Home › Daily Brief › August 4, 2026

He Announced Fifty Million Dollars. A Fifth of It Is for a City You Do Not Live In.

On July 14, Congressman Shomari Figures announced that he had secured a provision in the Water Resources Development Act of 2026 authorizing fifty million dollars for water and wastewater infrastructure in Alabama's Second Congressional District.
We are going to concede the whole of it up front, because it is true and because we would rather say it than have somebody say it at us. He is the only Alabamian on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The bill cleared that committee unanimously. Forty million of the fifty is written for public drinking water and wastewater projects in the counties of this district. He also secured a prohibition on dumping thin-layer dredged material into Mobile Bay, and a restoration program to go with it. Every word of that is from his own announcement. We are not disputing any of it. Now here is what his announcement did not say.

Wall of Shame — Today: Regions Financial

Today on the Wall of Shame: the Regions Financial Corp. PAC (Birmingham) has put $10,000 into Rep. Shomari Figures' campaign account — Alabama's largest bank, and the biggest single corporate check Figures has taken. The Wall of Shame exists for one reason — so that total stops growing. https://take2back.com/wall-of-shame.html

AN AUTHORIZATION IS NOT A DOLLAR

There is a word doing enormous work in that press release, and the word is "authorizing."

In Congress, authorizing a program and funding it are two entirely separate acts. An authorization says a thing is permitted to exist. An appropriation is what puts money in it. You can be authorized for fifty million dollars and receive nothing, and it happens constantly.

The Water Resources Development Act of 2026 has not passed the House of Representatives. It cleared a committee. It has not had a floor vote. It has not been through the Senate. It has not been signed.

And even if all of that happens, the money still has to come through the annual appropriations process before a single pipe is laid in Butler County or Bullock County or anywhere else.

So the honest sentence is this: a congressman got language into a bill that has not passed, for money that has not been appropriated, for projects that have not been selected, which counties would then have to apply for through the Army Corps of Engineers.

That is a press release. It is not a water system.

TEN MILLION OF IT IS FOR A CITY THAT IS NOT IN THIS DISTRICT

Read the announcement to the bottom and the arithmetic separates.

Forty million for water and wastewater in the district. Ten million for Brookley by the Bay.

Brookley is in Mobile.

Mobile has not been part of Alabama's Second Congressional District since the Supreme Court allowed the state's 2023 map to take effect on June 2, 2026. The people of this district do not live in Mobile. They do not vote in Mobile. Their water does not come from Mobile Bay.

Shomari Figures lives in Mobile.

One dollar in five of what he announced for "the Second Congressional District" is aimed at the city he lives in and the bay it sits on — a city these voters were removed from more than two months ago.

We are not going to tell you what that means. We are going to put the two facts beside each other and let you decide: the district he represents runs from the Wiregrass through Montgomery and into the Black Belt, and a fifth of his headline number is going to Mobile.

THE RECORD IS CLOSED. THERE IS NOTHING LEFT TO FIX.

Here is the part that should focus every Republican in this district.

The last recorded vote Shomari Figures cast in the House of Representatives was Roll Call 283, on July 23. The House is in its district work period. There will not be another recorded vote before August 11.

His record is finished. It is sitting there, complete, and it is the thing that follows him into November.

Eighty-four recorded votes between June 3 and July 23. He broke with his party twice. Both on the same night. Both on the same subject. Both written by the same Republican.

Nothing he says at a town hall between now and Tuesday changes a single one of them. Nothing in a press release changes them. He can announce authorizations from now until November, and the votes stay exactly where they are.

ONE WEEK FROM TODAY

Tuesday, August 11. The Republican primary for this seat.

Whoever wins it is the heavy favorite in November, because analysts now rate this district likely Republican and it voted for President Trump by fourteen points.

If you are voting absentee, the deadlines are here and they are hard:

Today, Tuesday August 4 — mailed absentee applications must be RECEIVED by your county Absentee Election Manager. Received. Not postmarked. Not in the mail. In the office.

Thursday, August 6 — last day to hand-deliver an absentee application.

Monday, August 10 — hand-returned absentee ballots due by 5 p.m.

Tuesday, August 11 — polls open. Mailed absentee ballots must arrive by noon.

Voter registration closed on July 27. If you are not registered, that door is shut for this one.

Some observers expect fewer than thirty thousand people to vote in this primary. In a district of nearly three quarters of a million. Which means the people who show up on Tuesday are going to pick the next congressman for everyone who does not.

Take Back District 2 does not endorse among the six Republicans on this ballot. We want one thing: this seat back. Show up on August 11 and vote for the Republican you believe can win it in November.

Get the Daily Brief

The case for taking District 2 back from leftist D control to common-sense Alabama values. Sent every morning. Free. Unsubscribe anytime.