District 2 runoff candidates talk healthcare, rural communities, federal aid

Three of the four candidates for Alabama's newly-formed second congressional district seat met for a forum Wednesday. The forum was hosted by the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce.

Former Alabama Sen. Dick Brewbaker, state House minority leader Anthony Daniels and Mobile lawyer Shomari Figures debated over hot topics like healthcare, community-directed spending, military impact and runoff election approaches. Republican candidate Caroleene Dobson was unavailable due to a scheduling conflict.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that the state's previous congressional lines discriminated against Black voters and carved out a new district that's expected to lean Democrat. While the state legislature initially refused to do so, a new map was drawn, creating a new competitive congressional district.

Healthcare

Daniels and Figures both support the expansion of Medicaid in the state.

Figures brought up Alabamians having the third shortest life expectancy in the United States, barely ahead of West Virginia and Mississippi. He said that not having enough hospitals in rural areas makes it more difficult to recruit companies into the state.

"Not having a hospital is not just a healthcare issue," Figures said. "It's an economic issue."

Daniels said he would also look into a hybrid model, allowing those with private insurance to keep their existing coverage.

"There's a lot of uncertainty," he said. "We cannot be as careless as we were before with other pieces of legislation, and that's the only way that we're going to be able to expand Medicaid and drive health care coverage and opportunity for the region."

Brewbaker disagreed, saying that only 15 percent of Alabama doctors accept Medicaid, and that employers who provide private insurance to their employees would stop doing so, limiting their access to healthcare.

"All of those employees lose access to their family care and have to wind up in emergency room seeking clinic care, which is not what anybody wants," Brewbaker said.

Rural communities and agriculture

The majority of areas in the newly formed congressional district are rural. All three candidates agreed that more needs to be done to support these communities and their economies.

"Rural Alabama is disappearing before our eyes," Brewbaker said. "We have got to do whatever we can to find a way to revitalize small town Alabama."

He said that while he believes the district is "oddly drawn" it's not "unreasonable for the federal government to take a more active row role in trying to restore important industry that a severe one-hundred-year drought destroyed."

He also mentioned the large percentage of cattle herds lost in the last two decades.

"We're losing growth and opportunity, and we're losing population. However, the products that are being produced by a lot of our farmers are being exploited and so therefore it has it has little to do with the actual population, but more to do with the opportunity, and so we have to incentivize more farmers, farmers starting up," said Daniels.

"We also have to encourage and incentivize expansion of the current farming, and we have to integrate more technology so that we're able to produce at a much higher rate, which will drive opportunity and growth to the region."

Figures emphasized the need for better quality of life in the counties to make them "more attractive for the younger generations to return including the kids of our farmers."

"When people drop their kids off to college, they know there's a 99% chance they're not coming back to Crenshaw County, or Bullock County, or Pike County, or Russell County or Barbour County," he said.

Prioritizing Montgomery

"I'm here four to five months out of the year already," Daniels said. "A lot of my emphasis and where my heart lives wouldn't be in this region, but also focusing on our rural communities. Our rural communities have certainly been underfunded, under invested in until that will be a priority for me."

"Nobody would believe me if I said that Montgomery wasn't going to be a priority, Brewbaker said, "I've lived here my whole life. I've raised five boys here." He said that he's proven as a legislator he can move appropriations through a large body for his hometown, citing how he worked to grant Pike County schools an additional $3 million while in the senate.

"America owes two cities in this district like they owe no other city: Montgomery, and Tuskegee," Figures said. "Those cities have paved more into the fabric of what America is than any other city in this district, and almost any other city in this country." He said that wants to "make Montgomery a priority of Congress.

"America owes Montgomery, and I will make that known."

The candidates also said they would work to support the military bases in the area, including Maxwell Air Force Base, to make sure they stay open.

Community-directed spending

Moderator and former District 2 Rep. Martha Roby explained that congressional earmarks were disposed of when she entered the House in 2011.

"There was no process by which to direct funding to state and local governments. In the past three cycles, the House and the Senate have brought back a process which is conveniently called community-directed spending," Roby said.

"Essentially community-directed spending is an earmark process, though it is now very transparent in that members of Congress that request money for certain projects within their district can do so as submitted by those communities, and then have to publicly advertise which projects that they submitted, so they are then held accountable for where that money goes."

"The number one job of a congressman in my opinion," Figures said, "is to go to Washington, D.C., and bring back the federal dollars that the people and the workers have been paying for decades." He said he would ensure it was done in a "responsible, and informed, and conscious and ethical" manner to stimulate the economy.

"I think that we're smart enough to establish a system where reasonable people decide what's appropriate for federal intervention and send that money to those communities," Brewbaker said, adding that he previously said he would not join the Freedom Caucus if elected because of its position on earmarks.

"Let's face it, in a state like Alabama, and especially in the situation we're in right now, we need all the help we can get, and the feds are willing to pitch in and I'm certainly willing to take it."

Daniels said he wants to make sure "spending is directed in areas that's going to yield return for the region or for the community," ensuring funds must be "responsible and intentional."

"I'll be absolutely for directing funding back to into the to the district," he said. "I believe in appropriations."

The runoff election for both parties will be held April 16.

Victor Hagan is the Alabama Election Reporting Fellow for the USA TODAY Network. He can be reached at vhagan@gannett.com or on X @TheVictorHagan. To support his work, subscribe to the Advertiser.