LOCAL

Gov. candidate Walt Maddox stops in Gadsden at First Friday

Benjamin Nunnally Times Staff Writer

Walt Maddox is a Democrat and says he is anti-abortion.

Try not to spit out your coffee: In spite of the narrative that a person’s politics of government and morality must go hand in hand, the stance does exist. Where Tuscaloosa mayor and gubernatorial candidate Maddox says he differs from pro-life contemporaries is in his belief that policies should not only protect unborn children, but help them live decent lives after they’re born.

It’s an explosive stance to take in a state that has stalled out Medicaid expansion, closed down mental health facilities and has one of the worst infant mortality rates in the nation — nine in 1,000, according to the state health department.

“We’re at a Third World level for infant mortality,” Maddox said during a visit to Gadsden, just a few hours before First Friday and Gadsden City High School’s homecoming football game.

The CIA’s World Factbook, according to a Newsweek report from last year, backs up his statement. Alabama is outpacing Bahrain, Sri Lanka, Costa Rica and other countries with sub-optimal care. One of Maddox’s solutions is to expand Medicaid.

“The first thing we would do in the first few hours is expand Medicaid,” said Maddox, who faces Gov. Kay Ivey, the Republican nominee, in the Nov. 6 general election. “Medicaid expansion is going to have an impact on 330,000 Alabamians — most of them working, contrary to the narrative that’s provided by the governor, which to me is a lack of leadership when you don’t even understand that dynamic.”

The expansion, he said, would offer relief to hospitals and provide opportunities for mental health and drug rehabilitation services. Ask anyone at the Etowah County Detention Center and they’ll say that the closing of mental health hospitals in Alabama was the sound of Gabriel blowing his horn for the corrections community.

Another opening move is to use revenue from sports gambling, through an agreement with the Poarch Creek Indians, and taxing existing gaming in earnest, where it hasn’t been previously. Maddox said that will generate about $150 million that can go into the general fund and see use in the creation of crisis centers and rehabilitation facilities.

Even outside of a moral conviction to help others, it’s may be a good policy from a self-serving perspective: If you fix broken people, they don’t commit crimes, get hurt or hurt anyone else.

Maddox said that he wants to take on a proactive approach to Alabama’s problems, instead of a reactionary stance.

“The problem with the leadership in the state, and I have great respect for Gov. Ivey and the office, but for 35 years she’s been part of the Montgomery machine, and for the last 16 years part of the constitutional office as a part of state government. Their modus operandi is reactive government. That’s not going to position Alabama to be a New South state in the decades to come,” he said.