State Auditor Jim Zeigler Not Running for U.S. Senate Seat

State Auditor Jim Zeigler said Tuesday he will not be a candidate for the U.S. Senate in the special election.

Zeigler (R), who has served two years as state auditor, said: “My issues are Alabama issues.  I am working against waste, mismanagement and corruption in state government.  I will stick with cleaning up the mess in Montgomery.”

Zeigler’s seat as state auditor is up for election in the June 5, 2018 primary.  He says he will be a candidate in 2018, either for governor or for re-election as state auditor.

“I will make a decision on which 2018 office to run for after the special election for U.S. Senator is over.  I believe the voters and the media will now focus on the senate special election and not yet start looking at the 2018 races,” Zeigler said in a release Tuesday.  

The senate special election has an August 15 primary, Sept. 26 runoff and December 12general election.

Zeigler, whose Facebook page is named “Zeigler: Waste Cutter,” says: “We need a waste cutter in Washington.  There will be candidates in the August 15 Republican primary who can fill that role.”

Zeigler has been strongly critical of Sen. Luther Strange, saying “Luther Strange obstructed the impeachment of former Gov. Robert Bentley.”

Strange had sent a written request to the Alabama House Judiciary Committee Nov. 3 asking them to halt the Bentley impeachment process.  Strange said he was doing “related work.”    The committee granted Strange’s request and halted the impeachment process for five months.

“The Bentley mess could have been cleaned up five months before it was.  Our state continued to suffer under the dysfunctional Bentley administration for five months longer, due to state attorney general Luther Strange,” Zeigler said.

Zeigler says Strange, as a prosecutor, should never had accepted an appointment from a person who was the subject of an investigation by his office (meaning Gov. Robert Bentley).

Zeigler filed an ethics complaint against Bentley in March 2016 accusing him of using pubic resources to enable and cover up an affair with his senior policy adviser.  A year later, it resulted in a finding against Bentley for probable cause of ethics violations.  Five days later, Bentley resigned.

Zeigler, from Mobile, is married to State Board of Education member Jackie Zeigler, a former elementary school principal elected in 2016, defeating a Bentley-appointed incumbent.  The Zeiglers have a daughter graduating this week from Mobile’s Baker High School and a son who is a recent graduate of Baker.