The marque race next year will be for our open U.S. Senate Seat left vacant when Coach Tommy Tuberville decided to run for Governor.
This Senate vacancy has attracted one of our U.S. Congressmen, which leaves an open congressional seat in the Heart of Dixie.
Congressional seats are drawn by state legislatures. Throughout the nation, they are crafted by partisan legislatures to favor the party that is in the majority in their state. This has been the case forever in American politics. Republican and Democratic leaders and partisan pundits today decry this gerrymandering. However, the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently and correctly ruled throughout our history and set the precedent that there is nothing that they can or should do about partisan gerrymandering for political partisan purposes. The High Court has historically ruled that you cannot take the politics out of congressional or legislative redistricting. “To the victor goes the spoils” and “elections have consequences.”
However, this precedent was breached two years ago by Federal Judges in Alabama who decided that the 1965 Voting Rights Act overrides and supersedes the century old U.S. Supreme Court precedent of “to the victor goes the spoils.” This court ruling plowed new legal ground, and because Alabama is one of the five Southern states still under the auspices of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, this court drew an overtly gerrymandered district to grant a new district that was designed to take one of Alabama’s six Republican seats and create a majority minority Democratic district in our state. This happened two years ago in the 2024 Presidential election. This changed the complexion of our congressional delegation to five white Republicans and two black Democrats.
Shomari Figures of Mobile won election in the newly created black Democratic Second Congressional District. The First and Second District white Republicans were corralled and concentrated into one new First Congressional District. This new district fits together economically and every other way like two left gloves. It placed the Wiregrass in with Mobile and Baldwin Counties. The Court may as well have configured a gerrymandered district that tied Huntsville in with Mobile or with the Wiregrass as far as their needs in Washington are concerned.
The race for the Republican Primary two years ago became a geographic battleground tug-of-war between the two distinctly different regions. The Court’s decision placed two incumbent Republican Congressmen in the same district, and they had to battle it out.
The “old First District” Republican Congressman, Jerry Carl of Mobile/Baldwin, was favored to beat the “old Second District” Republican Congressman Barry Moore. However, Moore upset Carl and has been in the new First District seat less than two years. Moore and his wife, Heather, are aspiring to take the Senate seat of Coach Tuberville, which leaves the new weirdly configured, Court drawn gerrymandered First District open again.
It is a Republican district and will be won by either a Republican from Mobile or a Republican from the Wiregrass. It appears that, again, it will be a battle between the two regions.
Jerry Carl will again wear the banner of the Mobile/Baldwin area. Carl served two terms in Congress before losing to Moore two years ago. He is a mainstream conservative business Republican in the mold of the Port City Region rich tradition of Jack Edwards, Sonny Callahon, Jo Bonner, and Bradley Byrne.
The Wiregrass candidate will probably be popular Coffee County State Representative Rhett Marques. Rhett is very well liked by his legislative colleagues and has been a productive and competent legislator for Enterprise and Coffee County.
The Wiregrass has very distinct needs from Washington. Fort Rucker, and Agriculture are paramount to the Region. The Wiregrass southeast corner counties buoyed together in an old fashioned “friends and neighbors” home region vote for their candidate Barry Moore two years ago. It will be one of the best races to follow next year to see if the Wiregrass can keep the seat. Even though Marques is not as well-known as Moore, one ace in the hole may be that Rhett was born and raised in Baldwin County, which is the biggest county in the new First District. We will soon see.
The winner of this race may only be in this new gerrymandered district for one term. There is growing speculation that the U.S. Supreme Court is going to dismantle Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. If so, our Alabama legislature will restore the districts to their original configuration.
See you next week.
Steve Flowers is Alabama’s leading political columnist. His weekly column appears in over 60 Alabama newspapers. He served 16 years in the state legislature. Steve may be reached at [email protected].
