Alabama Public Television Presents
A Legacy of Progress: The Jim Folsom Jr. Story
Special | 56m 46sVideo has Closed Captions
Explore the tenure of Alabamas 50th governor.
Explore the tenure of Alabamas 50th governor, which included the removal of the Confederate flag from the state capitol and securing the Mercedes-Benz manufacturing plant in Vance.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Alabama Public Television Presents is a local public television program presented by APT
Alabama Public Television Presents
A Legacy of Progress: The Jim Folsom Jr. Story
Special | 56m 46sVideo has Closed Captions
Explore the tenure of Alabamas 50th governor, which included the removal of the Confederate flag from the state capitol and securing the Mercedes-Benz manufacturing plant in Vance.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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(dramatic music) Jim Folsom Jr., a name synonymous with Alabama politics, has left an indelible mark on the state's history.
Known for his deep connection with Alabamians, his political acumen, and his dedication to public service.
Folsom Jr.'s journey through the political landscape of Alabama is both inspiring and educational.
"Jim Folsom Jr: A Legacy of Progress."
James Elisha Folsom Jr. was born on May 14th, 1949 into a family with a strong political pedigree.
His father, James E. Folsom Sr., known to Alabamians as Big Jim, served two terms as governor of Alabama, known for his progressive policies and efforts to modernize the state.
- My childhood was very interesting, being Big Jim Folsom's son, oldest son.
He was a larger-than-life character, but also had eight brothers and sisters, which made for a very interesting household.
Their father really impacted their way of thinking.
They had a great influence on that, especially populist ideas.
Their father was a strong proponent of the "One man, one vote."
Everybody ought to get to vote, and he did that.
- He was, needless to say, one of the most interesting people you could ever meet, and I learned quite a bit from him.
- Big Jim Folsom has a great legacy.
He was probably Alabama's most colorful, gregarious, fun-loving, progressive governor.
- If it's a mistake of leadership, I've call in five special sessions for reinforcement before the federal government force us to starting 15 years ago.
If that is a mistake of leadership, then I'm guilty again.
- It was back in the '40s.
I was a young boy at that time.
I don't know whether that's 10 or 12 years old.
He came to the little town of Thomaston, Alabama over in Marengo County where I was born and reared.
And when he got through making his speech, my mother had a grocery store there on the corner, and in front of it, daddy had fixed a couple of benches, and folks come and sit down.
Big Jim came over and sit down on one of those benches, pulled his shoes off, sit there and talk to people, and visited.
Big Jim would have a profound impact on his son.
And Jim Jr. found himself assisting in campaigns.
- When I was a kid, I used to go out there.
I was on the bumper sticker crew.
Put bumper stickers on cars, passed out cards.
It was a totally different era in Alabama politics.
(dramatic music) Big Jim's tenure was not without challenges.
He navigated a turbulent political landscape marked by racial tensions and economic strife.
Yet, he remained a steadfast advocate for the underprivileged, championing policies that aim to uplift all Alabamians.
- His dad came into office and said, "We're gonna pave the dirt roads in Alabama.
His dad wanted to get the goods from the farmer to the cities and towns.
- He knew that his constituents were the rural farmers in the state, and he went to the legislature and he built every country road.
If some of your viewers were riding down country roads today, those are Big Jim Folsom's roads.
While Jim Jr.'s personality was less charismatic than his father's, he had a certain level of grit and hard work that was associated with the working class.
- One thing I think a misconception that people may have when you're the son of someone famous, is it, well, you know, he must be wealthy.
You know, he must be a wealthy individual.
But the fact is, is that after my father's years in public service, he didn't have all that much money.
He fell upon hard times, you might say.
And we were at a very working class, middle-class revenue standard.
So he also had nine kids.
Okay?
And so, there wasn't a whole lot of money to go around.
So I actually had to work very hard through college, and Jacksonville State was a great place to do that.
- In college, Jim was the same that he is now.
He was always interested in politics and always interested in the law.
He always was interested in people and what I call populism, and where the rubber meets the road, where blue collar workers make a living.
(dramatic music) (gentle music) - I was out shopping and I ran into his sister, Bama.
She said, "Well, Marsha, I'm having a dinner party tonight and I'm just gonna ask Jim to go out and pick you up because you need to come to this party."
Well, I didn't realize that she was playing matchmaker.
So, Jim came and picked me up at my house, and we went to the party.
And of course, he pulled, he had his guitar in the backseat of the car, and so he entertained everyone at the party.
And that really kind of got me interested.
Didn't know so much whether he was that interested, but then he followed up and asked me to go out.
So we married on September the 3rd, 1977 here in Cullman at the First Baptist Church.
We've been married ever since.
(gentle music) Here's his guitar.
(Marsha laughs) And he's got a... Come here.
I wanna show you something.
Don't tell him.
See, he has his own little garage band thing, set up.
(Marsha chuckles) - There's a whole lot of guitar players in Alabama.
And I was one of them.
Not that good, but I enjoyed it.
(bright music) Jim gained a great deal of experience as a public affairs specialist, working at Reynolds Metal Company.
And after about three years, he was encouraged to pursue politics.
- And there was a vacancy on the Alabama Public Service Commission at that time.
Well, naturally, I really wasn't quite ready for this.
I got to thinking, well, that's... (chuckles) That's a big undertaking.
After looking at it and getting some encouragement from quite a few people, I decided to go ahead and make that run.
(suspenseful music) (graphic whooshes) At this point in time, there were not a lot of people seeking that office, really.
I said, "Well, this may be an opportunity to run and make myself available, public office, and maybe I could do some good there."
- I mean, it was very quick.
When we married in September '77, he ran for his first office in May of 1978.
I was the treasurer of the campaign.
And in order to have a good database for our first fundraising efforts is we used our wedding guest list (laughs), because that was easy.
We had 800 people, had current addresses, and so that's how we started, with that database.
- [Narrator] Jim Folsom Jr. first entered the political arena in the 1970s.
After graduating from Jacksonville State University, he began his career in public service.
- I thought, "How am I gonna run statewide?"
I had my father's base, which at that point in time, was showing maybe a 10 or 15% name recognition factor.
If I lose, I'll still be okay.
- [Narrator] In 1978, he was elected as the public service commissioner, a role that allowed him to champion consumer rights and infrastructure improvements.
- When you look at the influence his father, Big Jim, had on Jim Jr.'s life and personality, I think that, in many ways, when people see Jim Jr. as being reserved and quiet, that's a reaction, a conscious reaction he made to his father's flamboyance.
- And though his personality was vastly different from his father's, Jim Jr.'s effectiveness as public service commissioner was noteworthy.
- At that point in time, the utility rates and electric rates was a major issue in the state.
So, $74,948.76 Would that be correct?
The legislature was always passing legislation, anti-power company, anti-gas company, phone company.
- [Reporter] All three commissioners recognize the telephone company's sound financial standing and its future financial condition based on the FCC's pending proposal to deregulate the telephone industry.
- It was sort of an issue that was out there because of some rising electric rates, gas rates, during the Arab oil embargo.
This was true nationwide.
It wasn't just Alabama.
- [Reporter] Based on the staff's evaluation and recommendation, Commissioner Jim Folsom Jr. says Bell should actually lower its rates.
- I too feel that South Central Bell shows an excess revenue figures, and that a decrease should be ordered.
My theme was, we want to attack rising utility rates with a professional approach.
- That meant hiring the very best analysts and utility experts to develop solutions that would bring down rates.
- Rate stabilization and equalization was done so that you get away with these huge rate increases.
So they were leveled out, it was really good for, not just for working people, but they were good for business and industry.
Good to be able to attract people here.
- And at the end of two or three years, all of the sudden, the utility issue was not a major issue because we had stabilized it to the point where we were not having dramatic increases in that long lag time.
- [Reporter] This is the first time in the telephone company's history that its requested more money was denied and instead ordered to reduce rates.
Though customers won't be getting a refund, their telephone bills won't increase either.
- I learned from that, that it showed you could actually do things that people said couldn't be done, and you could actually accomplish things, do positive things in a position of trust, the public.
And that gave me a good feeling.
I liked it.
- [Narrator] And even while he served as public service commissioner, Jim would pay close attention to what was happening within the political world around him.
So just two years later, he decided to run for an even higher office.
- In 1980, I had served on the Alabama PSC, two years, and I had just turned 30 years old.
I didn't agree with some of the things that present senator was doing at that point in time and really thought I could do a better job, to just be honest about it.
- Just turning 30, and then that's the eligible age that you can run for the US Senate.
He really took a chance.
- [Narrator] In 1980, Folsom ran for the US Senate and attacked the incumbent, Donald W. Stewart, as being too liberal for Alabama.
Although Stewart outspent Folsom, $500,000 to $75,000, Folsom won the runoff.
- [Jim] I kept campaigning.
We campaigned right on into the fall.
- Jim campaigned in one area and I would go in another.
He would do the media hits and I would go into the smaller rural areas, and go into the radio stations.
You know, that time there were local radio stations that would let you walk in the door and you would do an interview.
A lot of people in this state consider themselves Alabama Democrats, and they don't necessarily consider themselves National Democrats.
- At that young age, I didn't even know what a landslide was.
- [Narrator] In the general election, Folsom lost by a narrow margin to Republican Jeremiah Denton, who was aided by the Ronald Reagan landslide, which helped Republican candidates across the country.
- Ronald Reagan was an extremely popular Republican president, and Jimmy Carter was an extremely unpopular president in the state of Alabama.
- We were talking about the fact that Reagan has a lead in Alabama according to early projections.
Does that mean that Alabama is turning Republican?
- No, I don't think it means that.
I think that it means that people are still independent in their voting.
The patriotism, leadership, economy, national defense, all these things, very important.
And the morality factor, very important to the people in Alabama.
- Ronald Reagan's coattails were so huge.
I learned a little bit about what a very popular president at the top of the ticket can do for you or against you.
And on that situation, I was swimming upstream, to say the least.
- [Narrator] Jim learned a great deal from that experience, and though he lost the senate race, he was motivated to run for yet another office, lieutenant governor.
(suspenseful music) - When I first came to work for Jim was in 1986, he was running for lieutenant governor.
Jim called and said, Senator Heflin, who was a United States Senator from Alabama, who I'd worked for, said that, "You did debate prep for him during his campaigns.
Would you come do my debate prep?"
So I came to Montgomery and we stayed closed through the rest of the campaign.
He beat Teague in the runoff, and then he easily beat the Republican nominee in '86.
This was really his change to really get into the line, to someday run for governor.
At that point, he offered me the job as chief of staff in the lieutenant governor's office.
- In 1987, I became lieutenant governor, and I was 37 years old at this point.
- In the 1980s, the lieutenant governor was a tremendously powerful position.
- They gave the autonomy of organizing the senate to lieutenant governor.
That means he organized the senate and gave the committee assignments, which is the most important thing of a 35-member senate.
- He assigned all bills to committee in the senate.
He assigned offices, he assigned parking spaces.
The lieutenant governor basically controlled the state senate at that point in time.
- There was an old saying back in those days, "When the governor proposes then the lieutenant governor disposes."
- It was a very interesting time as lieutenant governor because he had run against a very popular senator to become lieutenant governor.
And many of the senators had supported the guy that Jim beat, John Teague.
So it became kind of a challenge that first term, particularly from '87 to '91, to get things done and to hold the senate together moving forward.
- And they had their relationships formed.
They'd worked together all these years.
And those were fine gentlemen that I was running against, but there was still quite a few who didn't want me there.
You know, I had relationships with certain Republican senators, certain Democratic senators.
We worked together well.
Well, I just decided, well, like a small way to handle this would be to appoint chairman from both parties.
That forces them to work together (chuckles).
They have no choice and they're all stakeholders.
So I went out appointing about 25% of my chairman as committee chairman, giving the Republicans decent positions on committees throughout that, didn't shut them out, and allowed them access to the process.
Not shutting, say, the Republican party out completely because they didn't have the majority.
They are minority rights and they're gonna either prevail in an agreement on the floor or they'll fight it to the death and you don't accomplish anything.
(pensive music) - [Narrator] As lieutenant governor, Jim would bring members from both sides of the aisle together in order to pass important legislation.
At the time, Alabama was seen as an unfavorable judicial climate for business development.
As a result, Jim and his team would pass tort reform legislation to put Alabama on a better footing for business development.
His tenure was also marked by a dedication to improving education across Alabama.
A topic that Marsha was equally invested in.
Jim's accomplishment would be more than enough to get him reelected to a second term as lieutenant governor.
But just two years into that term, everything would change.
(suspenseful music) - It was April 22nd, 1993.
It was my daughter's 10th birthday, And she was at home with an ear infection.
And Jim had called me the night before and we knew that there was a ruling, that the court was going to be ruling quite soon.
- [Narrator] On December 28th, 1992, Governor Guy Hunt was indicted by a grand jury on charges of taking $200,000 from his inaugural fund for personal use.
- Jim had his political consultant and, I think, closest advisor was a University of Alabama graduate named Frank Greer.
And Frank called me and he said, "Are you and Jim making any plans for the transition?"
I said, "Transition of what?"
He said, "If Hunt gets convicted."
I said, "How is he gonna be convicted?"
- [Narrator] The 13 count felony indictment included charges of theft, conspiracy, and ethics violations.
- The charges related to misuse of state planes to fly around and collect money through love offerings at Primitive Baptist churches, 'cause Governor Hunt was a Primitive Baptist minister.
There were also charges that related to misuse of campaign funds to do renovations on their house in Holly Pond, which is also in Cullman County.
But as the trial went on, it became apparent that there was at least a chance for a conviction.
Under Alabama law, if you are convicted of a felony while in office, you immediately lose that position.
So if there was a conviction, Jim would immediately become governor.
(suspenseful music) - The jury had the case, and that was a Wednesday, as I recall.
And Frank calls that night and he says, "Where are you?"
And I said, "I'm at home."
He said, "You need to get down there."
He said, "I really think they're gonna convict Guy Hunt."
I said okay, so I called Jim, and of course he was in Montgomery 'cause he was lieutenant governor.
Next morning, I get up and I drive down there.
- We knew the verdict was coming in first thing when the court came in that day, - And I guess around 10 o'clock, the phones just blew up, just lit up.
- [Narrator] Governor Guy Hunt was convicted on a felony charge of violating state's ethics law and was immediately removed from office.
This meant that Lieutenant Governor Jim Folsom Jr. would immediately become governor for the remainder of the current term.
- You know what the contingency plan is, but when it happens, it's really different.
- James was at preschool, and so my friend went and got him at preschool.
As lieutenant governor, you do get security, but when you're governor, it's raises it up another level.
And I was worried, well, what about my children?
And you know, what am I to do about them, and are they gonna be okay?
You know, just so many things as a mother.
And then I was worried about Jim.
(suspenseful music) I got to Montgomery and he had gone to a safe location so that he could get his thoughts together and proceed with being sworn in.
- No one ever thought Governor Hunt would get convicted.
Everyone thought it would just kind of go away.
- I think when I got there and when I was able to see Jim, and see how calm he was, and how measured he was in taking all this in, it comforted me and I was able to, okay, I'm on board.
Whatever is next.
I'm here.
- I, James E. Folsom Jr.
I really never thought that I would become governor by sending to the office that way.
I had always planned on running for governor in '94 anyway, because I was lieutenant governor.
There's only one place to go.
It was either up or out.
So I was gonna run for governor.
- So we had the swearing in that afternoon and he announced that I was gonna be chief of transition, and nobody knew who Charlie Waldrep was.
So they're asking that.
This is a learning day for us and we're trying to get ahead of the curve, and hopefully, we can gather information that'd be helpful to us in the transition.
- I had not put a lot of time and effort into planning, thinking of what may come up down the road.
I was just convinced in my mind perfectly well that that would never happen.
The jury would not find the governor guilty.
- Hunt's attorney filed a notice of appeal today, and Hunt says he expects to return to the governor's job in a few weeks.
- Mr. and Mrs. Hunt piled into the car just before noon and with one state trooper escort headed back to Holly Pond, and Pam, they should be there tonight.
- The former governor awaits his pre-sentencing hearing set for May 7th.
He does still plan an appeal.
- We were all very confused at the time because, at any point, it could've been reversed by an appellate court.
We didn't know if it was going to be.
We didn't know how fast it would be, if it was.
- [Narrator] But it was not.
The verdict of guilty was held and the judge moved forward with sentencing.
It would be official.
Jim Folsom Jr. would be governor, and he would have a message for his team.
- Jim basically told us all, as long as we're here, the state's counting on us and we have a job to do.
So everybody kind of buckled in and went about doing the job that we had to do as long as we were gonna be there to do it.
It ended up being the remainder of the term.
(suspenseful music) - I still don't think they should have found him guilty before God and everyone in front of me.
I don't think the the charges merited his conviction.
- When Jim became governor, the immediate challenges we faced revolved around the fact that it was a change of partisan identification as well.
Governor Hunt was a Republican.
Jim was a Democrat.
- [Narrator] In the state of Alabama, both the governor and the lieutenant governor are elected positions, which means one could be a Republican and the other a Democrat.
Such was the case with Guy Hunt and Jim Folsom.
- He was a Republican governor here from my home county.
I was elected as a Democrat.
Back in those days, things weren't quite as partisan.
You could actually cross party lines pretty easily to make things happen.
I was elected on a different ticket than the governor, but we still got along together.
A lot of people scratch their head and say, "Well, how did that happen with two different parties?"
When I used to go to lieutenant governor's conventions, most of them had no idea how we did it.
They wondered how in the world to even agree to go to the corner drugstore together or whatever.
So that's sort of the makeup of Alabama.
- [Narrator] Now that Jim was being thrust into the governorship, he would still need to build his very own cabinet.
- You know, usually when you get elected in November, you have until January to take office.
So you have three months to identify the people you want to appoint to important positions.
You have three months to figure out exactly how you wanna prioritize things in your administration.
We had one day.
(suspenseful music) - There were really qualified people that had jobs, that are willing to say, "Hey, we know we may not be there very long, but we're willing to interrupt our lives to be part of something really incredible."
- He made the decision to allow the Hunt staff to stay in the capitol for the first couple of weeks, rather than move them all out immediately.
So we worked out of one of the RSA buildings in downtown Montgomery for the first couple of weeks as the governor's office.
- [Narrator] Everything was moving at a record pace.
Jim Folsom was now governor and had less than two years until the current term would end.
But even before he had a new cabinet, he made two consequential decisions within the first week of his new position as governor.
- One was gonna be, he was selling the state plane, state plane, matter of some controversy.
The second was, and maybe not in that order, that he was going to take the Confederate battle flag off of the state capitol.
(pensive music) - The Confederate flag that had been put over the capitol by Governor Wallace had been taken down during renovation of the capitol.
There was a lawsuit about whether to put it back up or not.
Governor Hunt was appealing a decision that said that it would not go back up.
And then Governor Hunt was removed from office.
So one of the first things that Jim did as governor was say, "We need to dismiss the appeal and keep the flag off the capitol."
That was very early in his time as governor.
- It was a frenzy because, you know, people talking about historical significance and all that on the one side, but as historical significance on the other side.
- African American Alabamians had every right to protest the flag because there are people were enslaved by it.
Even though many white people saw it, it didn't see it in that fashion.
But I looked at it in a historical context and it should not be there.
- And there had been protests.
The Black legislators had been arrested.
Net around the capitol to keep people from coming up there and threatening to take down the flag.
- That is not sending the kind of signal out across the world.
That's not the kind of message we need to be putting forth.
We need to let folks know we're back in the union (chuckles), that, you know, we are Americans and we fly into the American and the state flag.
That's what the constitution state provides for.
- [Narrator] With the state plane sold and the matter of the Confederate flag solved, Governor Folsom could now concentrate on building his cabinet.
(bright music) - Jim appointed a small group led by Charlie Waldrep and me to interview people and to try to come up with lists of people to recommend to him.
The final decisions were always his.
But we would try to come up with a couple of people for each cabinet position.
And the only two instructions he gave us were that he wanted the best people we could find, and he wanted the cabinet to look like Alabama.
He said it's not all gonna be all white men because we went into it with the theory that we needed to look at all groups.
It was really amazing the way that the diversity just kind of found itself.
Little did we know that, at that point, what we were assembling was gonna be the most diverse cabinet in the history of Alabama.
- You know, right off the bat, he appointed Jim White as the finance director.
First African American to hold that position.
Very well-qualified.
- Now I had previous that served in the George Wallace administration as the state revenue commissioner.
That was in 1983.
So I was very, very familiar and had met Governor Folsom.
And I just called him Jim, 'cause we hunting buddies and that sort of thing.
I had met him many years before while he was lieutenant governor, so when I got that call from a couple other people, okay, before I talked to Jim, and I immediately accepted it.
So that was how it really begun.
- One of the positions Governor Folsom decided to make cabinet level for the first time in Alabama history was the director of Minority Affairs, and he hired Sheron Rose for that position.
- I got a call while working at the Department of Public Health, and I was working in Minority Health, and asked if I could come in for a conversation interview.
And of course, I said yes.
48 hours later with a press conference, with others announcing a portion of his cabinet and immediately starting work.
- We wanted really good people.
We wanted sharp people who would make us proud and not get anybody in trouble.
I think we were successful in getting a good cabinet together in a very short period of time.
- And Sharon really allowed us to enhance our outreach into the Black community across Alabama.
She was very effective, very effective in plugging them into business opportunity.
- It was exciting.
Not necessarily intimidating because, I mean, I enjoyed what I was going to have the opportunity to do.
And again, that's to be a part of governor's cabinet.
- We started thinking about, well, how do we make people feel welcome?
We wanted to go back to that famous phrase that Big Jim Folsom used to use, "Y'all come!"
So we took that and thought, how do we do a y'all come event?
And so we thought we will do an Alabama open house.
We will designate a day that everybody in the state can come to the governor's mansion.
(bright playful music) So that first year in August of '93, we had over 13,000 people come through the doors of the governor's mansion.
And they just had a wonderful time because I felt like that this would be a great casual way for us to honor the state and say, "Welcome.
This is the type of administration that the Folsom administration will be, will be open."
- [Narrator] But the sting of Guy Hunt's conviction left many in the media skeptical of Jim Folsom.
He was already making big moves within his administration and it wasn't long before he became acutely aware of the opposition he'd have to contend with.
- When you talk about the press, you can't talk about just the press surrounding when that occurred, when talking about Governor Hunt's conviction.
- [Reporter] While aides packed clothes into the former governor's car, Mrs. Hunt gets a hug from one of them.
- We could count on every Friday afternoon an ethics complaint being filed against Governor Folsom.
- And it's just a pattern of questions that were bound to happen to whoever was the first governor to follow Guy Hunt.
That is a governor who had to leave office under an ethical cloud had better be super clean.
- It was so ridiculous that there was a charge that the house that he and Marsha had built was that they didn't pay for.
- The latest charge made Friday claims work on the Folsom's Cullman home was done free.
On Thursday, First Lady Marsha Folsom talked about the transition she's made.
Tonight, she talks about the areas she'll be concentrating on and the microscope that's been turned on her family.
- Oh, I'm not concerned about that there's going to be anything wrong.
- This became a constant source of speculation and questioning from the press.
- He's put himself on the defensive.
He's constantly having to go out and prove a negative, no, I didn't do this, or, no, I didn't do that.
- Frank Greer said, "Here's what I think.
You're gonna have to, it's ridiculous, but I think you just need to have an afternoon.
It's set aside, as busy as you are doing other things, and lay out all of the bills, the canceled checks, the mortgages on the house.
Nobody can take pictures, but you'll stand there and answer any questions that they want to ask, and that's the end of it."
- His opponents didn't want him to be elected in '94.
So they were softening the ground from the beginning to weaken him as a political candidate in '94.
- [Reporter] In the past two months, few families in the state have attracted as much attention as this one.
- Terry, I guess the best way to put it is, I was not prepared, nor was I preparing for this.
I didn't expect the attack's personal, family.
I didn't expect all that.
That hurt.
- [Narrator] And those political claims continued towards the governor and the first lady.
He and his new and growing team would have to find a way to do all they could to work around the bombardment of accusations from political rivals, as well as the press.
- Jim Folsom's personality as such that he can work with anyone, has the ability to bring parties together, opposing parties.
He can come out with a good consensus from these kind of dealings, and he just wins you over.
He doesn't get mad very often and he has that ability to influence people and bring everybody together.
- [Narrator] A major focus of his was education reform and economic development.
It would later become two of the major points that he would run on to remain governor in the upcoming term.
But for now, Governor Folsom needed a win, and he needed it fast.
(suspenseful music) - So one of the most important offices that we had was the Alabama Development Office, ADO, which has now been morphed into the Chamber of Commerce.
And Elmer Harris was president of Alabama Power.
I had selected a transition team to assist me.
I had someone that I wanted to recommend to the governor in mind that I thought that Elmer could give me some insight, but I'll tell you who the best economic developer is, in my opinion.
I said, "Well, who is that?"
He said Billy Joe Camp.
He had been elected president of the Public Service Commission.
He'd given that job up for Governor Wallace's fourth term to take a position with him.
Then he'd come back and got elected secretary of state following that.
And Billy Joe had made it known he was planning to run for lieutenant governor, and all the polls, he was leading.
I said, "You really think that he'd give that job up for me?"
He said, "Well, you don't know if you don't ask him."
- He said it was a dream of his.
He wanted that worse than anything in the world.
He wanted that job.
It interested him.
He decided he thought he could do good.
- And he resigned as secretary of state and took the cabinet position.
(pensive music) - Alabama needed industry.
Alabama had been a textile state and an agricultural state.
Both of those items were having a lot of challenges at that time, and Alabama was in desperate need.
- I appointed him in the next day.
About a week or so later, Camp came back to my office.
(suspenseful music) - After it was known that I would be the head of the development office.
I had people from the Hunt administration telling me they'd had contacts on this project that was called Project Rosewood.
Mr. Sizemore, who was the head of the development office under Governor Hunt, very fine gentleman.
He called me and gave me a briefing, and gave me information, and told me what he knew.
And through that, we knew who it was.
We knew it was Mercedes.
(dramatic music) - When he got to his office, he learned that Mercedes North America had written all the 48 continuous states if they wanted to be considered to submit a proposal.
That was dated in January.
Nothing had been done, nobody knew about it.
And he called me, I need you to get me and see the governor.
And I did and told the governor what this was about.
- And so I've got a real interesting project here that we really need to consider pursuing.
- [Narrator] Billy Joe Camp made contact with the site selection consulting firm at the time, Fluor Daniel Consulting, and immediately worked on getting Alabama included in the bidding process.
- He asked me if I thought we had a chance to get Mercedes.
I said, Governor, we got a long shot chance, but we do have a chance, and we can do our best.
- And Alabama was an outlier.
It was certainly a dark horse.
We had never built vehicles before.
We were not known as an automotive producing state.
And so it seemed, to a lot of people, farfetched that Alabama was gonna be able to get in the mix.
- Somewhere in the Mercedes house, there's a person who was incarcerated in Alabama as a prisoner of war during World War II.
And he remembers Alabama as being a backward, dirt road, dusty, rural-type place.
You've got to convince them that the people in Alabama wear shoes.
- And you know, one of the criticism was that Alabama is at the bottom economically, and education, we're like number 49 out of 49 or 50 something.
So that uneducated workforce, that kind of thing.
(upbeat music) - We said from the beginning of the site selection process that workforce was most important 'cause we knew we had to build a Mercedes-Benz outside of Germany, and there were a lot of naysayers.
Many people globally questioned whether Mercedes could really build a true Mercedes outside of Germany.
- [Narrator] In 1993, Mercedes-Benz made a monumental decision and asked its marketing and distribution team within the US to make an announcement.
- The company had decided to build a manufacturing plant.
Its first outside of Germany in the US.
We looked over the course of those six months.
We considered, I would say initially, about 150 sites, narrowed it down to, say, 50 and then 20, and then 12.
And then the final six states we actually visited.
(suspenseful music) - At the time, some people had kindly rejoined our side like, "You think Alabama really has a chance?"
I was always crazy enough to say, "Yes, we do.
We can."
And can we afford it?
I turn the question around, can we afford not to?
- [Steve] When Mercedes announced that it would locate outside of Germany for the first time ever to build a passenger vehicle, it created hysteria among all the states when it came to economic development.
- Mercedes had never built a sport utility before.
The US was the largest market for sport utilities.
How do you position it not as a truck and not as a minivan, but something in between.
Can you have a three-pointed star on a vehicle that is luxury because it's Mercedes, but also sporty and coming in at a different price point?
All of those things had to go in the mix.
But not only for the US, for hundreds of markets around the world.
- I believe that recruiting Mercedes to come to Alabama was important in Jim's eyes because he saw it as changing Alabama from an agrarian economy to a modern economy.
North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee.
It all gotten major industrial projects.
Alabama never had.
We were still basically the same economy we had had when his father was governor in the '40s.
So I think he saw this as a way of changing Alabama's economy for the better.
- An automotive project was considered the crown jewel and economic development because of the impact, because of the multiplier effect, because of the supply chain that would automatically follow those companies.
- They touched base with Mercedes-Benz owners all over the United States and asked the question, would you buy a Mercedes-Benz SUV?
And the response came back yes.
As a result of that, they had a market that was already made for a vehicle.
They took a look at locations all over the country in making the decision that they made and we presented a case for the state of Alabama.
- [Narrator] In a way, Folsom and his team were showing up to the table late and as a major underdog in the business development arena.
But Jim was steadfast and determined.
- He selected a few members of his staff who were very well-qualified to be the negotiating team.
- [Narrator] Folsom and his team decided they needed to go all the way to Germany to make their case.
- We got there.
We found out that we were pretty far down the list.
We finally convinced three members of the search team to come to Tuscaloosa.
Whether or not we were gonna win, we didn't know, but we had absolutely the best site selection for an automobile plant of anybody, anywhere in the country.
So we knew if we could get them there, we may get an interest going.
- [Narrator] That team was so impressed with what they saw, they convinced the lead negotiator to visit the site himself.
- The negotiating team for the Germans was led by Andreas Renschler.
- He tentatively had Alabama last on his list to come and visit.
He had decided he was tired and wanted to go back to Germany.
So he wasn't even coming to Alabama, but he went to look at the site, went back all of a sudden, you know, we were in the picture.
- He conducted all of the negotiation sessions with Mercedes.
He had his staff, Andreas Renschler with German delegation, had his staff.
And this went on day after day, after day.
And the governor was always looking for some little something that might help us with Andreas Renschler.
- It was the first time ever that this global brand, premium brand that would build a vehicle outside of Germany.
So it was historic.
So it created a lot of attention.
You had 30 states plus Canada that were in the mix.
- If a state was eliminated, you just didn't hear from it.
You never got a response to your proposal.
- There were 10 of us sitting in a trailer outside of Stuttgart, alongside a railroad track.
So, nothing glamorous.
We were making a decision based on a billion-dollar project in 1993.
- He said, "Governor, a decision has been made, got good news and bad news.
Well, the good news is that Alabama has been selected."
Of course, I was overwhelmed.
And he said, "Now the bad news is that you cannot tell anyone.
You cannot breathe the word of this to the press.
You can't.
You and Mr. Camp are the only ones that know this."
You got my word and I will not tell anyone.
- [Narrator] What added to the challenge for Folsom was that he was in the middle of the gubernatorial race that would be taking place in 1994.
- How does it feel to be back home governor?
- Well, you know how it is growing up in a small town.
- [Interviewer] Always good to get back home, doesn't it?
- That's right.
You learn the values of hard work, honesty, giving something back to the community.
And really, that's what I try to do.
- The issue is the basic one we started out with the Mercedes is the secrecy.
And it was a new Mercedes story every week, and finally, somebody said, "How much have we committed?
How much are we gonna do?
How many of these cars are we gonna back?"
- The incentive package was probably the dominant question in the media because it was $253 million.
That's a lot of money even in today's terms, but 30 years ago, in hindsight, you can understand the skepticism.
- The economic development incentives that were offered were larger than anything Alabama had ever conceived of.
Yeah, the Mercedes recruitment was actually used against Jim in the 1994 gubernatorial race.
- The number one issue in the campaign, they gave too much for Mercedes-Benz.
State can't afford that.
It was a bad decision.
- I remember one person, one business leader giving speeches, talking about if Jim Folsom is elected, he's gonna change Alabama's way of life.
I remember telling him, I thought that's what a governor was supposed to do, was change the way of life in its state.
We were just very confused 'cause we saw it as a very positive thing for Alabama.
But a lot of people who didn't see the same vision of the future were not as excited.
- I had to go out and explain.
We had no plant, no product, no people, but thank you for your $253 million.
We had nothing to show and we had to justify it.
So it was a challenge from a communication standpoint and the media were just doing their job.
It wasn't just the media that was skeptical.
There were government officials, there were from other states.
Of course, there was some sour grapes.
People were unhappy they didn't get it.
So they said, "Well, Alabama sold the store."
But as soon as people saw the result, I don't think people, nobody questions the incentive package anymore.
It's a jewel in the state.
- When we turn this shovel today, what we see in this soil is the future of all who want to look back with pride and say, "Yes, I am an Alabamian."
(crowd cheering, crowd applauding) - [Narrator] Alabama won the bid as a result of having the absolute best site for the new plant and a meaningful $253 million incentive package.
- Why had this great global company chosen to come to a state not known for automotive production for such a historic project?
Journalists wanted to know, others wanted to know what was it that attracted Mercedes and what has that experience been.
- In the end, what it came down to was, the support and partnership we felt from the state of Alabama far exceeded any other location.
- [Narrator] But despite the overwhelming excitement Folsom and his team had for successfully winning Mercedes over, his political opponents were very critical about the deal.
- [Peck] A different ethics complaint would be filed against Governor Folsom.
- James Anderson says the charges against Folsom are politically motivated dirty tricks.
- After winning the Democratic primary, the Republican nominee was Fob James, who had earlier been a Democratic governor and then changed parties.
- [Narrator] Fob James, as governor, he raised taxes 53 times and Alabama's unemployment was the highest in the nation.
No other state was worse.
The choice, Jim Folsom.
- James was very conservative.
He ran a campaign against us based largely on opposing the Mercedes incentives.
- Why is it that every time we start doing great things here in Alabama, somebody starts tearing us down, like Mercedes-Benz.
- All of a sudden, for the first time, Jim had voters that were gonna vote for anybody other than him.
My personal opinion is that that number was somewhere around 40%.
- So ironically enough, after all of the work and all of the good we thought we had done, this became a major stumbling block.
When it first started, I didn't think it would work, but son of a gun, it did.
(gentle music) Okay, well, on this wall, we have a few pictures we could talk about, I guess.
- [Narrator] Fob James had successfully used the Mercedes-Benz deal against Jim Folsom, costing him the race in 1994.
- When it became apparent, I went to the hotel where Jim and Marsha were, and we had a conversation about the numbers weren't gonna change.
- There's a picture of Bill Clinton and myself in summer of '93.
I was there to ask the president for highway funds involving the Mercedes-Benz project and developing.
It take quite a bit of federal dollars to complete the overpasses at the Mercedes-Benz entrance.
- We still waited till the next morning before he called Governor James and conceded the race.
And then Jim had a press conference where he did a public concession, congratulated Governor James, and basically said, "I'm retiring from politics."
- I've had, over the years, many people tell me, "You know, I really thought you were wrong in that decision.
And I was a firm believer that we had wasted $300 million and you were the reason I voted against you, but you were right."
(chuckles) So I've heard that many, many times.
So you just never know how it's gonna turn out, do you?
(pensive music) - What had been seen as a great project, if it would result in a cumulative impact of $7.3 billion after 20 years, was already $6 billion a year.
- You know, this is a whole different generation.
Soon it's gonna be two generations of generation is 20 years that they don't have any recollection of the Confederate flag.
And they don't have a recollection of what it was like before there was Mercedes.
They've grown up here with Mercedes.
But for the people who were here before and they realize what is meant to the state's economy, I think that it has to be Mercedes.
But would there have been a Mercedes without Jim Folsom?
No.
- When I think back on Governor Folsom, I think a big part of his legacy will be Mercedes because he had the courage to do what others may not have.
Whether that be the incentive package or whether that be building the relationship with Mercedes and those of us that came here, and say, "We will be your partners.
We will succeed with you and do whatever it takes to help you be a success."
(pensive music) - Jim Folsom Jr. has a very, very definitive legacy in Alabama history.
When he brought Mercedes here, he has laid the groundwork for Alabama becoming the second largest and soon to be the largest manufacturing of automobiles in the United States of America.
If that's not a legacy, I don't know what is.
- [Narrator] The 1994 election was a turning point.
It highlighted the shifting political dynamics in Alabama.
14 years later, he would run once again for lieutenant governor, becoming the only politician to ever be elected to that position three times.
Beyond his official political roles, Folsom Jr. has remained active in various civic and educational endeavors.
For more than 23 years, he served as a dedicated member of Jacksonville State University's Board of Trustees, demonstrating his deep commitment to expanding educational opportunities and strengthening public institutions across Alabama.
Jim Folsom Jr. is more than a politician.
He is a testament to the power of dedication, resilience, and a genuine connection with the people.
This is the legacy of Jim Folsom Jr., a man who truly embodied the spirit of Alabama.
- I think if you have to show leadership, there's gonna be criticism.
And if you're gonna make the hard decisions, you're gonna take your hits.
And I think I would like to be remembered in that fashion, and in a fashion that I did the state some good economically, which impacts all Alabamians regardless of their standing, and that I did care for the working class and the middle class.
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