Bob Vance visited Selma to discuss his Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice campaign.

Vance, D-Birmingham, faces Tom Parker, R-Montgomery, in the Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice race on Nov. 6.

Vance, currently the Jefferson County Circuit Judge, stopped by The Selma Times-Journal on Wednesday during a campaign stop in Dallas County.

On Monday, Vance’s campaign received a huge boost with the endorsement of six Alabama Supreme Court justices, including three Republicans, signed a letter to endorse him.  The Republicans are former Chief Justice Drayton Nabers, former Associate Justice Tom Woodall and former Acting Chief Justice Gorman Houston. The Democrats are former Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb and former associate justices John England and Mark Kennedy.

Vance, 57, said their endorsements meant a lot.

“On a personal level, it meant a great deal,” Vance said. “I respect those justices. In my campaign, there’s no place for politics. The bi-partisan show of support explains that reasoning. We don’t worry about politics.”

Vance’s family is deeply entrenched in state politics. His father, Judge Robert S. Vance, served as chairman for the Alabama Democratic Party and worked alongside the Civil Rights Movement.  The elder Vance was assassinated in 1989 when he opened a package that contained a bomb sent to his Mountain Brook home.

Vance’s wife, Joyce Vance, served eight years as U.S. Attorney for the state’s northern District under then-President Barack Obama.

For Vance, funding for Alabama’s judicial branch tops his list of priorities. Budget cuts in the state have led to job cuts.

“We need to make sure we’ve got finances,” Vance said. “When we don’t have the resources we need, we get jury weeks canceled. We get things pushed back. Cases get delayed. People don’t get the comfort of that closure. It affects a lot of people when courts aren’t functioning as they need to be.”

Vance said he is also concerned about politics entering the courts.

“We need to make sure we get politics out of the courtroom,” Vance said. “If you go into a courtroom, you deserve a fair opportunity to be heard. The Chief Justice has to embody that and bring people together. My opponent, Tom Parker, doesn’t seem to want to bring people together.”

Vance said he’s in better position to win the position unlike the 2012 race, losing narrowly to Roy Moore. He stepped into the campaign two months before the election after the Democratic party removed Harry Lyon, via a subcommittee vote, for violating the party’s code of ethics.