U.S. Rep. Jo Bonner, R-Mobile, sat down for an extended interview in March 2009 to discuss his early years representing south Alabama in Congress, his most difficult vote in office, and a decision that kept him out of a high-profile statewide race the following year.
Bonner, who succeeded his former boss Sonny Callahan in the seat in January 2003, said the shift from a Republican-controlled Washington to one led by a Democratic Congress and a new Democratic president changed his daily work in the House. He said the early months of the Obama administration brought what he described as an aggressive expansion of federal spending, pointing to the roughly $1.1 trillion economic stimulus package passed in February 2009 as an example of policy he opposed.
A Difficult Vote on the Bank Bailout
Bonner said his most consequential vote of the previous year was his support for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the bank bailout package known as TARP, in the fall of 2008. He said that if the vote had come down purely to constituent sentiment, he would have voted no — noting that Alabama’s two U.S. senators at the time, Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby, both opposed the measure.
According to Bonner, his decision turned on private briefings he and other members of Congress received warning that the country’s banking system was on the verge of a broader collapse. He said he was told at the time that Washington Mutual and Wachovia, the bank that had recently been SouthTrust before a merger, were both at risk of failing within days if Congress did not act. Wachovia did fail within that window, he said. Bonner said he also called dozens of bank presidents and business leaders in his district before the vote and came away convinced that credit markets had frozen even as day-to-day business in Mobile appeared normal.
Looking back from March 2009, Bonner said he believed the rollout of TARP funds after the vote had strayed from what Congress was initially told the money would be used for, and that he considered the initial explanation from then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson a disservice to the public. He said he voted against the subsequent TARP II measure, the stimulus package and the omnibus spending bill that followed.
Weighing a Run for Governor
Bonner also described weighing, and ultimately declining, a run for governor in the 2010 election, an option he said was pushed by supporters largely from outside his south Alabama district, including Huntsville, Birmingham and Dothan. He said he spent much of December 2008 reviewing state budget history across multiple administrations to gauge whether he was prepared for the job.
He said the deciding factor was time away from his family, recalling a hunting trip with his young son that made clear to him the toll a statewide campaign, and eventually the governor’s office, would take on time with his children. Bonner praised Gov. Bob Riley’s tenure and said he wanted to see a successor who could build on it.
The Fight Over the Air Force Tanker Contract
Bonner also addressed the long-running competition over the Air Force’s KC-X aerial refueling tanker contract, a decision with direct stakes for Mobile, where Northrop Grumman and EADS had proposed building an assembly line. He said U.S. Rep. John Murtha, then chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, had raised the idea of splitting the contract between the Northrop Grumman/EADS team and Boeing during a visit to Mobile, and later delivered the same message to Boeing employees in Seattle. Bonner said Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Boeing itself were both opposed to a split award, and that he personally favored allowing both manufacturers to build competing tanker fleets rather than splitting a single contract, warning that further delay risked leaving the Air Force flying refueling planes that were many decades old.
On foreign policy, Bonner discussed a trip to Iraq, his third since taking office, where he said he saw visible signs of improved security and commerce compared to earlier visits. He also described a first trip to Afghanistan, calling it a far more difficult environment given the country’s poverty, low literacy rate and fractured tribal geography, as U.S. and allied forces prepared for a troop increase under the Obama administration.
Bonner went on to serve Alabama’s 1st Congressional District, which includes Mobile and Baldwin counties, for over a decade before leaving Congress in 2013.