If Barack Obama has given black politicians reason to reconsider shattering the glass ceiling, Artur Davis  may be the man — aside from the president himself — who has taken up the most audacious hammer. He hopes to become Alabama’s first black governor.

Davis, the black Democrat who has represented Alabama’s seventh district in Congress since 2003, is running a shrewd campaign, with Jere Beasley, who once served as lieutenant governor under George Wallace, as his campaign chairman.  Several polls have shown Davis either leading or keeping up with Republican contenders, while easily besting a Democratic challenger.

“We didn’t get into this race on a quixotic, last-minute whim,” Davis told me. “. . .The polling says my candidacy has established a foothold. The voters are judging me on the issues that a governor is going to deal with.”

Still, Davis has a tough job ahead of him if he is to persuade his state’s white voters, who view black politicians and Democrats with skepticism, to put him in the governor’s office, once held by a fiery segregationist named George Wallace.  While John Kerry received about 20 percent of the white vote in Alabama in 2004, Obama only pulled ten percent.

The state no longer automatically embraces candidates who use blatantly racist appeals, but it continues to support adamantly conservative  office-holders. Former Gov. Fob James, for example, once loped across a public stage mimicking an ape to accentuate his disdain for the theory of evolution. Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore  — known for his defiant insistence on public displays of the Ten Commandments — retains a sizable core of support and is running for governor.

But it’s not just a conservative white electorate that poses a challenge for Davis. It’s also an aging black political establishment that isn’t ready to give up its outsized role in political affairs. As Obama had to co-opt or outmaneuver older black political figures who had thrown their support to Hillary Clinton, Davis is having to contend with a longtime kingmaker named Joe Reed, 72, who has never shown any enthusiasm for the ambitions of the younger Davis, 42. Their uneasy relationship broke into open warfare recently, when Reed publicly berated Davis for being the only black House member who voted against health care reform legislation, suggesting Davis’ stance was a betrayal of black voters.

In truth, my home state of Alabama is among those whose citizens would benefit most from health care reform. About 31 percent of its residents under the age of 65 went without health insurance for all or part of 2007-08, according to a report by Families USA.

Still, Reed might have disagreed with Davis over health care reform without injecting racial undertones. But Reed— an egomaniac who has long enjoyed his role as the Bwana, or Big Man, in the state’s black electoral politics — is among those who still believe he has the authority to determine who is behaving in a manner which is appropriately “black.” That’s nonsense — an outdated and irrelevant standard that ought to be retired, much like Reed himself.

It’s no great surprise that Davis has to put up with criticism that suggests he is not authentically “black” — as Obama did. Like Obama, Davis is a post-civil-rights-era over-achiever with a law degree from Harvard University. (Davis also received his undergraduate degree from Harvard.) He tends to be thoughtful and analytic, without the bombast that the black old guard has come to expect from its self-appointed “leaders.”

But Obama showed that black gatekeepers no longer have the power they once did. Indeed, Davis shrewdly responded to Reed’s criticism by noting that Reed remained an enthusiastic backer of Hillary Clinton in last year’s Democratic primary, while Davis was an early Obama supporter.

The road to racial progress has never been sure and steady; it’s a potholed and unpredictable path. But whether or not Davis can make history as Alabama’s first black governor, he can made headway on racial equality just by ushering Reed and his cohort off the public stage.

Ever since the Freedom of Information Act was signed into law in 1966 gaining access to public records is guaranteed by the federal government in all 52 states including Texas. Everything from birth and death records, divorce and marriage records, to criminal and court records are freely available to the general public. So where do you find all these freely available Texas public records? Unfortunately this is where the law is of little help because these documents and records tend to be scattered across different governmental agencies on the local, state, and national levels. Getting those records is easy, simply go to the agency where there records are being kept and ask for them. The hard part is determining which agency has the records for the person you want information on. Let’s look at Texas and getting court records in that state. On the county level you just need to go to the local county court house and request any court or criminal records on an individual. It normally takes about 72 hours and you will gain possession of any and all records the Court Retriever was able to find. Here’s the catch; there are 254 counties in the state of Texas each with its own court house. Now add in all the municipal, state, and federal courts and you begin to see the problem. Each court house keeps its own records, which means if your person of interest has a record in more then one you will need to make a request at each court house. If this sounds like it could be a time consuming undertaking that you would rather not go through then you may want to consider the alternative; an internet data search service that accesses Texas public records with a simple click of the mouse that returns comprehensive results in a matter of seconds. These services do charge a small fee, usually in the $20-$40 range depending on the service and the amount of information you need. But the time savings make the price well worth it. And the good services allow you unlimited use of their search features for the lifetime of your membership. It’s like having your own personal private investigator inside your computer.

What happens if you become incapacitated?  Who can act on your behalf to take care of you and pay your expenses?  If you have not made provisions for these events, then a legal guardian, appointed and supervised by the Court, will make these decisions for you.  This process causes delay and can be quite costly.  These matters can be avoided with a carefully drawn Power of Attorney.

A Power of Attorney permits an individual (your “agent” or “attorney-in-fact”) to act your behalf. This delegation of authority can relate to medical directions and/or financial directions.  For purposes of this article, we will focus on the two board types of financial powers of attorney: (i) General Power of Attorney and (ii) Limited Power of Attorney.  

A General Power of Attorney, like its name implies, gives your agent the immediate authority to handle your financial affairs with little or no restrictions.  These matters could include paying your bills, accessing your bank accounts and managing your investments.  Unless specifically drafted otherwise, the authority under a General Power of Attorney ends upon incapacity or death. 

For this reason, General Powers of Attorney are often drawn to be “durable,” meaning that your agent can continue to act for you after incapacity, although the authority to act ends at death.  In other instances, an individual may recognize the importance of a General Power of Attorney, but may be uncomfortable granting immediate authority to act on his or her behalf.  Rather, he or she may desire assistance only upon the happening of a certain event, such as incapacity.  As a result, a General Power of Attorney can be drawn as “springing” so that the agent can spring into action only if an individual becomes incapacitated.

A Limited Power of Attorney gives your agent a limited or special authority to perform certain acts for you.  Common uses of a Limited Power of Attorney include handling a real estate transaction and addressing tax matters (which are often permitted only with use of an IRS approved form).  By their very nature, Limited Powers of Attorney generally end when the action required of your agent is complete.

To be effective, a Power of Attorney should be carefully worded, and you should seek the assistance of an attorney who routinely advises clients on these matters.