Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken McFeeters filed a challenge with the Alabama Republican Party last week challenging front-runner U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s eligibility to run for governor. McFeeters’s challenge claims that Tuberville has not been a resident of the state in the past seven years, which is the legal residency requirement for Alabama’s governor.

Section 117 of the Alabama Constitution mandates that candidates for governor and lieutenant governor should be “resident citizens of this state at least seven years next before the date of their election.”

McFeeters is claiming that Tuberville has not fulfilled this requirement because he lives in a beach home in Florida full-time. Property tax records show that Tuberville has two properties: a $5.5 million beach home in Walton County, Florida and a house in Auburn with an appraised value of $291,780.

The house in Auburn was originally purchased by Tuberville’s wife and son in 2017. Tuberville’s name was added to the deed to the property and his son’s name was removed in 2024, according to a timeline compiled by al.com. Tuberville has claimed the Auburn property on his taxes since 2018, claiming a homestead exemption on the property since then.

“If you look at it, he does not live in Alabama. And we the people of Alabama, we’re not stupid,” McFeeters told the Alabama Reflector last week. 

Tuberville has been accused of not being a resident of the state since his 2020 Senate campaign, with critics calling him “Florida man.” 

Records show that Tuberville and his wife voted in Florida in 2018, after he began claiming the Auburn property as a homestead extension on his taxes. Both have since become registered voters in Alabama. 

“What a ridiculous PR stunt from a desperate candidate,” Mallory Jaspers, a spokesperson for Tuberville’s campaign, said of McFeeters’s claims.

Tuberville has also maintained that the residency requirement means he only has to live in Alabama for a total of seven years, not a consecutive seven years in the state, telling Alabama Daily News in April 2025, “You can go back to, as long as you’ve had a seven year…I was at Auburn 10 years and so I lived there for 10 years in a row.”

Alabama top stories in brief

Wahl steps down from Alabama GOP leadership, announces lieutenant governor bid

• John Wahl, the former chair of the Alabama Republican Party and the current chair of the Alabama Public Library Service, announced his campaign for lieutenant governor last week. 
• Wahl stepped down from his role as the chair of the state’s Republican party after qualifying to run for office.
• Wahl received an endorsement from President Donald Trump on Thursday, before Wahl had qualified to run or had even announced his campaign. 
• After launching his campaign, Wahl reported raising $1 million in donations in a single day, which would mark the largest day-one fundraising total ever reported in an Alabama lieutenant governor race. Official campaign financing disclosures have not yet been released for his campaign, however.
• Wahl is already facing accusations that he has not been a resident of the state for the required seven years. A former Republican state representative, Gil Isbell, filed paperwork challenging Wahl’s residency with the state Republican party last week claiming that Wahl presented a Tennessee driver’s license during a traffic stop in 2023 and that Wahl was a registered voter in that state in 2020. Reporting from al.com corroborates these claims.
• Wahl is entering a crowded Republican field for lieutenant governor. Eight Republican candidates are running for the role.

Selma church that was a cornerstone of Civil Rights Movement receives $1 million preservation grant

• Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma received a $1 million preservation grant from the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund last week. 
• The church was the starting point of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery marches that helped lead to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.
• The church was built in 1908 by a Black builder, A.J. Farley.
• Brown Chapel AME is one of several historically Black churches to receive a preservation grant from the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, which is a part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The grants were awarded through the organizations’ $60 million Preserving Black Churches initiative.

Alabama inmates featured in ‘The Alabama Solution’ moved to solitary confinement

• Three Alabama inmates who were featured in the Oscar-nominated documentary “The Alabama Solution” have been moved into solitary confinement, family members and attorneys reported last week. 
• Robert Earl Council, Melvin Ray and Raoul Poole were moved into solitary confinement cells at Kilby Correctional Facility, outside of Montgomery, two weeks ago. Council, Ray and Poole were each featured in “The Alabama Solution,” a documentary that seeks to illustrate conditions in the state’s prisons using footage filmed by inmates using illicit cell phones.
• Family members and attorneys for the inmates claim that the move is strictly retaliatory, with attorneys saying that no reason was given to move the men to solitary confinement and that the restrictions placed on the men “far exceed standard administrative segregation protocols.”
• The Alabama Department of Corrections cited security concerns as the reason the men were moved into isolation, but did not elaborate on any specifics.

Baldwin County adopts plan to extend Beach Express to I-65

• The Baldwin County Commission last week adopted a new access management plan to extend the Baldwin Beach Express to connect the roadway to Interstate 65.
• The Baldwin County Beach Express is a four-lane highway that, currently, connects to Interstate 10 in Baldwin County and acts as a major thoroughfare to the state’s beaches. 
• The plan would extend the Beach Express by 25 miles, creating several new interchanges along its path — including one at U.S. 31 — until it reaches its northern terminus at I-65.
• There is currently no projection for how much the project may cost or how long it might take. County commissioners said that they are focusing on acquiring land needed for the project, with emphasis on the northernmost segment that would connect U.S. 31 with I-65 near the multi-billion Novelis aluminum plant that is being constructed near Bay Minette.
• Progress on the Beach Express has been stilted since the road first opened in 2014, due in part to court battles over ownership of the Foley Beach Express Bridge and a failed toll referendum to help fund future work, as well as rapid development of Baldwin County.
• The extension is also meant to serve as a better hurricane evacuation route for coastal residents by creating a more direct route for accessing a northbound interstate.

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