Brad Cox, Republican candidate for House District 16 Residence: Fayette Occupation: Banker at Alabama ONE Credit Union. Before, Cox was a high school teacher. Education: B.S., Agricultural Education, Auburn University, 2012; M.A., Agricultural Education, Auburn University, 2013. Party: Republican Previous political experience/campaign: Fayette County Commissioner, District 1, 2021-present.
The two Republicans facing off in the Oct. 24 GOP runoff for House District 16 are both conservative.
But Brad Cox and Bryan Brinyark would bring vastly different experiences to Goat Hill. Read more.
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.
Rep. John Rogers, D-Birmingham, was indicted Wednesday on two counts of obstruction of justice and obstruction of justice by bribery. 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.
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.
