Former three-term Alabama Sen. Howell Heflin, 83
Posted: Tuesday, March 29th, 2005 5:50 pmFormer U.S. Sen. Howell Heflin, a popular, joke-telling Alabama politician who served as chief justice before becoming an arbiter of senatorial behavior during three terms in Washington, has died, family and associates said Tuesday. He was 83. …
Heflin, a Democrat who spearheaded judicial reform in Alabama as chief justice, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1978 and retired after 18 years, serving on the Judiciary and Iran-Contra panels as well as chairing the ethics committee.
On the judiciary panel, he was remembered for joining in the bitterly contested votes that rejected the nominations of Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court and Alabama federal prosecutor Jeff Sessions to a federal judgeship. …
In the Senate, Heflin was something of an old-line southern Democrat and could be conservative on some issues and more liberal on others…
Heflin often found himself the subject of humor. While dinning with two female journalists from NBC on a hot summer day in 1994, he reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and pulled out a lady’s undergarments. … Read full obituary
