Photo courtesy of Chris Davis
Chris Davis is challenging U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell in the Democratic primary for Alabama's Seventh Congressional District.
Chris Davis, a 50-year-old Birmingham resident, is challenging U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell for her seat representing Alabama’s Seventh Congressional district in the March 5 Democratic primary.
Davis, the director of government affairs for the BHM Law Group, said he was motivated to run against Sewell in part because of the horrible condition of some parts of the district and what he considers to be inaction on Sewell’s part.
The Seventh Congressional District, which covers all or part of 14 counties from Selma to Birmingham, has the worst life expectancy of any of the 435 Congressional districts in the country, according to data from Harvard University.
“There’s no crime in that statistic,” Davis said. “The crime is that nobody is doing anything about that.” There has been no significant effort to get the Seventh Congressional District off the bottom of that list, he said.
The district faces a host of environmental justice problems, where predominantly minority communities get stuck with environmental waste sites that need cleaning up, from Collegeville and North Birmingham to the train cars full of waste in Sumter County or open sewer problems in Selma and Tuscaloosa, Davis said.
There is air, water and soil pollution in some neighborhoods and other areas where trains block the roads and make it difficult for residents to travel, he said.
“The federal government has to have a hand in providing these families with environmental justice,” Davis said. The government either needs to improve the areas where these people live or help them move to safer environments, he said.
The district also is suffering from rural hospital closures, and people are dying trying to get hospitals in Birmingham or Tuscaloosa and don’t have access to preventative care, Davis said. A member of Congress should pull together resources to remedy that, he said.
Davis also said Sewell has failed to bring significant federal projects to District 7, like the FBI office for Huntsville (expected to grow to 5,000 jobs) or modernized docks in Mobile.
One good opportunity for a federal government project would be at Birmingport, he said. Birmingport is an area 20 miles west of downtown Birmingham where several shipping companies operate along the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River. The port also has access to railways. Davis said that area is ripe for federal investment to create jobs, as are numerous other areas in the district.
Sewell said she has a proven track record of working to bring jobs to the district and has secured more than $11.5 billion in federal grants since taking office in 2011. Read more about Sewell here.
Davis said he wants to do something to address what he called a gun violence epidemic, saying Birmingham is No. 2 in the nation in gun violence deaths per capita. He favors an assault weapons ban. “I don’t believe anybody should be carrying assault weapons,” he said.
He also would like to see federal tax dollars allocated to communities affected by gun violence and gang activity. Money should be spent on programs that give young people something to do when they are out of school in the afternoons and summertime, he said.
Davis said it’s one thing to go to Washington and vote on national and international issues. “However, I think the greatest role is to perform for your constituents, to perform for the people back in your district,” he said. “What they really want you to do is to serve them and work on their behalf to make the district better, to make their life better and make sure your district gets its fair share and ensure that the quality of life is not at the bottom of the charts.”
Background
Davis originally is from Birmingham’s Smithfield community. He graduated from Huffman High School in 1991 and then got a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2005.
After graduation, Davis got a job as a campaign field director for Congressman Elijah Cummings of Maryland. He initially worked in Cummings’ Baltimore office and later joined Cummings’ staff on Capitol Hill.
He also worked in the Capitol Hill whip organization for then-Sen. Barack Obama and was head of outreach for press, clergy and elected officials for the Obama campaign in Maryland. Davis later worked in Washington, D.C., Mayor Adrian Fenty’s Office on Community Relations.
He moved back to Birmingham and worked as director of business development for the Barry Walker law firm for two years and then moved to the BHM Law Group, where he worked three years as director of business development and three years in his current role of director of government affairs.
He obtained a law degree from the Birmingham School of Law in 2020.
Davis ran unsuccessfully for Alabama House District 59 in 2014 and Birmingham City Council in 2017. Find out more about Davis at chrisdavis4congress.com. Read more about Sewell here.
The winner of the Democratic primary in District 7 should face Republican Robin Litaker of Homewood in the Nov. 5 general election. The other Republican who qualified, Christian Horn, announced in February he was withdrawing from the race.
District 7 includes most of Birmingham, parts of Hoover, Homewood and western Jefferson County, parts of Clarke, Montgomery and Tuscaloosa counties and all of Choctaw, Dallas, Greene, Hale, Lowndes, Marengo, Pickens, Perry, Sumter and Wilcox counties.
