We Asked Him to Name the Bill. He Named a Loan Program.

Wall of Shame — Today: Protective Life

Today on the Wall of Shame: the Protective Life Corp. Federal PAC (ProtectPAC) (Birmingham) has put $5,000 into Rep. Shomari Figures' campaign account. Two $2,500 checks across the cycle; Figures then voted no on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — the insurance and tax provisions Protective's own industry supported. The Wall of Shame exists for one reason — so that total stops growing. https://take2back.com/wall-of-shame.html

We Asked Him to Name the Bill. He Has One.

On Sunday we put a question to District 2's congressman, and we promised that if he had an answer we would print it here, in full, with our compliments. He has one. It is H.R. 8504, the Rural Health Resilience Act of 2026, and he introduced it on April 27. So here it is. We keep our word, and we would rather hand you the inconvenient fact ourselves than have somebody hand it to you later and tell you we hid it. Now read what it actually does.

His Answer to a Hospital That Is Drowning in Debt Is to Lend It More Money

Strip the title off and here is the machinery: the bill amends the farm credit law so the Department of Agriculture can make loans and loan guarantees to rural health centers in financial distress. Not one word of it changes what a hospital gets paid for the care it already delivers. It is a credit line. And that matters, because right here in Montgomery, Jackson Hospital is staying alive on a loan from an out-of-state investment group at fourteen percent interest — nineteen if it defaults. The problem is not that these hospitals cannot find anybody to lend them money. The problem is that they are not paid enough to cover the patients walking through the door. Washington's reflex is always the same: when a business is bleeding, offer it debt and call it help. A loan is not revenue. It is next year's problem with a federal stamp on it.

And It Is Not Going Anywhere, Which He Knows

Look at the bill's own record. Introduced April 27. Referred to the House Agriculture Committee the same day. That is the last thing that has happened to it. Eleven weeks: no hearing, no markup, no vote, no floor time. Its original cosponsors are four Democrats — from Oregon, Alabama, Mississippi and Ohio. In a House run by Republicans, a bill with no Republican behind it is not legislation. It is a press release with a bill number on it. He can point to it in a mailer this fall. It will not save a single hospital in the Wiregrass, and he did not build it to.

One Earmark Is Not a Policy

On June 10 his office announced he had cleared a "major hurdle" toward $4.25 million for Troy Regional Medical Center and other rural facilities. Good. Troy is in this district and that money is real. But roughly twenty-three Alabama rural hospitals — about half of every rural hospital in this state — are rated at immediate risk of closing. Mizell Memorial in Opp, seventy-five years old and the largest employer in its town, filed for bankruptcy on April 29 and runs a clinic in Elba. An earmark for one facility is a favor. Fixing the reimbursement structure that is closing the other twenty-two is a job. He has done the first and introduced a loan program to avoid the second.

Wednesday, the Books Open

The second-quarter FEC reports are due Wednesday, July 15, and we told you what to watch: not the headline number, the composition. As of his own filings this cycle, $827,549 raised — $576,373 of it from other political committees, and $237,171 from actual human beings. Two dollars and forty-three cents in Washington committee money for every dollar a person gave him. On Wednesday we find out whether that got better or worse, and we will publish it either way, favorable or not.

The Deadline Nobody Is Talking About: July 27

Here is the part that decides this. The Republican special primary is August 11 and it is winner-take-all — no runoff, top vote-getter carries the flag into November. But the last day to register to vote in it is Monday, July 27. Fourteen days. Alabama has no early voting, so unless you are voting absentee — and the deadline to request an absentee ballot by mail is August 4 — the only day is the day. National Democrats have money on their side; there is nothing we can do about that. Fourteen days is the one thing we can do something about.

Bottom Line

We asked him to name the bill. He named it, and it turns out to be a loan program that has not moved an inch since April, carried by four Democrats and no Republicans, from a congressman whose money arrives from Washington committees at two-and-a-half times the rate it arrives from people. That is the record. Now go check your registration, and check your neighbor's. July 27. August 11.