Monday, May 25 — The Tuskegee dialysis center has now been closed for eight days

DAY EIGHT OF THE CLOSURE. SIXTY-EIGHT DAYS SINCE THE OFFICE LAST SPOKE ABOUT IT.

The dialysis center in Tuskegee was shut down Sunday May 17. Today is Monday May 25. The closure has now been operational for eight full days. Across those eight days, roughly fifty Macon County patients have driven to Tallassee, to Auburn, or to Union Springs — three times a week for those whose treatment schedule did not skip. The kidney function those treatments preserve does not pause for a holiday weekend.

The most recent statement from the figures.house.gov press releases page on this closure remains the one dated March 18, 2026 — the release that announced the closure had been postponed by two months. Sixty-eight days have now passed since that release. There has been no closure-day statement, no follow-up release the week after, no holiday-weekend update, no Memorial Day statement on rural health care or veterans' access to it. The pledge in that March 18 release was to "continue to explore long-term solutions for dialysis treatment." The public record this morning shows no long-term solution named, no successor operator identified, no federal bill introduced on rural dialysis access, no town hall held in Macon County, no site visit logged on the official schedule.

Sixty-eight days since the last word. Eight days of an empty building. The chairs are still empty. The follow-up has still not come.

THE REPUBLICAN BALLOT STANDS AT SIX. SEVENTY-EIGHT DAYS UNTIL PLURALITY MATH CLOSES.

The Friday 5:00 PM Central qualifying deadline locked the field. The six Republicans on the August 11 ballot in District 2 are Hampton Harris, Christian Horn, State Representative Rhett Marques of Enterprise, David Matthews, Joshua McKee of Robertsdale, and James Richardson. The Alabama Reflector confirmed Friday evening that fourteen Republicans, seven Democrats, and twenty-one candidates total qualified across the four congressional special primaries in CD-1, CD-2, CD-6, and CD-7.

The structure of the August 11 ballot in District 2 is plurality. The highest single vote count wins the Republican nomination. There is no second round, no runoff. With six names on the ballot, the threshold for the nomination falls. A candidate carrying thirty percent of the August 11 vote is the nominee. A candidate carrying twenty-eight percent could be the nominee depending on how the rest of the field splits. Every ballot cast on August 11 moves the result one count. Nothing pools. Nothing reverts. The vote you organize and the vote you turn out has the strongest leverage it will ever have in this race.

THE INCUMBENT FILED AT THE BUZZER TO DEFEND THIS SEAT.

Shomari Figures qualified Friday in the closing hour of the window. The statement his office released alongside the filing — that the decision was made "after careful deliberation" to remain in "the district that includes the majority of the counties I currently represent" — settled the question the Lagniappe reporting on May 14 had left open. The "for now" framing of his earlier non-answer is finished. He is on the ballot. He is running for re-election.

The district he is running to represent contains the dialysis center that has now been closed for eight days without a word from him. That is the question the November ballot puts in front of voters across the counties he represents.

Eight days of silence on a permanent closure that affects roughly fifty constituents three times each week. Sixty-six days of silence on the parallel Wilcox County closure in March. Releases from Washington that name a problem and then move past it. A Memorial Day weekend during which the silence continued.

TWO COLUMNS — WHAT THE COURT-APPOINTED INCUMBENT HAS SAID AND WHAT THE COURT-APPOINTED INCUMBENT HAS DONE

SAID: The March 18 release named the "tremendous gap" the Tuskegee closure would open in the Macon County health care system. DONE: The gap opened May 17. No follow-up release has been issued. No closure-day statement was posted. No public site visit has occurred.

SAID: The same release pledged to keep working on long-term solutions for dialysis treatment. DONE: Sixty-eight days later, no long-term solution has been named publicly, no successor operator has been identified, no bill has been introduced.

SAID: At the May 7 Montgomery town hall, he told the room he did not expect the Supreme Court to lift the redistricting injunction before 2030. DONE: Four days later the Supreme Court lifted it.

SAID: His Friday qualifying statement said he is running in the district that contains the counties he currently represents. DONE: Macon County, which he currently represents, has gone the full eight days — including a federal holiday weekend — without hearing from him about the closure.

SAID: Public statements from the office on the Tuskegee closure since May 17: DONE: None.

SAID: Press releases from Washington that referenced the closure in advance and then did not return to it: DONE: One, dated March 18.

THE WILCOX PARALLEL CONTINUES TO HOLD.

The closure in Wilcox County on March 20 is running on the same arc. As of this morning, sixty-six days into that closure being real, Representative Sewell's office has issued no substantive follow-up either. Two rural Black Belt dialysis closures. Two Democratic incumbents in neighboring districts. Two announcement releases. Zero substantive follow-up at the closure date or in the months since on either side. This is not a one-district story. It is a pattern that crosses district lines.

MEMORIAL DAY — WHAT THIS DAY IS, AND WHAT IS NOT COMING FROM THE OFFICE.

Today is the day the country sets aside to remember the men and women who died wearing its uniform. District 2 contains Tuskegee, the home of the Tuskegee Airmen — among the most celebrated servicemembers in American military history. Last November the congressman introduced bipartisan legislation to designate the Tuskegee post office as the Tuskegee Airmen Memorial Post Office. Today is the day to honor the legacy that bill names. The press releases page this morning carries no Memorial Day statement on rural veterans' access to care, no statement on the dialysis closure in the city the Airmen called home, no Memorial Day statement at all.

The point is not what should have appeared. The point is what does, and does not, appear — and what that gap, day by day, is teaching anyone who watches.

TUESDAY IS WHEN THE CYCLE RESUMES.

The Republican field has seventy-eight days to organize and seventy-eight days for voters to look at six names and decide. The Court-Appointed Incumbent has spent the first three of those seventy-eight days not talking about the largest event in his district since he qualified to run for it. Tomorrow the news cycle picks back up. Watch the press releases page. Watch the schedule. Watch what the office does — or does not — with the next seven days.

THREE THINGS TO CARRY INTO THIS WEEK.

VOTE ON AUGUST 11. Plurality math means every single ballot is the result. There is no later round. There is the day, and there is the count.

TRACK THE SILENCE. Day eight today. Day fifteen next Monday. Day twenty-two the Monday after that. The chair is empty. The follow-up has not arrived. Count what does not happen as carefully as what does.

CARRY THE TUSKEGEE FACT. A dialysis center in Tuskegee closed on May 17 and the office that represents Tuskegee has not spoken about it in eight days. Anyone you talk to in District 2 should know this. The fact does the work.