rural hospitals are closing.

We're losing doctors, we're losing nurses.

And I think that is step number one.

So I think that that's a really important.

The other thin that I want to do is I want to I will have already, as part of the transition, been meeting with legislative leaders on both sides of the aisle.

I think that that is really important to establish that rapport, to see what their priorities are going to be, let them know what mine are going to be.

You know, I read the other day or not long ago where, they some leadership was saying, well, we probably won't get to a lottery or gambling this session.

Well, that's not the case.

We're going to make sure that a lottery bill is introduced.

We're going to make sure that some form of of comprehensive gambling legislation is introduced.

Now, I can't control the legislative calendar, but we're going to push that because I think people are demanding a lottery.

I think people want to see som online gaming issues out there.

I want to make sure that that's what's going to be going on.

And so the next thin we're going to do is candidly, and I know we may talk about this more in a moment.

I want to have somebody introduce some legislation tha will phase out the voucher act, the voucher system and keep money going into, educatio in public education in Alabama.

So it'll be a very active week, for sure.

But we're also going to spend the time with the transition team to start looking at all of government.

I've got to appoint good cabinet people to be there with me, to make sur that they are working in each of these agencies that are cabinet level, agencies.

And I want to make sure that we're working together.

I want to make sure people are talking with each other and we're kind of cross-pollinating here.

And the thing that I want to do another bill that I want to introduce, I want to reverse the Veterans Affairs bill that turned the Veterans Affairs Department into a political department.

I want to get that back to a nonpartisan, department.

I think that that is the way it was founded.

It's the way it worked for, gosh, 70 years or more.

And the controversie because of becoming political.

I think we just need to reverse that, so that we can do veteran services on a nonpartisan basis.

Well, it mentioned a lot of issues there.

I'll start with gambling because goodness.

And I'm sure this is as a candidate, you get asked everywhere you go, every Rotary Club I do, I get asked about it because, look, there was a bill, I guess not this past year, but the previous year we've seen this record play right over and over again.

The last one was pretty comprehensive, at least it started that way.

So in your mind, I mean, I know it's tough to jus put everything into specifics, but what should the policy be in terms of legalization of, you know, a lottery casino sports bill?

Yeah.

And then where should the money go?

Because that's always the big question.

I mean, it matter of fact, it might have could have already passed something if they could have agreed on the money.

But what should the policy be when it comes to gambling?

And where should the money go?

You know I think the policy needs to be one of both regulation and revenue generating.

We're losing out on a lot of money.

But I'm also concerned about online sports betting, for instance, because you're now seeing, reports where some of these online sports betting, platforms are really using algorithms that target those that are going to lose, they're targeting kids.

And we need to make sur that we've got some regulation about anything that we do with regard to gambling.

I think it's importan not just as a revenue generator, but as an important as a protection for the people of the state of Alabama.

Now, I don't have all the ins and outs on that.

I think that that is something because there has been a lot of work done.

I know the governor had a commission on that.

There's been those comprehensive bills that you're talking about.

I think too many people got wanted a piece of this pie, and we need to make sure that we do something that is going to benefit everyone.

But the more you try to slice and dice it, I think the odds of it happening will not happen.

So I want to make sure and where the money goes, it could go to any number of things.

I am open to where the money should go.

The only thing I know right now is that we need to get more money coming into education.

I'd like to see more money coming into health care because if we're going to expand Medicaid we're going to need some money.

I think those are two areas that are real possibilities.

Where you go from there.

I think we talked to the legislature.

Look they have an interest in this.

Number one, their constituents want a comprehensive bill, but they more than that want a lottery.

And they see the hundreds of millions of dollars that we got going out of Alabama every year.

So until we get past this campaign and I get into a transition, I don't want to I don't want t pull the rug out from anybody.

I want to hear everybody out of where they've got.

We're going to have new legislators coming in this time, too.

We've lost some incumbents.

We got new legislators coming in.

They're coming in with a different attitude.

So I think we we, we keep an open mind with regard to this.

But the main thing is we keep an open mind, but we keep our eyes on the prize.

And that is a lottery bill first and then a comprehensive gambling bill.

If those two can be together.

Great, we'll rock and roll.

But if not, I want to pull that lottery bill out and get it done and let the people vote on a lottery.

Standalone.

Standalone.

If we got to do it, if we have to do it that way.

Because that's been the rub, right?

That's been the wrong, you know.

And sports they don't want the lottery to go.

Well I think that that may change.

I mea I really think this is a new day and people are seeing the problems that we've had.

And again, if you've got it, if my office does our job and work with the legislature, try to be a facilitator on all of the comprehensive gambling.

I'm optimistic we can get something done.

But if we can't, if peopl are just getting too obstinate, then we're going to pull this out.

And if the legislature won't d it after knowing, knowing that that 7,080% of the people in Alabama won't, this, then shame on them.

It's time that we, our legislators, understand that people at least want a lottery.

Let's yank that out if we have to.

Then we'll talk about gaming again.

You mentioned school choice.

That kind of came up early in this campaign because you had a pretty harsh comments about the chooser.

Yeah.

You just said you wante to essentially let it phase out.

Yep.

Now that would be a legislative decision.

It would be right.

Absolutely.

So what's your pitch to the legislature?

Because this is a popular law.

I mean, I think not just in terms of demand for it and everything, but the legislature passed it overwhelmingly.

So what would your argument be to the presumably Republican legislature that at the time to phase it out?

I think that they have missed marketed it.

That's wh it's popular around the state.

They they've they have put marketed this as parent choice and to in and having parent choice this not it is a drain act.

It is draining public education dollars taxpayer dollars into private schools.

The only choice in this is that private schools that exist get to pick and choose who the students are going to be.

Not parents necessarily, and I don't want to see that kind of taxpayer money going out of public schools.

It's just that simple.

We need to be investing more in public schools.

We've done that and we've seen the results.

We've seen the academic results in third and fourth graders with reading and math.

We have pulled those up.

Mississippi did the same thing.

And when they were were faced with similar programs, they stayed the course.

We didn't do that.

We decided to start sending money to private schools.

And you can only see in the numbers, Todd, what's happened in the last two years, we lost over 5000 students in year one of the tubes.

We lost 12,000 this year.

That's teacher units.

It's counselors, it's coaches.

And those are monie that are going to hit hardest.

Those teacher units are going to get hardest in more rural schools, the poorer school where they don't have the money to supplement them, like Mount Broken, Hoover invest.

Yeah, places like that.

I just believe very strongly that we're poor.

We put money into public education.

We can lift all of those schools.

That's that's what I believe.

That's why I think that so-called choose act is not about choice.

It's really about moving money into a private school.

And make no mistake, I have no problem with private schools.

I mean, I think we've go some really good private schools in Alabama.

We've got some that are probably marginal.

But here' the other rub on the tubes act.

That money goes to these private schools with no accountability from the state of Alabama with no transparency.

We don't know their curriculum We don't know what's going on.

We can learn but there's no accountability.

Taxpayer dollars then tune of I forget what it was.

Oh, well, over almost 200 million bucks.

Maybe something like that is go on.

And it's just gone.

And we have no idea, because if you start putting the accountability on it, it's becomes a public school.

Look, the one other thing as part of this, though I do think it's important for, the state of Alabama to try to figure out ways to get more charter schools.

I think that that is a is an option for for parents, for school systems.

We've only got about 19 in this state.

Tennessee's got up over 100.

Other Georgia's got over 100.

And I think that that would help.

And it would help the overall image of Alabama as well.

Oh, I could talk about that all day.

Let's talk a little politics.

You've seen the ads as big as if the choose act is not about politics, right.

Well, well, okay.

But I want to get into some of these as we're seeing some of the back and forth.

This air.

Well, we're seeing, I saw one the other day from Republicans, Tuberville specifically calling you radical and extremist to close with the far left leaders of the far left.

Schumer was mentioned and all that.

I mean, pretty tough.

Yeah, I'm I'm sure you've seen how do you respond to these?

Well, it's a pretty tough ad, but none of it's true.

That's the fact of the matter.

None of that is true.

The thing about the Schumer part was really misleading because it said voted with Chuck Schumer when it counted.

What?

What the heck does that mean?

Nobody knows.

I voted with Richard Shelby when it counted on judges on on the NDAA, on any number of things that we've got here.

My record voting with Shelby was pretty high.

I was one of the most bipartisan senators, in the Congress when I was in there for three years.

You cannot say that about Tommy Tuberville.

He is as Partizan as they come.

He doesn't reach across the aisle.

He can't do those things.

So that's number one.

Number two, when they're talking about, criminals and letting people out of jail or something like that, I don't even remember what it said.

That was a Donald Trump bill that I voted for.

It's called the first Step Back.

And we had to redo some things in federal court because people were staying there.

They were getting sentenced to these, crimes.

It just the sentences that didn't fit the crime.

President Trump recognized that his son in law, Jared Kushner, really pushed this.

So that bill they're criticizing me for was a bipartisa bill pushed by President Trump.

The other things about endorsing a socialist never done that hadn't happened.

I've never voted for open borders.

So the fact of the matter is, I don't understand why a sitting U.S.

senator feels compelled to lie about my record.

When he's got his own record.

He needs to defend.

You know, look, we can deal with my record.

I'm very proud of that record.

And it is anything but radical.

You don't get Todd.

You do not get award from the chamber.

US Chamber of Commerce for being a radical lunatic.

Like they say, not a socialist, not a communist.

It's crazy.

It is.

But but what troubles me more is that it appears that Tuberville will sa anything to try to get a vote.

He said it in 2020 to veterans.

I'll donate every dime of my salary.

I didn't give him a penny.

He says it now.

He's backtracking on data centers.

He says one thing to th sheriffs and the tech companies.

Now he's saying another thing to voters.

It's just not true.

And I think people will see through the lies.

Is it important, though?

Have you found it important at all in this campaign trai to differentiate your politics from some of those more far leaning people in other parts of the country, in the Democratic Party?

You know, look, I give my politics.

I give what I want to do for Alabama.

I defend my record on when somebody asked me about it.

But I give my politics what I'm talking about.

With Medicaid expansion, the Choose act has nothing to do with any candidate.

It doesn't have anything to do with any candidate.

A socialist in New York doesn't have anything to do with Adam Hamilton, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Kansas, who also happens to be a methodist minister.

These are my policies.

The there's a Doug policie that I believe will help Alabama grow, help kids help parents help bring down the cost of living in Alabama and give people a say in their government.

So I'm not differentiatin from anything in the sense that I don't look at somebody else and says, how can I run away or do something?

I look at what I believe is the best for the people of Alabama, and that is exactly where we're trying to go.

You mentioned data centers.

This is blown up into just a major issue.

Who would have known?

Unbelievable.

And so I know you've had some ads up there about it.

You had some town halls, including in Louse County wher there's one, I guess, going up.

You called for a moratorium.

Two questions.

Can the governor do that?

And are you concerned that we would miss out on the economic opportunities that are supposed to be, you know come along with these projects?

Well, they're supposed to, but nobody has said that.

Nobody's done anything right now.

The only economic opportunities are for the data centers.

They're the ones going to ge the tax breaks that are in law.

And also, by the way that ad that tore down about no tax breaks, he voted the big beautiful bill in DC.

He voted to give tax breaks, big tax breaks to hyperscale data centers.

That's kind of that flip flop kind of thin he's doing to try to get votes.

You know, we need to put protections in place to for the power, the water, the noise and to make sure that people are paying their way.

I think we need to do away with the tax breaks, that are right now in law for these things.

They're going to make a gazillion dollars.

They don't need these tax breaks.

They hold them back.

So you'r saying it needs to go forward.

It needs to go.

They don't need any.

They're going to make a lot of money, and they're not going to bring that many jobs at all to Alabama.

And the and they will pay property taxes going forward.

And that's good.

That's helpful.

But there needs to be more.

They need to do something.

We need to have some kind of guidelines so that these multi-billion dollar companies will put money back into these communities.

So these communities will know what we get.

The other thing I want to do is I want to make sur that there's more transparency.

One of the problems in this state is this thing started popping up.

There were nondisclosure agreements and people were concerned about that.

And they should be.

We need to know who's building them, how big they're going to be, what the power is going to take and how they're going to generate it.

We need to know about the noise.

We need to know about the water.

And it's part of this.

We need to be able to hold them accountable i if they don't live up to those.

The last thing I want to do other than with the transparency and this is casting no aspersion on any public official in Alabama.

But when you start doing these things behind closed doors, people get really suspicious when there's this kind of money involved.

Alec Alabama's ethics laws are pretty weak, and I think that they need to be strengthened.

I think they need to make sure that people know what holdings you have, what consulting agreements you might have, what consulting agreement your family might have so that we will know who is really getting them going to get the money and the profit from this.

I think folks that vote on thes data centers need to make sure that they have no connection, no profit motive at all for a period of at least five years after they leave office.

And so those are the kind of things, and I don't worry about losing ground.

I don't worry about losing the economic opportunity.

We're not in a race, Todd.

That's the difference between the data centers and our traditional economic development.

We we're competing agains other states for Mazda, Toyota.

We're competing for Mercedes Benz or the noble plant down in South Alabama, where competing for those for those one plants at manufacturing plant or some not, this data centers are going to be built.

And I'm I am not like blanket opposed to data centers.

I want to do it right.

I see how flat cameras an social media went off the rails.

And we need to try to do this right.

And so I want to put these protections.

And by the way, my position on this has been very consistent from day one.

Unlike Tuberville, who initially talked only the tech bros.

He talked to the utility companies.

He didn' talk to the people of Alabama.

So early on when Donald Trump started pushing these things out as goldmine, what did Tuberville do?

He parroted that.

He said, this is a gold mine.

We're going to do data centers.

You know, all these people.

Your concerns are just bull crap.

That's what he said, not me.

That's what he said.

And he said, we we want all the data centers we can take.

I just don't think that's right for Alabama.

I don't want to see Alabama be the dumping ground for for data centers.

I want to give these, communities a choice, an informed choice.

Let them decide.

We're not going to lose to China.

We're not going to lose t a communist country like this.

That is so far behind us in data centers right now.

We can have a moratorium for 5 or 10 years and they wouldn't catch up.

We're way ahead and a little bit of time to do them right.

And I've called for a moratorium for a year, but I'm hoping we can get it done quicker, because if there is a moratorium, the tech companie are going to come to the table.

The power compan is going to come to the table.

Communities, mayors, county commissioners.

Everybody's going to come to the table to try to hammer out the right guardrails, as well as what these communities, how they will benefit and put the minimums on there so we can do this.

So hopefully you get folk to the table with some incentive to get something done.

We'll get it done.

And I think we can get it done in less way less than a year.

Well, we've covered quite a bit of ground.

I really appreciate your time and coming on.

Before I let you go, I'd like to can you give us your website where voters can learn more about these issues and see what they can?

Yeah, thanks.

Thanks for that.

You can go to Doug jones.com.

It has got places to volunteer to donate.

Even at the last minute.

We can always use donations.

You can do i and follow us on social media.

You know, my handles are usually at Doug Jones or on Instagram and Facebook.

It's Doug Jones Bama.

And then Doug for Alabama is all across all platforms.

And if folks are really interested, Todd, all of our town halls have been on, recorded on YouTube.

Everything's there.

Most everything we've done, with our donuts for Doug is all on YouTube.

And, they're recorded.

You know, I would encourage people to watch them to see.

Exactly.

Because we've don I think we're, you know, look, come into Montgomery, I think Montgomery, the one we did on it, we did on education was our 18th town hall, and we've got more planned.

And that is important because we're out there talking to peopl and we're listening to people.

And, you know, with all due respect to all of our constitutiona law office holders, we got now and done a one and in four years, Tommy Tuberville has not done 1 in 6 years.

That's the kind of different kind of government that we're going to bring to the table.

Well, thanks again for your time and good luck on the campaign trail.

Thank you Todd, we'll be right back.

You can watch past episodes of Capital Journal online anytime at Alabama Public Television's website.

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That's our show for this week.

Thanks for watching.

Hope you make a plan to vote on Tuesday.

But don't change the channel, because coming up next is a special episode of Buzz in Birmingham, focused on the respect for all Foundation's work in the Magic City.

Respect for all is a ministry started right here in Alabama to help those dealing with dementia.

It's a really special program, so I hope you'll stick around to see the difference that they are making in Birmingham.

Well, that'll do it for Capital General tonight and for this election season.

We'll be back at the same tim next week right here on Alabama Public Television for our Capital Journal team.

I'm Todd Stacey.

We'll see you next time.