Tuesday, May 26 — 9 days of an empty dialysis center in Tuskegee

Day 9 of the closure. The holiday excuse ends today.

The dialysis center in Tuskegee was shut down Sunday, May 17. Today is Tuesday, May 26. The closure has now been operational for 9 full days. Roughly fifty Macon County patients have spent that window driving to Tallassee, to Auburn, or to Union Springs — three times a week for those whose treatment schedule did not skip. Memorial Day did not pause that. The schedule of someone on dialysis does not pause for holidays.

The most recent dialysis-specific statement from the congressman’s office remains the March 18 release confirming Fresenius would delay the closure until May 17. 69 days have now passed since that release. The closure date the release promised has come and gone. 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.

The press releases page on figures.house.gov tells its own story. The most recent item on the chronological listing is dated February 3, 2026. That is 113 days ago. Individual releases since then exist as orphan URLs that do not appear in the public feed. Whether that is by design, by accident, or by neglect — the public-facing summary of what this office is doing has not been updated in nearly four months.

69 days since the last word on the closure. 9 days of an empty building. 113 days since the press releases page has been updated at all. The chairs are still empty. The follow-up has still not come.

The Republican ballot stands at six. 77 days until plurality math closes.

The Friday May 22 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 9 days without a word from him. That is the question the November ballot puts in front of voters across the counties he represents.

9 days of silence on a permanent closure that affects roughly fifty constituents three times each week. 67 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

SaidDone

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

The same release pledged to keep working on long-term solutions for dialysis treatment. 69 days later, no long-term solution has been named publicly, no successor operator has been identified, no bill has been introduced.

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. Four days later the Supreme Court lifted it.

His Friday qualifying statement said he is running in the district that contains the counties he currently represents. Macon County, which he currently represents, has gone the full 9 days — including a federal holiday weekend — without hearing from him about the closure.

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

Press releases on the figures.house.gov listing page since February 3, 2026: None visible. 113 days and counting.

The Wilcox parallel continues to hold.

The closure in Wilcox County on March 20 is running on the same arc. 67 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.

Tuesday — the cycle resumes.

Today is the first business day after the long holiday weekend. The press releases page on figures.house.gov stands where it did Friday. The schedule shows no public Macon County event. The closure remains closed. The follow-up has not arrived. Watch what the office does — or does not — with this week. Watch the press releases page. Watch the schedule. Count the days as carefully as you would count votes.

The press cycle that paused for the holiday restarts today. The first reporter to ask the question of whether the office has anything to say about the closure on Day 9 will produce the news story for this week.

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 9 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 69 days. Anyone you talk to in District 2 should know this. The fact does the work.