After working for 16 years as an educator in schools across central Alabama, computer science teacher and Pelham resident Spencer Stone is making a bold leap into the world of state politics, launching a Democratic campaign for Alabama State Senate in District 16. To win the seat, Stone will have to defeat the longest-serving lawmaker in Alabama’s history: 89-year-old Republican state Senator J.T. “Jabo” Waggoner of Vestavia Hills.
Waggoner began serving in the Alabama Legislature in 1966, during George Wallace’s first term as governor. After a brief hiatus from 1984 to 1990, Waggoner returned to public office as a state senator, where he has served as Senate minority leader, Senate majority leader, and now Senate Rules Committee chairman. If reelected in 2026, Waggoner would be 92 years old by the end of his next four-year term.
Meanwhile, Stone, who is 43 years old, thinks it’s time for new blood in District 16.
“My main reason for running is that I believe that our current political system only helps those who are already rich, and the further this goes along, the worse life will become for middle and lower class people in Alabama,” Stone told APR in a recent phone interview. “My goal is to raise awareness for the gaps in our current social structure.”
Stone went on to criticize Waggoner for prioritizing party loyalty over the best interests of his constituents.
“I’ve been through [Waggoner’s] voting record. I’ve been through statements that he’s made things like that… Waggoner is very anti-public education, very traditional in his ideas on taxing people in the state–[he has] a lot of just archaic ideas, and he’s never voted against his own party,” Stone stated. “What you can’t tell me is that the benefit to the Alabama people is always the Republican platform. If you’re voting for the best position for the people in your district, then it may be voting with a bill written by the other party, and Waggoner never has done that.”
“He basically got in there and he’s like a tick,” Stone added. “He just wants to stay there and maintain power, but he’s done nothing to move the needle for the average person in 30 years.”
As for how he plans to topple the longest-serving legislator in the state’s history? Stone says it will take a large, diverse coalition of grassroots support.
“I think it has to be a coalition of the willing,” Stone told APR. “The people who feel marginalized, the people who feel left out, the people who the traditional power structure in Alabama ignores.”
“It’s going to be a hodgepodge of people, and that’s fine because we are a hotspot of people as a state. [My goal] is going to be bringing together different groups, possibly groups that don’t always get along together,” he added. “One example that has always bothered me is that hunters don’t like environmentalists, but the problem is that environmentalism is what makes hunting possible. We can’t change our minds about everything, but we can find that we have more common ground here than we have difference.”
If elected, Stone said that he would place his immediate focus on issues facing Alabama’s public education system. Specifically, Stone is advocating for reforming the controversial CHOOSE Act, protecting educators’ First Amendment rights, and allocating more public funds to cover teachers’ insurance rates in response to the looming healthcare crisis.
“I think immediately, year one, it has to be codified that there is a cap on how much money can be put in the CHOOSE program, because if there’s not, as soon as that limitation is taken off, that program is going to quadruple immediately, because every student in private school will apply and get it,” Stone said.
“[I’m also focused on] traditional things like teacher pay, but also things like teacher freedoms–that a teacher is free to teach the way he or she wants to, because he or she is a professional,” he continued. “It always bothers me that we force teachers to be certified, to pursue professional development, to do all these things, and then we try to dictate what they teach.
“Also, this year is going to be a huge problem with insurance rates, and so we’re going to need more money from the legislature to help make up for the shortfall in insurance rates for teachers.”
More broadly, Stone wants to increase access to government assistance for Alabamians in need–a perspective which he says developed directly from his experiences as an educator.
“I don’t have a problem with government programs helping the needy, and it seems like everything we do in Alabama puts up barriers to getting people help,” Stone explained. “Like the the drug test policy for welfare, that’s a great idea, we don’t want people spending money on crack, [but] the problem is that those people have children who need to eat, and so you put those things in the way of those programs and you cause unintended harm.”
“That’s really where my campaign started, because day-in and day-out in the classroom, you’re overhearing conversations about kids who don’t have soap, who don’t have running water, who don’t have food at home, who are homeless,” Stone added. “We really have to open up that access, not close it off. There’s this old, sophomoric idea that people are living high off the government and things like that. In reality, they’re making $30,000 a year, which won’t support a family of one, let alone four. And so I think we really have to raise everybody up from the bottom, it can’t just be those at the top.”
One policy which Stone believes could help uplift working class Alabama families would be free school lunches.
“I would love to see us make school lunch free. That’s a much bigger issue than the average person thinks, and that’s not really the average person’s fault,” Stone said. “If you’re not in the building seeing these things and seeing the numbers, then you don’t know how bad things are, and I think that’s somewhere Waggoner is kind of out of touch. I’m sure in his upper-middle class or lower-upper class Homewood life he doesn’t see people who are starving or who don’t have water.”
Stone added that over the course of his career he has become aware of just how many students in Alabama cannot afford food, clothing and other basic necessities. In his view, this reality is indicative of deeper, longstanding socioeconomic inequalities that are only growing worse in the state.
“[These problems] have been around forever. I’ve worked in several districts throughout central Alabama, but even at districts that are thought of as higher socioeconomic status districts, you still have students who are in need,” Stone said. “So I think it has gotten worse, but it’s been bad for a while.”
To Stone, these lasting problems are indicative of Waggoner’s failure to improve conditions for everyday Alabamians during his time in office. Seeing no one else throw their hat in the ring, Stone has now taken it upon himself to effect the change he wants to see in his district and across the state.
“We moved back here in 1999, and in 25 years things have not gotten better,” Stone told APR. “I’ve seen these things as boots on the ground, and it gave me the perspective that I had to do something about it.”
Currently, Stone is the only candidate challenging Waggoner in District 16. If no other candidate enters the race before May’s primary elections, then Stone and Waggoner will be set to go head-to-head in the general election on November 4.
