U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham (left), speaks on a panel at Pilgrim Rest Missionary Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama on Oct. 27, 2024. The panel, which also included U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas (center) and moderator Tiffany Johnson Cole (right), encouraged women in Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District to vote for Democratic nominee Shomari Figures. (Jemma Stephenson/Alabama Reflector)
Two Democratic congresswomen held an event in Montgomery Sunday encouraging women in Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District to vote for Shomari Figures, the party’s nominee.
U.S. Reps. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham and Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas spoke on a panel at Pilgrim Rest Missionary Baptist Church that included Tamika Reed, an attorney and investment banker and the wife of Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed, and Kalisha Figures, a consultant and the wife of Shomari Figures.
The 2nd Congressional District, redrawn last year to give Black Alabamians a second U.S. House district where they have an opportunity to elected their preferred leaders, is seen as the single competitive federal race in Alabama this year. Figures faces Republican nominee Caroleene Dobson in a contest that could also help determine which party controls the U.S. House.
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“Last time I checked, Alabama is not about a battleground, but this seat is,” Crockett said.
Shomari Figures has been emphasizing his experience with the federal government and has said he will try to bring more resources to the district.
“You learn very early on when you grow up here, whether you’re Black or white, the role that federal government has had to play in making this state in particular, do right by people,” he said prior to the start of the panel.
Crockett, a co-chair of the Harris-Walz campaign, said that if Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, wins election, she would need Democratic control of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate to advance her policy goals.
“I need better co-workers,” said Crockett. “I need people that actually want to work for the people. Right now, this has been the most unproductive Congress in the history of Congress.”
“And I need another Democrat from the Alabama delegation,” said Sewell.
Sewell, who represents the 7th Congressional District in the western Black Belt and parts of Birmingham, is the only Democrat currently serving in Alabama’s congressional delegation. She noted during the discussion that Montgomery – parts of which were in her district before redistricting – played a leading role in the Civil Rights Movement, including the Selma-to-Montgomery March in 1965, which spurred passage of the Voting Rights Act later that year. The congresswoman also referred to the events of “Bloody Sunday” on March 7, 1965, when peaceful civil rights protestors were attacked on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma by a law enforcement posse.
“It’s high time that we get more representation, fairer representation in Alabama, in Congress,” said Sewell. “So I am thrilled I didn’t have to be bludgeoned on a bridge. I just had to give up Montgomery County for progress, and progress we will have if you go to the polls.”
Sewell, who is sponsoring a bill that among other items would restore provisions of the Voting Rights Act struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013, said the district was an opportunity but it was not a guarantee.
Reproductive rights has become one of the most visible issues this election. Crockett said that Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that created federal abortion protections came out of her district. The nation’s high court struck down those protections in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022, a decision that allowed Alabama’s near-total abortion ban to go into effect.
“You don’t have to be pro-choice,” she said. “You can do whatever you want to with your uterus or the fact you don’t even have one. We’re not asking you to agree. That is not what this is about.”
Kalisha Figures said that women’s rights were an issue in a district where many women must provide caregiving for children and older generations. She also cited the mounting travel times for women in the rural parts of the district to access care.
“I have three times given birth,” she said. “It is scary, on face value, if you are healthy and well. It is scary. So to not have access to that care, to have to drive 60, 90 minutes in labor to get care, these are the issues we’re talking about when we talk about the state of women, right in Alabama, in this district.”
She also said that the gender pay gap still exists and is double-pronged for women of color.
In a press conference after the event, Shomari Figures estimated voter turnout to be around 62-69%, basing his estimates on turnout for the 2020 election in the state, which was 63%, and the 2008 election, which was nearly 74%.
“Overall, like outside of the numbers, I expect turnout to be strong because, we got a strong candidate at the top of the ballot,” he said, referring to Harris. “We got renewed energy there, and we got excitement around this seat. We got a lot of excitement around this seat. So I expect what to turn out to be higher in this district than other congressional districts across the state.”
The panelists also spoke of the importance of having representation. Kalisha Figures, whose parents immigrated from Haiti, said “when we talk about creating fear and hate around any group, I feel that in a very personal way” as the “proud daughter” of Haitian immigrants. She also said she thinks of women’s political power as having conversations with people in her family.
“They also are the trusted source in so many families,” she said.
Crockett said that when she recently visited her old elementary school, two Black girls asked what they wanted to be when they grow up said “president.”
“It was important for me to go back to my elementary school because I never saw anyone that looked like me in that position, and while half those kids won’t even know or understand exactly what we did, it is my hope that while the news was there and there were newspaper articles that they did, someday they really understand that I went back because I wanted to pour into them, and I wanted them to see themselves,” she said. “There will be women around the world, children around the world. It will change their lives.”
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