Candidate for Attorney General Pamela Casey interview

Pamela Casey is the District Attorney for Blount County and is currently running against two other well funded opponents in the Attorney General race. This past week Casey addressed the Opelika Kiwanis Club during their weekly meeting at the Saugahatchee Country Club. After Casey delivered her remarks she took the time for an exclusive interview with the Examiner.

Casey started off by highlighting what she sees as the biggest challenge facing law enforcement in 2025. "From the D.A. standpoint, funding has always been an issue. Ever since I have been in the office for almost fifteen years. We only get a portion of our funding from the legislature. For the rest of it you have to actually try to get from collecting court costs and court fines. For prosecutors across the state, we don't get the funding that we necessarily need to be able to hire the staff that we need."

Taking a look at the same concerns from a societal standpoint was another perspective that Casey shared. "If we talk about what is going on in society, I would say the influx of social media and online dangers to our children. You see it across the state, we have seen it with the covenant rescue group the number of people who are being rescued in human trafficking raids. Those are people who are showing up and they are not children. Can you imagine the number of cases where there are actually children being trafficked across our state? We like to think that it doesn't happen here, we just see that on TV. It does."

Getting ahead of the generation shift in society is a key issue for Casey. "We have to be preparing young leaders to be willing to step up and that is hard. Because it is not easy to run statewide. It is not easy to take a local race, a city council race, a board of education race, a commissioner race. You have to have young people. I ran when I was 28 and nobody thought I would win. I stayed the youngest D.A. for twelve years. I am always eager to see young people who are willing to take the baton essentially, so we are handing it off."

Addressing the stagnation in government was another topic that Casey touched on. " If you think about it, our generation, computers came into the classroom while we were in school and they were the big chunky things. Now we hand kids these little bitty boxes that can essentially do what we did. I think you have got to have that transition. WIthin ten to fifteen years, I have young children, their schooling is not going to look like anything what I did. We have to be prepared to hand that off. I am a big term limits believer. I think, even D.A.s, I will be finishing my third term. I think it is good regardless of what position you are in that you have new blood, new ideas, new grit to fight the issues of the day."

Taking stock of the lack of prosperity and development in Alabama in comparison to neighboring southeastern states, Casey shared her viewpoint. "I think we need to quit electing leaders who are tied to special interests. I think we need to start electing leaders that are tied to the voice of the people. If you think about what the people of Alabama want it is not necessarily always what we see happening. My husband is a teacher having been in the classroom for almost ten years. It has gotten to where they can't teach any more. We see our numbers just keep going down overall. We are losing teachers in the classroom because a lot of times we don't have people in the leadership positions who have been there, done that."