38 Facts About William Allain

William A Allain was an American politician and lawyer who held office as the 59th governor of Mississippi as a Democrat from 1984 to 1988.

William Allain served in the US Army during the Korean War and practiced law in Natchez until he was appointed Assistant Attorney General of Mississippi in 1962.

The veracity of the allegations were disputed and William Allain won the election, but his credibility with the public was damaged and made it difficult for him to secure public support for his ideas as governor.

William Allain died there after becoming stricken with pneumonia in 2013.

William Allain was born in Washington in Adams County, Mississippi, United States on February 14,1928.

William Allain was educated in county public schools and graduated from Natchez High School.

William Allain studied pre-law at University of Notre Dame and enrolled at the University of Mississippi School of Law in 1948, graduating with a law degree in May 1950.

William Allain opened a law office in Natchez later that year, though upon the outbreak of the Korean War he enlisted in the United States Army infantry.

William Allain was a member of the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars.

William Allain married Dorus Johnson in 1964 and divorced her in 1970.

William Allain continued to practice law until he was appointed Assistant Attorney General of Mississippi in 1962.

William Allain helped to represent the state to the federal government during the integration of the University of Mississippi and in the Conner v Johnson reapportionment cases.

In 1979 William Allain sought election to the office of Attorney General of Mississippi.

Two days before the election date, Pickering's campaign organization ran a series of radio ads in black-majority communities which accused William Allain of opposing civil rights for blacks throughout his career and being a former member of a Citizens' Council.

William Allain's campaign publicized the ads further and denounced them as "gutter tactics", with the hopes of assuaging blacks' possible concerns while garnering support from conservative whites.

In Jackson, William Allain was slated to appear at the same hotel room as his opponent.

William Allain says one thing to the black community and another to the whites.

William Allain fought utility rate increases and stopped the storage of nuclear waste in Mississippi.

In December 1981 William Allain advised 36 members of the Mississippi State Legislature that they should be removed from executive boards in state government, arguing that their participation on these bodies violated the separation of powers language in the Mississippi Constitution.

The legislators concerned appealed the case to the Supreme Court of Mississippi, which unanimously affirmed the previous decision in Alexander v State of Mississippi by and Through Allain and ordered the legislators to vacate their executive positions.

In 1983 William Allain ran for the office of governor, facing five other candidates in the Democratic primary, including businessman Mike Sturdivant and former lieutenant governor Evelyn Gandy.

William Allain placed second in the Democratic primary and defeated Gandy in the primary runoff and faced Republican candidate Leon Bramlett in the general election.

William Allain ran a populist-style campaign, emphasizing his work as attorney to general to prevent utility rate increases.

Shortly thereafter, Bramlett's campaign declared that if William Allain passed three such tests the Republican would drop out of the race, while a group of businessmen demanded that both candidates take polygraph tests.

William Allain eventually took a polygraph test which supported his denials and his lawyer obtained an affidavit from one of the transvestite's parents, denouncing their son's credibility.

In January 1984 the transvestites reneged their stories, saying they had been paid for their testimonies, and William Allain's attorney said new polygraph test results showed they had lied in October.

William Allain was sworn-in as Governor of Mississippi on January 10,1984, becoming the first Roman Catholic to hold the office.

William Allain created an administrative task force of state agency heads to reduce the use of illegal drugs, leading to the interdiction and seizure of almost a ton of cocaine.

William Allain backed Steve Patterson's successful bid to become chairman of the Mississippi Democratic Party in May 1984.

William Allain instead lobbied for the leadership of the department to be placed in a director to be appointed by the governor.

The attorney general ruled against the takeover of the department but permitted William Allain to have its books audited.

Legislators introduced the bill at the open of their 1987 session, but William Allain proposed his own program the following day, which included four-lane highway construction, a reorganization of the highway department, and scrapped the tax hike in favor of a bond issue.

In 1985 Allain appointed Reuben V Anderson to the Mississippi Supreme Court, the first black man to ever sit on it.

William Allain appointed a 350-person Constitutional Study Commission, chaired by former governor James P Coleman.

The legislature scheduled two amendments for referendum in 1986, but though William Allain publicly endorsed a full convention in early 1987, the legislature never permitted one to be held.

William Allain did not indicate whether he intended to seek re-election, but let the June 5,1987 filing deadline for candidates pass without taking any action.

William Allain generally kept to himself in later years, and in 2009 lost much of his eyesight to glaucoma.

Unlike most Mississippi governors, William Allain did not have an official portrait painted of himself during his tenure, and one was not unveiled until 2018.