Presented by the Stop The HIT Coalition

Good morning and Happy Halloween! Have fun and be safe out there, and no matter who you dress as, remember to be your own thang (or part of it) . Here’s your Daily News for Wednesday, October 31.

1. Maxwell AFB getting a new tower.

• The Air Force will announce this morning that it is directing $18 million to construct a new air traffic control tower at Maxwell Air Force Base.
• That may sound like no big deal and a routine use of funds for the Air Force, but Maxwell and Montgomery have been waiting on this for the better part of ten years.
• The existing tower was built in the 1950s and has long outlived its effectiveness. There are line-of-sight problems with the runway and safety issues. The fire escape is literally a zip line. This 2014 Advertiser story illustrates the need pretty well.
• Getting the Air Force to replace the tower has been a priority for Sen. Richard Shelby and Rep. Martha Roby for some time. Shelby chairs Appropriations (including Defense Approps) in the Senate, and Roby is on Defense Appropriations in the House.
• Big win for Maxwell, Montgomery and the Alabama Delegation.

2. Race Profile: Senate District 10.

• In ADN’s LAST legislative race profile for the cycle, Caroline Beck takes a look at Senate District 10, where Independent Craig Ford is facing Republican Andrew Jones.
• Ford is a current State Representative who served as the Democratic leader in the House for a while before switching to become an independent.
• Jones is a political newcomer who used his “outsider” appeal to defeat State Rep. Mack Butler in the primary.
• This is easily one of the hottest races for the Alabama Legislature this year. And it’s getting hotter!
• Get smart on it via Caroline’s story HERE.

A Message from Stop The HIT Coalition

• Did you know Alabama small businesses and middle-class families will be hit with a new tax on January 1, 2020?
• Absent immediate Senate action, the 2020 Health Insurance Tax (HIT) will begin driving up the cost of care for hardworking Alabamians by as much as $450 in 2020.
• Senator Doug Jones can help address skyrocketing healthcare costs by co-sponsoring bipartisan legislation (S. 3063) to suspend the Health Insurance Tax in 2020.
• Ask Senator Jones to stop the HIT on Alabama small businesses and hardworking families.

3. It’s Katie Britt at BCA.

• It looks like Katie Boyd Britt will take the reins as the new President and CEO of the Business Council of Alabama.
• Nothing is official and BCA isn’t confirming, but I have enough sources to make me comfortable telling you.
• Katie is currently the Chief of Staff for Sen. Richard Shelby in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, she worked Government and Corporate Relations for Butler Snow and was a BCA Board Member.
• A native of Enterprise, Katie is married to Wesley Britt, a corporate economic developer who football fans will remember from his career as an All-SEC tackle for Alabama and later the New England Patriots.
• This is one of those hires that, when you sit back and think about it, makes so much sense. Katie’s experience and ability to bring people together make her well-suited for such a demanding and high-profile job.
• Congrats!

4. Skip Tucker: GOTV

• It’s almost election time, and that means Skip Tucker has four letters for you: GOTV.
• That stands for Get Out The Vote, of course, and Skip has done his share of vote-getting for candidates up and down the ballot.
• In his latest column, Skip takes us behind-the-scenes into some of the last-minute decisions that go into turning voters out (or having them stay home, as it were).
• Here’s an excerpt:

Getting Out The Vote is a fundamental and a very expensive part of a professionally-run, effective campaign. It matters not how deeply a voter believes in a candidate. It hardly counts if s/he doesn’t vote.

There’s a reason other than apathy. Negative campaigning and voter suppression reflect a distinction of GOTV. It’s the complementary strategy of suppressing opposition turnout.

The ubiquitous negative attack ad doesn’t try to sway voters toward a candidate. The plan is to increase the number who fail to vote by reinforcing their belief that politics is inherently corrupt. (Step away from the dungheap, friend, you’ll just get your shoes dirty.)

Negs work. People hate them, and rightly so, but voters listen and watch and the stink sticks.

• Read Skip’s full column HERE.

5. News Briefs.

• Kim Chandler takes a look at the race for Lieutenant Governor in a campaign profile story that’s new this morning.
• Republican Will Ainsworth is a State Representative from Guntersville who won a bitter primary. The GOP has since mended fences and is united in pushing him to victory.
• Democrat Will Boyd is a minister from Florence who last ran for U.S. Senate but lost to eventual-winner Doug Jones in the primary.
• Also new: Ainsworth’s wife, Kendall was hurt in a minor skeet-shooting accident yesterday. He said the injury required some staples and that he’ll be stepping away from the campaign trail for a few days while she heals.

Kids hurt in school bus crash

• State troopers say seven children have been injured in a school bus crash in Alabama.
• Alabama Law Enforcement Agency spokesman Cpl. Jeremy Baker tells news outlets six children were released after being treated for minor injuries at a hospital in Florence. The seventh child was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Birmingham, but the child’s condition wasn’t immediately clear.
• Baker says the crash happened Monday afternoon in the Zip City community in Lauderdale County. He says the bus ran off the road, hit a ditch and struck a tree.

What happens if Dems win Congress?

• President Donald Trump has warned that if Democrats regain political power in the midterm elections, the U.S. economy would essentially implode.
• Democrats, he insists, would push tax hikes and environmental restrictions that stifle growth. Immigrants would steal jobs and unleash a crime wave that would halt commerce. Health insurance would devolve into a socialist program offering shoddy care at unsustainable cost.
• Almost no private economist agrees with Trump’s portrait of a financial apocalypse. Then again, those same people said the growth that has happened on his watch wasn’t possible.
• Read more about the economics at stake in the midterm elections HERE.

Posse Comitatus

• The more than 5,200 active-duty troops being sent by President Donald Trump to the U.S.-Mexico border will be limited in what they can do under a federal law that restricts the military from engaging in law enforcement on American soil.
• That means the troops will not be allowed to detain immigrants, seize drugs from smugglers or have any direct involvement in stopping a migrant caravan that is still about 1,000 miles from the nearest border crossing.
• Instead, their role will largely mirror that of the existing National Guard troops — about 2,000 in all — deployed to the border over the past six months, including providing helicopter support for border missions, installing concrete barriers and repairing and maintaining vehicles.
• The new troops will include military police, combat engineers and helicopter companies equipped with advanced technology to help detect people at night.
• They’ll also be away from their families for Thanksgiving, and possibly longer.
• Read more about that HERE.

Headlines.

Front Pages (images link to newspaper websites, which you should visit and patronize)