By Anna Barrett, Alabama Reflector
A lawsuit filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court on Wednesday seeks to put Republican gubernatorial nominee Tommy Tuberville on trial over allegations that he does not meet residency requirements for the governor’s office.
Filed on behalf of two realtors, Brooke Lynn Dorgan and Justin Jude LeBlanc, the lawsuit claims that Tuberville has not lived in Alabama for seven years, as the Alabama Constitution requires for candidates for governor and lieutenant governor.
“The courts of this State have had no problem recognizing the importance and compelling state interest of pre-election durational residency requirements for elected office in Alabama,” the complaint said. “Candidates for elected office should actually reside in the State and live among the voters for a sufficiently long enough duration to understand the issues and challenges facing the citizens of Alabama.”
The lawsuit is the most recent challenge to Tuberville, who has faced questions about his residency in Alabama for years. The Alabama Republican Party on Sunday unanimously rejected a similar challenge from Ken McFeeters, a former Republican candidate for governor. McFeeters earlier filed suit against Tuberville in Covington County, which was dismissed for lack of standing.
Dorgan and LeBlanc are represented by Barry Ragsdale and Robert Vance, III. Ragsdale has represented many Democratic candidates, including former President Joe Biden and a faction aligned with then-U.S. Sen. Doug Jones in an intraparty dispute among the Democrats in 2020 and 2021.
The case is assigned to Montgomery Circuit Court Judge Brooke Reid. Reid, appointed to the bench by Gov. Kay Ivey in 2019, was elected as a Democrat in 2020.
Ragsdale said in a phone interview Wednesday that the residency issue “has not been flushed out.”
“The evidence has not been presented, and certainly Senator Tuberville has never had to face cross-examination under oath, as he will in this case,” he said. “I also think that citizens in Alabama need to ask themselves that if a politician will lie and cheat about where he lives just to get into office, they should think about what he’ll do once he gets power. That’s ultimately what this case is about.”
Jordan Doufexis, Tuberville’s campaign chair, accused Democratic gubernatorial nominee Doug Jones of being part of the lawsuit and using it to avoid “talking about the issues.”
“They’re back pushing the same tired residency hoax because they can’t defend open borders, men in women’s sports, DEI, crime, opposing school choice or the Biden-Jones record,” he said. “The Alabama Republican Party saw over 100 pages of evidence and unanimously confirmed Coach is qualified. DC Doug can hide in court behind lawyers and lies.”
Ragsdale said that he does not represent Jones or the campaign, and that he has been working on this lawsuit since before Jones was a candidate.
“They don’t, frankly, have anything to do with this lawsuit,” he said. “This is, I think, the serious lawsuit that raises the serious issue and is in the proper legal format for a court to consider it.”
Residency
Tuberville lived in Auburn while he coached at Auburn University from 1999 to 2008, and told Alabama Daily News in 2025 that the time he lived in the state during his coaching tenure contributed to his residency qualification for governor. He has also said a homestead exemption claimed on property in Auburn by his wife and son in 2018 is proof of residence.
According to the lawsuit, he was not added to the homestead exemption until mid-2024. The documents also allege that Tuberville filed an age-based homestead exemption in 2025 for the Auburn property.
“The Auburn House and yard are in a state of disrepair and neglect indicative of only occasional occupancy. It is facially implausible that Tuberville and his wife actually live in the Auburn House,” the complaint says.
The complaint includes many allegations reported by Alabama and national news outlets. It says that Tuberville and his wife Suzanne voted in Florida, which AL.com reported in May 2025. The complaint also alleges that Tuberville had an active Florida drivers license until 2023, despite also having an active Alabama drivers licence, which Mobile-based newspaper Lagniappe reported last month.
In a discovery request document, the plaintiffs ask Tuberville to admit that he voted in Walton County, Florida, in 2018; that he was not an Alabama resident when he filed a 2017 Alabama income tax return; and that he did not own any real property in Alabama between 2017 and 2023.
The plaintiffs also ask Tuberville to provide the names of healthcare providers with whom he had scheduled appointments between 2018 and 2022, including dentists and pharmacies. They also request the names and addresses of moving companies used between 2018 and 2019 in assisting the Tubervilles in moving to Auburn.
Tuberville had not filed a response as of late Wednesday afternoon.
The legal path used is known as quo warranto, meaning “by what authority,” and Ragsdale said it is the “historically” correct path to take according to the Alabama Supreme Court.
“The question is, by what authority does a guy that lives in Florida have the right to run and be elected as the governor of (Alabama). We contend that the Alabama Constitution makes it clear that you have to be an Alabama resident, you have to live here for seven years before the election,” he said. “We think the evidence overwhelmingly points to the fact that Senator Tuberville does not satisfy that requirement, and so we intend to prove it in court.”
Quo warranto complaints are also on an expedited timeline, and Ragsdale said the issue is timely. There are 139 days until the general election.
“We’re on a fast track. Nobody on my side believes that we can do this at a leisurely pace,” he said.
The plaintiffs also demand a jury trial. Montgomery County is Democratic leaning, but Ragsdale said he is confident the judge will find 12 citizens capable of making an unbiased decision.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Reid had not set any deadlines for the case.
This article originally appeared on Alabama Reflector.
