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State Rep. Corey Harbison, R-Cullman, announced last month that he would resign by April 15 to allow a special election to fill his House District 12 seat. While Harbison framed the decision as a way to ensure continued representation for his constituents, legislative records and interviews with lawmakers suggest Cullman residents have effectively been without active representation for much of the past two years.
Despite being marked present in official House journals, Harbison admits he rarely traveled to Montgomery in 2024, has not attended at all during the current 2025 session, and was only sporadically present in 2023 — relying instead on others to cast votes on his behalf while continuing to draw his legislative salary.
Harbison has been upfront about his decision to step away from his position as a lawmaker due to the burdens of traveling to Montgomery after recently adding two new children to the family. Harbison told APR he had only made it to Montgomery a “few days” during the 2025 legislative session (sources told APR he hasn’t been there at all) and admitted to struggling to get to Montgomery last session.
Sources said he might have been present for nine of 30 legislative days last year.
“There usually isn’t a day go by that I don’t get three or four calls from people needing this or that. Heck, I give out my cell phone number on public platforms. That way I can be available to help people. I can do that part all day long,” Harbison told APR. “It’s just being down in Montgomery that is an issue. I have been very open about that with everyone. Had I known that we were going to have another baby, I wouldn’t have ran this term. Sometimes life throws curves at you, and you do what you can with it.”
Harbison welcomed his second son through in vitro fertilization, only to find his wife pregnant again through natural means — with his daughter being born just 11 months later. Harbison explained that both children faced early medical issues, although they have since improved.
The journals kept by the Alabama House of Representatives show Harbison as being present for every legislative day of the 2023 and 2024 sessions, despite Harbison’s own admissions and reports from sources.
Harbison’s “per diem” claims, however, show that he stopped claiming reimbursement for travel and overnight expenses by April 11, 2024, about two-thirds through the 2024 session.
An APR review of Harbison’s 2023 per diem claims shows he typically claimed the maximum overnight per diem of $300 for three nights during every week of the regular session, plus a special session on redistricting that interrupted regular proceedings.
In 2024, Harbison’s per diem claims indicate he attended almost all of the eight weeks of the session, give or take two days. But the per diem claims end on April 11, the 21st day of the session. The session continued through May 9.
Harbison has made no claims for mileage or overnight stays for the 2025 session.
Multiple sources told APR, and Harbison confirmed, that he would have other individuals vote his machine when he could not be present in Montgomery.
“If I had to miss sometimes, I would make sure that it was handled how my district wanted,” Harbison said, adding that he “definitely haven’t been as active as I would love to be.”
Harbison said he isn’t sure exactly how attendance is recorded. But the apparently inaccurate attendance rolls, combined with others voting on his machine, make it difficult to determine what days Harbison missed.
Whichever days he missed, he continued like all lawmakers to draw on his salary of approximately $60,000 annually.
There is also contention about when exactly Harbison will resign. Although he had set the April 15 date to ensure a special election for the seat, he told APR he is concerned about how the election might play out.
“District 11 Representative Randall Shedd resigned several weeks ago. I am not trying to be critical of the ones in charge of deciding the special election date, but they picked the worst possible day to have his general election,” Harbison said. “They scheduled it on the exact same day as municipal elections. Law prohibits having two different elections in the same room. It all has to be separate rooms. So now they are having to jump through hoops to change voting locations and getting all of it in line. I feel for our Probate Judge and all of her staff. That is something that should have been looked at before the date was set.
“We are right at the time where it would be hard to have the general on that same day for House District 12, but we are not past the point where they could schedule the special election and the primary fall on that day,” he added. “I also don’t want this to sound like I’m being critical of anyone that may want to run for my seat. I believe there’s a lot of interest. I want it to be fair across the board for everyone. If they schedule things to where that primary ends up on the same day as each of the city elections, it’s going to give anyone from a city within an advantage. In most elections, a candidate will always win the box in which they vote. That’s understandable because it’s someone from their community. Special elections generally tend to have a low turnout. People running that is from a city will have a bigger turnout because everyone will be going to vote in the city elections too.”
As Harbison prepares to formally resign, questions remain about how legislative attendance is tracked and how proxy voting is managed within the Alabama House. While Harbison cited family obligations as the reason for his extended absences, the discrepancy between official attendance records and his actual presence in Montgomery has drawn attention to gaps in oversight. Voters in House District 12 will now await the scheduling of a special election to choose new representation.
