A potential Democratic National Convention fracas involving dueling slates of delegates from Alabama has drawn the interest of the Republican candidate running in Alabama’s 2nd congressional district, and she’s taking sides.

Caroleene Dobson, who is battling Democratic nominee Shomari Figures in a rare contested General Election race for an Alabama congressional seat, said in a news release Thursday that she is siding with state Democratic Party Chair Randy Kelley in his spat with the Democratic National Committee over who is allowed to show up to Chicago next week as part of the state party’s delegates.

“Let me be clear, I agree with Chairman Kelley that overturning the Alabama Democrats’ slate of delegates prevents African-Americans from holding the seats they were already awarded, which is a shameful and unfair practice from any angle you view it,” Dobson said in a news release sent out earlier this month.

Figures, in a rebuttal, emailed AL.com Thursday and said that if Dobson is worried about Democratic Party matters, then “she should just join” the party.

“And I promise, once she goes Democrat, she won’t go back,” Figures said.

Supporting Kelley

Dobson called out Figures to take sides in the continuing dispute between Kelley and the DNC over the party delegates and who should be allowed to show up to vote on the floor of the DNC next week at the United Center in Chicago.

Kelley remains upset that 36 of the state party’s delegates were rejected by the DNC late last month, and Dobson said they were “unilaterally rejected and replaced” by the Biden/Harris campaign and the “prominent Democrats” supporting Figures’ campaign.

“Chairman Kelley is 100% correct when he says that Alabama delegates should be selected by Alabamians, not be a secret group of Washington, D.C. elites supporting Shomari Figures and his campaign,” Dobson said.

Dobson said Figures should either support Kelley “and the Black delegates he is fighting to protect” or take sides with what she said were the “unelected delegates that are being forced down the throats of Alabama Democrats” by the national party.

Two-thirds of the delegates going to Chicago are Black people, including state Rep. Barbara Drummond, D-Mobile.

“The goal of all Democrats is not fighting over delegates, but to make sure both Shomari Figures and Kamala Harris and Tim Walz get elected,” Drummond said. “That’s the sole goal. This is not about a power struggle, but to make sure those running for the Democratic seats get elected.”

Dobson, though, said Figures should comment on a controversy within his own political party, adding that “only a coward tries to hide behind silence on important issues like delegate controversy.”

Name calling

Figures, in his statement emailed to AL.com, shot back by calling Dobson “Alabama’s Marjorie Taylor Greene,” in reference to fiery right-wing congresswoman from neighboring Georgia.

“A privileged billionaire calling a Black man in Alabama a coward – for the second time – because he won’t do what she says?” Figures said. “Is that what leadership looks like?”

He added, “The name calling is pathetic, and honestly, just sad. As my 4-year-old son would say, ‘that’s not nice.” It’s the type of rhetoric people across this District are just tired of. I’ll pray for her.”

Figures said if Dobson “cares so much about Black people,” she should consider the following:

• Not support the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, massive document that outlines suggestions on a host of issues for consideration if a Republican is elected president. The document includes considerations to restrict Medicaid and Medicare access and mail-order abortion pills, has drawn scrutiny in recent weeks and was denounced by former President Donald Trump. Dobson has said she is “wholly unfamiliar” with the project, but the Figures campaign said her policies align the controversial document.
• Tell the State of Alabama to expand Medicaid, which he said would grant more healthcare access to thousands of Black people.
• Stop supporting efforts to “defund public schools.”
• Explain why she hasn’t led efforts to integrate her high school – Monroe Academy, which she graduated from in 2005. Accounts have surfaced in recent days that Dobson attended a so-called “segregation academy” that was formed as private school formed to sidestep Brown v. Board of Education ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954 that ruled school segregation unconstitutional.

Figures blasted Dobson saying she likely didn’t attend a school with a Black person until “she left Alabama and went to Harvard in 2005. Now she has the answers on Black representation issues? I think not.”

The Alabama Democratic Party has not weighed in on Dobson’s statements. A party spokesperson did not return requests for comment.

Former Democratic U.S. Senator Doug Jones, in a statement to AL.com, said Dobson’s opinion on a Democratic Party matter is “laughable.”

“The nominee of a political party with such a rich history of minority voter suppression, including their efforts today, has no credibility opinion on something they have no clue about,” Jones said. “But the statement is pretty typical for Republicans these days where facts simply do not matter and these guys clearly do not know the facts.”

Delegate controversy

The delegate controversy arose anew this week after Kelley threatened legal action and accused those denying the certification of the 36 delegates as having racist motivations.

Those comments followed a July 25 news release in which Kelley claims the Alabama Democratic Party “is the only bona fide group that can do business in Alabama for Democrats,” and is the “only group that can make rules for how Democrats are elected.” The statement also alleges that an “illegal, self-serving group” was usurping the role of the state party by appointing the delegates to the DNC.

Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison weighed in earlier this month by writing to Kelley that the state party missed deadlines to make delegate selections or challenge selections. Harrison also stated that all delegates were selected according to the state’s own regulations.

Alabama’s delegate selection plan, like those of other states, allows presidential candidates rights of review for each delegate candidate pledged to them.

“Refrain from any further miscommunication or misinformation to convention participants,” Harrison wrote to Kelley.

The delegate drama in Alabama is likely to have no impact on the pending nomination of Harris as the Democratic presidential nominee. The DNC confirmed earlier this month that Harris had garnered enough delegates to secure the nomination.

Jess Brown, a retired political science professor and a longtime observer of state politics in Alabama, said the national Democratic Party has the final say on who gets to participate as a delegate during the convention.

The U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled on the matter. In 1981, in Democratic Party v. Wisconsin, the court ruled in a 6-3 vote that state election law cannot preempt the delegate selection mechanisms of a national political party for that party’s national convention.

“Basically, we’ve had both conservative and liberal justices on the high court rule that basically a national party rules prevail in terms of this meeting of a private association,” Brown said. My guess is this disgruntled faction in the Alabama Democratic Party might make noise. If national party officials want to appease them in some way, they might do so. But as far as going to the convention and finding a way other than appeasement to get a vote, they will just be at the mercy of the national party.”

Strategic approach

Brown, though, said he can see the strategy utilized by Dobson to attract Black voters who are the majority in the redrawn 2nd congressional district. The district, currently represented by Republican U.S. Rep. Barry Moore of Enterprise, was drawn to benefit a Democratic politician after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that Alabama’s congressional map violated the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As a result, the newly redrawn map includes the 2nd district that gives Black voters a better opportunity to electing a candidate of their choosing.

The seat takes in all or part of 13 counties from Montgomery to Mobile and from the Georgia line to the Mississippi line.

“The effort by her suggest she is trying to get a sliver of the African American vote, particularly the Joe Reed faction in Montgomery, a faction that wasn’t happy with the Democratic primary (in the 2nd district) anyway,” said Brown.

Reed, an ally to Kelly and a longtime political powerbroker in Montgomery, requested in March that Figures and his Democratic primary runoff opponent Anthony Daniels – the state representative from Huntsville – be kicked off the ballot amid questions he raised over the possibilities of Republicans providing financial support to both candidates.

Reed, who heads up the Alabama Democratic Conference, endorsed state Rep. Napoleon Bracy of Saraland during the Democratic primary.

The ADC did endorse Figures ahead of the primary runoff in April.

“The race (between Figures and Dobson) is expected to be very close and every niche of the electorate matters,” Brown said. “She saw an opportunity to peel off the small subset of African American voters, and the Reed faction with its dispute with the national party, and she seized on that moment.”

CMT tonight will honor “the most popular country band in history.”

“CMT Giants: Alabama” airs at 8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, on CMT.

• LIVE STREAM: Fans can watch CMT without cable on Philo (free trial), fuboTV (free trial), Paramount+ (free trial), DirecTV Stream (free trial) and Sling.

CMT said the band will be “honored with stories and songs from fellow music stars Jason Aldean, Brad Paisley, Blake Shelton, Little Big Town, Riley Green, Pam Tillis, Lorrie Morgan and more.”

Alabama is currently on its “Roll On 2 North American Tour,” which was at the Giant Center in Hershey in April.

Alabama was formed more than 50 years ago by cousins Teddy Gentry, Randy Owen and the late Jeff Cook. They have sold 80 million albums, 43 No. 1 singles, including 21 No. 1 singles in a row, and multiple Grammy, CMA, and ACM awards. They are members of the Country Music Hall of Fame, and have their own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Alabama’s hits have included “Mountain Music,” “Tennessee River,” “High Cotton,” “Love in the First Degree,” “Can’t Keep a Good Man Down” and “I’m in a Hurry (And Don’t Know Why).”

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I am tired of the Alabama Democratic Party. 

So tired. 

I’m tired of writing about the absurd things that party leadership does. I’m tired of hearing about goofy, petty fights. I’m tired of watching grown people argue over who gets to captain a ship that sank long ago and is now burrowing into the muck at the bottom of the ocean. 

I’m tired of the insane headlines. I’m tired of the ridiculous press releases. I’m tired of the never-ending stream of letters back and forth between the party and the Democratic National Convention. 

Tired of it all. 

The infighting within this dumpster fire of a party has been going on now for more than a decade, with the worst of it coming over the past five years. And all of it is absurd. And unhelpful. And embarrassing. 

The past week has been a microcosm of the whole mess. 

It started with a challenge from chairman Randy Kelley to the DNC over the selection of delegates from Alabama. It was a worthless letter, which of course contained a threat. Kelley said he would be taking a second slate of delegates to the convention next week in Chicago to “challenge” the slate selected by the Harris campaign. 

I don’t know what this “challenge” would entail – maybe a Jets and Sharks street fight on the convention floor – but rest assured that the threat of it is as patently goofy as anything you’ve ever heard. 

But then, that’s the way this party has been operating – as goofy as possible. 

Because the leadership, with Kelley at the helm and vice chair of minority affairs Joe Reed pulling the strings, is constantly aggrieved. There is constantly a plot to undermine them. There is constantly a secret vendetta playing out, perpetrated by white people, to wrongfully wrestle control of the party away from their capable hands. 

It’s ludicrous. 

How far has it gone? Consider this: During a phone interview with me, Kelley called former Sen. Doug Jones a “confederate Democrat,” and then stood by it when I asked if he could repeat what he said. Then he called DNC chair Jamie Harrison “a token Black,” who is “afraid for his position,” so instead of doing the right things, Harrison instead “does what he’s told by the whites.” 

Kelley said all of this after I said his claims of racism – which he made in his letter to Harrison and others at the DNC – rang a bit hollow, considering he was complaining to the Black head of the party about selections made by the campaign of a Black woman. 

That’s how we got to this messy point, after all. The Biden campaign originally – and the Harris campaign since – denied several delegates put up by the state party and instead selected their own slate of Alabama delegates. To do so, the Biden/Harris campaign turned to Jones, Rep. Terri Sewell and Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin. 

To hear Kelley and Reed tell it, the whole thing was a sinister plot by a bunch of white dudes to undermine the Black folks of Alabama. It’s a story that might ring true if you forget that everyone involved, except Jones – the guy who prosecuted the KKK for the Birmingham church bombing – is Black. 

But the reality is much harder to take for ADP leadership. Because the reality is actions have consequences, and these are ADP’s coming home to roost. 

Reed has for years now thumbed his nose at DNC brass, bucked the status quo and did what he felt was best for him and the group of people loyal to him. I get it, and on some level, it is almost admirable to watch a guy so brazenly go against the grain and pick Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama in 2008 and Michael Bloomberg over Joe Biden in 2020.

But such decisions carry political consequences. As do decisions to essentially flip the middle finger to the DNC on the whole bylaws issue, while simultaneously trying to eliminate the voting rights within the party of several minority caucuses. 

The consequences of doing such things means you don’t get the trust of the folks at the top of the ticket. And if they can’t trust you, they can’t trust your delegates. It’s really that simple. 

But never mind all of that reality. Instead, we have to get another embarrassing show from ADP. Another chance to make headlines for all the wrong reasons. Another chance to call each other names and denigrate people who are pulling in the same direction. 

In the meantime, the Democratic Party in this state does not appear to be any closer to picking up meaningful offices in this state. Which is a shame, considering there are numerous issues right now in which the party holds positions that are most favorable with large numbers of Alabama voters. We could be talking about the amazing gains ADP is making among suburban women and working-class white guys and young people.  

Instead, the Alabama Democratic Party is making headlines for fighting with … other Democrats. 

It. Is. Exhausting.