After November, Alabama will have a new governor, the newest slate of constitutional officers in a generation, and a brand new state house.
The one thing it will not have is a shortage of people who are absolutely certain they should be in charge of all three.
But those who actually are – can be found on this year’s list.
As Yellowhammer News celebrates its 15th anniversary, in a special edition of this year’s Power & Influence: Top 50, we’re taking stock of the most effective figures in the modern era of Alabama politics – and making picks of who will dominate in the next.
The honorees featured in this year’s edition are some of the most proven power players of the past decade-plus. And those who have been paying attention to our rankings for that long know that we’re not just guessing.
FULL CLASS OF 2026: 30-21 / 40-31 / 50-41 / Who’s Next?
Informed by those who know best, including Montgomery itself, each year we recognize the top individuals in government, politics, and business who leverage their power and influence to set the agenda, move the ball – and when necessary, stop things cold.
Here’s our look behind the curtain of who’s running state government right now more than ever:
20. Porter Banister
The University of Alabama System, Vice Chancellor for State Affairs
The University of Alabama System already trusts Porter Banister with the sort of responsibilities that make lesser lobbyists age in dog years.
In his first quadrennium leading the full system-wide Montgomery portfolio as the Vice Chancellor for State Affairs and serving as a statewide sorcerer of economic development – Banister has continued to be the man in the room when it mattered most.
As the in-house government relations professional for UA, UAB, UAH, and the UAB Health System at the Alabama State House, Banister speaks on behalf of an $18.6 billion annual economic impact, 70,000 students, and one-in-fourteen jobs in the state.
He is born to do this. He has the credibility and trust to continue to maximize the gains made by the largest single institutional forces in the state.
19. Helena Duncan
Business Council of Alabama, President and CEO
As a definitive review of the latest quadrennium and a preview of the next, the extent of Helena Duncan’s influence runs deep in this year’s list.
The operation she has built in three years at BCA is, by any available measure, the most formidable in the organization’s history.
She took over the chief executive role at BCA the same year this current class of lawmakers was elected, and promptly started moving the sort of legislative packages that others in her position would’ve needed a decade to even massage into the conversation.
The Game Plan. The renewal and expansion of the Alabama Jobs Act. Working for Alabama. Powering Growth. Each one passed. Each one a BCA-driven victory for the state’s businesses large and small – and the Alabama economy for years to come.
Despite the $4 million raised by ProgressPAC for pro-jobs, pro-growth candidates in the 2026 cycle, she’s not a campaigner. Despite her universal public platform and relationships with the state’s most powerful, she’s not a politician.
She’s the CEO of the group that brings it all together.
18. Charlie Taylor
Ross Taylor & Associates
When Charlie Taylor co-founded Ross Taylor & Associates with John Ross last fall, it didn’t take long for Montgomery to recognize the gravity behind it.
With Taylor’s first session on the books as a contract lobbyist, he has once again ascended on the list.
For starters, Charlie still represents UA System, the institution he just hailed from as Vice Chancellor of External Affairs, and continues to help pull off some of their biggest wins on the federal level.
He became a free agent heading into the most transformational era Alabama politics has seen in a generation – and we have good reason to believe he will become one of its biggest power players.
For a new firm with no legislative sessions under its belt yet to advertise, Taylor Ross & Associates rolled out a first-year client roster of blue chip entities that most others would’ve spent a decade building.
17. Dax Swatek
Swatek, Vaughn & Bryan
Dax Swatek is tied for the most appearances on this list. Let that land for a moment. 186+ individuals have appeared on this list at some point since 2012.
Six of them have hit twelve appearances. The other five hold titles that carry institutional weight on their own. Among all of them, Swatek is the only one who has done it from the private sector alone.
It’s what we’ve always said about him. He’s an institution who loves a knife fight.
Don’t expect him to go away any time soon, either. Swatek is aggressively at work in the 2026 cycle and is better financed than entire industries in this state.
That’s why he remains one of the OGs. Not because he was there at the beginning, though he was. Not because he has relationships, though he has more than enough. But because Dax Swatek still wants to win more than the other side wants to stop him.
In 30 years, that particular gap has never closed.
16. John Ross
Ross Taylor & Associates
John Ross is among the most well-liked people at the Alabama State House.
Not “well-liked” in the way that usually just means “harmless” or “not boring” – but well-liked in the way that matters.
Lawmakers who have hit the most burned out part of their day will still pick up the phone when he calls. Leadership offices greet him as a friend in between waves of people pretending to be one. And the state’s most permanently powerful individuals take his counsel more seriously than others because they count him as a friend.
This quality is more powerful than just about any in Montgomery. And it’s only one part of what contributes to his rapid ascension on this list.
In the first session that Ross Taylor & Associates opened its doors, it was productive and effective at generating results for clients.
Expect John Ross to multiply those gains year after year after year in the new State House.
15. Wesley Britt
Fine Geddie & Associates
Many in Montgomery try to look bigger than the room. Wesley Britt has the opposite effect – the room adjusts to him.
His impact isn’t just presence. It’s roots, experience, and credibility that puts people at ease before they realize they’re following his lead. And right now, few – if any – understand the state’s political landscape better.
Fine Geddie didn’t hire him for flash. They hired substance. Britt brings what top firms value and rarely find – and makes it look effortless. He is a force in the State House and will be in the next one.
He can carry an institution’s concerns without sounding heavy-handed, and reflect the room’s concerns without sounding captured.
That balance is rare – and usually quiet.
There are louder ways to gain power in Montgomery. Britt chose a subtler one: making leverage feel easy, and persuasion feel like fellowship – until you realize how much has shifted.
14. Ginger Avery
Alabama Association for Justice
In a building that runs on gumption, Ginger Avery has built a career on precision.
For more than a decade, Avery has led the Alabama Association for Justice through terrain that has buried organizations with deeper pockets.
When the GOP supermajority swept Montgomery in 2010, the go-to playbook for Alabama’s trial lawyers burned to ash overnight.
She didn’t flinch. She rebuilt her organization’s political identity from the studs, cultivated relationships across party lines and repositioned their electoral strategy.
The fact that she pulled it off is notable. The fact that she’s still doing it fifteen years later and arguably better than ever, is the part that borders on remarkable.
She’s never chased headlines. She doesn’t do victory laps. She just shows up, session after session, and makes sure nobody forgets that the courtroom door stays open.
In 2026, that fight gets louder. And Ginger Avery will be right in the middle of it.
13. Steve Windom
Windom Galliher & Associates
There’s a version of Alabama politics that exists only in Steve Windom’s memory – and it’s the most complete version available.
Every deal, every broken promise, every handshake that mattered and every one that didn’t. He carries all of it. And he deploys all of it.
Windom, Galliher & Associates fields one of the deepest rosters in Montgomery, touching virtually every major policy artery in the state. That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because the man at the top never stops.
The former Lt. Governor earned his instincts across nine years in the Senate and four years presiding over it. But those credentials are a footnote now. What makes Windom dangerous in 2026 is the same thing that made him dangerous in 2006.
He outworks you. And he remembers what you said in the hallway a decade ago when you thought nobody was listening.
12. Ted Hosp
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama, Vice President of Governmental Affairs
There is a particular kind of power that doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t grandstand. It reads the bill. It reads the bill behind the bill. And then it rewrites both before anyone else realizes there was a problem. That’s Ted Hosp.
Since taking over governmental affairs for Alabama’s largest health insurer in 2018, Hosp has put together one of the more quietly formidable runs on this list.
He came to Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama after two decades leading Maynard’s governmental and regulatory practice, bringing with him the rare ability to understand exactly how language becomes law – and how law becomes consequence.
At a company covering more than three million Alabamians, that skill has only grown more valuable.
Healthcare legislation is a minefield, and Hosp remains one of the few people in Montgomery who can spot the detonation point before the ink dries. He catches the clause that shifts millions, the “good idea” that guts a benefit structure, the unintended consequence before it becomes someone else’s emergency.
11. Joe Perkins
Matrix, LLC
At a certain point, _____________________________ stops sounding like a busy season and starts sounding like a controlled environment.
That point, for Joe Perkins, arrived a long time ago.
Since then, it has mostly been a matter of keeping _______– _______________ —-_________
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And he does it well.
