Bert Nettles

Albert Sheffield "Bert" Nettles
Alabama State Representative for Mobile County
In office 1969–1974
Born	May 6, 1936 Monroeville, Monroe County, Alabama
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Elizabeth D. Nettles
Children	Mary Katherine Nettles Willis Jane Elizabeth Nettles Nagle Susan S. Nettles Han Anne Nettles Stanford Parents: George Lee and Blanche Sheffield Nettles
Residence	Birmingham, Alabama Formerly: Mobile, Alabama
Alma mater	University of Alabama UA Law School
Occupation	Attorney
Religion	Episcopalian
Military Service
Service/branch	United States Army
Years of service	1960-1967
Rank	Second Lieutenant and then Captain in the Army Reserve

Albert Sheffield Nettles, known as Bert Nettles (born May 6, 1936), is an attorney from Birmingham, Alabama, who served from 1969 to 1974 as a Republican state representative for Mobile, then his city of residence. He is one of the first members of his party to have held a state legislative seat in Alabama since Reconstruction though Tandy Little of the capital city of Montgomery and two other Republicans had been elected for single terms in 1962.^[1]

Background[edit]

Nettles is the youngest of four sons of George Lee Nettles (1894-1969) and the former Blanche Sheffield (1908-1995).^[2] He was born in Monroeville in Monroe County in south Alabama. His brothers are David Miller Nettles (1930-1981), George Clay Nettles of Chevy Chase, Maryland (born 1932), and Dr. Joe Lee Nettles (1933-2017), an orthopedic surgeon in Savannah, Georgia.^[3] The setting of the 1960 Harper Lee novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Monroeville is located halfway between Mobile on the Gulf Coast and Montgomery.^[4]

Nettles graduated in 1958 from the University of Alabama and in 1960^[5][6] from the university's law school, both institutions located in Tuscaloosa. Thereafter, he was admitted to the bar and worked briefly in Montgomery for the office of the state attorney general, MacDonald Gallion (1913-2007), before he joined a law firm in Mobile.^[4] From 1960 to 1961, he was a second lieutenant in the peacetime United States Army and then a captain in the Army Reserve until 1967, by the time the United States had fought for three years in Vietnam.^[6]

Nettles is an Episcopalian. From 1983 to 1988, he was the chancellor of the Episcopal Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast, and from 2000 to 2003, he was assistant chancellor of the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama.^[5]

Nettles and his wife, Elizabeth D. Nettles (born 1941), have four daughters, Mary Katherine Nettles Willis, Jane Elizabeth Nettles Nagle, Susan S. Nettles Han, and Anne Nettles Stanford.^[7]

Political life[edit]

In 1964, state Representative Nettles supported Barry Goldwater of Arizona for U.S. President, the first Republican since Reconstruction to win the electoral votes of Alabama. However, Nettles is a Moderate Republican, unlike the Goldwater conservatives that dominated the Alabama party during the 1960s. Nettles was elected to the Mobile County Republican Executive Committee and was the chairman of the state convention in 1968,^[4] at which Perry Oliver Hooper, Sr. (1925-2016), a conservative probate judge from Montgomery and later the Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, was nominated for an unsuccessful run for the United States Senate against former Lieutenant Governor James B. Allen of Gadsden, a conservative Democrat.^[8]

In 1966, Nettles ran unsuccessfully for the state Senate against the Democrat Pierre Pelham, a graduate of Harvard Law School, an old-school orator, and an ally of George C. Wallace, who served four nonconsecutive terms as governor of Alabama, known for his segregationist stance, which he later abandoned. The Republican nominees for governor and the U.S. Senate, James Douglas Martin (1918-2017) and John Grenier, respectively, lost badly, but the three incumbent Republican members of the United States House of Representatives survived, including Jack Edwards of Mobile. Three years later in 1969, Nettles won a special election for state representative with 53 percent of the vote; for nearly two years, he was the only Republican member of the legislature until after the 1970 general election, when he was joined by a second GOP member. Nettles was elected for a full term in 1970 even as the Democrat George Wallace claimed a second nonconsecutive term as governor after he narrowly defeated in a runoff election Albert Preston Brewer (1928-2017), who had succeeded to the governorship upon the death of the first Mrs. Wallace, the former Lurleen Burns (1926-1968). George Wallace then faced no Republican opponent, but he came to Mobile to campaign unsuccessfully against Nettles.^[4]

As a legislator, Nettles became the first Alabama lawmaker to call for lowering the voting age to eighteen, prior to ratification of the 26th Amendment to the United States Constitution. He worked to resolve a long-simmering dispute over the regulation of the sale of milk in Alabama. He worked to pass laws to guarantee the quality of air and water. He worked to prevent House members with conflicts of interest from voting on legislation which impacts their personal financial status. Nettles supported increased expenditures for public education and called for a national constitutional convention to establish the legality of the neighborhood-school concept. He worked for separation of powers among the state legislative, executive, and judicial branches.^[9] Nettles supported ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, opposed by most conservatives and rejected by the Alabama legislature.^[4]

In 1972, Nettles sought the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat John Sparkman. His opponents for the nomination were Winton Malcolm "Red" Blount, Sr. (1921-2002), the Montgomery industrialist who had stepped down as the last Postmaster General of the United States within the presidential Cabinet, and former U.S. Representative James D. Martin of Gadsden, who had lost the governor's race in 1966 to Lurleen Wallace, the first wife and the political stand-in for her husband, George Wallace. Both Blount, who won the nomination, and Martin ran to Nettles' political right in what was the first Republican primary election in Alabama history, held on May 2, 1972. Nettles himself had authored the bill to authorize Republican primaries at state expense, as had already been long provided for the Democratic Party.^[9]

Nettles won the endorsement of The Tuscaloosa News:

Mr. Nettles concluded years ago that a two-party system in Alabama had more to offer the state than one dominated by Democrats oftentimes fractured by dissent and disloyalty. And he felt a personal obligation to help achieve the better status. ... He has consistently voted for honesty in government, for progress in all segments. There have been times when he and a few others shouldered the responsibility of becoming the Alabama Legislature's conscience. ... He has done more to build a real Republican Party in our state than any other person. ... He should win the Republican nomination on the basis of integrity, ability, courage, and experience. The Mobile attorney is only 35, and not another one can approach his youthful vigor.^[9]

With Martin and Nettles eliminated from contention, Blount was nominated but handily defeated by Sparkman in the November 7 general election, in which U.S. President Richard M. Nixon crushed George McGovern in forty-nine states. Nixon had shunned the Blount campaign despite Blount's service as Nixon's Postmaster General because of past friendship with Senator Sparkman, who had been Nixon's Democratic opponent for [[Vice President of the United States in 1952.^[10]

In a 1974 interview with Jack Bass (born 1834) and Walter DeVries (1929-2019), Nettles said that the GOP needed to attract urban and African-American voters to become competitive statewide.

I don't see how any Republican in a county wide - certainly state wide-position, can win consistently without a good support among the black community. ... You just can't cut out one large segment of the state. Cut them out almost completely. And then hope to win two thirds for three fourths of the remaining segment. In an area that's traditionally been Democratic. I think that's very short-sighted philosophy ...^[4]

Nettles argued that the moderate approach he advocated could produce slow but solid GOP growth while a conservative theme could "score some dramatic upsets when the Democrats are in disarray" but spell a "dismal long-term future."^[11]

However, the Alabama GOP gained majority status early in the 21st century without ever winning the significant urban and black backing that Nettles had long thought essential to success.

Later years[edit]

Nettles later moved his law practice from Mobile to Birmingham. Formerly affiliated with Haskell Slaughter Young & Rediker, LLC, Nettles in February 2014 joined the Hand-Arendall firm. He has worked for four different state attorneys general to handle several complicated civil lawsuits. He is the longtime counsel to the Alabama Insurance Underwriting Association. He is listed among the "Best Lawyers in America for Insurance Law."^[5]

In 2019, Nettles received the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award for his success as a lawyer. He has been named to "Best Lawyers in America." ^[6]

References[edit]