Ivey Sworn in as Bentley Resigns

Gov. Robert Bent­ley (R) “resigned Monday after plead­ing guilty to mis­de­mean­or charges of cam­paign fin­ance law vi­ol­a­tions, end­ing six years in of­fice and giv­ing a dra­mat­ic end­ing to a sex scan­dal that con­sumed his ad­min­is­tra­tion for more than a year.”

“In a fin­ish to a polit­ic­al ca­reer al­most as sur­pris­ing as its be­gin­ning, Bent­ley pleaded guilty to charges of fail­ing to file a ma­jor cam­paign fin­ance re­port and con­vert­ing cam­paign funds for per­son­al use. He was sen­tenced to a 30-day sus­pen­ded jail sen­tence and 12 months of pro­ba­tion; ordered to sur­render all cam­paign funds ($36,912) and about $16,000 in oth­er fines. … Bent­ley also gave up his right to seek pub­lic of­fice again, the abil­ity to ap­peal and all re­tire­ment be­ne­fits. … He in­tends to serve his 100 hours of com­munity ser­vice per­form­ing der­ma­to­lo­gic­al work in rur­al Alabama counties.”

“Bent­ley’s gov­ernor­ship be­came in­creas­ingly over­shad­owed by al­leg­a­tions he pur­sued an af­fair with former staffer Re­bekah Cald­well Ma­son and at­temp­ted to use state re­sources to pur­sue it, and state law en­force­ment to cov­er it up. The al­leg­a­tion led Monday to an un­pre­ced­en­ted im­peach­ment hear­ing in­to the gov­ernor. … It was the first im­peach­ment con­sidered by the Alabama House of Rep­res­ent­at­ives since 1915, and the first ever dir­ec­ted at an Alabama gov­ernor.”

Former Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey (R), 72, “was sworn in as gov­ernor shortly after 6 p.m. Monday, and prom­ised a break with scan­dals that en­gulfed the state.” (Mont­gomery Ad­vert­iser)

“Ivey, the first fe­male Re­pub­lic­an in Alabama his­tory to hold the of­fice of Lieu­ten­ant Gov­ernor, will be only the second wo­man to serve as Gov­ernor of the state. … Alabama’s only oth­er fe­male gov­ernor, Lur­leen Burns Wal­lace, served only 16 months in of­fice be­fore her death in May 1968.” (AL.com)

2018. No Re­pub­lic­ans signaled Monday that they were pre­pared to step aside for Ivey should she run next year as an in­cum­bent when her term ends in early 2019.

State Sen­ate Pres­id­ent Pro Tem Del Marsh (R): “I’ve put a team to­geth­er to look at run­ning for gov­ernor. Ob­vi­ously, be­fore I pull that trig­ger I’d have to talk with Gov. Ivey and just see what her am­bi­tions are.”

State Ag­ri­cul­ture Com­mis­sion­er John Mc­Mil­lan (R): “I’m still plan­ning to run. I haven’t made an an­nounce­ment, but I’m still work­ing on it, you know, put­ting to­geth­er an or­gan­iz­a­tion and talk­ing to folks around the state. … The trans­ition in the gov­ernor’s of­fice does not af­fect my de­cision.”

State Aud­it­or Jim Zei­gler (R): “Still con­sid­er­ing, yes.”

Kelly Schrimsh­er, a spokes­wo­man for Hunts­ville May­or Tommy Battle (R): “There is an ex­plor­at­ory group look­ing at the pos­sib­il­ity of May­or Battle run­ning for Gov­ernor in 2018, and those de­lib­er­a­tions and con­ver­sa­tions will con­tin­ue in­to the weeks ahead.”

Dani­elle Cater, a spokes­wo­man for Jef­fer­son County Com­mis­sion­er Dav­id Car­ring­ton (R): “I would an­ti­cip­ate the Com­mis­sion­er will make a fi­nal de­cision with­in the next 45-days. With that said though, the Com­mis­sion­er Car­ring­ton has been clear that Mont­gomery is a mess and he firmly be­lieves that the state’s prob­lems can’t be solved by a Wash­ing­ton or Mont­gomery in­sider who either cre­ated the messes or stood idly by while the messes were be­ing cre­ated.” (Hot­line re­port­ing)