Chuck Norris endorses ex-judge Moore in Alabama GOP Senate primary

TV star Chuck Norris on Monday made an endorsement in the Alabama Senate GOP primary, backing a controversial former judge who once was removed from his seat for refusing to take down a monument of the Ten Commandments.

The “Walker, Texas Ranger” star threw his support behind former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, saying Moore is “tough, tested and has a spine of steel,” according to local CBS affiliate WKRG.

{mosads}“The Washington establishment knows they won’t be able to count on him, but Alabama voters can,” Norris said. “Judge Moore has never backed down from standing for what is right, and that’s exactly what he’ll do in the U.S Senate. That’s why the Washington establishment is spending millions trying to defeat Judge Moore.”

Norris, a longtime Republican who was born in Oklahoma and lives in Texas, has endorsed other Republican candidates in the past, including the presidential campaigns of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).

Moore is currently leading in the polls in Alabama, with 30 percent support in a new survey Monday. Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.) trails him at 22 percent, followed by Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) with 19 percent. The Aug. 15 primary is for a special election to serve out the remainder Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s term; Strange, Alabama’s former attorney general, was appointed by then-Gov. Robert Bentley (R) upon Sessions’s confirmation earlier this year. 

In 2003, Moore was removed as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court when he refused to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from a judicial building despite a federal court’s order.