The Washington Post reports:

In the blue tide overtaking the country this week, Alabama voters elected the first openly gay sheriff. Democrat Brett Jones, in Madison County, defeated a two-term Republican incumbent to take over the law enforcement role. Jones is a former Navy SEAL who wrote a 2014 book about his experience of being gay in the military called “Pride: The Story of the First Openly Gay Navy SEAL.”

Jones, a police officer at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, campaigned on transparency, jail reform and discontinuing the county’s contract with Flock, the controversial license plate reader system that has sparked widespread concern about overreaching government surveillance.

“My being gay has absolutely nothing to do with how I’m going to do my job,” Jones told reporters in Alabama this week. “My job is to reform that jail and respect people’s constitutional rights.”