ALGOP’s hearing on Tuberville’s residency issues was a spectacular flop

Whatever it was that the Alabama Republican Party and the Tommy Tuberville for Governor campaign hoped to accomplish by holding a “final” challenge hearing on Sunday to resolve Tuberville’s residency issues, they failed. 

Spectacularly so. 

Honestly, the whole charade was such a weird and odd mess, it’s hard to know where to begin. So, I guess we’ll start at the end. 

The ALGOP steering committee unanimously voted to dismiss the challenge brought by challenger Ken McFeeters and also voted that Tuberville had proved he meets the residency requirements of Alabama’s constitution—primarily that he has lived here for the past seven years consecutively. 

Not exactly a surprise. Pretty much everyone fully expected this outcome and believed it to be a foregone conclusion the day ALGOP officials announced this “surprise” hearing (which the Tuberville camp just happened to be very prepared for). No one seriously thought this group of Republicans would boot Tuberville off the ballot. 

What many people did hope for—and I’ll count myself in this group—was a fair hearing that allowed Tuberville the opportunity to present his evidence and allowed McFeeters the opportunities he was due according to the bylaws of the ALGOP. Those bylaws said he’d get to depose five people and issue five subpoenas for documents. He was supposed to get to question each witness for up to two hours. 

ALGOP Chairman Scott Stadthagen promised last week that McFeeters would have all of that. “If it’s in the bylaws and he requests it, yes, absolutely,” Stadthagen told al(.)com’s Kyle Whitmire, when asked if McFeeters could depose witnesses and issue subpoenas. 

Also late last week, after a public outcry, Stadthagen and ALGOP officials reversed course on allowing the media to attend the event. Stadthagen sent an email to media outlets across the state announcing that credentialed media would be allowed to attend the hearing. 

You’ll be shocked to learn none of that happened. 

Instead of deposing five people for up to two hours, McFeeters and his attorney were granted one witness—Tuberville—for 45 minutes. And those credentialed media members were stuffed in an adjoining conference room, unable to witness or hear any portion of the actual hearing. 

McFeeters called the whole thing “a farce.” 

“I never thought the Alabama Republican Party would do such a thing,” McFeeters said Sunday evening. “They never took this seriously. That’s why no one believes what they’re saying.” 

Which brings us back to the original question—what on earth did ALGOP and Tuberville hope to accomplish with this hearing? 

I mean, let’s think about what we’ve just witnessed here. 

One of the two major parties in this state agreed, post-election, to hold a hearing to listen to evidence that its candidate at the top of the ticket doesn’t meet residency requirements and should be booted from the ballot. That’s not exactly a common thing. It’s an extraordinary step to take—one that captured the state’s attention and that had the potential to rewire the way many people think of this entire matter. 

If you’re part of the ALGOP leadership, there are only a couple of reasons you would ever consider taking such a huge step. Either, A) You’re truly concerned about this candidate’s residency issues and want to get to the bottom of it all, or B) You want to hold a show-trial that you control in order to present the most favorable evidence possible for your candidate and undercut any future legal challenges that might be headed his way. 

ALGOP just accomplished neither. 

By not following most of the bylaws governing the hearing, they undercut the legitimacy of the hearing, making it impossible for anyone—even the most loyal Republicans—to take the findings seriously. To make matters worse, if the goal was a show-trial that served as PR for Tuberville, this thing was so botched—from the tax redaction escapade to the ever-changing hearing rules—that it would seriously not surprise me that Tuberville has lost ground on this issue over the past week. 

Somehow, fewer people now believe Tuberville can truly meet the residency requirements and almost no one believed it before. 

Perhaps most troubling, though, if you’re on the red team, is that this is certainly not the end of this problem for Tuberville or ALGOP. Legal challenges in real courts, where they don’t arbitrarily change the rules or hide the proceedings, are coming. And given what we’ve seen the last couple of weeks, is there any reason to think that that level of pressure can be withstood by Tuberville, his team and ALGOP officials? Is there any reason to believe that Tuberville and his team can put together a solid legal explanation that satisfies both the courts and the general public to any measurable degree? 

Or is the plan just more wishing and hoping and trying to run out the clock? 

Because right now, there’s a real sense that this house of cards is teetering and even a light breeze might send it crashing down.