https://washingtonsun.com/alabama Alabama en-US Wed, 03 Jun 2026 02:01:03 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/2026-election/supreme-court-alabama-black-district-congress-map Manuela Silva The court’s decision likely eliminates one of the state’s two majority-Black districts. Wed, 03 Jun 2026 02:01:03 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/2026-election/supreme-court-alabama-black-district-congress-map The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed Alabama Republicans to enact a congressional map that eliminates one of the state’s two majority-Black districts, lifting a lower-court ruling that had blocked the map on the grounds that it was racially discriminatory.

“The State has also made a strong showing of irreparable harm and that the equities and public interest favor it,” the court said in an unsigned opinion. “We have repeatedly cautioned that lower federal courts should not ‘alter the election rules on the eve of an election.’”

While the opinion was unsigned, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a scathing dissenting opinion, with justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joining her.

“Now the Court is squarely faced with a record of the turmoil it has caused and the harm it has wrought,” Sotomayor wrote. “Yet just as Alabama doubled down on racial discrimination, the Court today doubles down on chaos. Because I choose to defend the rule of law and the right of all Alabamians to participate equally in democracy, I respectfully dissent.”

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall had filed an emergency appeal last week with the Supreme Court, a day after a three-judge panel from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama ruled that Republicans could not use a congressional map that a federal court had previously blocked.

In their request, the state’s Republican leaders asked the Supreme Court to grant an administrative stay so the state can proceed with primary elections using the new map, which could flip a seat red in November.

Following the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais ruling in late April that effectively eliminated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, states across the South moved to consider redrawing their congressional lines to favor Republicans. In Alabama, Republicans are pushing to use a map that courts blocked in 2023, which would eliminate Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures’ district.

Federal judges have blocked that 2023 map multiple times, most recently last month after the Supreme Court had directed the lower court to reconsider the issue in light of the Callais ruling. After the lower court again barred Republicans from implementing the map last month, Republicans filed their emergency appeal to the Supreme Court. It was submitted to Justice Clarence Thomas, who oversees emergency appeals regarding the federal judicial circuit in Alabama.

Even though absentee voting for Alabama's primaries began in March, last week Republican Gov. Kay Ivey called for a special August election for certain U.S. House primary races due to the ongoing litigation over the state’s congressional map. Ballots that had already been cast in those races were nullified.

In their opposition brief to Republicans’ emergency appeal, the Democrats’ lawyers said that the lower-court ruling should be upheld because it is too late to administratively assign voters to new districts in time, and that the premise of the appeal for a block is based on "misrepresentations" to the court.

“The district court never held that Section 2 required Alabama to adopt a majority-Black district or otherwise draw districts on the basis of voters’ race. The district court’s remedial plan is proof positive: it does not contain a second majority-Black district and it was ‘drawn race-blind.’”

In its ruling last week, the three-judge panel called efforts to revert to the map that includes only one majority-Black district “intentionally discriminatory.”

“We cannot see our way clear to requiring Alabamians to cast their votes in the 2026 elections under a districting plan tainted by intentional race-based discrimination,” wrote the judges — two Trump appointees and one Clinton appointee.

Tuesday’s ruling sets Alabama on track to join Tennessee and Louisiana in successfully redrawing their maps following the Supreme Court’s Callais ruling.]]> https://washingtonsun.com/trump-white-house/katie-britt-jared-isaacman-alabama-nasa Reese Gorman After Jared Isaacman’s initial nomination was withdrawn, he told Aviation Week that senators “were fine” moving away from space programs that Britt said are crucial to Alabama. Tue, 02 Dec 2025 22:53:39 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/trump-white-house/katie-britt-jared-isaacman-alabama-nasa Ahead of his confirmation hearing this week, President Donald Trump’s nominee for NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman met with Alabama Sen. Katie Britt recently, where she pressed him for more than an hour on some of his past comments about a space center in her state.

Alabama is home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, which plays a vital role in the Artemis program, the Space Launch System and the agency's nuclear propulsion research. Trump’s reconciliation bill provided $4.1 billion for the Space Launch System rockets to support the fourth and fifth Artemis missions, a huge boon to Alabama.

Isaacman was previously nominated for the post but had his nomination withdrawn amid a feud between Trump and Elon Musk, a close ally of Isaacman’s. Shortly following the withdrawal of the nomination, Isaacman gave an interview to Aviation Week, where he suggested the U.S. should move away from the Space Launch System, adding that legislators from those states were not troubled by the idea.

“I was planting a lot of seeds with all the SLS political leadership from all those states of pivoting to nuclear-electric propulsion, and they were fine with it,” Isaacman told the outlet. “They’re not rocket scientists and engineers. They’re not saying, ‘No, the only way from now until the end of time is SLS.’ They just need something to pivot to.”

Britt was concerned that prematurely moving away from the Space Launch System rocket would hurt both Alabama and the U.S. space program, since it is the only rocket currently capable of taking astronauts and large cargo directly to lunar orbit in a single launch.

Britt told NOTUS she “wanted an opportunity to just speak very frankly and candidly with him” about these issues and his comments. The week before Thanksgiving, the two sat down.

Britt sought commitments that the money earmarked in the reconciliation bill for the Artemis projects would remain and that Marshall’s mission would be preserved.

“I appreciated his time and the ability to talk through a number of things,” Britt told NOTUS in an interview. “I was pleased to hear that he is committed to ensuring that the opportunities that were presented in the working families tax cut for space, making good on those. Particularly through the Artemis V and using the SLS rocket.”

Britt also said Isaacman made a commitment that “Marshall's core mission wouldn't change.”

“We talked through the importance of both nuclear thermal propulsion and nuclear electric propulsion, and that both were needed for deep space exploration,” Britt said. “He is committed to continuing to develop nuclear thermal propulsion.”

She said they left the meeting with “a mutual understanding that the road back to the moon and to Mars leads through Marshall and the incredible work that the men and women there do.” And while she was reassured after the meeting, she added that she wants to see those commitments made publicly.

“I'm excited to watch the hearing tomorrow, and I'm hopeful that many of the conversations that we had in my office will have an opportunity to hear those in the public square,” Britt said.

Isaacman is expected to address some of Britt’s concerns in his opening remarks at his hearing Wednesday, according to excerpts obtained by NOTUS. He is expected to say that “the Congress, and specifically this Committee, understand the urgency of the moment — placing a historic investment in human space exploration that President Trump signed in the One Big Beautiful Bill. It’s now time for NASA and our partners to deliver.”

He is also expected to say, “We will never accept a gap in capabilities again — not with our space station presence in low Earth orbit or our ability to send American astronauts.”

Isaacman’s confirmation has been a wild ride, even by Trump administration standards. He was originally withdrawn, and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy was made interim NASA administrator. Duffy wanted to keep the position by folding NASA into the Department of Transportation, prompting a proxy war between Duffy and his allies and Isaacman and those backing him.

Ultimately, Vice President JD Vance and chief of staff Susie Wiles won, and Isaacman was renominated.
]]> https://washingtonsun.com/congress/freedom-caucus-exodus-reshape-congress-state-governments Riley Rogerson At least five members of the House Freedom Caucus are leaving Congress to pursue statewide office. Mon, 25 Aug 2025 09:46:00 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/congress/freedom-caucus-exodus-reshape-congress-state-governments Former Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Biggs is ready to leave Capitol Hill.

“Congress really is, in its own weird way, irredeemable,” he told NOTUS in a recent interview.

As he runs for governor in Arizona, Biggs explained that during his more than eight years on Capitol Hill, he watched the Freedom Caucus push for rules amendments and "personnel changes at the top” — a veiled reference to Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s 2023 ouster — but that “it always reverts back to the mean.”

“It goes to something President Trump said as he was leaving D.C. after his first term,” Biggs said. “It turns out the swamp is deeper than we ever thought.”

That’s not to say Biggs doesn’t believe in the Freedom Caucus he once led. He said the cohort of a few dozen conservatives had “pulled the entire conference to the right.” It’s just that, he explained, Congress is not the forum to push for conservative reform.

“For a long time, I've been a believer of federalism,” Biggs said, “and I believe that, ultimately, the states are the engine that's going to drive this country back to a true constitutional republic.”

Biggs is not the only member of the House Freedom Caucus to come to that conclusion. For whatever reason, Reps. Ralph Norman and Byron Donalds are also running for governor in South Carolina and Florida, respectively. Rep. Chip Roy announced this week that he is running for Texas attorney general. Rep. Barry Moore is running for Alabama Senate. And Reps. Tom Tiffany and Andy Ogles have also floated state-wide runs.

The House Freedom Caucus, as Washington knows it, will look fundamentally different next year. Some staffers — particularly delighted Democrats — are speculating that with so many ideological leaders of the caucus looking for the exits, the group might functionally cease to exist, or, at least, cease to be a serious thorn in leadership’s side.

“The outcome of Chip leaving is a more productive Congress,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden told The Hill this week. “He’s been a contrarian, and he’s been an obstructionist.”

Conservatives insist that’s not the case. If anything, they told NOTUS, the move from Congress to the states is an important development for the conservative movement.

“The House Freedom Caucus is an institution that's built to last,” Andy Roth, president of the State Freedom Caucus Network, told NOTUS.

“There was pearl-clutching when Mark Meadows, Raúl Labrador and Ron DeSantis all left the House Freedom Caucus to go back home or to work in the White House, and a new crop of conservatives just slotted in and took their place,” he continued. “Raúl is the attorney general in Idaho. DeSantis, obviously, the governor. So this is sort of the second wave.”

A former Freedom Caucus member expressed a similar sentiment, telling NOTUS that while “only a few will be able to make the leap like Ron DeSantis and Raul Labrador,” older members leaving would allow for “a new team of leaders to emerge within the HFC ranks like Eli Crane, Eric Burlison, Brandon Gill and Keith Self.” Each of those members has made a name for himself with surprising “no” votes on key legislation and eye-popping, sometimes offensive rhetoric on social media and during hearings.

“The challenge for this new group will be not how to say NO but how to transition to Yes,” this former member said. “There is power in being able to do both and no power when you can only say YES or only say NO.”

But as this former member suggested, it may not be so easy for all these Freedom Caucus candidates to win. As early polling indicates, several of these statewide races will be competitive, if not long shots, for the HFC members. At least one messy primary between Norman and MAGA firebrand Rep. Nancy Mace is already underway in South Carolina.

After years of Freedom Caucus members fighting for conservative outcomes in Congress, that brand of politics might not sell in some states. If anything, it could be a liability.

Arizona, for example, has a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators. Biggs is already highlighting his bipartisan credentials, referencing his work on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Authorization for Use of Military Force with Democrats to NOTUS.

But Biggs isn’t exactly hiding from his conservative record, either.

He was one of eight lawmakers to proudly vote to remove McCarthy two years ago, in protest of his failure to pass 12 individual appropriations bills. He and most of the Freedom Caucus have voted against funding bills that, without Democratic support, would have shut down the federal government. And during the reconciliation process, the Freedom Caucus advocated for, and secured, steep cuts to Medicaid.

In redder states, HFC members are eager to associate with that record.

“As the first elected official in the country to endorse President Trump, I will have his back and defend the MAGA agenda in the Senate, just like I have as a member of the Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives,” Moore said in a statement announcing his Senate campaign.

Roy, too, leaned on much of the same rhetoric he’s known for espousing during regular floor speeches about the problems the country faces in his announcement.

"Texas is under assault — from open-border politicians, radical leftists and faceless foreign corporations that threaten our sovereignty, safety and our way of life," Roy said in a statement. "It's time to draw a line in the sand. As Attorney General, I will fight every single day for our God-given rights, for our families and for the future of Texas.”

While people like Roy may be legitimately interested in running for a statewide fix for Texas’ future, there are also plenty of reasons the HFC members are running from Congress.

Regardless of ideology, recent retirees of Congress told NOTUS earlier this year that they’re happier working away from Capitol Hill, even if they remained in the political world. A score of senators are pursuing runs for governor, calling the upper chamber “dysfunctional.”

From right to left, lawmakers have called the nasty partisan brawling and incremental fights for change draining and uninspired. Many have blamed the Freedom Caucus for exacerbating that problem.

In the end, it might be driving them away.

“I mean, the frustration that I think people feel inside and outside the caucus when they leave is they see the same thing I do, and that’s the uniparty — or whatever you want to call it — that is really powerful in D.C., and it's a constant fight,” Biggs said.

“And I gave it my constant fight and will give it my constant fight, run through the tape til I'm done,” he said, “but the states are going to have to also join in the fight.”]]> https://washingtonsun.com/alabama/tommy-tuberville-is-running-for-governor-of-alabama Torrence Banks His decision to leave the Senate is likely to also set off a competitive primary to replace him. Tue, 27 May 2025 20:22:36 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/alabama/tommy-tuberville-is-running-for-governor-of-alabama After weeks of speculation, Sen. Tommy Tuberville on Tuesday launched his campaign for Alabama’s governor’s office.

He’ll be heavily favored to win next year’s Republican gubernatorial primary, after other top potential candidates decided to stay out of the race. His decision also opens up a spot in the Senate that is likely to set off a scramble in Alabama politics.

The senator formally announced his decision Tuesday afternoon on “The Will Cain Show,” after launching a “Coach Tuberville for Governor” website.

“A few years ago, I decided to give back to this great country and fight,” Tuberville said during the show. “President Trump was a guy that really was behind me in doing the Senate race. He's been behind me ever since, and today I will announce that I will be the future governor of the great state of Alabama.”

Tuberville joins a growing pool of senators either eyeing or already running for seats back home rather than staying in an increasingly dysfunctional Congress. The former football coach has not yet even completed his first term in the Senate.

His highly anticipated announcement comes after months of speculation about whether Tuberville would take this next step in politics. In April, Semafor reported that he started telling his colleagues in the Senate that he was planning to run for governor. Yellowhammer News also reported that Tuberville told donors at a private event that he had made his decision to leave the Senate.

Rick Pate, commissioner of the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries, told NOTUS that he spoke with Tuberville in the lead-up to the announcement, and said he believes that Tuberville has been an “effective” senator, but he understands Tuberville’s decision to leave the role.

“I can understand his point,” Pate said in an interview in early May. “He's tired of being in Washington. … So, everybody has to do what they want to do.”

Ahead of his announcement, Joan Reynolds, vice chair of the Alabama Republican Party, told NOTUS that while the state party doesn’t pick sides in a primary, she believes that Tuberville “would do equally as well for the state as he's done in the Senate.”

One possible hurdle Tuberville will face is the state’s residency requirement. Alabama’s constitution says that anyone who wants to run for governor must “have been citizens of the United States ten years and resident citizens of this state at least seven years next before the date of their election.”

Tuberville lived in the state from 1999 through 2008, when he was the head football coach at Auburn University, but moved away afterward before returning to the state in 2018. He announced his Senate campaign in 2019. He currently owns at least two properties in Florida and at least two in Alabama. He has argued that the state's constitution doesn’t require that the years must be directly before the election year.

“I think he would be considered a heavy favorite,” Terry Lathan, former Alabama Republican Party chair, told NOTUS. “Everyone in the state knows who he is. He could raise money. He's got a very high name ID, and he's been very strong on conservative issues.”

But primary voters are the ones he’ll need to win over. A poll by J.L. Partners taken in late April showed that 71% of Republican primary voters believe that he should stay in the Senate.

Alabama Republicans believed that Tuberville’s toughest competition for governor could be Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth. However, after initially expressing interest in the position, Ainsworth decided to sit it out.

“After much prayer and many discussions with my family, friends, and supporters, I will not be a candidate for governor during the 2026 election cycle,” Ainsworth said in a statement posted on social media. Taking a job in the private sector, he said, “makes the most sense for all of us at this time in our lives.”

All signs now seem to be pointing towards Tuberville as the clear Republican nominee in the governor’s election.

—
Torrence Banks is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.]]> https://washingtonsun.com/alabama/alabama-tommy-tuberville-potential-run Torrence Banks If the senator runs for governor, he would leave open a desirable office that several Republicans are already eyeing. Tue, 13 May 2025 09:13:00 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/alabama/alabama-tommy-tuberville-potential-run Alabama Republicans are eagerly waiting to learn whether Sen. Tommy Tuberville will jump into the gubernatorial race to replace outgoing Gov. Kay Ivey in next year’s race. 

Many of them think he’d be a fine candidate for the job, but that potential vacancy in the Senate would also leave a rare opening to move up the ranks in the deeply red state. Republicans acknowledged this could quickly become a big game of musical chairs.

John Wahl, chair of the Alabama Republican Party, told NOTUS he expects a potential Senate primary to be “very contested.”

“Senate seats don’t come open that often, and so there’s gonna be a lot of people looking, looking at this as an opportunity to test the waters a bit,” Wahl said.

John Merrill, Alabama’s former secretary of state who left the role after his second term, is among those who told NOTUS he is watching closely to see if Tuberville launches a campaign for governor out of interest in running to replace him.

“A number of people have asked me to look at that as a possibility,” Merrill said. “And that’s a race that would be very, very attractive to me and to a number of other people in our state.”

Even Tuberville acknowledged that, while he still has not made a decision about running, he’s “heard several names” of people who would be interested in his seat.

“I’ll give them all the advice in the world if I do this, but I ain’t decided whether I’m gonna do it yet or not,” Tuberville told NOTUS on Monday. “Yeah, there’ll be a bunch of people who run.”

Tuberville told CNN in April that he would make a decision on whether to run by Memorial Day.

Other politicians have also expressed interest in Tuberville’s current job. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said during a speech in March that if Tuberville left his seat, he would “look at the Senate race.”

During an interview with “Alabama Politics This Week” in May, former Democratic Sen. Doug Jones also left open the possibility of joining the race.

“I’m looking how best to stay in that fight with the groups that I’m working with on a national level, the groups that I’m working with on a state level,” Jones said. “I’m going to stay in this fight one way or another. What that means at this point, I can’t say.”

Rick Pate, commissioner of the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries, is also making decisions regarding his political future based on Tuberville. He told NOTUS that he had been “considering” running for governor, but now that it seems Tuberville could jump in and suck “a lot of the oxygen out of the race,” he’s considering running for lieutenant governor instead.

“Obviously, it’s a vacant seat,” Pate said about the possibility of Tuberville’s Senate seat opening up. “You got some people that appeals to, to go to Washington and be in the Senate, it’s a pretty big deal.”

Despite the heavy interest in the race, one politician who has been rumored as a possibility, Lt. Gov Will Ainsworth, has made a point of trying to shut down speculation on whether he would run for Senate. On Thursday, he told a local radio station that he doesn’t “have much of an interest in running for the Senate” and that he’d only be interested in running for governor.

Semafor reported in late April that Tuberville had started telling his colleagues in the Senate that he was planning to run for governor, and Yellowhammer News reported he told donors at a private event that he had decided to leave the Senate.

As of Monday, no candidates have officially entered the race to replace Ivey, who is term-limited.

Several of Tuberville’s colleagues are eager to see him run.

“He’s been a great senator,” Rep. Barry Moore of Alabama told NOTUS. “He’s very conservative. His record aligns a lot with mine. I think he’d be a great governor, but he’s been a great senator.”

Former Rep. Mo Brooks told NOTUS he expects the potential Republican Senate primary to be contested. While it’s highly unlikely he would consider entering the race, he’s left open the possibility.

“The best way to describe it is that it is possible but unlikely. I’m having a very good life right now with my 14 grandchildren and eight kids and kids-in-law and wife. And I haven’t been shot at since I left Congress,” Brooks said, laughing. “That’s a plus.”

—
Torrence Banks is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.]]> https://washingtonsun.com/alabama/trump-alabama-commencement Torrence Banks The president used the school's successful track record in sports as a way to rail against transgender athletes. Fri, 02 May 2025 02:24:26 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/alabama/trump-alabama-commencement President Donald Trump used his speech at the University of Alabama’s main commencement ceremony Thursday to lean into his anti-trans agenda, including his promise to “always protect women’s sports” from transgender athletes.

He started off his speech praising the school’s “winning” culture in sports, acknowledging that the school has successful basketball and football programs, and using it as a way into talking about trans athletes.

“As long as I'm president, we will always protect women's sports,” Trump said. “Men will not be playing in women's sports. No way. They say that's an 80-20 issue. No, it's a 97-3 issue I think. No, men will not be playing in women's sports, no way. I said that, and I classified it with a very powerful executive order.”

He was referring to the executive order he signed soon after taking office, called the “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order. It has gotten pushback from LGBTQ+ advocates, such as those in New Jersey.

But Trump's anti-trans rhetoric goes back much further and was featured heavily in his presidential campaign, like a 2024 ad with the tagline: “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”

On Thursday, he congratulated the school’s women’s track and field team for winning two Southeastern Conference titles before talking about the importance of protecting women’s sports.

Trump made the case to the audience that his administration was working to end “transgender for everybody.”

“This is not going to work, as I said before. [It’s] so simple, men playing in women's sports. Have you ever seen some of the records? Have you ever seen some of these boxing matches? These women are great athletes, but we have to protect,” Trump said.

He later mocked and impersonated transgender athletes during his speech.

“My wife gets very upset when I do this,” Trump said. “She said, ‘But darling, it’s not presidential.’ Yeah, but people like it.”

The close ties Trump has had with the university were evident throughout the graduation event. Trump was introduced by former University of Alabama football head coach Nick Saban, who reminisced about the time he took his championship team to the Trump White House.

From the stage, Trump thanked several Alabama officials. Among those was Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who was booed earlier in the evening when Trump mentioned his name. (Tuberville was a rival football coach at Auburn University.)

It was not Trump's only visit to the school in recent months. When he attended the Georgia-Alabama football game in Tuscaloosa in October, he made less of a splash — several attendees told NOTUS that they didn’t care that he was there.

This time, several groups in the state expressed their disapproval of the school’s decision to have him speak. The Alabama NAACP put out a statement condemning the decision to have him give the address.

The University of Alabama’s College Democrats held a “Tide Against Trump” rally protest at a local park with former presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke as a speaker.

—
Torrence Banks is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.]]> https://washingtonsun.com/climate-environment/trump-administration-alabama-county-sewage Torrence Banks, Anna Kramer The Trump administration ended an agreement aimed at fixing sewage issues in a predominantly Black, rural county as part of its push against “environmental justice.” The county’s officials and residents are now left worried about their future. Thu, 01 May 2025 09:13:00 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/climate-environment/trump-administration-alabama-county-sewage FORT DEPOSIT, Ala. — In a visit to her childhood home, Gabrielle McPherson points out its sagging floors and a cracked roof in the laundry room. It is in need of significant repairs, but her family’s biggest concern is the plumbing.

This house is one of many in this Lowndes County neighborhood that pumps untreated raw sewage into the environment through a process known as straight piping, which sometimes results in pools of it building up on residents’ lawns. The yard occasionally produces a strong, unbearable odor that intensifies during the summer. It’s common for sinks and toilets to clog when it rains.

The decades-long problem has drawn nationwide attention for its health risks, and residents of this predominantly Black, rural county don’t trust that the problem is getting better anytime soon.

Recently, the Trump administration said it was terminating the federal government’s settlement with local officials to address the issue, adding that it was a decision taken to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting “environmental justice” efforts.

In Lowndes County, news of the terminated agreement with the federal government to help them fix their wastewater problems hadn’t reached McPherson when NOTUS asked her about it. But she believes that removing it will hurt the county.

“A lot of people get in certain positions and they use it to their benefit, not to help,” McPherson said in response to the administration’s anti-DEI justification for terminating the agreement. “As long as it’s helping them, they say they’re going to do this and they’re going to do that … like I said, this has been years.”
Lowndes County AP-21313610197092 (2000x1311, AR: 1.53)Lowndes County is one of hundreds of places with environmental health problems that the Biden administration identified as needing “environmental justice” solutions. In Nanjemoy, Maryland, residents often don’t have access to safe drinking water; in Pocatello, Idaho, sewage has occasionally flooded out of manholes; the Kugkaktlik River is close to spilling past its eroding embankment and flooding fuel tanks in Kipnuk, Alaska.

Communities and groups like these and Lowndes County were among the thousands to apply for funding to address long-standing problems through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental and Justice and External Civil Rights. The idea promoted by the Biden administration was that the poorest and most historically underfunded communities with long-standing pollution issues should be prioritized for receiving federal government assistance.

In the case of Lowndes County, the EPA awarded $14.4 million to Texas A&M University and the Black Belt Unincorporated Wastewater Program to build wastewater treatment solutions for 350 homes and create a training program for wastewater professionals.

But the Trump administration is planning on terminating the grants awarded through this program, as well as many other environmental justice grant programs from the EPA, according to an April 23 court filing. The EPA declined to comment on questions about this award.

“One of the biggest things we were trying to do was address the fact that there are communities that live across the United States that live in realities completely different from the rest of us. … They know that when they flush their toilets, it’s going to go into the stream where their kids play or into their backyard, like in Lowndes County,” said Matthew Tejada, who served as a key environmental justice administrator at the EPA during Joe Biden’s tenure as president.

“In the case of Lowndes, we were finally starting to see the government really recognize its responsibility to the people of that part of the country and to hold ourselves accountable to it,” he said.

But now, Lowndes County represents something else: the uncertainty that exists for people in a world where Trump and his cabinet have a knee-jerk reaction to anything labeled “environmental justice.”

***

In Trump’s first week in office, he signed an executive order calling for the removal of all “environmental justice” initiatives throughout the federal government. Agencies began to pull web pages that referenced the phrase, freeze grant disbursements and remove data tools, including the EPA’s mapping tool that overlaid demographic and environmental health data to indicate the most underserved areas facing disproportionate pollution.

The EPA has fired or reassigned hundreds of staffers assigned to work on related issues, closed the 10 regional environmental justice offices, and announced its plans to terminate the grant programs. The Justice Department has suspended some key environmental leaders, reassigned lawyers and changed policy directives to put an end to environmental justice efforts.

The DOJ on April 11 terminated the settlement with the state on handling wastewater issues in Lowndes County, after weeks of changes at the agency that involved removing and reassigning attorneys working on environmental justice prosecutions. The administration also indicated they would not be pursuing any other investigations into environmental justice issues.

“Today’s closure is another step this Administration has taken to eradicate illegal DEI preferences and environmental justice across the government and in the private sector. The Department is working quickly to close such cases in compliance with the Attorney General’s directive,” the DOJ said in the announcement of the reversal.

EPA building AP-23078575086926 (5714x3810, AR: 1.50)
The DOJ did not respond to additional questions from NOTUS.

Across the administration, members of Trump’s cabinet speak about “environmental justice” as a form of discrimination and as a tool to funnel money to Democratic-aligned groups.

“As Administrator Zeldin has repeatedly stressed, 'environmental justice' has been used primarily as an excuse to fund left-wing activist groups instead of actually spending those dollars on directly remediating the specific environmental issues that need to be addressed. The Trump EPA is focused on provide clean air, land, and water for every American regardless of race, gender, creed, and background,” an EPA spokesperson said in response to questions from NOTUS.

In terminating the agreement with Alabama, the DOJ was undoing years of work to address the sewage issues — and years of trying to build trust with the community.

One problem the Biden administration had to overcome was that Alabama had long fined residents who straight piped. In the past, residents had reportedly been arrested and jailed for not having septic systems and for straight piping. In addition, a 2019 state law allowed the Alabama Department of Public Health to install a septic system in residents’ homes and put a lien on their property to get the money back. The department previously said it’s not going to go back to issuing citations and fines to residents for sanitation issues.

“A lot of people that were having those same issues didn’t speak out before because of fear of, ‘I don’t want to be cited,’” Stephaine Wallace, a Lowndes County resident and project manager for the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice, told NOTUS. “Once that agreement was put in place, OK, now I’ll let you know. Yes, I need help, I’m straight piping or I have a system that’s failing and I can’t afford to fix it.”

Wallace said she is now hopeful that the state health department “honors” its promise not to return to fining, as it would “look just as bad as Trump” if it reneged.

The closing of regional environmental justice offices, including the one that represents Alabama, will likely decrease the EPA’s abilities to listen to the on-the-ground needs of communities like those in Lowndes County, multiple former Biden administration officials told NOTUS.

“The office for environmental justice comes from the fact that many communities were left out of the decision-making. And so at its core, it’s the arm that is community-based and community-led, and it’s the group of people that create those relationships on the ground,” said Lisa Garcia, an EPA regional administrator for the mid-Atlantic and Puerto Rico during the Biden administration. “They lead this community-based, very localized solution to an environmental problem.”

Biden embedded the concept of “environmental justice” throughout his agencies, giving the EPA new technical assistance centers aimed to help these communities with infrastructure issues, prioritizing funds from the Inflation Reduction Act for these communities and even directing the Justice Department to focus its prosecutions of environmental crimes on the most historically underfunded places.

As part of accepting the settlement, Biden’s DOJ agreed to pause its investigation into the Alabama Department of Public Health for civil rights violations. At the time, state health officer Scott Harris approved of the agreement, but disputed that the Alabama Department of Public Health neglected the problem.

But even then the people in Lowndes County had questions about what exactly that would mean for them down the road.

“When the EPA came, that was one of the questions that I asked,” Delmartre Bethel, the mayor of White Hall, Alabama, told NOTUS. “‘If the Biden-Harris administration did not come back in office, where did it kind of leave the town?’ [I] was unable to get a clear and definite answer. So when it comes to kind of working on some of the issues that we’ve had in the past with this administration, I’m not too hopeful that we’ll be able to kind of get something accomplished.”

Terri Sewell AP-21293645571787 (5198x3465, AR: 1.50)
Rep. Terri Sewell, who represents Lowndes County and held a town hall there last week, told NOTUS that the difference between the past and current administrations is clear on the ground.

“This administration’s total attack on diversity, equity and inclusion has made them less amenable to even acknowledge environmental injustices, even though they were documented by the previous administration,” Sewell said. “And so it’s a struggle.”

***

Under the Biden-era agreement, Alabama committed to taking steps to provide Lowndes County residents with an adequate sewage system. The state’s department of health agreed to contracts, one of which specifically serves Lowndes County residents, to install new septic systems. Those contracts run through December 2026.

Ron Dawsey, the director of the Bureau of Environmental Services at the Alabama Department of Public Health, told NOTUS that Alabama plans to abide by those contracts “as long as we have appropriated funding” from Congress, even with the agreement lifted.

Geraldine McPherson, a relative of Gabrielle’s who lives in a neighborhood seven miles from Gabrielle’s parents, was able to get her septic tank replaced free of charge in November because she was considered a top priority under the previous administration’s guidance. Before that, she said sewage was coming up into her backyard, too. Geraldine now worries that the termination of the state health department’s contract with the DOJ could make others worried about reaching out for help.

“They don’t think Trump is any good,” Geraldine said about Lowndes County residents. “And they think he’s not for the poor people. He’s for the rich and he’s not going to do anything to help us. Like I said, it’s really getting rough out here as far as people reaching out for help.”

There’s split opinion among residents about whether sewage issues will now get worse, but even the head of the county’s Republican party called the decision to reverse course “disappointing.”

“I mean, hopefully the education and awareness about it, we’re not gonna get worse,” said Rick Pate, Lowndes County GOP chair. “I mean, it’s gonna certainly slow down making it better.”

Some Democrats are holding off judgement on the effect that canceling the agreement will have. Catherine Coleman Flowers, the founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice who served on Biden’s White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, told NOTUS that she’s “waiting to see” if this Trump administration provides remedies for Lowndes County and other neighboring counties with similar problems.

In 2024, the Lowndes County Unincorporated Wastewater Program received $1.5 million from the Alabama Department of Public Health to install septic systems. Carmelita Arnold, the group’s president, told NOTUS that money would only be enough for 60 households and that each system costs on average “$20,000 a piece to install.”

She said the agreement’s termination would only contribute to more residents feeling uncomfortable to say they need assistance.

“The septic problem has existed for so long in Lowndes County, and so many people and so much money has come into and come out without a solution, a lot of the residents feel betrayed,” Arnold said.

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Torrence Banks is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow. Anna Kramer is a reporter at NOTUS.]]> https://washingtonsun.com/alabama/lowndes-county-town-hall Torrence Banks “[Trust issues] are probably gonna come back immediately,” one Lowndes County resident said. “Some of them don’t know and don’t understand where to go, who to talk to, and again, who to trust.” Thu, 24 Apr 2025 02:09:07 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/alabama/lowndes-county-town-hall FORT DEPOSIT, Ala. — The constituents at Alabama Rep. Terri Sewell’s town hall in Lowndes County on Wednesday all seemed to want to know the same thing: How did the congresswoman plan to combat their problems with wastewater treatment?

Earlier this month, the Department of Justice terminated a settlement agreement with the Alabama Department of Public Health to resolve sewage issues in Lowndes County, a predominantly Black county near Montgomery. The agreement was reached in 2023 under the Biden administration and addressed wastewater issues that go back decades and had long drawn national attention because of the health risks associated with them.

But the Trump administration announced it was ending the agreement in order to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive actions targeting “environmental justice.”

Sewell said that in doing so, the Trump administration made it clear that “they have a disregard for the constituents that I represent,” calling it “unacceptable.”

“It’s absolutely outrageous and cruel without support from the Trump administration, it is vital that Alabama’s Department of Public Health continue to do its part to remedy this injustice,” Sewell said to mass applause in the auditorium of a government building of this rural town that makes up part of the state’s Black Belt.

Due to the dense clay soil in the region, many residents in the county have septic tanks that don’t work, or have no sewage treatment option at all. One of the common areas the issue persists in the state is in rural homes, too far away to access the county and city sewer lines. Many of those residents have turned to straight piping, a practice that involves the pumping of untreated raw sewage into the environment that can result in pools of it building up in residents’ lawns.

Perman Hardy, 66, who attended Sewell’s town hall and said she’s lived in Lowndes County her whole life, believes these conditions have contributed to family members growing up with health complications like bronchitis and asthma.

“So my grandkid had to grow up when it rained, you cannot go to the bathroom,” Hardy said. “You cannot if it rained three days, you got to go to a straight-pipe house or go somewhere and use the bathroom. You can’t use it because [sewage is] gonna come back in the house.”

The agreement entered into by the Biden administration was the first to follow an environmental justice investigation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It in part required the Alabama Department of Public Health “to stop imposing fines, fees, penalties and threatening liens on residents of Lowndes County who cannot afford functioning septic systems,” according to remarks made by then-Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke announcing the agreement.

Now that the agreement has ended, Alabama’s health department has said it won’t return to penalizing residents. But that may not be enough to alleviate residents’ concerns. Lowndes County resident Bettie Rudolph, who attended the town hall, told NOTUS she worried the fear of repercussions from asking for state’s assistance with sewage could return.

“[Trust issues] are probably gonna come back immediately,” Rudolph said. “Some of them don’t know and don’t understand where to go, who to talk to, and again, who to trust.”

Lowndes County resident Thomas Ellis, who’s part of the Lowndes County Economic Development Commission, told NOTUS he hasn’t had any problems with his own septic tank. However, he said he’s concerned about the effect that terminating the agreement could have on the county’s economy.

“Businesses won’t locate in our area without wastewater already being here,” Ellis said. “And of course, education is important, health care is important, but wastewater really is the first thing that impacts us being able to get businesses here so we can get jobs for people.”

Lowndes County resident Debra Washington told NOTUS that she has friends and relatives who have had issues with their septic tanks and that people left to live with raw sewage in their yards is “unacceptable.”

At other town halls, lawmakers have been peppered with questions about the Republican agenda, including the future of the Department of Education and the threat of cuts to Medicaid. That was true at Sewell’s town hall Wednesday as well, but as Sewell’s staff fielded questions, her district director acknowledged that many of them were about wastewater treatment.

During the town hall, one constituent asked why the Justice Department’s agreement with the Alabama Department of Health was “considered illegal or a DEI program by the federal government, and if there are other programs at risk of being terminated under DEI?”

Sewell responded by explaining to her constituents how Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency have targeted diversity, and that it’s important they “push back.”

As a result of Democrats being out of power in Washington, Sewell is limited in what she can do to address the issue. Any legislation that Sewell wants to get passed in Congress would require bipartisan support.

She also told her audience that she wants to prevent the $1.5 million the county received from the 2018 Rural Septic Tank Access Act from being cut by the Trump administration.

“Know that your congresswoman is going to fight like hell to hold on to the money that we’ve appropriated for the wastewater treatment right here in Lowndes County,” Sewell said, “throughout the Black Belt, and make sure that they have hands off our money for a water system.”

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Torrence Banks is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.]]> https://washingtonsun.com/alabama/rep-terri-sewell-town-hall Torrence Banks The Alabama Democrat pointed to some examples of DOGE backtracking after public backlash. Wed, 09 Apr 2025 02:01:03 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/alabama/rep-terri-sewell-town-hall Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell urged her constituents to mobilize in order to pressure the Trump administration to reverse course on some of its efforts to revise history.

The Alabama lawmaker said this approach has already gotten results, pointing to the Department of Government Efficiency removing the Montgomery Greyhound Bus Station from a list of federal historic sites it initially listed as for sale and calling it a “win” for the Democratic Party.

“When we amplify our voices, when we call out the outrageousness of the actions that are being taken, they have a tendency to reverse their orders,” Sewell said Tuesday during a telephone town hall in response to a question her staff read from a constituent about what she was doing to prevent the Trump administration from erasing Black history.

“I think we have to be vigilant about that,” Sewell said.

She pointed to a joint press conference she held with fellow Alabama Rep. Shomari Figures and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on the “outrageous” decision to include the building on the list, and said reversing the move was an example of what her party, which is out of power, can do to slow down President Donald Trump.

The Montgomery Greyhound Bus Station, now a museum dedicated to remembering the Montgomery bus boycott, was one of more than 400 federal buildings that were first listed on the General Services Administration’s website as “non-core” properties that could be closed or sold. Not long after its initial posting, the list was taken down. Now the website currently has an abbreviated list of sites “identified for accelerated disposition” that does not include the bus station.

The Trump administration has also taken aim at other historical institutions. Last month, the administration issued an executive order targeted at Smithsonian institutions that left open the question of whether exhibits would be removed from the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

“I’m mobilizing with other members of Congress and with outside organizations, and I hope with you all to have our collective voice be heard,” Sewell said. “That is unacceptable, unacceptable. To take away exhibits and from the National African American Museum, and under our watch we’re not going to stand by idly without a fight.”

In January, the Air Force scrubbed information from its training courses about the Tuskegee Airmen, the country’s first Black military pilots who served in a segregated unit during World War II, but reversed the decision after public outcry. Reinstating the information was another example Sewell pointed to of “a win” against the Trump administration.

“We know that the Tuskegee Airmen are heroes,” Sewell said. “They are patriots. They have been celebrated by the Air Force and by all the services as being the only unit that led those bombers and never lost a plane. So we pushed back, we held press conferences, we issued statements. And lots and lots of you demanded that it be returned. And so it was. That’s a win.”

At the end of her town hall, Sewell emphasized to her constituents that they play a big part in Democrats “mobilizing” efforts, and she needs them to “stay engaged and to stay involved.”

“It is no coincidence that the Trump administration has already backtracked on several of its unpopular policies, whether it was funding freeze or the selling of the Montgomery Greyhound Bus Station. Those reversals happened because the American people spoke up and made their voices heard.”

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Torrence Banks is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.]]> https://washingtonsun.com/senate/republicans-privatizing-airport-security-screenings Torrence Banks Two Republican senators are going as far as to say the agency that handles security checks at airports should be abolished in favor of privatizing the process. Mon, 07 Apr 2025 14:56:43 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/senate/republicans-privatizing-airport-security-screenings Republicans in Congress are eyeing changes to the Transportation Security Administration, with some arguing that its security operations should be privatized.

Republican lawmakers see the agency as exactly the type of government spending they should try to scale back on. They argue that an overhaul, or even abolishing it altogether, is necessary, even if they emphasize that they believe airport security is crucial.

“Ninety-five percent of the time, they miss. TSA misses anything that could cause problems on airplanes,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a former football coach, told NOTUS. “Ninety-five percent of the time. Now [I would have gotten] fired if I lost 95% of my games. So either do it right, or let's give it to somebody else. And again, we need security. We just need to do something different.”

TSA did not respond to a request for comment. Most Republican lawmakers who support reimagining the agency did not point to specific incidents that have prompted these concerns. But the agency in the past has received scrutiny after failing internal security reviews.

“Our current setup with TSA, it's a mess,” Sen. Josh Hawley said. “Obviously, the creation of TSA within DHS long predates me. But I'm open to other suggestions, so long as passenger security, and we've got to maintain that. But the TSA, the number of complaints, I'm just thinking from a homeland security perspective, the different complaints that we get, the number of security breaches, it's a lot.”

Tuberville and Sen. Mike Lee recently introduced a bill to “abolish” the TSA, which was established by the Aviation and Security Transportation Act under President George W. Bush’s administration to tighten security at airports after 9/11. For years, it has played a role in checking baggage for prohibited items as well as other security operations at airports across the country.

Tuberville and Lee’s office did not respond to a request for comment on whether they’ve had conversations with leadership about the bill, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s office referred NOTUS to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. The office of Sen. Ted Cruz, who serves as committee chair, did not respond to a request for comment, and neither did a spokesperson for the committee.

In a release about the legislation, Tuberville and Lee called the agency “bloated and ineffective.” The bill is aimed at transferring many of TSA’s security responsibilities to “qualified” private companies. Other “non-aviation” security tasks would move to the Department of Transportation.

Sen. Katie Britt, who serves in the Alabama delegation with Tuberville, told NOTUS that she’s “always open to ways” on how to improve security at airports. However, Britt said she would need to “take a look at the issue” when asked about the job TSA is currently doing when it comes to security.

While TSA handles security screenings at the vast majority of airports, some of them are already operating with select private companies under the Screening Partnership Program.

The chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Sen. Rand Paul, was open to an overhaul, telling reporters that he believes that the “random checks they’re doing now are of no value and more invasive.”

All of these conversations are happening in the context of airport and flight security getting more attention after the deadly crash in January near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

They are also happening in the context of Republicans expressing some appetite to privatize other parts of government, like the United States Postal Service (though some Republicans in Congress have balked at that suggestion).

While other Republicans seemed interested in the possibility of privatizing security checks currently done by TSA, they didn’t say that the agency was doing a bad job.

Rep. Brian Mast told NOTUS that it is “worth debating” whether a private company should benefit financially from handling security screenings. But he added that TSA has “done a good job” at preventing another 9/11.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito told NOTUS that she’s “sure the TSA could use improvement,” but overall the agency does “a pretty good job.”

Sen. Thom Tillis told NOTUS that a hybrid solution could provide better service at airports.

“What I think works best in the private sector is you could still have TSA government employees responsible for general operations,” Tillis said. “But then you have a contractor staff that gives you flex.”

Meanwhile, Democrats don’t think the legislation makes much sense.

“That’s stupid,” Sen. Ruben Gallego, who serves on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, told NOTUS about the idea. “The reason we ended up having 9/11 is because we had privatized security screenings. Why are we going to go back to what caused 9/11 in the first place?”

Sen. Andy Kim told NOTUS that he hadn’t heard about the bill, but thinks the idea could create security issues.

“I’d probably have some concerns in terms of the ability to just make sure that the security is the level that I would want,” Kim said. “I don't see why we need to be moving in that direction. I haven’t heard any credible argument for that at this point.”

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Torrence Banks is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.]]>