Buddy Roberts/News-Aegis Kay Ivey greets the lunch crowd at the Pell City Steakhouse during a campaign stop here last week. The lieutenant governor hopeful also made time for a visit to The Pink Store before attending a Republican event in Talladega with gubernatorial candidate Dr. Robert Bentley.

Kay Ivey believes that her campaign to unseat incumbent Lt. Gov. Jim Folsom will be part of a historic election year for Alabama.

“It is quite likely that we could have a Republican governor, a Republican lieutenant governor, and Republican majorities in both the House and Senate,” she said.  “That’s never happened before in this great state’s history, and it will provide us with the opportunity to put together an agenda that will take root and grow over the long haul.”

Currently finishing her second term as state treasurer, Ivey said her top priority as lieutenant governor would be to create and expand jobs.  “We need quality, 21st Century jobs for our people.  If folks had quality jobs, they wouldn’t ever want to think about leaving Alabama.”

Acknowledging that the automotive industry has been “good for the state, we need to diversify, look at other sectors, and avoid getting all our eggs in one basket.”  That involves, she said, properly matching industries and communities.

“Pell City, for example, is a great place to bring industry, but it isn’t big enough for a Hyundai plant.  But it is big enough for a medium-sized firm.  We need to stop focusing just on large production firms and bring in smaller firms for our smaller communities.”

Ivey is an opponent of gambling as an economic stimulus.  “It is a poor, poor business model,” she said.  “There is nothing stable about it.  It is not good for the employees, it is not good for the tax base, and it is not good as a means of bringing quality jobs to people.  Are people knocking down doors to do business in Macon County or Greene County?  Businesses and industries are not attracted to expand or locate in areas that are close to huge gaming operations.”

She opposes the federal health care reform plan, calling it “the worst piece of legislation ever conceived, much less passed,” and supports efforts to curtail illegal immigration into Alabama.  

If elected, Ivey also pledged to fight what she calls “the old crony crowd” in state government.  

“If you are a member of the current majority party in the Senate, you never know what’s going to be on the agenda for the day,” she said.  “Consequently, bills that are meaningful and substantive that ought to have debate and discussion are set aside, and the agenda is what the good-ole-boy power brokers want it to be.

“I will bring order and transparency to the operations of the Senate.  We need an environment that is conducive to deliberation and debate, not frustration and fist fights.  That is not the image we need to project to the world.”