Trussville Republican Women, Eagle Forum Host Robertson, Odle

The Eagle Forum and Republican Women Trussville groups hosted a combined meeting on Thursday, Jan. 8th in the Trussville Civic Center. A full crowd gathered to hear from local State Senator Shay Shelnutt as well as Attorney General candidate Katherine Robertson and Lieutenant Governor candidate Dean Odle.

Sen. Shelnutt, who is running for reelection in District 17 (Jefferson, Blount and St. Clair Counties) spoke briefly before leaving to go watch Ole Miss play the University of Miami in the College Football Playoffs.

“I’m here to support the candidates,” Shelnutt said, then mentioned State Sen. Dan Roberts, who is running for reelection in District 15, which is adjacent to Shelnutt’s and covers portions of Jefferson, Shelby and Talladega Counties.

“I try not to sponsor a bunch of bills,” Shelnutt said, relating that he has always been a fan of less government. He related that with this being an election year, he did not expect either gambling or tort reform to come up in this session, but both would likely be put off until the 2027 session. He also predicted that Tommy Tuberville would be elected Governor.

When asked a question about whether or not he would support paper ballots, Shelnutt said that he would have concerns about the technical issues and possible delays in returning the results. As Eagle Forum is very concerned about the integrity of our voting machines — a large portion of the recent Eagle Forum Policy Conference was devoted to this issue, and included a training session on hand-counting ballots — this answer was not well received.

Katherine Robertson, who is seeking the Alabama Attorney General nomination, spoke about how she has been Chief Counsel to current AG Steve Marshall for nearly ten years — making her the longest-serving Chief Counsel in Alabama history. If elected, she would also be Alabama’s first female AG.

“I’ve fallen in love with the work we do in the AG’s office,” Robertson said. “I’ve come to believe it’s one of the most important offices in the State,” because “we have a significant footprint in the national scene.” She described how often the AG’s office was called on to defend Alabamian’s rights during the Biden years. Robertson also talked about how the Republican AG’s Association worked together on these issues, and that “it takes a lot of time to build relationships with your fellow AGs, the legislature and local law enforcement” — relationships which she already has, and would be able to leverage from her first day in office.

Robertson told the group that AG Marshall’s mission statement for the Office has been to “make the State safer and the country freer,” and that she would continue to strive to do that once elected.

She was asked if she had a “pet project” to at she would like to pursue as AG, to which she responded that she would like to get the approximately 40 school systems in Alabama still laboring under Civil Rights-era desegregation orders out from under those orders and the court monitoring associated with them.

Dean Odle, who is a candidate in the Republican Lt. Governor’s race (for now) said that the Powers That Be in the Alabama Republican Party were attempting to remove him from the ballot “on a technicality” (Ed. Note: likely related to his write-in campaign for Governor in 2022) but that “win or lose, I’m going to say the truth. I won’t play politics.”

Odle spoke about how he was motivated to run for office initially because he saw "First Amendment violations by (Governor) Kay Ivey during COVID.” 

“None of the leaders seemed to be aware of ivermectin or hydroquinone, despite the data being there. The protocol was being used, and people were dying,” he said. This led him to running for Governor in 2022.

Odle went on to talk about the current internecine battles being fought within ALGOP, which he described as “a war between the Bush moderate wing — RINOs — and true conservatives. “A lot of ‘Republicans’ don’t follow the Republican platform and stand up for what is right,” he said. “You’re either a patriot or a politician. A patriot is willing to sacrifice their career to do the right thing.”

He went on to address the issue of Alabama’s voting machines. “I’ve been talking about voting machines for a long time,” and “it gets me into trouble.”

“There are two things that are the most precious: our votes and our children,” Odle said. “We have to go to secure ballots and hand counting. We are in big trouble if we don’t fix this.”

Odle also spoke about his desire to “dismantle DHR” because of multiple problems with that Agency, including the low rate of returning children to the parents after removal, which he said was one of the lowest in the country.

He finished by repeating that he is “being silenced by the GOP because of the machines, DHR and my religious beliefs.” Odle went on, saying, “the scariest thing to a lying politician is the truth — the straight, cold unadulterated truth.”

During questions, Odle was asked about politicians having dual citizenship, to which he answered, “I don’t think any politician should have dual citizenship. I don’t care if it’s Israel or China or anywhere else.

The meeting closed with Julia Cleland and Terri LaPoint, the heads of Trussville Eagle Forum and the Republican Women of Trussville, respectively, announcing that next month they would return to having separate meetings, and invited everyone in attendance to both meetings.