A Montgomery judge declined to rule Monday on whether the courts can even hear the challenge to U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville’s (R-Auburn) eligibility to run for governor. Montgomery County Circuit Judge Brooke Reid heard arguments but did not issue an immediate ruling, saying she would need additional time to decide whether the court has jurisdiction, and that she hopes to decide within the next few days.
Both sides indicated the case is expected to reach the Alabama Supreme Court regardless of how she rules.
That sends the fight straight at the question reported yesterday, when plaintiffs’ attorney Barry Ragsdale predicted that a majority of the Alabama Supreme Court would recuse itself if the case reached the high court.
Jon Gray with the Tuberville campaign took that prediction apart, and made no secret of what he thinks the case is really about, in an interview with Yellowhammer News.
“None of this has squat to do about Tommy Tuberville’s residency,” Gray said. “This is all a game on behalf of Doug Jones to try to drag Tommy Tuberville through the mud, so that they can question his integrity.”
On the recusal prediction
Gray’s central rebuttal was historical. The only time the full court has ever stepped aside, he argued, was the one case that bears no resemblance to this one.
“He made his argument about everybody on the Supreme Court recusing themselves because of Roy Moore,” Gray said.
“But the Supreme Court has never recused en banc from a matter, except in the hearing of Roy Moore, and the reason they did that with Roy Moore is because they all served on the bench with Roy Moore on the Supreme Court, and they were hearing a matter about him and his behavior on the Supreme Court. They had no choice. They literally served with the man. That is the only time that any of us are aware in modern history of the Supreme Court recusing en banc. This isn’t even close to that.”
The complaint that Republicans hold every lever in Montgomery, Gray said, is an argument the other side should take up with itself.
“The Republicans didn’t take over all three branches of government because we won the lottery,” he said.
“We took over all three branches of government because the Democrats drove the car into the ditch, into the ground, and out through earth on the other side of China. And it wasn’t Republicans who wrote these laws, it was Democrats who wrote these laws. Republicans didn’t take over the legislature until 2010. If he wants to be mad at somebody, find a mirror.”
Gray also claimed Ragsdale had softened outside the courtroom. By Gray’s account, Ragsdale told reporters after the hearing that if the case reaches the Supreme Court and the justices rule it is not the courts’ role to decide, he would accept it.
“He’ll be fine with that decision. He will accept it, and he will move on,” Gray said. “He’s kind of changed his tone a little bit already.”
The jurisdiction fight
The motion at the center of Monday’s hearing argues the Constitution hands this question to the Legislature, not a courtroom.
The defense points to Section 115, which it says provides for a “final judgment” from the legislature sitting in joint session if a governor-elect were actually found ineligible. The only proper route, the defense contends, is a quo warranto claim filed after the general election.
“We cannot have a circuit judge deciding who is going to be the governor of the state of Alabama,” Gray said. “Can you imagine if a circuit judge somewhere in Alabama could just decide to kick a governor off the ballot? What kind of chaos would we have?”
Gray said the plaintiffs proved that point themselves in the hearing’s final minutes.
He recounted that Ragsdale cited his own past challenge to former State Rep. David Cole — who pleaded guilty to voter fraud in 2023 after it emerged he did not live in the district he represented — as proof that residency challenges work.
Co-counsel Bill Espy, Joe Espy’s son, rose to flip it.
“He just made our point for us,” Gray quoted Bill Espy as telling the court. “He just admitted to you that the appropriate place and the only place to file a residency challenge is after the general election, because he just told you they didn’t challenge David Cole before the election, they challenged David Cole after the election. And that’s what we’ve been trying to tell you for two and a half hours.”
In Gray’s telling, it was the turn of the day: “Barry Ragsdale hung himself at the end of the hearing when he referenced the David Cole challenge.”
‘Let the people decide’
The campaign’s second argument is that the voters already answered the question. Joe Espy made it on the record in court. “Our position is very simple: follow the constitution of Alabama. Number 2, let the people decide. If they don’t think that Senator Tuberville meets the qualifications, they’ll decide that. And number 3, follow the rule of law,” Espy said from Gray’s recounting.
He noted that Republican voters put Tuberville at the top of the ticket with 85% of the vote in the May primary.
‘You have to accept the people’s voice,’ Espy effectively told the court.
“If they want to nominate a ham sandwich, that’s their choice, but nobody has to vote for him,” Gray said. “There’s nothing in the world that says everybody has to go vote for Tommy Tuberville. This is ultimately up to the voters.”
Ragsdale argued the opposite in court — that a constitutional qualification is exactly what a judge exists to enforce.
Gray cast the plaintiffs as partisans hunting a friendly venue.
He called them “one hundred percent Democrats” who, he said, are “simply looking to find a Democrat judge in Montgomery County who is willing to throw it out.”
But he said he did not expect it to work. “I think this Democrat judge is independent. I think the Supreme Court is independent.”
On Doug Jones
Gray returned again and again to the Democratic nominee, seizing on Jones saying recently he wanted voters to know he is “the same Doug Jones they voted for in 2020.”
“He lost,” Gray said.
“The reason he’s telling you he’s the same Doug Jones is because he is far more liberal and far more socialist today than he ever was. Why else would anybody tell you they’re the same person as they were when they lost?”
“He’s taking the horrible soundbite of saying I’m really just the same Doug Jones that lost in 2020, because if I’m not that Doug Jones, then I’m a far more gross and disgusting liberal Doug Jones that nobody is going to be able to stomach voting for,” Gray added.
Grayson Everett is the editor in chief of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on X @Grayson270.
