Alabama has a new governor. Republican Kay Ivey was sworn in yesterday following former Gov. Robert Bentley’s resignation.
The 72-year-old Ivey held the seat of Lieutenant Governor since 2011, the first Republican woman to hold the office. Ivey is only the second woman to be governor in Alabama.
Many Alabamians are probably wondering how Kay Ivey would handle a crisis.
Here’s what she had to say in a 2009 interview when she was running for governor:
“Kay Ivey puts her head down, provides information to the affected people that’s facts not hearsay, not innuendo, but facts, works with other people to forge and fashion solutions and bring recommendations to the table.”
Ivey dropped out of that race and instead ran for Lieutenant Governor, a seat she held for two terms. Before that, Ivey was the first Republican State Treasurer since Reconstruction. As treasurer, Ivey was blamed for losses to the Prepaid Affordable College Tuition Program, a college savings account of sorts. Ivey said the losses were due in large part to the financial crisis of 2008. Much of the money from this program was invested in the stock market.
“Is this a heart rendering disappointing situation to the purchasers, you bet your sweet bippy,” she said in that 2009 interview. “It’s the market, and the market drop swept over everybody.”
Education is important to Ivey, who grew up in Wilcox County, one of the poorest counties in the state. After graduating from Auburn University in 1967, Ivey went to work as a high school teacher and banker. She was offered a job working for Alabama’s first female governor, Lurleen Wallace, but turned it down. Before running for state treasurer, Ivey served as executive director of the Alabama Commission on Higher Education.
Natalie Davis, a Birmingham-Southern College political scientist, says “Kay Ivey has been around for a long time.”
Davis says she’s developed a strong relationship with Ivey over the years and in that time, she’s learned that Kay Ivey is a larger-than-life personality.
“She is someone who’s presence you are very much aware of. And in that sense, I think she will try to make her mark even if she only has a year or so to go,” Davis says.
Ivey’s colleagues in the Legislature agree. Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh has worked closely with her for years. He says Ivey works well with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, she takes her job very seriously and she’s quick to pound the gavel if she thinks the Senate chamber is out of order. Marsh says with the state in turmoil, Kay Ivey could be just what Alabama needs.
“With what we’re going through right now and it has quite honestly been a lack of leadership all the way around, I think Kay definitely understands that. And I think the first thing she’s going to do is bring order back to the state and confidence back to the state,” Marsh says.
Restoring order and confidence back to a broken state will be challenging, but she has a little more than a year to show what she’s capable of. Alabama’s next gubernatorial race takes place in 2018.
“It’s interesting because Kay Ivey was not in the mix a week ago,” Davis, the political science professor says. “There was certainly talk. So, I think it puts her in a great position.”
Other political observers say Ivey’s role as the second female governor in Alabama history could also change the political landscape by encouraging more women in the state to run for office in the future.