The new congresswoman from Alabama’s 2nd District is Martha Roby, a Republican who beat one-term Democratic Rep. Bobby Bright in this conservative bastion in the 2010 election. Bright managed to win two years earlier by attracting strong crossover support from Republicans in what then was a favorable climate for Democrats. Read More

The new congresswoman from Alabama’s 2nd District is Martha Roby, a Republican who beat one-term Democratic Rep. Bobby Bright in this conservative bastion in the 2010 election. Bright managed to win two years earlier by attracting strong crossover support from Republicans in what then was a favorable climate for Democrats.

Roby is the daughter of Joel Dubina, a judge on the U.S Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. She grew up in Montgomery, and received a bachelor’s degree in music from New York University in 1998. After earning a law degree from Samford University in Birmingham, she returned to her hometown to practice law. In 2003, she was elected to the Montgomery City Council. In that role, she led efforts to adopt an ordinance barring city businesses from hiring undocumented workers. In 2007, she won a second term in a landslide election, garnering 82% of the vote.

Immigration emerged as a major issue in the House race. Bright, a former mayor of Montgomery, criticized Roby for moving too slowly on her undocumented-workers initiative. The National Republican Congressional Committee, which helped Roby, branded the incumbent a “flip-flopper” because he expressed misgivings in a Washington Post story about Arizona’s law giving law enforcement significant new powers to crack down on illegal immigrants.

Roby and the Republicans kept Bright on the defensive. He felt it necessary to become the first Democrat to announce he would not vote for a second time to elect California liberal Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House. The election of speaker is typically a unanimous vote of the party in power. Bright voted to elevate Pelosi to speaker in January 2009, and Roby charged that the vote was proof of Bright’s flawed judgment. In one campaign ad, Bright boasted of having voted with House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio 80% of the time. He also played up his endorsements from the National Rifle Association and the National Right to Life PAC. He sometimes campaigned in a “Fire Congress” T-shirt.

Bright has deep political roots in the district, but some political observers attribute his 2008 win to a bitter feud between state lawmakers Jay Love and Harri Anne Smith, who savaged each other in the Republican primary. This time around, the GOP closed ranks around Roby.

The race attracted the attention of some Republican heavyweights, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, both of whom endorsed Roby. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent about $1 million for Bright. But Roby won in a close race, 51%-49%.

Roby got seats on the House Agriculture, Armed Services, and Education and the Workforce committees. Agriculture is of particular interest to her district, which has a large number of peanut growers. After meeting with local farmers, she raised their concerns about the Conservation Reserve Program at a committee hearing with Department of Agriculture administrators. The program is set up to encourage soil conservation, but some farmers argue that it is taking too much land out of production. In addition, her spot on the Armed Services Committee has enabled her to advocate for the Maxwell Air Force Base and Army post at Fort Rucker in her district. After a bipartisan deal was reached between the Republican leadership and President Barack Obama to raise the debt ceiling, Roby said she voted against final passage because she feared that it could lead to severe defense cuts. “This bill goes much too far,” she said in a statement, arguing that it could result in “devastating and unjustified cuts to our national security.”

In 2010, local tea party activists supported her primary opponent, Rick Barber, and her votes in Congress have already garnered some criticism from the conservative wing of her party. In September 2011, Roby was the subject of a derisive blog post by Erick Erickson of the influential RedState.com. “She has carried water for the leadership” and “betrayed her conservative constituents,” he charged.