Alabama
Alabama Republicans support the voter eligibility bill on conspiratorial grounds
On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed the SAVE Act in a 221-198 vote. Short for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, the SAVE Act would require states to verify proof of citizenship when people register to vote.
The bill is the latest legislative effort inspired by conservative conspiracy theories about Democrats stealing elections by letting illegal immigrants vote. When asked for examples in May, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson just said that Americans “know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections” and that it was not “something that is easily provable.”
The dearth of hard evidence has not prevented many Alabama politicians from arguing that more restrictions on noncitizens voting are needed to stop Democrats from stealing elections. Alabama Rep. Barry Moore claimed in one statement that “Democrats want non-citizens to vote because they know most Americans don’t support their radical agenda.”
The Congressman from Alabama’s 5th District, Dale Strong, said “Democrats have made clear that they support foreign nationals interfering in U.S. elections” by opposing the SAVE Act.
And Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville tweeted that “Corrupt Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have let MILLIONS of illegals into this country, and now they want them to vote in our elections.”
However, as Democrats in Congress, President Biden, and voting rights organizations have all publicized, voting in federal elections as a noncitizen is already explicitly illegal. While some municipalities have passed laws to let Green Card holders vote in local elections, no prominent Democratic politicians have pushed to let noncitizens vote in federal elections.
Plus, the League of Women Voters points out that “voters in every state are already required to affirm or verify their citizenship status when registering to vote.” Democrats have not pushed to remove this requirement either.
Noncitizens attempting to register to vote is also incredibly rare, and noncitizens actually voting even rarer. A 2017 report from the Brennan Center for Justice found “only an estimated 30 incidents of suspected noncitizen voting” [emphasis added] out of over 20 million votes cast in the jurisdictions they researched. A 2022 audit in Georgia found that just 1,634 noncitizens attempted to register in 25 years: Not one even successfully registered.
Rather than preventing noncitizens from voting, the primary effect of the SAVE Act, if passed by the Senate and signed into law, would be requiring citizens to actively prove that they are a U.S. citizen in addition to affirming it.
Specifically, prospective voters would need to provide:
- REAL ID compliant identification that “indicates the applicant is a citizen”
- A US passport
- A military ID with a “record of service showing that the applicant’s place of birth was in the United States”
- Or another photo ID which either shows a place of birth in the United States or is presented along with a birth certificate, adoption records, or other proof of citizenship
As driver licenses (by far the most common form of REAL ID compliant identification) don’t show citizenship status in most states, effectively the bill would require either a passport or both an ID and other proof of citizenship. According to the U.S. State Department, less than half of all Americans have a valid passport.
Alabama’s only Democratic member of Congress, Terri Sewell, called the SAVE ACT “a dangerous, anti-democratic bill that would do nothing to protect our elections” on the House floor.
She pointed to the requirements to regularly remove noncitizens from voting rolls and said they would also “purge thousands of eligible voters from the rolls including Americans who recently got married and changed their last names and those with military and tribal IDs.”
“With state lawmakers working overtime to erect barriers to the ballot box, the need for federal voting rights protections is just as urgent today as it was 60 years ago,” Sewell said. “After all, it is up to the voters to choose our elected leaders, not the other way around.”
Sewell again called for Congress to consider and pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Named after the now deceased civil rights hero and Congressman, the bill would make it harder to change election law in potentially discriminatory ways.
The campaign against supposed noncitizen voting in recent months is reminiscent of Trump’s attacks on voting-by-mail in the lead-up to the 2020 election. In both cases, Republicans called the integrity of American elections into doubt based on minimal hard evidence and simultaneously complained that Americans had “lost trust in our election process,” as Alabama Rep. Gary Palmer has said.
It seems possible that, like absentee voting in 2020, noncitizen voting could provide the justification for Trump to challenge the results of the presidential election if he loses this November.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama’s use of nitrogen gas to put people to death needs more study of whether it violates a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, a federal appeals court decided Monday.
The state first used nitrogen for capital punishment in 2024, and the ruling could upend Alabama’s next scheduled execution on Thursday. The method involves strapping a respirator to the person’s face and replacing breathable air with pure nitrogen, causing death from lack of oxygen.
The three-judge panel on Monday night reversed a judge’s May finding that the nitrogen method does not violate the U.S. Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment and remanded the case for additional consideration. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed last year by Jeffery Lee, a man on death row who is scheduled to be executed with nitrogen on Thursday at a south Alabama prison.
The panel stopped short of staying Lee’s planned execution. However, the panel asked the judge to consider whether his proposed alternative of a firing squad was feasible.
The U.S. Supreme Court requires a two-prong test for people challenging the constitutionality of an execution method. They must show the method provides a substantial risk of superadded pain and that a feasible alternative method is available. The appeals court said Lee met the first test but sent it back to the trial court to consider the second.
The appeals panel raised concerns about the nitrogen method and how long it might take the subject to lose awareness.
“In our view, the overall suffering described by the district court, which lasts for one to three minutes, presents a substantial risk of serious harm over and above death itself,” the panel wrote. “Counting to 60 or 180 seconds is not a quick exercise, and constitutionally speaking, that timeframe is intolerable given the suffering that would likely take place under Alabama’s nitrogen hypoxia protocol.”
The Alabama Attorney General’s Office did not immediately issue a comment on the decision. The state has maintained the method is constitutional.
Opponents of the method cheered the decision.
“For the first time a court has acknowledged what I and so many others have seen with our own eyes. Nitrogen executions are a unique form of horror,” said the Rev. Jeff Hood, who was the spiritual adviser at two nitrogen executions.
Nitrogen has been used in eight executions nationally — seven times in Alabama and once in Louisiana. Lee’s attorneys argued it causes excessive suffering. Alabama’s last nitrogen execution took more than 30 minutes to complete.
Lee was convicted of two counts of capital murder for killing Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson while robbing a pawn shop on Dec. 12, 1998. Prosecutors said Lee entered Jimmy’s Pawnshop with a sawed-off shotgun and shot Ellis, the owner of the store, and Thompson, a store employee.
A jury voted 7-5 that Lee should receive a sentence of life imprisonment. However, a judge overrode that recommendation and sentenced Lee to death. Alabama in 2017 ended the practice of judicial override and no longer allows a judge to disregard a jury’s sentencing decision in death penalty cases.
The ruling came several hours after a vigil was held at the Alabama Capitol urging the governor to reduce Lee’s sentence to life imprisonment.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said he opposed the clemency request.
“The people of Alabama have not forgotten Jimmy and Elaine. I have not forgotten them,” Marshall said. “Anything short of carrying out the sentence imposed by the court falls short of justice for the victims, and that is not what victims of this state deserve.”
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) – Two long-vacant Montgomery properties are slated to undergo significant redevelopment after being bought by an Alabama-based investment group.
Leitman Perlman, a Birmingham commercial real estate company, announced Monday that Noble Investments, an investment management firm located in Anniston, has purchased 1702 Norman Bridge Road and 1614 South Decatur Street for a combined $480,000.
According to Leitman Perlman, the purchase is part of an ongoing effort by Noble Investments to revitalize the surrounding neighborhood and promote long-term stability within the community.
The property at 1702 Norman Bridge Road once served as a medical office building but has remained vacant since 2013. Similarly, the property at 1614 South Decatur street currently houses a vacant neighborhood strip center that has been underutilized for many years.
Noble said it will clear out the buildings over the summer to prepare them for future tenants and will look to lease the spaces to local small business owners.
Mark Cornwell, CEO of Noble Investments called the properties part of a much larger commitment to the area.
“This corridor holds significance for our team and me personally,” he said. “I grew up in this area, I’ve driven by these buildings my whole life, and my family still lives in the neighborhood. Noble’s investment here has been steadily increasing with a long-term perspective, it’s personal.”
Cornwell said the end goal is to create spaces that are clean, safe and economically viable for residents and local entrepreneurs.
In 2019, Montgomery Investment Group, a sister company of Noble Investments, acquired and redeveloped the nearby Flats on Felder apartment complex along Felder Avenue. More recently, Noble purchased 1708 Norman Bridge Road. The space is now home to two small business.
The company has invested more than $23.5 million in River Region developments since 2017.
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RADAR CHECK: Large areas of mostly light rain are moving across North/Central Alabama early this morning in the humid, tropical air over the state. A flash flood watch is in effect for the Tennessee Valley, and much of Northeast Alabama today; this is where some spots received 5-8 inches of rain yesterday with major flash flooding issues. Major creeks, streams, and rivers are out of their banks.
People in flood prone areas need to pay attention to flash flood warnings later today if they are needed, and as always, “turn around, don’t drown”. The southern half of Alabama will be much drier with only isolated showers around. Expect a high today in the low to mid 80s.
REST OF THE WEEK: Understand we are in the time of the year when you will have the risk of a pop-up afternoon shower or storm just about every afternoon, and that chance will stay in the forecast daily. But, they should be fewer in number after today as an upper ridge rebuilds across the Deep South. This will also mean higher heat levels; expect highs in the upper 80s and low 90s with a mix of sun and clouds each day.
THE ALABAMA WEEKEND: The ridge weakens again, the air aloft will be a little colder, and the air more unstable. So, scattered showers and thunderstorms will likely be a little more numerous Saturday and Sunday. Highest chance of rain will come from noon to midnight, and highs will be in the 86-91 degree range. The sun will be out at times, and the weekend won’t be a total “wash-out”.
NEXT WEEK: Global models suggest the pattern will favor scattered to numerous showers and storms daily
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