Luther Strange

Luther Strange has been a candidate for public office in Alabama during both the 2006 and 2010 elections. In addition to being a politician Strange has been a registered Congressional Washington D.C. lobbist for more than a decade. Strange is a resident of Mountain Brook, Alabama, a wealthy suburb just outside of Birmingham Alabama. In 2006 Strange ran for Alabama Lt. Governor and defeated George Wallace, Jr. in the Republican primary. Strange lost the general election to Jim Folsom. Strange has launched another statewide campaign for 2010, this time he is running for Attorney General against Republican incumbent Troy King. The Republican primary will be held on June 1, 2010.
Personal
Luther Strange and his family currently reside in the wealthy suburb of Mountain Brook, Alabama, just outside Birmingham. He and his wife Melissa have two sons.
Luther Strange was born in Birmingham and lived in Sylacauga until the age of 6, when his family moved to Homewood, Alabama. He graduated from Shades Valley High School in 1970 and attended the private Tulane University. He went on to law school at Tulane, where he earned his Juris Doctorate in 1979. He was admitted to the Louisiana Bar the same year and is a practicing attorney in Alabama even though he never attended a law school in Alabama.
In 1980, Strange began working for Sonat. Sonat is an energy company based in Alabama who set a reputation for making lots of money with 22 consecutive years of record earnings. During this time Strange was promoted to direct their Washington D.C office where he led lobbying efforts to reduce regulation and improve profitability for the company through legislative changes including rate increases and deregulation. He later left the company but continued working as a congressional Washington D.C. lobbyist.
When he returned to Alabama he eventually went to work with Bradley Arant Rose & White where he was director of Governmental Relations. Here, he continued his work as a lobbyist on behalf of Alabama Power and other large energy and natural gas companies.
In June 2006, Strange ran for Alabama Lt. Governor. Strange could not beat George Wallace, Jr. (son of the former Governor) in the primary election, but finally defeated him in a runoff election the next month. Strange lost to former disgraced democrat Governor Jim Folsom in the general election later that year.
Issues
Luther Strange published an article "The Lawyer as a Lobbyist" detailing how a lawyer can represent companies in the promotion of public policy that is designed to help their clients.
In 2006 Luther Strange defeated conservative candidate George Wallace, Jr. in a very close race which required a runoff to give a final determination.
Strange spent many years working for Sonat, an Alabama based energy company, with an extremely profitable reputation having 22 consecutive years of record earnings.
During Luther Strange's 2006 run for Lt. Governor popular radio host Russ and Dee Fine called on Luther to reveal his 180 plus lobbying clients. They cited public records as the source for complaints about Luther including his many energy clients. They also cited the Mobile Press Register claiming that Alabama had the highest natural gas energy cost anywhere in the United States and gave part of the blame to Strange for his lobbying efforts on behalf of the energy and natural gas industry. <ref name="voiceofalabama.com"/>
Luther Strange's TV ads during the 2006 Lt. Governor's election focused on his abnormal height. These ads coined the term "Big Luther". Many of Luther's opponents used this as a message to indicate his support for Big Business. <ref name="voiceofalabama.com"/>
Professional experience
*Lobbyist, Strange & Associates 2008 - current
*Lobbyist, Bradley Arant, Governmental Affairs Director 1998 - 2008

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