$2.43 From Washington For Every $1 From a Person. Wednesday, He Opens His Books.

Wall of Shame — Today: Poarch Creek

Today on the Wall of Shame: the Poarch Band of Creek Indians (Atmore) has put $3,500 into Rep. Shomari Figures' campaign account. The Wall of Shame exists for one reason — so that total stops growing. https://take2back.com/wall-of-shame.html

Wednesday, He Has to Show You Who Owns Him

On Wednesday, July 15, the second-quarter FEC reports come due, and District 2's congressman has to open his books. Let's concede the obvious up front, because we would rather say it than have someone else say it for us: he is going to post a big number. He always does. National Democrats put him on their Frontline list, and Frontline members do not have money problems. So do not watch the headline number. Watch what it is made of. We told you last week we would publish exactly what the filing shows, and we will — the whole composition, not the flattering half.

$2.43 From Washington For Every $1 From a Person

Here is the record as it stands, straight from his own filings with the Federal Election Commission this cycle: $827,549 raised. Of that, $576,373 came from other political committees — PACs. Individual human beings gave $237,171. That is roughly seventy cents of every dollar arriving from a committee, not a constituent. Put it the way a man at a diner would put it: for every dollar a person gave him, two dollars and forty-three cents came from Washington. He has $320,931 in the bank to spend telling you he is one of us. On Wednesday, we find out whether that ratio got better or worse. We already know which way to bet.

Meanwhile, the Hospitals Are Going Under

While the committee checks clear, this is what is actually happening on the ground in the district he is asking to represent. Mizell Memorial Hospital in Opp — seventy-five years old, more than two hundred employees, the largest employer in its town, roughly $48 million in local economic impact — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on April 29. It runs a clinic in Elba, in Coffee County, inside this district. And Mizell is not alone: about twenty-three Alabama rural hospitals — roughly half of every rural hospital in this state — are rated at immediate risk of closing. One insurance company holds an estimated ninety-four percent of Alabama's large-group commercial market. Alabama carries one of the lowest Medicare wage indexes in the country. This is not weather. This is policy, and policy is what a congressman is for.

Name the Bill

So here is the question, and it is a fair one, and he is welcome to answer it in public: name the bill. Not a roundtable. Not a ribbon. Not a commemorative post. Name the bill he wrote, or led, or forced to a vote, to fix the reimbursement structure that is closing hospitals across South Alabama. His public week consisted of an agriculture roundtable in Macon County and a remembrance post. That is a perfectly nice week. It is not a rescue. If there is a bill, we will print it here, in full, with our compliments. If there is not, then the silence is the answer — and the people in Opp and Elba and Montgomery deserve to know that the money is flowing in from Washington faster than the help is flowing out of it.

Thirty Days

The Republican special primary is August 11 and it is winner-take-all — top vote-getter carries the standard into November, no runoff. Thirty days. In an August special, nobody gets persuaded; somebody just shows up. Right now the outside money is being counted, the hospitals are being counted, and the votes are not, because half the district is at the lake and figures it will sort itself out. It will not sort itself out. It gets decided by whoever bothers.

Bottom Line

Wednesday's filing will tell you where his money comes from. The hospital dockets will tell you where his district is going. Seventy percent of his money came from Washington committees; roughly half of Alabama's rural hospitals are on the edge; and the best answer he has offered is a roundtable. We will publish the Q2 numbers the day they land — the whole composition, favorable or not. August 11 is thirty days out. Show up.