The Alabama Policy Institute announced that Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall was a recipient of the group’s 2020 API Policy Warrior Award.
“Throughout his tenure as Alabama’s Attorney General, Steve Marshall has evidenced a willingness to pursue justice and to speak to the issues,” API wrote in the announcement. “In the past year alone he has been an active defender of Alabama’s absentee voting and voter ID laws. He has resisted the possibility of Alabama being subjected to a consent decree regarding our prison system which would place great burdens on state government. AG Marshall filed the first suit in the nation to prohibit the counting of illegal aliens in the 2020 Census. He fought for the appeal of Alabama’s Dismemberment Abortion Act. He pushed back against the ACLU in their fight to have abortion clinics declared as essential services in the pandemic shutdowns. And, as the Attorney General, he openly admonished Alabama mayors who exhibited overreach in the pandemic.”
The API Policy Warrior Awards are now in their second year. The Policy Warrior Award is designed to honor those individuals in both public and private sectors who have distinguished themselves by taking extraordinary steps to promote and uphold conservative principles of governance, free markets and strong families.
API explained that the purpose of establishing the award was to create an iconic symbol that indicates that the individual awardee has shown great resolve, selfless service and a willingness to do what is right even where it may not be popular.
As such, after much deliberation, the leadership of the Alabama Policy Institute chose the image of a Rough Rider that stands in the statuary hall of the Alabama State Archives to become that icon. Digitally scanned and translated from its original 20-foot height to an 18-inch bronze on marble statuette. API said that the Policy Warrior Award is a physical reminder that great things can happen when individuals make a determined stand.
Marshall was the longtime district attorney of Marshall County before being appointed Alabama attorney general by then-Gov. Robert Bentley in 2017. In 2018, Marshall won the Republican nomination for attorney general despite facing a crowded GOP primary field.
Other 2020 recipients of the 2020 API Policy Warrior Award include State Rep. Andrew Sorrell, R-Tuscumbia, for his courageous stands as a fiscal conservative. Sorrell voted against the 2021 budgets, which included large spending increases, the massive 2020 $1.25 billion education bond issue and his 2019 opposition to the massive increase in fuel taxes. Sorrell is the only legislator in the state who voted against all three.
Tom Dekle, the CEO of Milo’s Hamburgers, also received the award for his response to the coronavirus pandemic.
When the pandemic shutdowns occurred, Dekle kept a number of his employees on the payroll to begin filling bottles of Milo’s famous sauce by hand. Those bottles were sold, raising thousands of dollars for local food banks. He also directed his company to instigate the Milo’s “Alabama Strong” Initiative, which fed over 4,000 children for free when their schools were shut down as well as over 6,000 frontline health care workers who were working through the pandemic.
