Doug Jones

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.

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.

Jones prosecuted Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr.. and Bobby Frank Cherry, two members of the Ku Klux Klan, for their roles in the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church bombing.

The case was reopened the year before Jones was appointed, but did not gain traction until his appointment.

Jones graduated from the University of Alabama with a Bachelor of Science in political science in 1976, and earned his Juris Doctor from Cumberland School of Law at Samford University in 1979.

He is a member of Beta Theta Pi.

Jones's political career began as staff counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee for Alabama Senator Howell Heflin.

Jones then worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorney from 1980 to 1984 before resigning to work at a private law firm in Birmingham, Alabama, from 1984 to 1997.

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.

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.

President Bill Clinton announced on August 18, 1997, his intent to appoint Jones as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, and formally nominated Jones to the post on September 2, 1997.

On September 8, 1997, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama appointed Jones as interim U.S. Attorney.

The Senate confirmed Jones' nomination on November 8, 1997, by voice vote.

In January 1998, Eric Rudolph bombed the New Woman All Women Health Care Center in Birmingham.

Jones was responsible for coordinating the state and federal task force in the aftermath, and advocated that Rudolph be tried first in Birmingham before being extradited and tried in Georgia for his crimes in that state, such as the Centennial Olympic Park bombing.

A federal grand jury was called in 1998, which caught the attention of Cherry's ex-wife, Willadean Cherry, and led her to call the FBI to give her testimony.

Willadean then introduced Jones to family and friends, who reported their own experiences from the time of the bombing.

A key piece of evidence was a tape from the time of the bombing in which Blanton said he had plotted with others to make the bomb.

Jones was deputized to argue in state court and indicted Blanton and Cherry in 2000.

He returned to private practice at the conclusion of Clinton's presidency in 2001.

Blanton was found guilty in 2001 and Cherry in 2002.

Both were sentenced to life in prison.

Cherry died in prison in 2004.

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.

His margin of defeat was the largest of an incumbent senator since 2010.

In January 2021, he joined CNN as a political commentator.

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.

In February 2022, the Biden administration named him as a nomination advisor for legislative affairs, advising the president on Supreme Court nominations.

Doug Jones was born in Fairfield, Alabama to Gordon and Gloria (Wesson) Jones.

His father worked at U.S. Steel and his mother was a homemaker.

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.

Jones won the special election by 22,000 votes, 50%–48%.

Jones ran for a full term in 2020 and lost to Republican nominee Tommy Tuberville in a landslide.