Doug Jones: An unlikely senator, an example of integrity

Minutes after he learned that he had won his special election in December of 2017, Doug Jones took to the podium to celebrate his unlikely victory as Democrat in Alabama. Bon Jovi blared from loudspeakers for more than three minutes as the crowd cheered. When he finally opened his mouth Jones said “Y’all I feel like I have been waiting my whole life and now I don’t know what the hell to say!” His excitement was palpable — yes, most people are excited on the night they win an election but Jones was really really excited. Less than a year into the Trump presidency, he had won the senate seat vacated by Trump’s attorney general Jeff Sessions, thanks to a perfect storm of a spectacularly morally stained Republican nominee, and an incredible Democratic turnout effort (powered, as is so often the case, largely by Black women.)

Serving as a member of the U.S. Senate is generally not conducive to self-awareness. When Jones was first elected, it seemed possible that a guy who so clearly really wanted to be a senator would allow himself to be fooled by a cocktail of punditry and egotism into believing that he could thread a political needle by sacrificing his principles on key issues and votes. Instead, Doug Jones seemed to ignore the pundits and embrace the moment, and, knowing that his time might be short, he sought to be the kind of senator he wanted to be. He chose playing it principled over playing it safe. In doing so, he provided an example of integrity — integrity in the sense of preserving the moral coherence of his identity as a public servant — in an era in which far too few of our public leaders have done so. Jones made his name as a prosecutor seeking justice for racist murders during the civil rights movement, and in the senate he did not blow with political winds, he was honest with his constituents, and continued to be a voice of principle and an advocate for justice.

In 2018, his first year in office, polling found that there was only one state in the country where a majority opposed marriage equality: Alabama. Against this backdrop, Jones has treated his gay son, Carson, not as a political inconvenience but as an object of pride, talking openly about how his son’s coming out has influenced his family. Jones has pushed for a vote on the Equality Act in Congress and vocally opposed President Trump’s revocation of Obama-era guidance that allowed transgender individuals to serve openly in the military. Carson Jones, a zookeeper in Birmingham, has been a visible part of Jones’s campaigns, and penned an open letter to the people of Alabama in 2019 as Republicans in the state legislature were moving a bill to end all state marriage licenses (in order to avoid having to issue them to same sex couples).

Jones did not play games with the nominations of Brett Kavanaugh or Amy Coney Barrett, either of whom would have been confirmed regardless of his vote. Instead, he made earnest and honest efforts to communicate his concerns about the nominees to his constituents before voting no. Ditto on impeachment — no Susan Collins-esque handwringing from Jones — he called President Trump’s actions “very disturbing,” months before the impeachment vote and voted to convict when the time came, despite Trump’s popularity in his home state. Even on less visible questions, Jones has evidenced a thoughtfulness that many colleagues on both sides of the aisle lack. He voted against the confirmation of CIA director Gina Haspel, noting that her involvement in implementing Bush-era torture practices was disqualifying because “we must choose leaders that consistently embody our highest ideals, rather than our darkest moments.”

It’s not that Jones has sought to be a firebrand — his personal style and affect is more workhorse than showhorse, and he can rattle off a long list of the ways he has delivered for Alabamans on kitchen table issues. Jones simply paid no heed to the folks who talked incessantly about the tough politics of his reelection. Instead he put his head down and did the work, unburdened by politics, visibly delighting in his job, and making tough calls with a sense of gratitude and responsibility rather than regret.

Doug Jones lost his re-election bid tonight, but he secured an honorable place in history over the last three years. The conservative 18th century statesman Edmund Burke, in perhaps his most well-known words, offered that: “Your representative owes you not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.” For the last three years the people of Alabama have had a senator who has respectfully offered his industry and his judgment. To have such a senator has been the good fortune of even those who disagreed with him. As for Jones, he can leave the senate, an institution whose integrity is in question and norms are decaying, knowing that through his own behavior he set an example. His colleagues there could benefit from a little more attention to the Bon Jovi refrain that was the soundtrack to Jones’s victory party three years ago: “we weren’t born to follow, you gotta stand up for what you believe.”