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Photos courtesy of Kenny Dean.
Lew Burdette, a Vestavia Hills resident, is running for governor as a Republican. He is pictured here with his wife, Susie.
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Lew Burdette sits with his wife, Susie, during an interview.
Lew Burdette is one of nine Republican candidates for governor in a field of 15 total candidates. He’s facing incumbent Kay Ivey, who has a significant financial advantage in addition to having the name recognition that comes with being an incumbent.
But don’t tell Burdette, 62, he doesn’t have a chance.
“There’s no doubt in my mind we’re going to win,” Burdette said.
The Vestavia Hills resident and president of King’s Home in Chelsea expects a runoff and said he plans to be in it. “I look forward to that challenge,” he said.
Burdette said he wants to bring change and be a “disruptor” in Montgomery. For decades, Alabama has ranked near the bottom in almost every category, and it’s time for that to change, he said.
“I just love this state,” Burdette said. “The older I get, the more I love it. It breaks my heart we’re still at the bottom. It just doesn’t have to be that way.”
As a political outsider, Burdette said no one controls him. As he puts it, the “tentacles of Montgomery” are nowhere near him. His history at King’s Home, which cares for moms and kids fleeing domestic violence, has given him opportunities to care for people, and he wants to combine that with “strong, bold leadership” to improve the state, addressing issues like mental health and more, he said.
Burdette said the state needs to take a more proactive approach to solving problems.
“I don’t ever see us out in front of issues,” he said.
The state also has not been a stranger to scandals due to corruption, and Burdette said there must be a “new approach.” To avoid becoming indebted to political action committees or special interest groups, he has capped donations to his campaign at $10,000 and issued a challenge to other candidates to do the same.
“That’s what we need to be standing up for,” Burdette said.
Kidnapped, shot and stabbed
Burdette grew up in the small Alabama town of Roanoke, but his childhood took a dramatic turn when he was a teenager. When he was 15 years old, two men kidnapped him, hoping his father, who owned a grocery store, would pay a ransom. Eventually, they stabbed and shot him, leaving him in a well for dead.
“You just never expect that as a kid,” Burdette said. “What unfolded after that was an experience nobody can ever predict.”
Burdette knew of his attackers and assumed they were mad at him for having a date that night with a girl from the nearby town of Wadley, where they lived. He learned their true desire was to get $250,000 from his father, and he knew that wasn’t possible.
When he was down in the well, his attackers fired shots at him before eventually leaving. Burdette felt himself sinking into the dirt and did not expect to make it out alive. But then, while reaching around, his hand found a hole, and he was able to slowly crawl his way out of the well to a nearby home, which happened to be the home of one of the attacker’s grandmothers. When the attackers walked back in the home, Burdette identified them as his attackers, and they ran away but were captured later.
Following a miraculous recovery, Burdette said he learned to not take life for granted, and his faith in God was strengthened.
“I was too weak to survive,” Burdette said. “It was God’s strength that got me out.”
Despite suffering greatly at the hands of his attackers, Burdette knows they have now served their time in prison and have stayed out of trouble since then. They are an example of why prison reform is so needed, he said.
“We all make mistakes,” Burdette said. “We need a path to success. That’s what I want for everyone. We don’t talk about that. We talk about building prisons.”
Burdette offered ideas such as incentivizing inmates earning degrees and certificates, possibly earning time off their sentences and being better able to contribute to society upon release.
That same lesson of trusting in God and leaning on faith in hard times that he learned as a teenager is what Burdette spent years teaching at King’s Home.
Burdette said he saw God change lives at King’s Home and has “loved every minute of being there.
“We want them to set big goals,” Burdette said of those who come to King’s Home. “You can go to college; you can go to the military.”
That career followed his time at Books-A-Million, where he climbed the ladder from sales associate to CEO. That experience will help him in Montgomery, where he said a strong business mind is needed.
I just love this state. The older I get, the more I love it. It breaks my heart we’re still at the bottom. It just doesn’t have to be that way.
Lew Burdette
Education a priority
Burdette’s wife, Susie, is also looking forward to helping move Alabama forward if her husband wins this November. With a background in health care and a previous stint on the Vestavia Hills Board of Education, she wants to focus on improving Alabama’s hospitals and schools.
Education is a priority for Lew, as well.
“It breaks my heart to see kids at King’s Home, 13, 14 years old who can’t read,” Burdette said. “We can’t just pass kids through.”
While not in love with the idea of an education lottery, he is open to talking with people on both sides of that debate, so long as the money raised clearly goes to education, he said.
“Let’s do it the right way,” Burdette said.
On the issue of the Alabama Literacy Act, Burdette said while teachers and students have to be held accountable, “kids can’t go to school hungry.” The issues of poverty and health care impact a child’s ability to learn, and there might be a better way outside of holding a child back in third grade. Burdette mentioned a success program that is part of Shelby County schools where students who are behind can do two years’ worth of work in one year and remain on grade level.
“Don’t hold them back for holding back’s sake,” Burdette said.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, Burdette said students are suffering with mental health issues, along with the rest of the state.
“Kids are struggling … in ways that I’ve never seen before in 19 years at King’s Home,” Burdette said. “They’re seeing anger in society. That’s why we’ve got to have a message of hope for this state. And really, we need a message of hope for this nation, that it can be better.
“We’ve got to come together as a nation and stop all the divisiveness,” Burdette said.
Burdette said voters won’t hear a “divisive” message from him, and while he is unashamedly conservative, he “remembers a time when Democrats and Republicans could sit at the table together.”
Burdette said he wants to replace the “spineless politicians” in Montgomery, which he said includes Republicans who refuse to stand up for the Constitution and want to pick and choose which laws to enforce.
Burdette said he wants to repeal the gas tax enacted by Ivey and questioned why a Republican would raise taxes. He’d also like to change the grocery tax, claiming it hurts low-income citizens.
“We can come up with better ways to raise revenue,” Burdette said.
Immigration
On immigration, Burdette claimed in a social media post in the early days of his campaign that a now-stalled voting rights bill touted by President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders would have enrolled undocumented immigrants as voters. That claim, spread by former Vice President Mike Pence, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and others, has been debunked by the Migration Policy Institute, the Campaign Legal Center, CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale, Politifact and factcheck.org. While the bill, according to numerous fact-checkers, would have automatically created or updated someone’s voter registration information when citizens interacted with other governmental agencies, their citizenship status still would have had to be verified.
Burdette said it’s hard to know who to believe in today’s world, even among fact checkers. He added while a majority of Americans do not want undocumented immigrants to have the right to vote, a legal path to citizenship is needed. It should be “common sense” and “efficient,” he said. Still, the laws should be changed if they need to be changed, not simply disregarded, he said.
“I’m so passionate about that,” Burdette said.
The road ahead for Burdette’s campaign might be tough, but he said he believes “with God, all things are possible.
“We’ve got to believe God,” Burdette said. “There’s a path that’s going to be cleared for us to win.”
Burdette wants to bring a message of hope to all of Alabama, that the state can rise above last or near-last place and be a great state.
“People in this state have lost hope in state government,” Burdette said. “We have to show … there is hope. We do not have to accept the status quo any longer.”
For more information on Burdette’s campaign, visit lewin22.com.
