Caroleene Dobson said on Thursday she agrees with recent statements by Alabama Democratic Party chairman Randy Kelley, who said African-Americans throughout the second congressional district and other areas of Alabama are being unfairly denied the opportunity to serve as delegates at next week's Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Dobson, a Republican, is running against Shomari Figures, a Democrat, in the November general election to represent Alabama's second congressional district.
Dobson said, "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."
"The only question that remains is whether Shomari Figures stands with Chairman Kelley and the Black delegates he is fighting to protect or whether he supports the unelected delegates that are being forced down the throats of Alabama Democrats by his Washington, D.C. insider buddies," she added.
Kelley told reporters recently he was considering a legal challenge after the DNC and the "former White Senator" U.S. Sen. Doug Jones (D-Mountain Brook) drove the DNC to appoint "fake delegates" instead of choosing the ones the Alabama State Democratic Executive Committee chose.
"Chairman Kelley is 100% correct when he says that Alabama delegates should be selected by Alabamians, not by a secret group of Washington, D.C. elites supporting Shomari Figures and his campaign," Dobson said. "It is time for Shomari Figures to step up and speak out because only a coward tries to hide behind silence on an important issue like the delegate controversy."
UPDATE: After the story was published, Figures said in a statement to 1819 News on Thursday afternoon "A privileged billionaire calling a Black man in Alabama a coward - for the second time - because he won't do what she says? Is that what leadership looks like?”
“It has become abundantly clear that Mrs. Hardee Dobson just wants to be Alabama’s Marjorie Taylor Green. The name calling is pathetic, and honestly, just sad. As my four-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 she cares so much about the Democratic party, she should just join it. And I promise, once she goes Democrat, she won't go back. And since she all of a sudden cares so much about Black people, here are a few simple things she could do:
1. Stop supporting Project 2025 policies that will remove resources and protections from minority communities.
2. Tell the State of Alabama to expand Medicaid, which would give more healthcare access to thousands of Black people in Alabama.
3. Stop supporting efforts to defund public schools, which will take money away disproportionately from predominantly Black schools; and
4. Explain to us why she hasn't led an effort to integrate her high school, which - in 2024 - reportedly still has yet to admit a single Black student in its history - in a nearly 50% Black county.”
Figures continued, “Mrs. Hardee Dobson is just out of touch with this District. She doesn't believe that we should even have the District she's running in, because she doesn’t acknowledge that the State of Alabama unfairly and unlawfully suppressed Black representation - even though the U.S. Supreme Court said otherwise. We know that it's likely that she didn't even go to 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. If it's ok with Mrs. Hardee Dobson, we'll get back to focusing on the issues of improving healthcare access, job opportunities, education, and giving women the right to control their own bodies in Alabama.”
To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email caleb.taylor@1819News.com.
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