Walt Maddox focuses on health care, education in run for governor
As a native of the city, he felt horror at a destruction and loss of life he called "soul-crushing." As the mayor of
"You have those conflicting emotions, and then there was an eerie quietness," Maddox said in an interview Wednesday. "The TV went out, and then everyone's phone lit up at once. Everyone kind of turned and looked me and I said 'Let's get to work.'"
Maddox's work in the days, months and years after the tornado hit -- up to and including rebuilding the city's water utility system -- won him national accolades. Winning a fourth term as mayor last year by a wide margin, Maddox, 45, is now seeking the Democratic nomination for governor.
"I understand how to lead in a crisis," he said. "And our state is in a crisis."
Long considered a star for
Maddox invokes Jones' "kitchen table issues" approach and presents himself as a pragmatic problem solver -- contrasting that with a recent ad from Gov.
"They're talking about things that are not going to change outcomes in our schools," he said. "They're not going to change outcomes in our hospitals. They're not going to change outcomes in our infrastructure."
Maddox has, for a primary campaign, an unusually detailed policy agenda with a strong emphasis on health care, particularly Medicaid expansion. Maddox stresses the move could bring tens of thousands of jobs, as well as provide critical resources for mental health care and addiction treatment and keep rural health care.
"It helps stabilize 75 percent of our remaining rural hospitals that are in the red," he said. "It stabilizes pediatric practices in this area."
Maddox also proposes a major education program that would create something equivalent to the HOPE scholarship in
"For 180 days a year in our state, that school bus picks you up and takes you to school," he said. "We would be more efficient to provide those services and schools and provide those wrap-around needs."
To pay for this, Maddox, like many
Politicians in both parties have turned to lotteries in the past as a way to pay for needs, but lottery revenue tends to post flat growth over time without keeping up with educational needs. Maddox argues that a lottery is far more practical in the current
"I don't think
From
Maddox grew up in what he describes as a working-class neighborhood in east
He attended the
But he soon found himself in need of finding a job with health insurance; his fiancée at the time was suffering from aplastic anemia, and he applied to become a field director for the
"We were scheduled to get married in September of that year," he said. "I think I got the job in April of that year. She passed away in July of 1996. The irony for me was at the beginning, I was in a job that I really didn't want to take, but to get married I needed the health insurance."
But Maddox found himself enjoying the work with AEA, which encompassed everything from political action to representing support employees. He became close with longtime AEA leader
Maddox later became director of personnel for
The 2011 tornadoes will be his defining legacy, and Maddox takes pains to give credit to the city's 1,400 employees: "I'm a reflection of these amazing heroes and frankly, the tens of thousands of Alabamians who became images of God who helped us rebuild our city," he said.
But Maddox also points to
But it's what he can't do as mayor that led to his run for governor. Maddox said state government "is not fulfilling its responsibilities," particularly on health care and education, and that the state as a whole is suffering.
"You can have pockets of brilliance in
Biography
Age: 45
Profession: Education support
Family: Married; two children
Education: B.A.,
Party: Democratic
Offices held/offices sought:
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