Tuberville aims to settle residency question

Tommy Tuberville will have to prove to his own party next Sunday that he's lived in Alabama long enough to be governor.

Why it matters: A ruling against him would highly complicate the Republican ballot for governor.

Zoom in: Ken McFeeters, who lost his primary bid to Tuberville and brought the residency challenge, told News from the States that he was "floored" by this development.

• Tuberville is scheduled for a June 14 hearing with the Republican Party on his residency.

State of play: Tuberville's campaign has maintained that he meets all requirements for the highest office in Alabama, saying he's lived in the state since 2019, which would meet the state's seven-year requirement.

• He told Alabama Daily News this week that the hearing will allow him "to put it all out there" and that "we've had it all the whole time."
• Tuberville handily won the Republican primary for governor on May 19, with 85.5% of the vote, and the state GOP dismissed an earlier residency challenge in February.

The latest: Tuberville has now released his Alabama tax returns from 2018-2024 as well, reports the Lagniappe in Mobile.

• The homestead exemption for the Auburn house, which the state says can be claimed by an owner who occupies a single-family residence as their primary residence," was in his son's and wife Suzanne's name until 2024, when Tuberville was added to the deed, per Lagniappe.
• Tuberville's response ahead of the June 14 hearing states that "the claim of homestead by Suzanne supports Tuberville's separate claim to be a 'resident citizen' of Alabama since before April 2019," per ADN.

Catch up quick: Questions on whether Tuberville lives in Alabama aren't new, dating back at least to 2020, when a Jeff Sessions attack ad accused him of being a "Florida man," per Roll Call.

• In 2023, the Washington Post published an article titled "Tommy Tuberville: Florida's third senator?," which notes that a spokesperson "did not deny that the senator no longer owns property in Alabama."
• "But campaign finance reports and his signature on property documents indicate that his home is actually a $3 million, 4,000-square-foot house ... in Santa Rosa Beach, Fla.," per The Post, though the spokesperson described it as a vacation home at the time.