Mobile County Commissioner Jerry Carl is out with the first video ad of his Republican primary runoff campaign against former State Sen. Bill Hightower (R-Mobile) in Alabama’s First Congressional District.
The spot, lasting 30 seconds, hits Hightower on four issues and comes after the Washington, D.C.-based Club for Growth’s political arm on Thursday released an ad attacking Carl. Club for Growth Action has endorsed Hightower.
Carl’s new ad begins with a narrator saying, “Who’ll stand with Trump? Not Bill Hightower.”
“Hightower supported raising taxes on hard-working, middle-class families,” the narrator continues.
That first allegation is in reference to Hightower’s past public support of a flat tax.
A bill he sponsored during his last term in the state legislature in 2018 would have set one state income tax bracket of 4.20%; this would have represented an annual increase of $75,000,000 in tax receipts to the Education Trust Fund, according to the official fiscal note on Hightower’s bill. The bill also would have eliminated most tax exemptions and deductions. The bill did not make it out of committee.
The narrator in Carl’s ad further says, “Hightower thinks tolling the I-10 bridge is a good idea.”
This is in reference to the proposed Interstate 10 Mobile River Bridge and Bayway project, which has since been declared “dead.”
Hightower back in 2017 commented on the project’s potential financing, “It’s a big project, so we’ve got to get creative about it. Toll roads, I know a lot of people don’t like them, and I don’t like them, but they are a very efficient tax and … we’re going to be able to get that money from Texans as well as Floridians as they pass through our region. So they’re going to help pay for that bridge – if that’s the way they go.”
At that same time, Hightower further acknowledged that a bike lane would increase the cost of the project but added: “personally I think it would be a nice quality of life item.”
“Hightower opposed a balanced budget amendment,” the narrator in Carl’s latest ad subsequently alleges.
This allegation stems from the 2015 legislative session, when Hightower voted against SB 414. That bill would have supported an Article V constitutional convention with the express intent of adopting a balanced budget amendment at said convention.
“Now, Hightower lied about supporting Trump. Like ‘Never Trumpers,’ he didn’t vote in the Republican primary in 2016,” the narrator in Carl’s ad says. “Sounds more like a Democrat than a Trump Republican.”
The spot cites the Secretary of State’s voter file as proof of this allegation; that voter file shows which elections each voter has voted in but does not disclose for whom an individual voted.
“Jerry Carl is the pro-Trump conservative who will stand with the president,” the narrator concludes.
An email from Hightower’s campaign to supporters called the allegations in Carl’s ad “desperate lies.”
The runoff will be held March 31.
Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
Don’t miss out! Subscribe today to have Alabama’s leading headlines delivered to your inbox.