He previously served as an assistant attorney general and a legal adviser to both Republican governors Bob Riley and Fob James.
King credits his interest in politics to being told at age 10 by his father that a canceled family vacation was the fault of President Jimmy Carter (D-GA).
[3] In January 2005, King filed a suit against 79 of the nation's leading pharmaceutical companies for defrauding the State Medicaid agency.
He continued to wear the bracelet until the Legislature passed tougher laws requiring the monitoring of parolees and convicted sex offenders.
[10] In 2006, King asked the United States Department of the Interior to deny an application by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians to expand their gaming operations in Alabama.
[15] Both the governor and the attorney general filed briefs before the Alabama Supreme Court asking for a decision on the legality of the machines.
King felt the decision helped his position, but noted questions still lingered when he spoke to the Birmingham News: ""We have a clearer test.
More challenges and more lawsuits were expected and King reiterated his feeling that the only long term solution to gambling is for the Legislature to "give the people of Alabama the chance to vote yes or no.
"[18] On May 21, 2010, the Alabama Supreme Court handed down a finalized ruling that answered lingering questions in the gambling debate between King and Governor Riley.
The incident led a wide, bipartisan coalition of local district attorneys, as well as newspaper editorials, to criticize King.
[27] He launched investigations into Bullock, Jackson and Lowndes counties but claimed obstruction by the federal government,[28] prompting the Mobile Press-Register to publish an editorial calling for the Department of Justice to cooperate with King.
[29] After his appointment as attorney general in 2004, King replaced his predecessor former Alabama Attorney General William H. Pryor, Jr. as defendant in Williams v. Morgan,[30] which unsuccessfully sought to enjoin the state of Alabama from enforcing the Anti-Obscenity Enforcement Act of 1998, a law prohibiting the sale of any "device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs" (commonly known as "sex toys").
[32] This stance was praised by certain religious groups but subjected him to considerable criticism from editorial writers and civil liberties advocates, one of which mailed King an inflatable pig sex toy.
It later emerged that King asked Johnson for community college system financial support for Victims of Crime and Leniency (VOCAL), an international advocacy group composed of Alabama families who have been addressing crime victims' needs [34]—and a group which has supported King.
[36] In early 2007, an investigative article published by The Birmingham News revealed that King and a group from his church had accepted free tickets, food and skybox access to an Atlanta Braves baseball game from Alabama Power Company the previous season.
[citation needed] In 2008, an investigative story by The Birmingham News reviewed the salaries paid by King to members of his staff.
The department's chief of staff said that the aide in question traveled extensively with the attorney general and "is almost indispensable in terms of the many functions he carries out in this office."