Steve Marshall is the 48th attorney general of Alabama, having been appointed in February 2017 by Governor Robert J. Bentley to fill the vacancy caused by previous attorney general Luther Strange's appointment to the United States Senate. He previously served as district attorney in Marshall County for 16 years.
In 2001, on the retirement of Ronald Thompson, he was appointed District Attorney for Marshall County by Governor Don Siegelman, the second youngest district attorney in the state at the time. Marshall was unopposed in three subsequent elections. As district attorney, he assisted in passage of the Brody Act, which makes injury to a fetus an offense punishable in addition to any injury to the mother, and of a state law requiring a driver's license for the purchase of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, ingredients used in manufacturing crystal meth.
Marshall was appointed Attorney General of Alabama by disgraced Governor Robert J. Bentley in February 2017, to fill the vacancy caused by Luther Strange's appointment to the United States Senate. He was elected to a full term in 2018, defeating former attorney general Troy King in a July run-off election. In August 2017, after Birmingham mayor William A. Bell draped a Confederate memorial with plastic and surrounded it with plywood with the rationale "This country should in no way tolerate the hatred that the KKK, neo-Nazis, fascists and other hate groups spew", Marshall sued Bell and the city for violating the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act, which prohibits the "relocation, removal, alteration, or other disturbance of any monument on public property that has been in place for 40 years or more". In July 2017, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton led a group of Republican attorneys general from nine other states, including Steve Marshall, plus Idaho governor Butch Otter, in threatening the Donald Trump administration that they would litigate if the president did not terminate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy that had been put into place by President Barack Obama. Tennessee attorney general Herbert Slatery subsequently reversed his position. In 2018, Marshall's opponent, Troy King, accused him of violating campaign finance laws by accepting money from a banned political action committee. In 2019, attorneys general from all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and all four U.S. territories were urged by the National Association of Attorneys General to support a bill, the Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act, sponsored by U.S. representative Ed Perlmutter, which would permit marijuana-related businesses in states and territories to use the banking system. The bill would facilitate collection of taxes levied on the $8.3 billion industry, reduce the danger of operating cash-only businesses and more effectively monitor the industry. Only Marshall and 16 other attorneys general did not support the measure. In June 2020, Marshall threatened to prosecute the city of Mobile and levy a $25,000 fine for removing the confederate memorial Statue of Raphael Semmes during George Floyd protests, if the removal became permanent. Marshall is co-chair of Alabama governor Kay Ivey's Opioid Overdose and Addiction Council.
In 2011, after serving for ten years as Marshall County district attorney, Marshall officially changed his political party affiliation from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party.
Personal life
Marshall is an elder at LifePoint Church in Albertville and has participated in missionary work in India. He was married to the former Bridgette Gentry, who took her own life on June 24, 2018, after "a long struggle with mental illness" and addictions. They have a daughter.
