Tom Parker

Tom Parker
Current Court Information:
Alabama Supreme Court
Title:	Justice
Service:
Active:	2004-2016
Past position:	Private Practice
Personal History
Party:	Republican
Bachelors:	Dartmouth College
Law School:	Vanderbilt University School of Law

Tom Parker is an associate justice on the Alabama Supreme Court. He was elected to the court in the state's partisan elections in 2004 and is one of nine Republicans on the nine member court. He defeated Mac Parsons in his re-election campaign in 2010. His current term will expire in 2016.

Biography

Justice Parker and his wife, Dottie, have been married for 23 years. Dottie served as Supervisor of the Alabama Governor's Mansion during the administration of Alabama Governor Fob James.

Education

Parker received his undergraduate degree cum laude from Dartmouth College and his Juris Doctor from Vanderbilt University School of Law. Later he attended the University of Sao Paolo School of Law, one of Brazil's most prestigious law schools, on a Rotary International Fellowship.

Professional career

After graduation Justice Parker served on in the Alabama Attorney General's office. Following that he served as an Assistant Attorney General in the Alabama Attorney General's office. He also served as the Deputy Administrative Director of Courts, advising trial court judges, and as the Director of the Alabama Judicial College, providing training for new judges and continuing legal education for all the trial judges in Alabama. Parker then became a partner with Parker & Kotouc, P.C., a firm that handled high-profile constitutional law cases. In 2004 he was elected to the Alabama Supreme Court in 2004 and re-elected in 2010.

Awards and Associations

Awards

• Man of the Year, Vision Forum Ministries, 2006

Associations

• Student Body President, Sidney Lanier High School
• Speaker of the House, YMCA Youth Legislature
• Speaker of the House, Boys’ State Legislature
• Founder, Alabama Family Alliance
• Executive Director, Alabama Family Advocates
• Executive Director, Alabama Family Alliance
• Member, Frazer Memorial United Methodist Church
• Television appearance, Focus on the Family, with Dr. James Dobson
• Television appearance, The 700 Club,
• Television appearance, Dr. Pat Robertsont
• Television appearance, McNeil-Leher News Hour
• Television appearance, For the Record

Elections

2010 Election

Alabama Supreme Court, Associate Justice 2010 General election results
Candidates		Votes	Percent
Tom Parker (R)		849,323	59%
Mac Parsons (D)		591,678	41%

• Click here for 2010 General Election Results from the Alabama Secretary of State.

Main article: Alabama judicial elections, 2010

Parker defeated opponents James R. Houts and Eric Johnston in the Republican primary election. He faced Mac Parsons in the general election, which Parker won.

Disqualification from ballot lawsuit

Parker filed a lawsuit to disqualify opponent Eric Johnston from the Supreme Court race. Parker alleged that Johnston was late filing a financial statement with the Alabama Ethics Commission and a campaign committee statement with Alabama's Secretary of State. Johnston acknowledged that the documents were late, but says that his intention was to get them in on time. A hearing was held on Thursday, May 13, at the Montgomery County Circuit Court in which Johnston's attorneys argued that the forms were, in fact, filed on time and that the lawsuit should be thrown out. On Monday, May 17, Judge Shashy ruled on the case and rejected Parker's claim that Johnston should be removed from the ballot. Johnston attributed the lateness to the fault of the delivery service, and in any case, Shashy delivered the ruling saying that lateness alone is not enough to warrant disqualification.

Johnston said he saw the lawsuit "as a purely political attempt to remove me from the ballot because I am the most viable candidate opposing him".

On May 28, the specially appointed Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. That means the primary election will continue as planned, though Parker can still file a challenge with the Republican Party after the election.

Campaign contributions

See also: Campaign finance requirements for Alabama judicial elections

No 2010 contributions for Justice Parker have been recorded by Follow the Money or on the state campaign finance report database as of April 9, 2010.

2004 Election

On November 2, 2004, Parker defeated Robert H. Smith to become a justice on the Alabama Supreme Court.

For a summary of Parker's campaign contributions, visit Follow the Money: Tom Parker 2004.

Notable rulings

Driver exams in Spanish

In a 5-4 decision, the Alabama Supreme Court said the ProEnglish group presented no evidence that administering the test in multiple languages diminishes English as Alabama's common language. The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling in favor of Gov. Bob Riley and other state officials. Writing for the majority, the Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb cited the governor's argument that permitting people with limited English proficiency to take the written portion of the exam in their native language helped them get a license, and the license fostered their assimilation into the community by increasing their access to education, employment and shopping. Four justices — Glenn Murdock, Lyn Stuart, Michael Bolin and Tom Parker — said the case should have gone in favor of the plaintiffs. In Bolin's dissent, he said the majority was misinterpreting the constitutional amendment and that "[t]he immigrants who came to Alabama by way of Ellis Island in the early 20th century did not have the benefit of a tortured construction of Amendment No. 509 and evidently 'assimilated' the wrong way — they actually learned the English language." Judge Michael Bolin added, “What the officials of Alabama have accomplished in offering the written portion of the driver’s license test in 12 foreign languages, is to revise Amendment 509 into a ‘blank paper by [judicial] construction…’” In 1990, Alabama voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment that says: "English is the official language of the state of Alabama." The constitutional amendment also says the Legislature "shall enforce this amendment by appropriate legislation," and the Legislature "shall make no law which diminishes or ignores the role of English as the common language of the state of Alabama." Judge Glenn Murdock, joined in the scathing dissent by quoting a standard legal encyclopedia, “Constitutions are the result of popular will, and their words are to be understood ordinarily as used in the sense such words convey to the popular mind.” The state Department of Public Safety currently offers the driver's exam in Arabic, English, Chinese, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Vietnamese and American sign language.”

See also

• Alabama
• Alabama Supreme Court

External links

• Alabama Judicial System Online: Tom Parker
• Alabama Judicial System
• Members of the Court
• Follow the Money: Tom Parker
• stateline.org, "Election 2004 transforms state supreme court races", November 8, 2004
• Tuscaloosa News, "New Justice Parker slower than colleagues", April 24, 2006
• The Vision Forum Tom Parker: The George Washington Man of the Year. Vision Forum Ministries 2006
• Press-Register, "Alabama Supreme Court stats show Tom Park continues to trail in productivity," October 9, 2010
• The Birmingham News, "Campaign 2010: Alabama Supreme Court candidates file financial reports," September 20, 2010
• The Wetumpka Herald, "Tea Party welcomes Justice Parker," July 19, 2011

References