Monday, May 18 — The Court-Appointed Incumbent did not show up

The day after

The Fresenius Kidney Care center on East Martin Luther King Highway shut its doors yesterday. Roughly fifty Macon County residents woke up this morning to a fifteen-mile commute each way, three times a week, to keep the blood in their bodies clean. The closest alternatives are in Tallassee, Auburn, and Union Springs.

The most recent public statement from the District 2 representative on this closure remains the March 18 press release from his Washington office. Sixty-one days ago. Since then: no statement, no site visit on the public record, no introduced legislation specifically addressing the Tuskegee or Wilcox closures, no announced appropriations request, no town hall in Tuskegee.

The representative who promised in March to "continue to explore long-term solutions for dialysis treatment" in Macon County has produced no public long-term solution as of this morning. The patients are gone. The press release stands.

The deadline he negotiated arrived yesterday. The follow-up he promised in March did not. Today is day sixty-one.

Two Columns — the gap between speech and job

What he said in office What he did with the office

March 18 press release: "The people in Tuskegee who need dialysis cannot afford to miss a treatment or travel long distances multiple times a week." No site visit on public record before the closure. No site visit yesterday on the day the closure took effect. None scheduled for this morning.

March 18 press release: "This will leave a tremendous gap in the health care system in Macon County." No companion legislation introduced for a successor dialysis provider. No request for a House Energy and Commerce hearing. No federal capital-assistance request submitted.

March 18 press release: "We will continue to explore long-term solutions for dialysis treatment." No long-term solution publicly named between March 18 and this morning. No successor operator identified. Sixty-one days, no operator.

May 7 Montgomery town hall on redistricting: "Your voice is on the line." Held the town hall in Montgomery on a topic that affects his political future. Did not hold a town hall in Tuskegee on a topic that affects his constituents' lives.

May 11 statement after SCOTUS: "I ran for this seat to be a voice for all of Alabama." Told Lagniappe Mobile two days later he has not decided whether to run in District 2 or District 1.

May 11 statement: "The fight must and will go on." The fight he is publicly engaged in is the litigation over the map. The fight he is not publicly engaged in is the one for the dialysis patients who left their facility yesterday.

One column is a campaign. The other column is the job. District 2 is owed the second column, not the first.

The week that comes next

The District 2 race enters its operationally decisive ten days starting tomorrow morning. Three calendar events in five days will set the entire shape of the November contest.

Tuesday, May 19 — tomorrow. Alabama Republican primary. Hampton Harris is the uncontested Republican nominee for AL-02 in the regular cycle. He is the only candidate in this field who held this district as a primary objective before Monday's Supreme Court ruling reset the geography.

Wednesday, May 20. Major-party qualifying window opens for the August 11 special primary that selects the Republican who runs against the Court-Appointed Incumbent under the 2023 map.

Friday, May 22, 5:00 PM CT. Qualifying closes. Three Republicans have publicly committed to AL-02 for August 11 so far:

Hampton Harris, the first-mover and the candidate who built infrastructure for District 2 before the map changed. State Rep. Rhett Marques (HD-91, Enterprise), who switched from AL-01 on May 11. Coffee County is inside AL-02 under the 2023 map. Joshua McKee (Robertsdale, Baldwin County), who switched from AL-01 on May 12. Baldwin County is in AL-01 under the 2023 map.

Five business days remain on the qualifying clock. The final Republican field is set Friday afternoon.

The litigation does not pay the dialysis bill

The three-judge federal panel in the Northern District of Alabama received both sides' briefs on the Singleton and ACLU temporary restraining order motion on Friday May 15. No ruling yet. Further proceedings expected this week per Alabama Reflector.

State-court Amendment 4 challenges — under the 2022 ratified rule barring election-law changes within six months of an election — have been signaled by Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton and Rep. Napoleon Bracy but not yet filed.

None of those three tracks puts the Tuskegee Fresenius back on its lights. The litigation is a campaign over which map governs August 11. It does not produce a successor dialysis operator. It does not move the closest alternative center one mile closer to Macon County. The patients who left a facility yesterday are not coming back to one because a federal panel reads a brief.

Brent and the kitchen table

Brent crude closed Friday near $108 per barrel, up roughly eight percent on the week — the largest weekly move since the Strait of Hormuz closure began. WTI closed near $106, up over four percent on the day and eleven percent on the week. The International Energy Agency warned this week the global oil market will stay materially undersupplied through October even if the Iran conflict resolves next month.

What that means for District 2 households this week: the family that fills up between now and Tuesday morning is paying for an eight percent one-week move. The family that opens its power bill in the next thirty days is paying for an industry input cost that has climbed week after week. The pressure point is the same pressure point a dialysis patient feels driving fifteen miles three times a week now instead of one: every increase in fuel cost is a tax on the rural Alabama family the federal seat is supposed to represent.

What the District 2 voter does this week

Vote in Tuesday's primary. The Republican slate is the start of the campaign that replaces him.

Read the news Wednesday morning. The August 11 qualifying window opens. The field is being built in real time.

Tell your neighbors who Hampton Harris is. He is the first-mover in this district. He is the one who put the work in before the Supreme Court made the work necessary.

Carry the Tuskegee fact. Sixty-one days. The deadline arrived. The follow-up did not. The patients are on the road right now.

Closing

The Court-Appointed Incumbent's only public choice this week is which district to run in. His constituents' only choice this week is where to get the treatment that keeps them alive. He has six more days to decide a campaign question. They had until yesterday to decide a survival question. The contrast does not need to be argued. It only needs to be carried.