Where Tommy Tuberville lives may be a bigger question than will he run

In 2017, Tommy Tuberville walked off the football field, into a cushy ESPN gig, and straight to the white sands of Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.

“What a great place to live,” he said then in a promotional video.

Now, the former Auburn coach turned U.S. Senator is making noise about Alabama’s biggest political job: governor.

But as he weighs a run, one question won’t go away —where does he actually live?

Tuberville once admitted he flirted with a gubernatorial campaign years ago but chose the beach instead.

“My wife and I said, let’s go to the beach,” he told BYUtv.

And the beach, it seems, never really let him go.

He and wife Suzanne still own two homes in Santa Rosa Beach, and his largest bank account is based there, according to financial disclosure records filed last year.

His Auburn house, valued at just $271,000, carries a homestead exemption — suggesting it’s his official residence—but it’s a far cry from his Florida properties.

The beach house value exceeds $5 million.

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Which home is his primary residence is now a bigger question than whether he will run to replace Gov. Kay Ivey.

Unlike the U.S. Senate, where residency requirements are relatively loose, running for governor in Alabama means proving you actually live in the state.

Still, the Alabama GOP isn’t pressing the issue.

“It is not uncommon for governors and other elected officials to own more than one home,” said party spokeswoman Jeannie Negrón Burniston, noting that the Tubervilles just welcomed their first grandchild and “may want to spend more time in the state.”

“Over the last five years, Senator Tuberville has done a fine job working for the people of Alabama,” she added.

In July 2017, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville filmed a promotional video announcing that he would be working with ESPN. "What a great place to live," he said of his home in Santa Rosa Beach, Fla.screenshot ESPN

Residency questions

Questions about taxes and transparency could dog him. Did he pay state income tax in Alabama?

Or did he benefit from Florida’s tax-free status while representing another state?

Calls for him to release his tax returns are likely, especially with growing scrutiny over whether he meets Alabama’s legal standard for governor.

Residency might have been a technicality in the Senate. For the governor’s office, there is a seven-year residency requirement.

In addition, the requirements for governor requires someone to be present in the state often, attending ribbon cuttings, groundbreakings, and meeting routinely with cabinet members.

The Alabama Constitution also requires the governor to be a resident of the City of Montgomery, with the Governor’s Mansion – a 117-year-old historic home – serving as the official home for the state’s chief executive and immediate family.

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“I think the party would want to address this right off the bat before he wins the Republican nomination,” said Steve Flowers, a former Republican member of the Alabama State House and author of the book, “Of Goats and Governors – Six Decades of Colorful Alabama Political Stories.”

The Alabama GOP has the authority to exclude Tuberville from the primary ballot if they are unsatisfied with him meeting the state’s residency requirements for governor.

State Sen. Sam Givhan, R-Madison, hinted that residency may linger as a party concern during a radio interview last month when he said that owning a house in Alabama is “not enough.”

“There’s no problem with that. We looked at that six, seven years ago. It’s just people that are probably, maybe, wanting to run for governor. Hey, if you want to run, go run on your abilities. Don’t try to trick somebody else. There’s nothing to that,” Tuberville said in response.

Flowers and other political analysts do not believe there will be much backlash from Republicans given Tuberville’s general overall popularity within the party, and his allegiance to Trump.

“I think he can survive the legal test,” Flowers said.

“I don’t think politically, you can beat him with this issue. The average voter (in Alabama) would like him staying in Washington, but they will vote for him for governor, because they like him and especially if Trump endorses him.”

Flowers added, “But no question about it, he has to stay in Alabama to be governor. I don’t think he’s thought through about the demands of it as opposed to being a senator, at age 70 years old. Being a governor is a full-time job and requiring you have to have an agenda and getting things done.”

Job requirements

The challenges of being a governor also require more time spent within the state than a U.S. Senator, whose time is spent mostly in Washington, D.C.

Don Siegelman, a former Democratic governor who served from 1999-2003, said the demands of the job from a quarter-century ago, required a governor to be present almost daily in Montgomery.

“Perhaps the times have changed, but personal management of staff and cabinet members is essential in getting things done,” Siegelman said.

For Siegelman, that meant in-person morning meetings in Montgomery with high-ranking public officials.

Then there are times of emergencies, when a governor needs to be in state and present.

“Being present after a storm is important,” Siegelman said.

“It shows the people of the community you have empathy but it also gives you a direct personal knowledge of the extent that people are suffering which translates into more immediate and direct action by the governor to get the problems solved.”

Political ramifications

Jess Brown, a retired political science professor at Athens State University and a longtime observer of state politics, said those issues are unlikely to resonate with a voting public in a deep red state.

He doesn’t see residency affecting Tuberville politically.

As he and others noted, residency emerged as a campaign issue during the 2020 Senate race. Tuberville easily dispatched his primary opponents and former Sen. Doug Jones to win the six-year seat.

During the Republican primary, former U.S. Attorney General and U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions referred to Tuberville as “Florida man.”

Sessions was politically wounded over criticism by Trump and the residency messaging didn’t stick as Tuberville rolled to an easy win in the 2020 GOP runoff.

“Maybe the issue can be repackaged and made more high-profile in the governor’s race with pictures of the residence in Florida and it can be developed into commercials, but it’s surprising to me that voters in the previous race didn’t care about how deep Tommy Tuberville’s roots were in Alabama, or lack thereof,” Brown said.

It’s unclear who Tuberville might face in the Republican primary.

Rick Pate, the commissioner of the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries, told AL.com on Thursday he was considering a run for lieutenant governor after a conversation he had with Tuberville on Saturday. Pate had been weighing a run for governor.

Former Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill, former Republican U.S. Congressional candidate Caroleene Dobson and Alabama Public Service Commission President Twinkle Cavanaugh have not ruled out a run for governor, or to replace Tuberville in the Senate.

Republican Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth’s name has long been connected to a run for the office.

Brown also noted that potential legal challenges may be easily thwarted, given the deep Republican roots of state power and the political maneuvering that will soon be occurring involving those who could be asked to weigh in on Tuberville’s residency.

“If there is a legal hurdle, and you make a list of political actors who will engage in that interpretation of residency, right now they all have a political incentive not to cross Tuberville,” Brown said, referring to Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, who is weighing a possible run for Tuberville’s Senate seat if it’s vacated.

Brown also said it’s unlikely the deeply conservative Alabama State Supreme Court would rule against the top GOP candidate for governor.

He also doubts the GOP brass in the state will make it a big issue in the coming months, even if it’s a legitimate concern.

“The party hierarchy should look into this critically and treat every candidate the same,” Brown said. “When you move away from the ‘should be’ and ‘ought to be,’ and what is likely to happen, the empirical reality is that I cannot see the Republican Party hierarchy doing anything that would embarrass Senator Tuberville.”