7 Things: Alabama Democrats give up statewide, redistricting becomes an issue in GOP U.S. Senate race and more …

7. Prosecutors to seek the death penalty for Alabama cop

Former Huntsville Police officer David McCoy is being charged for capital murder after his girlfriend Courtney Spraggins, who was seven months pregnant, was shot and killed. McCoy claimed he didn’t know the victim, but investigators found McCoy’s pictures in Spraggins’ car, leading them to believe he was involved.
Huntsville Police Chief Mark McMurray previously said that officers on the scene noticed “within minutes” that “something was not right” and McCoy was involved. On the 911 call, McCoy claimed he didn’t know Spraggins and that she committed suicide, according to Spraggins’ family.

6. “Undecided” is up big in the Secretary of State race

State Auditor Jim Zeigler announced that he left the gubernatorial race to start a campaign for Alabama Secretary of State. Internal polling from Zeigler shows he could be leading in the field.
Wave Consulting conducted the poll using 1,213 respondents by phone. The poll shows that Zeigler has 31.4% of the vote, Wes Allen has 11.1%, Ed Packard has 4.5% and Chris Horn is in last with 3.1%. According to the poll, 49.9% of people are undecided.

5. Graham: Would be “inappropriate” for Trump to pardon January 6 rioters

President Donald Trump recently signaled that if elected president again in 2024, then he may consider pardoning some of those involved in the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) responded to this idea, calling it “inappropriate.”
Graham said if rioters from January 6 receive pardons, it sends the wrong message to “other groups with causes that may want to go down the violent path.” After calling it “inappropriate,” he added, “I don’t want to reinforce that defiling the Capitol was ok. I don’t want to do anything that would make this more likely in the future.”

4. Most Americans don’t want Biden to play identity politics with Supreme Court pick

According to an ABC News-Ipsos poll, 76% of Americans have said they prefer President Joe Biden considering “all possible nominees” for the U.S. Supreme Court. This comes after Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer announced his retirement. Biden said he plans to select the first black woman for the court.
Only 23% of Americans want Biden to follow through on using race and gender as deciding factors for a nomination. Even with Democrats, 54% don’t want race and gender to be the main factors in picking a nominee.

3. No urgency on redistricting

State Senate Majority Leader Clay Scofield (R-Guntersville) said that there’s no need for immediate action on redistricting and that the court order from federal judges will have to go through a legal process before actually impacting state decisions.
According to Scofield, Attorney General Steve Marshall is appealing the decision. He advised, “We believe that we took the guidelines and drew these maps off the guidelines within the confines of the law…We’re going to let the court process play out and go from there. Whatever yields, then we’ll do our job.”

2. Brooks is blaming Britt for liberal judges; Britt says Brooks is lying

After three federal judges ordered that Alabama redraw congressional districts, U.S. Representative Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville) said the judges “were vetted by Katie Britt.” He argued that she “has bragged about how she’s the one who vetted these judges that are on this panel, two of these at least, and she vouched for them being great conservatives.” Brooks criticized the judges for being “liberal” due to the redistricting order.
Britt responded to Brooks’ accusation, saying, “Brooks has once again launched an attack on President Trump by wrongly claiming he appointed ‘liberal, activist federal judges.’” Britt went on to say, “The people of Alabama can clearly see Mo Brooks and his band of do-nothing career politicians will throw anyone under the bus when they think it serves their own selfish purposes…Alabamians know that Mo Brooks is not loyal to them, to President Trump or to anyone not named Mo Brooks.” Brooks’ campaign responded in a statement where they accused the judges and Britt of being RINOs.

1. Democrats are taking another knee while down big

As the deadline for qualifying to run as a Republican or Democrat in the May 24 primary this year has passed, the candidates for races across the states are official, and Democrats are heavily outnumbered by Republicans, with seven statewide races having no Democrat candidates.
U.S. House candidates will still have until February 11 to qualify for races, but in the U.S. Senate race to replace U.S. Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), four Democrats (none of note) and six Republicans qualified. In the gubernatorial race, there are eight Republicans challenging Governor Kay Ivey, and six Democrats (none of note). Lieutenant Governor, State Treasurer, Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries, and State Auditor were some of the races in which no Democrat qualified, and in other statewide races that had Democrat candidates, only one candidate qualified.