The 195 fight to save Fort McClellan was doomed before the public.docVIP

The Last Battle for Fort McClellan An Examination of Glen Browders Experience in Base Closure Politics Geni Certain Jacksonville State University For presentation to the Alabama Political Science Association April 29, 2006 I didnt go to Washington to fight the Battle of Fort McClellan, former U.S. Rep. Glen Browder reflected in 2005, ten years after he had lost the battle to keep the base in his home district open. Browder, in fact, fought to save the fort four times during his seven years in Congress, but the final battle was lost before the public knew it had begun. Browder was the Washington point man in a broad local effort which began months before the Defense Department released its 1995 base-closings list. He knew from the beginning that the effort had little chance of success but that the last battle for Fort McClellan was one he had to lead. Even as he prepared his arguments and lined up allies in Washington, he counseled the folks back home to prepare for life without the fort. Ultimately, his struggle to save the doomed base delayed Browders entry into the 1996 race for a seat in the U.S. Senate, a major factor in his loss of the Democratic nomination for the seat. BRAC Background In the late 1980s, the U.S. Defense Department acknowledged that it had far more military bases than it needed. It had been unable to close any bases for a decade because of political and environmental restrictions in the 1977 law governing base closings. The end of the Cold War and a declining national economy dictated that the Department of Defense close a large number of bases as a means of reducing long-term defense spending, so in 1988 Congress passed a law establishing a commission whose 12 members would be appointed by the secretary of defense and who would report to him. The defense secretary would approve the commissions recommendations and forward them to Congress, which could only accept or reject the list in its entirety. This first Base C