Look Back ... to a proposal for regional primaries, 1999

July 19, 1949, in The Star: In state news, Alabama Attorney General A. A. Carmichael will not be taking Julius Vance Harper, 21, back into custody to complete a 10-year sentence for the theft of $5. In Trenton, N.J., today, Federal District Judge Phillip Forman declined to send the Black labor camp escapee back to the Heart of Dixie, finding very credible Harper’s testimony that he had been beaten by police to force him to confess to a series of burglaries. Harper also said he had no counsel at his trial in 1943 when he was 15 years old. Judge Forman noted that Harper apparently had not had the benefit of Alabama juvenile delinquency laws and his story of mistreatment was not refuted by the state. Harper had escaped from the labor camp in May 1945 and subsequently found work in Midwestern hotels and laundries, but his past was revealed after he entered the Army.

July 19, 1999, in The Star: Alabama Secretary of State Jim Bennett, the new president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, is pushing for regional presidential primaries that would end the mad sprint for each party’s nomination and require more than a big campaign chest to win. The concept of regional primaries couldn’t be instituted until 2004 at the earliest, meaning that it’s too late for the 2000 primaries, when Alabama citizens will find their nomination ballots meaningless because of the state’s distinction of having the nation’s last primary — on June 6.