Democrats Prove Senator Tuberville’s Point

Guest Opinion by Perry Hooper Jr.

Sometimes your political opponents make your case better than you ever could. For months, Senator Tommy Tuberville has warned that Alabama Republicans should choose Republican nominees. His concern was straightforward: Democrats have been crossing over into Republican primaries to influence who will represent the Republican Party in November. Many dismissed Coach Tuberville's warning as politics. Then Alabama Democratic Party Vice Chair Tabitha Isner publicly encouraged Democrats to vote in the upcoming Republican special primary because, in her view, that is where they could have the greatest influence. Coach Tuberville's warning suddenly looked far less theoretical.

Earlier this year, Tuberville endorsed legislation to establish closed Republican primaries, saying, "We have to do something about Democrats voting in our elections." His position was simple. Republicans should choose Republican nominees, Democrats should choose Democratic nominees, and neither party should attempt to influence the other's selection process. Recent comments from a senior Democratic Party official have brought that debate squarely into the public eye.

Alabama has wrestled with this issue before. During the 2010 Republican gubernatorial runoff between Bradley Byrne and Robert Bentley, allegations of Democratic crossover voting dominated the campaign. Byrne accused Democratic leaders and the Alabama Education Association of encouraging Democrats to participate in the Republican runoff. The controversy became so significant that Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ron Sparks publicly urged Democrats not to cross over and instead remain in their own party's runoff elections. Whether crossover voting altered the outcome was never established, but the controversy itself demonstrated how quickly public confidence in an election can erode when voters believe one party is attempting to influence the other's nominee.

That controversy helped shape legislative action several years later. In 2017, the Alabama Legislature passed a law preventing voters from participating in one party's primary and then crossing over into the other party's runoff. Lawmakers recognized that allowing voters to switch parties between rounds of the same election undermined confidence in the nomination process. The reform addressed runoff elections, but it stopped short of requiring voters to remain within a single party's primary from the beginning of the election cycle.

Today's debate asks an obvious question. If the Legislature concluded that crossover voting was inappropriate in runoff elections, why should it be acceptable in the primary itself? Alabama continues to operate under an open primary system that allows voters to choose either party's primary ballot. That system depends upon voters participating in good faith rather than crossing over for strategic purposes. When leaders of one political party publicly encourage voters to participate in the other party's primary, it inevitably raises questions about whether the current system continues to serve its intended purpose.

Most states have addressed this issue through some form of party registration or closed primary system. Those states recognize that political parties, like any private association, have a legitimate interest in selecting their own nominees without organized participation from members of the opposing party. That principle protects both parties equally. Republicans should not attempt to choose Democratic nominees, and Democrats should not attempt to choose Republican nominees.

Alabama Republican Chairman Scott Stadthagen has renewed the call for closed primaries, arguing that recent statements from Democratic leadership demonstrate the need for reform. Coach Tuberville made the same argument months earlier. Whether the Legislature ultimately agrees is a matter for elected representatives to decide, but the recent comments have unquestionably renewed a debate that has existed in Alabama politics for more than a decade. The Democrats said the quiet part out loud. The Legislature must decide that Alabama's election laws need to catch up to today’s reality and pass party registration.

Perry O. Hooper Jr. is a longtime Alabama Republican figure, former Alabama Legislator and Montgomery businessman. He served as Co-Chair of “Alabama Trump Victory” in 2016, and served as an at-large delegate to the Republican National Convention. He is a noted civic leader in Montgomery with deep family roots in Alabama’s legal and political history.

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