William Allain

Infobox Governor


name= William Allain
caption=
order=59^th
office= Governor of Mississippi
term_start= January 1984
term_end= January 1988
lieutenant= Brad Dye
predecessor= William Winter
successor= Ray Mabus
birth_date= birth date and age|1928|02|14
birth_place= Washington, Mississippi
death_date=
death_place=
party= Democratic
religion=Roman Catholic
footnotes=

William A. "Bill" Allain (born February 14, 1928) is a Mississippi politician who served as governor of that state as a Democrat from 1984 to 1988.

Allain was born in Washington, Mississippi. He attended the University of Notre Dame and graduated from law school from the University of Mississippi. Allain served in the United States infantry in the Korean War. After the war, he practiced law in Natchez, Mississippi until his appointment as assistant state attorney general in 1962.

Allain was elected state attorney general in 1979 and earned a reputation as a consumer advocate, fighting utility rate increases and stopping the storage of nuclear waste in Mississippi. He also fought the powerful Mississippi Legislature, which for decades had diluted executive branch power by appointing legislators to executive department boards and commissions. The Mississippi Supreme Court, at Allain's insistence, struck the practice as a violation of the constitutional principle of Separation of Powers. The resulting decision, Allain vs. Alexander, is sometimes referred to as "Mississippi's Marbury vs. Madison," after the landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court which delineated the powers of the three branches of the federal government. Allain's efforts strengthened the Mississippi executive and streamlined Mississippi's political processes.

Allain ran for Governor in 1983. His main opponent was Clarksdale Republican planter Leon Bramlett. Bramlett was known as a champion of the most conservative elements of Mississippi's then-small Republican party. For most of the campaign, Bramlett proved to be a lackluster campaigner who largely campaigned on generalities about improving education and bringing business and government together to work harmoniously. Against his background as a wealthy Mississippi Delta-region planter and in contrast to Allain's much publicized-record as a consumer advocate, this approach had little appeal to most Mississippians.

With only a few weeks to go before the election, the contest appeared to be over. Then allegations arose that Allain engaged in improper acts with male transvestite prostitutes. Supporters of Bramlett invested a large effort into publicizing the allegations, which had the effect of appalling the voting public. Allain and his supporters largely controlled the subsequent course of events, nothing definitive was proven either way, and Allain won the election easily and the allegations were recanted after the election.

Some of his family is from the Louisiana region.