Jerry Carl

Jerry Lee Carl (1958- ) served two terms as the U.S. representative for Alabama’s First Congressional District from 2021 to 2025. Throughout his congressional tenure, Carl was a staunch supporter of the Republican platform. In the 2024 election, he lost his congressional seat to fellow Republican Barry Moore, then-representative for Alabama’s Second Congressional District, after a new congressional map dramatically redrew the boundary between the First and Second Districts.

Carl was born in Mobile, Mobile County, on June 17, 1958, to Jerry Lee Carl Sr. and Virginia Mae Newsome Carl. He was one of four siblings. Carl graduated from Sylacauga High School in Sylacauga, Talladega County, in 1977. Initially aspiring to a career in forestry, he briefly attended a former forestry school, Lake City Community College (present-day Florida Gateway College) in Lake City, Florida, before returning to Mobile, where he spent most of his adult life.

After an early stint working at Alabama Power Company, Carl spent most of his adult career working in business, entrepreneurship, and sales. Carl has founded multiple companies, including the home medical supply company Stat Medical, which he expanded to seven locations before selling to Rotech Medical. His business accomplishments also include ventures in real estate, timber, and furniture.

Carl’s political career began in 2012 when, at 54 years old, he was elected to serve on the Mobile County Commission, ousting long-time incumbent Mike Dean in the April primary and defeating Democrat Terrence Burrell Sr. in the general election. Reelected in 2016, Carl served as commissioner through 2020, when he ran for congressional office. He served as president of the commission in 2015-2016 and 2019-2020; the office of president rotates among the three sitting commissioners.

In 2020, Carl announced his intention to run as a Republican candidate for Alabama’s First Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. The office was left vacant after an unsuccessful senatorial bid from then-Rep. Bradley Byrne. Republicans have continuously held the seat in Alabama’s First Congressional District since Rep. Jack Edwards took office in 1965. A conservative Republican, Carl campaigned on preserving Second Amendment rights, restricting abortion, balancing the federal budget, supporting military service members and veterans, and investing in America’s infrastructure. He supported Pres. Trump’s border wall and opposed the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), as well as other efforts to expand federal reach into healthcare. He won 64.4 percent of the vote, defeating Democratic nominee James Averhart.

Carl served his first term in the 117th Congress, which lasted from January 3, 2021, to January 3, 2023. The beginning of Carl’s term was marked by the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, when a mob of supporters of Pres. Trump violently interrupted the joint session as Congress was set to certify the results of the November election, which Pres. Trump lost to Democratic opponent Joe Biden. Pres. Trump and many of his supporters, including those storming the Capitol, claimed that the election results were illegitimate. In the aftermath of these events, Carl, along with Alabama’s other five Republican Congressmen, was among the group of representatives who voted to exclude Arizona’s electoral votes, part of an effort to overturn the election of Pres. Joe Biden. The motion failed, and the results of the 2020 election were certified. A week later, Carl voted against the impeachment of Pres. Trump for incitement of insurrection.  

Throughout his two terms, Carl generally voted along Republican Party lines, voting against most measures that House Democrats supported. In line with his campaign promises, he consistently voted against measures attempting to preserve or expand reproductive rights as well as measures to restrict gun rights. He voted against most environmental protection measures, as well as most efforts to expand the scope of government.

In his first term, Carl served on the House Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Natural Resources. Like most Republicans, Carl voted against some notable pieces of legislation later signed into law. The list includes the American Rescue Act (a COVID-19 stimulus package), a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, a gun safety bill in the wake of the Uvalde shooting, the CHIPS Act (a bill to produce semiconductor chips and reduce reliance on China), and the Inflation Reduction Act (a bill that included attempts at tax reform and efforts to lower prescription drug prices alongside significant investments in combatting climate change). In May 2022, he voted to give additional funding to Ukraine after Russia’s February 24, 2022, invasion; the vote had broad bipartisan support.   

Carl won his 2022 reelection bid against Libertarian nominee Alexander Remrey with 83.6 percent of the vote; no Democratic candidate qualified to run in the First District. During the 118th Congress, Carl served on the House Committee on Appropriations and the Committee on Natural Resources. Republicans had taken control of the House of Representatives, and Democrats maintained a narrow lead in the Senate. Under a divided government, this Congress was considered to be the least productive in decades in terms of the number of laws passed.

In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled in Allen v. Milligan that, by splitting apart Alabama’s Black Belt region into multiple White-majority districts, Alabama lawmakers failed to provide adequate representation to its Black citizens in violation of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The case came in response to redistricting following the 2020 Decennial Census and objections by groups stating the map was a violation of the VRA. The map was subsequently redrawn by a special master and approved by a district court in October 2023. In the new map, the First District includes part of Mobile County, as well all of Baldwin, Coffee, Covington, Dale, Escambia, Geneva, Henry, and Houston Counties. Carl strongly objected to the new map, which dramatically shifted his district, splitting his hometown of Mobile between the First and Second Districts.  

As part of the remapping, Barry Moore now resided in the First District, which pitted Carl and Moore against one another in the 2024 race. Although Carl received endorsements from a number of state legislators and local officials, Moore received several high-profile endorsements from sitting U.S. representatives, including Georgia’s firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who visited the district to campaign on his behalf. After a contentious race, Moore defeated Carl in the March 5, 2024, Republican primary and was reelected in the newly drawn district. Democrat Shomari Figures was elected to the Second Congressional District.