Republican State Sen. Will Barfoot (R-Pike Road) is running for a different district seat in reaction to a court ruling that he thinks makes “no sense.”
Barfoot announced Monday that he plans to run for the District 26 legislative seat rather than the District 25 seat that he currently holds.
The state lawmaker had said in November that he would seek another term in the State Senate.
“I cannot allow one of the most conservative counties in Alabama — Elmore County — to be denied the conservative representation it deserves simply because federal courts issued badly flawed rulings that make no sense,” Barfoot said about the decision. “Allowing a Democrat to represent Elmore County in the State Senate would be like Bernie Sanders — or Doug Jones — representing Alabama in the U.S. Senate and casting liberal votes that do not reflect the views of the citizens they swore an oath to serve.”
Barfoot was referring to a ruling by U.S. District Judge Anna Manasco that ordered Alabama to use a new State Senate map that modifies his district beginning in the 2026 primary election
The two-term state senator believes the court order racially gerrymandered legislative districts to unfairly tilt the scale and ensure the election of liberal Democrat legislators.
“When that happens, grassroots voices are silenced, conservative views are ignored, and the Alabama Legislature becomes Bizarro World, where everything that is normal is suddenly the opposite,” Barfoot continued. “I’m running in District 26 to ensure that conservative Republicans in Elmore County and throughout the area are represented by a conservative Trump Republican, not a woke liberal Democrat who fights against everything they believe and embrace.”
Under the new lines, which are still being appealed by the state, more black voters would be moved out of District 26, State Sen. Kirk Hatcher’s (D-Montgomery) current district, and into District 25.
Barfoot noted that he will meet all ballot residency requirements in order to run within District 26, which was drawn by an untrained, 18-year-old, college freshman Democrat who used a free, online app and submitted the map to the courts for consideration.
Though he will focus on representing a new district in the State Senate, Barfoot said his door will remain open to help the constituents in Montgomery and Crenshaw County that he has served for the past eight years.
While there have already been many complications with the electoral map, there could be more once the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in on the issue of gerrymandering.
Alabama is appealing the ruling and asking the court to pause its judgement while the U.S. Supreme Court re-hears Louisiana v. Callais, which could overhaul race-based political redistricting under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. However, the court previously rejected an effort from the State to stay the judgment.
Section 2, alongside the Constitution itself, is one of the foundational legal bases of redistricting court fights active on the local, state and federal levels in Alabama, including a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that moved black voters from Alabama’s 1st Congressional District to its 2nd District.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue its final ruling in the case no later than summer, and possibly much earlier, after re-hearing it last month.
Originally elected to the State Senate in 2018, Barfoot helped champion the successful effort to block an occupational tax that was passed by the Montgomery City Council by enacting a law requiring such levies to be approved by the Legislature.
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on X @Yaffee
