WILLIAM JELKS CABANISS, JR., of Birmingham, Alabama, is
former United States Ambassador to the Czech Republic (2004-2006). Subsequent to his
graduation from Vanderbilt University and his service in the United States Army
in Germany, Cabaniss returned to Birmingham. After working several jobs for a
few years, Mr. Cabaniss acquired the assets of a small sheet metal grinding
company and built it into a successful enterprise serving other businesses in the Southeast.
As his own company’s salesman, he traveled the Southeast
looking for contract work. Over the first six or seven years of this
routine he learned that other southeastern states were beneficiaries of
plant relocations from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt, with Alabama excluded. Why?
Cabaniss’s prospective clients told him that it was difficult for them to conduct business within the State of Alabama due to its
anti-business posture by state government officials and the severity of Alabama’s tort laws.
Alabama was a plaintiff lawyer’s paradise in the 1960s and 1970s and continued to be through the 1990s. Sensing a
challenge to do something about this anti-business condition in his home state, Cabaniss set
about doing something about it.
In 1978 William J. Cabaniss, Jr. ran and won a seat in the Alabama
House of Representatives from the suburban Birmingham town of Mountain Brook.
Four years later he was elected to the Alabama Senate and re-elected in 1986.
This was all well and good except for the fact that he was a Republican in a
legislature composed of more than 100 Democrats.
Cabaniss and the three other Republicans, some
Independents, and a few conservative Democrats, could only stop bad bills from
sailing through the legislature. His persistence over time changed the thinking of many legislators. Cabaniss also wrote and submitted many ethics
reform and tort law reform bills. His legislative career was highlighted by his
care for beloved state of Alabama and its respect around the nation.
In 1990 Cabaniss ran an unsuccessful campaign against incumbent
United States Senator from Alabama, Howell Heflin.
In 2002-3 he managed the gubernatorial transition of
Alabama Governor Bob Riley. Many of Governor Riley’s cabinet and department
appointees were recommended by Bill Cabaniss. To this day William J. Cabaniss, Jr.
counsels sitting and future political officeholders in Alabama. When still
managing Riley’s transition, Cabaniss was nominated by President George W. Bush
to become U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic.
Bill and Catherine Cabaniss arrived in Prague in January, 2004.
My biography about Ambassador Cabaniss is primarily about his
personal integrity. There is also much Alabama history in it including stories about his historical, ancestral
progenitors. Cabaniss's father was a decorated World War II Navy officer who fought in the Battle of Leyte Gulf and the Battle of Okinawa. Alabama Governor William Dorsey Jelks (1901-1907) was Cabaniss's great uncle. Cabaniss is of French Huguenot heritage. It is an exciting book to read.
Follow these two links below to purchase the eBook, paperback, or hard cover version of William Jelks Cabaniss, Jr.: Crossing Lines
in His Business, Political, and Diplomatic Life.
