U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville insists he’s maintained his primary residence in Auburn since at least 2019, not at another home in the Florida panhandle. It’s an issue because Tuberville is running for Alabama governor and the state constitution requires candidates to have lived in Alabama for seven consecutive years prior to the election. But what do the records show?
Scott Johnson is a reporter with Mobile’s Lagniappe Daily. He’s taken a deep dive into Tuberville’s expense records and found the senator has spent considerable time – and the government’s money – traveling to Florida.
The following interview was edited for time and clarity.
Scott, you've dug deep into Sen. Tuberville's travel expense records, which include Senate expense account statements and campaign finance disclosures. I know it's a lot of data, but summarize your findings. What did they show relative to the senator's residency?
In 2021 through 2023, they show a large volume of trips that Senator Tuberville had taken that include stops along the Gulf Coast. He has a beach house in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. He's owned it for about two decades. And so, you can trace about $27,000 directly to travel to Florida from his Senate expense account.
Now, these are monies that are set aside for Senate business. That includes going back during state work weeks, when Congress is taking a break, to go meet with constituents, or ostensibly go [home]. So in between 2021 and 2023, I found 47 out of 87 trips included a stop in Florida. This also includes trips that only mention Florida, as well as trips that have Alabama legs to them. Notably in 2023, the Florida-only trips outpace any other trips that he had taken that year, and then that basically inverses between 2024 and 2025, which is about the same time he began gearing up his intentions to run for governor of Alabama.
So, Sen. Tuberville says his primary home is a 1,500-square-foot, one-bath home in Auburn. To prove it, he points to a homestead exemption, but there's an issue with that document, right?
Yeah, this is a house near Auburn University, which was purchased in 2017. Now, when you look at the deed documents, this was purchased by Thomas Tucker Tuberville. And then it also lists Susan Tuberville, which is [Sen. Tuberville’s] wife.
And Thomas Tucker is Sen. Tuberville’s son. Is that right?
The senator is Thomas Hawley Tuberville. And so, his son and his [wife] are joint owners on this small home near Auburn. And then, shortly after purchasing it, they fill out an application for the homestead exemption. And it is Tucker Tuberville who is the sworn signee of that exemption, and that remained unchanged [until] 2024. In 2024, Sen. Tuberville was added to the deed, and subsequently an age-based property exemption was placed on the property.
So, basically, what that shows is that Sen. Tuberville has not been on the deed for the full seven years that would be required to make him eligible to run for Alabama governor. Am I reading that correctly?
What this does is it just leads to more questions. Are they arguing that his wife being on the property deed would create some kind of constructive ownership or constructive residency for Tuberville? If so, that might conflict with a 2018 homestead exemption they claimed on their Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, house at the same time, which would violate both Alabama and Florida laws, at least to my understanding of them.
Speaking of laws or at least regulations, Sen. Tuberville says his Florida home is his vacation home. If that's the case, then you say in your reporting, that Senate ethics rules and election finance regulations prohibit personal expenses, such as that used for taking a vacation. Tell us a little bit about those regs, what you've learned.
So there was a Washington Post article in 2023 that highlighted that Tuberville no longer owned property in Alabama. Now that was 2023, when he sold something called Tiger Farms. The Washington Post article highlights that he no longer owns that land. In that article, his campaign responds, concerning his Santa Rosa Beach house, and they say that is his vacation home.
That means funds out of his Senate campaign and his Alabama governor fund were being used for expenses along the panhandle. I've talked with a Senate ethics expert and then a campaign expert. Both of them had a lot of questions about why those receipts would be there.
So, I asked Tuberville's campaign about the spending. It's actually the first response I've gotten concerning this issue. And they addressed it in an odd way. They just said that all the money was appropriated or accounted for appropriately within the right funds. And then they also said they didn't want to go line by line with me and try to justify them. Now, mind you, I asked them to pick one and explain how [they were accounted for appropriately].
Why do you think this issue of residency even matters in a race like this?
I will say that I think Republicans care less about Tommy Tuberville's residency than they care about Doug Jones or electing a Democrat. I think that those priorities are definitely going to be in their minds when they're voting. For Jones to have a good shot at winning, there's a lot of legal what-ifs that have to fall into place. It's going to have to be a court decision. I don't think it's going to be a voter decision.
Why it matters? Let's dive into what [Tuberville] said and see if it is correct and true. And hold it up to the light and verify it with facts, verify it with records. Up to this point, Tommy Tuberville has not presented or put forth any kind of proof from his campaign that [he meets residency requirements for this race].
Now, he could present multiple years of state income tax returns. He could possibly share the proof of residency that he presented to the GOP, when they decided that they weren't going to block him from the ballot in February. But it's my understanding that his campaign has decided that this is a losing issue for them and that they're not going respond to the critiques.
