Hollingsworth, Myrex Comment on Recent Cullman County GOP Panel

The Cullman County GOP hosted a panel discussion with all four Republican candidates in the District 12 special election on Saturday, June 7th. Among the issues discussed were the controversial SB322 bill which was passed in the last legislative session, education, and other issues in the race.

SB322 allows a noncontiguous portion of dry Cullman County to be annexed into the wet City of Cullman. SB322 also creates a Community Development District (CDD) to facilitate the development of a resort fronting Smith Lake in the Cold Springs area.

ALPolitics.com reached out to the candidates for comment on the panel, and any additional comments they might care to make.

Clint Hollingsworth responded by saying:

"I want to thank the Cullman County GOP for having me at their HD 12 candidate forum and allowing me to share my experience to represent this district. I appreciated being able to share my background as a father, husband, small business owner and public servant with the people there who care deeply about the future of this district and our state. The people of this district deserve to have someone that shows up for them, hears them and fights for them. I'll work hard to be their conservative voice in Montgomery."

Cindy Myrex spoke with ALPolitics.com about SB322 and education, two issues which she feels are important in the campaign:

“My position on SB322 is that I'm not against someone owning private property and developing it as they see fit. If the developers bought and paid for the land, they own it, and they should be able to develop it. However, I don't think annexing property 30 miles away from a city should happen. I think that we should have had more representation in the State House. Our two representatives in District 11 and District 12 had stepped down. There was no State House representation from Cullman County. We should have had more conversations and more representation before this bill was passed. I have spoken to Garland about this multiple times. He knows my position on it.

“I will work with Garlan in the 2026 session, and I look for us to have good conversations pertaining to SB 322. There is a sunset provision that comes into play June 1 of 2026 and I think we all go back to the table at that point, with proper representation for everybody involved.

“On education, we can talk about funding the schools, and we can talk about funding buildings, but my priority when it comes to education is funding education. We have a lot of unfunded mandates, which is what I call a lot of red tape in the classroom.We are overloading our teachers with so much red tape and mandates that they can't actually educate. That's what they went to school to do, is to teach children, to teach young adults, and that's what we've got to get back to, is educating.

“I would love to see a modern career tech facility so that 9-12 students have the ability to go to career tech school, and when they graduate in 12th grade, they not only get a diploma from that, they're ready to go into the workforce and make a living. If they want to go to college, that’s great, but we need to make it more acceptable and encouraged to go to a career tech facility, where an 18 year old leaves high school ready to make a livable wage.

ALPolitics.com reached out to Dan McWhorter and State Senator Garlan Gudger, who also attended, and attempted to reach out to Heather Doyle. None of them had responded to our request for comment at press time.