By By Kerry Whipple Bean – publisher
When a New York reporter called Sue Bell Cobb shortly after her 2006 election as the first female chief justice in Alabama, she was expecting a question about how it felt to break such a barrier in her home state.
Instead, the reporter wanted to know how it felt for Cobb to have won the most expensive judicial race in the nation.
Cobb is pushing legislation to remove some of the big money influence on judicial races. Alabama is one of only seven states that have partisan judicial elections.
Cobb is backing two bills in the Legislature this session. One would remove party labels from judicial candidates - instead of running as Democrats or Republicans, candidates would not be under any party affiliation.
Cobb is also supporting a bill that would reform public financing of judicial elections. Under that legislation, no one - not an individual, political action committee or business - could give a judicial candidate more than $500 for his or her campaign.
She encouraged chamber members to be supportive of the reform measures.