Jeff Sessions became attorney general back in January. Now, it’s almost Christmas and they’re finally getting around to the general election to fill the seat. Yes, there were primaries and runoff primaries, but holding an election in the middle of December is idiotic.
The only worse scheduled elections I can remember are a couple of Democratic caucuses that were held the Saturday of Easter Weekend.
There was a big turnout though.
I must suppose that the presumption was that there being a handpicked placeholder from the dominant party, it was not urgent. Had the seat had to remain vacant until election, they would have moved much faster for sure.
Governor Bentley originally scheduled for November 6, 2018, i.e. the next regularly scheduled general election. He claimed it would save money. As I recall, the Governor has the authority to schedule the election, and there is no firm deadline set by law.
Bentley then resigned due to an ongoing sex scandal. (Attorney General Luther Strange was investigating him for it. He thought he stopped the investigation by sending him to the Senate, but that wasn’t enough.)
Lt Governor Kay Ivey took over as Governor on April 10, and on April 18, she succumbed to the pressure to move up the Senate election. By that time, December may have been the earliest possible date. The primary was back in August 15, then runoff election on September 26 (Moore vs. Strange).
p.s. There was actually a lawsuit challenging Bentley’s decision to delay the Senate election to 2018:
The law actually says:
There was a lot of discussion about this. One could claim that the law says the Governor needs to order the election immediately, and he did - he ordered it to happen next year, but he did issue that order quickly.