‘We will step up and police our own’

Published 10:02 pm Tuesday, April 11, 2017

In nearly an hour of podium time in Cullman Tuesday, the name “Robert Bentley” never crossed the lips of the state’s Republican Party Chair.

But it was clear that the former Alabama governor’s scandalous resignation Monday weighed heavily on Terry Lathan’s mind, as well as on the minds of the 40 or so locals who turned out to hear her keynote speech.

Lathan was the guest at this month’s meeting of the Cullman Republican Women, held Tuesday evening at Cullman VFW Post 2214.

She’d long been scheduled to speak, but the events of the past few days steered her message toward party retrenchment, and trusting the legislative and judicial process to resolve political malfeasance — even when it comes from within one’s own party.

“Sometimes people will let us down,” she said, the first of Lathan’s many oblique references to the Bentley scandal.

“But I refuse, and I reject, that a handful represent the [whole] body,” she followed. “They do not: not in your churches; not in your schools; not in your families.

“While some will let us down, the good news here is that processes have been put in place — by what we’ve seen in the last few days — and those processes worked. I have talked to people at the capitol today, across the board, checking in. [And] they feel uplifted. They feel emboldened. And they had a great work day today — and that’s what they’re there for.”

Lathan, spent at the end of a long Tuesday running a communications gauntlet both internal and outward-facing, fielded a barrage of questions from civic-minded Cullman residents at the end of her brief remarks.

Nearly none of those questions focused on Bentley — at least, not directly. Rather, locals appeared to favor next steps, quizzing Lathan on what sort of actionable party mechanisms, as well as legislation, can shore up the ideological integrity of the GOP at the state and local level, as well as the integrity of the overall electoral process — at least as it pertains to partisan elections.

Lathan pointed out that every step in the process that led to Bentley’s resignation was initiated by his fellow Republicans.

“We police our own…we will step up and police our own,” she said. “We rely upon the voters, and we rely upon the system, when called upon. And, I have to say, the system worked.”