Perry Hooper
Perry Oliver Hooper, Sr. is a former justice on the Alabama Supreme Court and served as the court's twenty-seventh chief justice from 1995 to 2001. He was the first member of the Republican Party to have been elected to his state's highest court.[1]
Justice Perry passed away on April 24, 2016, at the age of 91.[2]
Education
Hooper received both his undergraduate degree and his LL.B. from the University of Alabama.[3]
Career
After Hooper received his law degree from the University of Alabama, he entered private practice. In 1964, during the Barry Goldwater sweep of Alabama, Hooper was elected probate judge of Montgomery County, Alabama the first Republican to have been elected to that position since the 19th century. He continued in that position until 1974, when he was elected circuit judge of Alabama's 15th Judicial Circuit. In 1983, he returned to private practice.[4]
Chief justice election
In 1994, Hooper was narrowly elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, the first Republican in that position. He was sworn into office on October 20, 1995, and remained chief justice until his resignation in 2001.[4]
Senate bid
In 1968, Hooper was the Republican nominee for the United States Senate for the open seat vacated by retiring Democrat Lister Hill. He received 201,277 votes (24 percent) to 638,774 (76 percent) for the Democratic nominee, then Lieutenant Governor James B. Allen, a conservative whose views were similar to those of Hooper. Hooper polled 54,304 more votes in his statewide race than did his party's presidential nominee, Richard M. Nixon. Hooper narrowly held his home county of Montgomery County, Alabama and fared best among upper-income whites, having received two-thirds of the vote in higher socio-economic precincts in both Montgomery and Birmingham. Lower-income whites, conversely, supported Allen by a wide margin. In eleven of the state's sixty-seven counties, Hooper failed to reach double digits. Years later, Hooper recalled that many voters "didn't know" that he was in the race: "They only knew that George Wallace was carrying the banner [for President]. . . People didn't dislike Nixon, they just like Wallace, who sounded . . . Republican," Hooper said.[5]
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Alabama Department of Archives and History, "Alabama's Supreme Court Chief Justices: Perry O. Hooper, Sr.," accessed May 18, 2014
- ↑ Montgomery Advertiser, "Former Ala. Chief Justice Perry Hooper Sr. dies at 91," April 26, 2016
- ↑ Martindale.com, "Perry O. Hooper, Sr. - Lawyer Profile," accessed May 18, 2014
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Alabama House of Representatives, "2001 Resolution HJR9," accessed May 18, 2014
- ↑ Billy Hathorn, "A Dozen Years in the Political Wilderness: The Alabama Republican Party, 1966-1978", Gulf Coast Historical Review, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Spring 1994), p. 30
