Rep. John Rogers, D-Birmingham, pleaded not guilty Thursday to two counts of obstruction of justice on Thursday at the Hugo L. Black Federal Courthouse in Birmingham. Rogers was released after being processed by the U.S. Marshals on a $5,000 bond. Prosecutors allege that Rogers diverted public money from a youth baseball league to an assistant. Read more.
Travis Hendrix and Sylvia Swayne will be fighting it out in a runoff for the Alabama House District 55 seat. With seven people running for the Democratic nomination during the special election for the seat, Hendrix got 27.91% of the vote and Swayne got 21.45%. No Republicans qualified for the race, and whichever candidate wins the Oct. 24 runoff is likely to become the new representative. In the District 16 race, Bryan Brinyark and Brad Cox are headed to a runoff for the Republican nomination. With five Republicans in the race, Brinyark got 32.56% of the vote, and Cox got 32.96%. The candidate who wins more than half the vote in the runoff will face Democratic candidate John Underwood in the general election for the seat on Jan. 9. Read more.
Voters in some parts of Jefferson County will be headed to the polls Tuesday to choose among candidates for two state House of Representatives seats. Special elections are being held to choose nominees for House District 55 and District 16, filling seats left vacant by the resignations of Fred Plump and Kyle South. Plump resigned after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy and obstruction of justice on allegations he took money from a fund used to support programs in Jefferson County under the direction of another legislator and kicked back a portion of it to a legislator’s assistant. South, a Fayette Republican, stepped down from his house seat June 30 to become CEO of the West Alabama Chamber of Commerce. Read more about the election. For more information on the candidates, go to:
Meet the candidates running in Tuesday’s Alabama House District 16 special election. Read more.
Meet the candidates running in Tuesday's Alabama House District 55 special election. Read more.
Candidates Kenneth Coachman Age: 67 Residence: Fairfield Occupation: Chief of staff, Miles College Education: B.S., Business, Miles College, 1980 Party: Democratic Previous political experience/campaign: Fairfield Mayor, 2008-2016; Fairfield City Council District 5, 2004-2008; 1980-1984 Fundraising: As of September 8, Coachman raised $3,682 and spent $7,954. Coachman financed $6,439. Coachman said he is running for House
A three-judge federal panel Tuesday ruled that a new Alabama congressional map failed to address Voting Rights Act violations and ordered a third party to draw new lines.
In a 217-page opinion in the case, known as Allen v. Milligan, U.S. Circuit Judge Stanley Marcus and U.S. District Judges Anna Manasco and Terry Moorer sharply criticized the Alabama Legislature, writing that they were “deeply troubled” that lawmakers did not draw a map that gave Black voters in the state the chance to elect representatives of their choosing, as the judges ordered in a January 2022 ruling.
“We are not aware of any other case in which a state legislature — faced with a federal court order declaring that its electoral plan unlawfully dilutes minority votes and requiring a plan that provides an additional opportunity district — responded with a plan that the state concedes does not provide that district,” the judges wrote. Read more.
Lawyers for the state defended Alabama’s new congressional map before a panel of judges who previously ruled the 2021 map violated the Voting Rights Act. Read more.
The approved map aims to address the federal court ruling but leads to tensions and claims of voter suppression. Read more.
Republican supermajorities in the Alabama House and Senate approved two separate congressional maps with a single majority-Black congressional district and one with a Black population ranging from 38% to 42%. Democrats in both chambers, who support maps with two majority-Black districts, opposed both proposals and said they would not satisfy federal courts that ruled that the state’s earlier congressional maps violate the Voting Rights Act. Read more.
