As Jerry Carl prepares for his return to the U.S. House of Representatives, he is laying out his plan for how the help the people of his district.
Carl (R-Mobile) won the seat in Alabama’s District 1 with 59% of the vote over Democrat Clyde Jones, who received 41%.
The former Mobile County Commissioner was first elected to represent the South Alabama district in 2020 and re-elected in 2022. He was unseated after federal re-districting pitted him against fellow U.S. Rep. Barry Moore (R-Enterprise).
Carl discussed his comeback Thursday on FM Talk 106.5’s “The Jeff Poor Show.”
“I’m focused on the Bayway. I’m focused on on the shipbuilding industry. Those two things we got to focus on infrastructure as a whole,” Congressman-elect Carl said. “I mean, we’ve got some water issues, water supply issues in some rural areas that I want to focus on.
“And I got I’ve got to pick the little battles that we can actually win. Most of that’s going to be on appropriations. The first thing we got to do is get on the right committees. It’s going to benefit the district the most, appropriations being the one that I’m trying for, with the going in as a minority all that’s going to shift around a little bit. So we just got to keep exercising our our political options up here and seeing if we can get back on that committee.”
Sources tell Yellowhammer News that Carl’s placement on the powerful appropriations committee is not a lock – and that U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) losing the House Minority Leader race to U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) makes it even less of a certainty.
Carl, who served previously on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Appropriations Committee, said he wants to get things done and is willing to work with his colleagues on the other side of the aisle to do just that.
“You can’t forget what you’re up here for,” he said. “And everybody says, ‘Well, go up there and fight.’ Well, you know, with with a small minority we got, we can fight, but we ain’t got a very loud voice. That’s for sure. So you know, I’ve already reached out to Shomari Figures and some of the other Democrats that I have a relationship with, and I’ve already talked to them about some needs that I’m going to have in my district, which Shomari is very familiar with… I’ve got spent a little time with him, talking to him. So I think I’ve got an ally there to work with me. I certainly hope I do. I believe I do.”
The incoming congressman also had some advice for the freshmen who will be working in Capitol Hill for the first time.
“I keep telling these freshmen, don’t get bummed out. You haven’t seen it bad yet,” he explained. “I don’t expect it to be that bad, as bad as it was. Because remember, I came in the middle of COVID, and Pelosi shut us all down, locked everything down. They put all these rules on us that we could or couldn’t do this stuff. We were in the minority then, and of course, Biden being president, we knew we couldn’t get anything past him. So, I’ve seen the worst case scenario. At least we got something to work with here a little bit.”
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
