Maddox to push for education lottery

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Walt Maddox is pledging to work for an education lottery that would go for scholarships, universal pre-K and equalizing school funding for rural counties.

Maddox, the mayor of Tuscaloosa for the past 12 years who won re-election last year with 89 percent of the vote, held a meet-and-greet at Tallulah Brewing Co. in Jasper Tuesday night. He addressed a crowd of about 40 people, including congressional candidate Lee Auman and Alabama Supreme Court Associate Justice, Place 4 candidate Donna Wesson Smalley.

The Democratic primaries, where Maddox will face five other candidates for governor, will be held on June 5, as will the Republican primaries. They will be followed by runoffs on July 17. The General Election is set for Nov. 6.

Maddox, 45, a Tuscaloosa native, said, “It is so cool to see what is going on in Jasper, Alabama. We’re in a great beer pub in the middle of an entertainment district, and it just goes to show you that innovation and entrepreneurship, it doesn’t happen in Montgomery. It happens in places like Jasper, Alabama.”

He later bragged on the beer there as “unbelievable,” adding, “I would like to have another IPA before I leave, and I consider this work.”

Maddox said he is running because he believes in “the power of big ideas,” quoting author Victor Hugo as saying no power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come.

Noting many didn’t know he was a Democrat, he also pointed out what President Harry Truman said: “If you want to live like a Republican, vote like a Democrat.”

Maddox noted he loved the ideas of past Democrats like the late U.S. Rep. Carl Elliott, noting he had benefitted off the student loan program. He pointed out the late U.S. Sen. Lister Hill’s efforts to create the modern rural health system in Alabama, the late U.S. Sen. John Sparkman’s efforts to improve the space program, and the efforts of former Gov. Jim Folsom Jr. to recruit Mercedes-Benz, which sparked other car plants in the state.

“Those were Democrats,” he said. “We have forgotten that long and rich history that we are the party of ideas.”

However, he said over the past few decades, “we have become hostage” to the politics of fear, division and strife. “That is not who we are.”

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