State Sen. Will Barfoot (R-Pike Road), who previously announced that he will seek a new term in the Alabama Senate, said on Monday that he plans to run for the District 26 Senate seat rather than the District 25 seat that he currently holds.
Barfoot said his decision was forced by a federal court order that racially gerrymandered legislative districts to unfairly tilt the scale and ensure the election of liberal Democrat legislators.
"I cannot allow one of the most conservative counties in Alabama — Elmore County — to be denied the conservative representation it deserves simply because federal courts issued badly flawed rulings that make no sense," Barfoot said. "Allowing a Democrat to represent Elmore County in the State Senate would be like Bernie Sanders — or Doug Jones — representing Alabama in the U.S. Senate and casting liberal votes that do not reflect the views of the citizens they swore an oath to serve. When that happens, grassroots voices are silenced, conservative views are ignored, and the Alabama Legislature becomes Bizarro World, where everything that is normal is suddenly the opposite. I'm running in District 26 to ensure that conservative Republicans in Elmore County and throughout the area are represented by a conservative Trump Republican, not a woke liberal Democrat who fights against everything they believe and embrace."
Barfoot noted that he will meet all ballot residency requirements to run for District 26, which was drawn by an untrained, 18-year-old, college freshman Democrat who used a free, online app and submitted the map to the courts for consideration.
According to an analysis by the court-ordered special master, the new State Senate map makes State Senate District 25, held by Barfoot, a blue district in which 15 of 17 past races were won by Democrats. However, District 26 held by State Sen. Kirk Hatcher (D-Montgomery) is now a district where the Democrat candidate won only 9 of 17 past races.
Hatcher didn't return a request for comment from 1819 News on Monday morning about his plans for 2026.
Though he will focus on representing a new district in the State Senate, Barfoot said his door will remain open to help the constituents in Montgomery and Crenshaw County that he has served for the past eight years.
Originally elected to the State Senate in 2018, Barfoot helped champion the successful effort to block an occupational tax that was passed by the Montgomery City Council by enacting a law requiring such levies to be approved by the Legislature.
The council's measure would have required every individual employed within Montgomery, whether they lived in the city or resided in another area, such as Elmore County, to pay a 1% occupational tax from each paycheck they received.
As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Barfoot was also instrumental in the passage of the "Safe Alabama" legislative package that combats crime in our cities, streets, and neighborhoods and supports law enforcement officers as they perform their duties.
He served as Senate sponsor of the "Speedy Trial Act," which expedites trials involving violent crimes so victims of those crimes receive swifter justice, and he passed an expansion of Aniah's Law that allows judges to deny bail to habitual violent criminals.
In addition, Barfoot passed Alabama's law that bans taxpayer funding of "diversity, equity, and inclusion" programs and prohibits public agencies from forcing employees to participate in DEI programs.
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