U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby has been in Alabama politics for a long time, and he said that’s his biggest selling point. Shelby, 81, got involved in politics in 1970 when he was elected to the Alabama State Legislature.
In 1978, Shelby was elected as a Democrat for U.S. Congress for the 7th District of Alabama, now occupied by Democrat Rep. Terri Sewell.
Shelby moved to the U.S. Senate in 1987 and switched to the Republican Party in 1994. Twenty-eight years in the Senate puts Shelby in a powerful position in an institution where committee assignments are determined by seniority.
“I’m a senior citizen and a senior senator, but I feel good,” Shelby said during a campaign stop in Auburn on Jan. 6. “I’ve been blessed, and I’m going to work hard for Alabama. I’m running because I think I can make a difference.”
Shelby said putting in a new senator with no seniority would hurt Alabama.
“I’ve got four young people running against me, and I wish them well — not too well,” Shelby said with laughter. “One of them said the other day he was going to run for two terms and that was it. Well, in two terms, they wouldn’t know who he was in the Senate. In about three terms, he’d be able to represent his people well, and by about the fourth term, he might be running the Senate.”
Shelby had a message for deciding whether to vote for him or his four opponents in the March 1 primary.
“Tell them to look at my record and then look at the other four’s record,” Shelby said. “And then let them make up their own minds on who they want to represent them in the United States Senate.”
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