The new congressman from 5th District is Mo Brooks, the first Republican to be elected to the seat since 1868. He dispatched Rep. Parker Griffith in the May 2010 primary after Griffith changed his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican. Brooks then bested his Democratic opponent in the general election, political consultant Steve Raby. Read More

The new congressman from 5th District is Mo Brooks, the first Republican to be elected to the seat since 1868. He dispatched Rep. Parker Griffith in the May 2010 primary after Griffith changed his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican. Brooks then bested his Democratic opponent in the general election, political consultant Steve Raby.

Brooks was born in Charleston, S.C. His father, Jack Brooks, was raised “dirt poor” in Chattanooga, Tenn., and his mother, Betty Brooks, grew up without electricity or indoor plumbing. “Out of that poverty, my parents learned that you’d better work, and work hard,” Brooks said. “That’s the beauty of America. Anybody can succeed if they work hard and take advantage of their free education.” In 1963, when Mo was 9, the family moved to Huntsville, Ala., where Jack worked as an electrical engineer and Betty taught high school economics and government. Brooks was a student at Grissom High School during the Vietnam War, and he says the experience influenced his decision to make a career in government. He quit the basketball team to join the debate team, and wound up participating in two state-championship debates. Brooks went on to study economics and political science at Duke University, graduating in three years. While he was a senior, he met Martha Jenkins of Ohio at a fraternity event, and a few years later, the two married.

In 1980, they moved to Brooks’s hometown of Huntsville, where he landed a Circuit Court clerkship. Two years later, he ran for the Alabama House, becoming one of only 11 Republicans elected that year out of 147 legislators. Brooks was re-elected three times, and says he was most proud of his No. 1 ranking from the Alabama Taxpayers’ Defense Fund for his efforts to fight tax increases. He left the Legislature when Republican Gov. Guy Hunt appointed him Madison County district attorney in 1991. He succeeded Democrat Bud Cramer, who had been elected to the U.S. House. Brooks lost a bid to keep the D.A.’s job two years later, hampered by Cramer’s endorsement of his Democratic opponent. He returned to public office in 1996, when he was elected to the Madison County Commission. In spite of Alabama’s history of electing conservative Democrats until relatively recently, Brooks says he has always felt more at home in the Republican Party. “It’s the difference between Jimmy Carter and policies that fail, and Ronald Reagan and policies that work,” he says.

Brooks got into the contest for Cramer’s former seat after Griffith announced in December 2009 that he was switching to the Republican Party in an ill-disguised attempt to improve his re-election prospects in 2010. The Cook Political Report noted that Republican presidential nominee John McCain carried the district with 61% in 2008 and that “Democrats are holding this district on borrowed time.” During the GOP primary campaign, Brooks criticized Griffith’s party switch and campaigned on the theme that the district “deserves a congressman who acts honorably.” He won with 51% of the vote to Griffith’s 33% and was able to avoid a runoff.

His opponent in the general election, Raby, was raised on farm and was the longtime chief of staff to Sen. Howell Heflin of Alabama. The Democrat shunned his party label in most of his ads, focusing almost exclusively on local issues. Brooks, for his part, took on hot-button issues, declaring that he is in favor of repealing President Obama’s health care overhaul and deporting all immigrants who are in the country illegally. He says that the country is veering dangerously toward socialism and that the trend must be reversed. Brooks won with 58% of the vote to Raby’s 42%.