Two Alabama Republican lawmakers are stepping down.
Both state Rep. Debbie Wood and state Sen. Tom Butler announced this week that they won’t seek re-election in 2026. Wood told Alabama Daily News that she would resign by the end of July, due to a move out of her district.
Butler, on the other hand, will end his four decades in the Alabama Legislature—which he started when he was elected to the House as a Democrat—when his term expires in 2026. At a ceremony with fellow lawmakers and friends on Tuesday, Butler said he looked forward to cutting grass in his retirement.
“I have a year and a half left in service to the state and I intend to make the most of that,” Butler said. “I’m not going to be a lame duck. I’m going to be out-swimming the rest of them.”
Wood’s resignation will likely produce a special election for her District 38 seat, with the winner seated just months before the regular 2026 election. Lawmakers passed a constitutional amendment in 2018 requiring that any legislative seat vacated after October 1, in the third year of a four-year term, be left vacant until the next regular election.
A pair of Republican candidates have already qualified to run for the seat.
Butler’s resignation sets up a far more interesting scenario. His District 2 seat is located in Madison County and encompasses a portion of east Limestone, where recent election trends have leaned more Democratic. The seat wasn’t necessarily a safe one for Republicans even with Butler in the race, but it becomes especially vulnerable without him.
That vulnerability could be exacerbated by ongoing legislative redistricting litigation, which promises to reshape the voting maps for the state senate. Those close to the proceedings believe Democrats could pick up favorable Senate districts in both the Huntsville area and the Montgomery area, and possibly more.
Should the flip happen in District 2, it would be ironic, given Butler represented the area as a Democrat beginning in 1982. He served in the House as a Democrat until 1994, when he was elected to the Senate. He served until 2010, when he lost to Bill Holtzclaw in the Republican wave that swept the state house that year. He changed parties and was re-elected to the Senate in 2018 as a Republican.
