Doug Jones (politician)

Doug Jones
Official portrait, 2018
United States Senator from Alabama
In office January 3, 2018 – January 3, 2021
Preceded by	Luther Strange
Succeeded by	Tommy Tuberville
United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama
In office September 8, 1997 – January 20, 2001
President	Bill Clinton
Preceded by	Claude Harris Jr.
Succeeded by	Alice Martin
Personal details
Born	Gordon Douglas Jones (1954-05-04) May 4, 1954 (age 69) Fairfield, Alabama, U.S.
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Louise New ​ (m. 1992)​
Children	3
Education	University of Alabama (BS) Samford University (JD)
Signature
Website	Campaign website
Doug Jones's voice Doug Jones recites an excerpt of Letter from Birmingham Jail on the Senate floor Recorded April 10, 2019

Gordon Douglas Jones (born May 4, 1954) is an American attorney and politician who served as a United States senator from Alabama from 2018 to 2021.^[1][2] A member of the Democratic Party, Jones was previously the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 1997 to 2001.

Jones was born in Fairfield, Alabama, and is a graduate of the University of Alabama and Cumberland School of Law at Samford University. After law school, he worked as a congressional staffer and as a federal prosecutor before moving to private practice. In 1997, President Bill Clinton appointed Jones as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. Jones's most prominent cases were the successful prosecution of two Ku Klux Klan members for the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four African-American girls and the indictment of domestic terrorist Eric Rudolph. He returned to private practice at the conclusion of Clinton's presidency in 2001.

Jones announced his candidacy for United States Senate in the 2017 special election following the resignation of Republican incumbent Jeff Sessions to become U.S. Attorney General. After winning the Democratic primary in August, he faced former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore in the general election. Jones was considered a long-shot candidate in a deeply Republican state. A month before the election, Moore was alleged to have sexually assaulted and otherwise acted inappropriately with several women, including some who were minors at the time.^[3] Jones won the special election by 22,000 votes, 50%–48%.^[4]

At the time, Jones was the only statewide elected Democrat in Alabama and the first Democrat to win statewide office since Lucy Baxley was elected President of the Alabama Public Service Commission in 2008. Democrats had not represented Alabama in the U.S. Senate since 1997, when Howell Heflin left office. Jones was considered a fairly moderate Democrat, who supported reproductive and LGBT rights but demonstrated a willingness to work with Republicans and split with his party on certain issues.^[5] Jones ran for a full term in 2020 and lost to Republican nominee Tommy Tuberville in a landslide. His margin of defeat was the largest of an incumbent senator since 2010.^[6]

In January 2021, he joined CNN as a political commentator.^[7] Jones was a fellow at the Georgetown University's Institute of Politics and Public Service during the spring 2021 academic semester, and was a distinguished Pritzker Fellow at the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics during the fall of 2022.^[8] In February 2022, the Biden administration named him as a nomination advisor for legislative affairs, advising the president on Supreme Court nominations.^[1]