Election leaves Alabama-shaped hole on Senate Armed Services Committee

Defense News: WASHINGTON — Tuesday’s election of Doug Jones to the U.S. Senate means aerospace powerhouse Alabama is due to lose a strong voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee for the first time in 20 years.

Known as the “Cotton State,” Alabama’s economic engine is aerospace. And its interests were represented on the SASC by Republican Jeff Sessions from 1998 until President Donald Trump appointed Sessions as U.S. attorney general, and Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange took his seat in the Senate and on the committee.

“It’s going to be a loss to our state to lose our seat on the Armed Services Committee, because Hunstville is so dependent on that,” Strange said Wednesday. “So I’m hopeful that those interests will be represented.”

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