“We only propose that, when one man gets more than he and his children and children’s children can spend or use in their lifetimes, that then we shall say that such person has his share. That means that a few million dollars is the limit to what any one man can own.” – Huey Long

Let me tell you a little bit about Huey Long.

Long was popular during his term as governor of Louisiana as well as during his time as a U.S. senator. He even attempted to hold both offices at the same time in 1931.

He could be the model for what we think about when hearing the term Southern politician, easily sliding back and forth between explaining the finer details of his platform with clear and crisp diction followed by a homespun illustration of why his policies were needed spoken in Cajun-ese.

Long loved his LSU Tiger football team and had no qualms about meddling in the team’s affairs – a trait he evidently shares with current Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry. Long once even shared his recipe for pot likker stew while holding the floor during a Senate filibuster.

There is one more thing that Huey Long was – a socialist.

That is probably not a term Long would use to describe himself, but, according to the Long Legacy Project website, Long proposed capping personal fortunes between $5-8 million, guaranteeing every family an annual income, providing free college education, and mandating a 30-hour workweek, among other ideas.

I wanted to share a small piece of Long’s story before discussing Senate Bill 21, which will be introduced in the Alabama State Legislature’s 2026 session.

It would require a person to be a natural-born U.S. citizen in order to run for governor, lieutenant governor, most state judge positions, state legislator, attorney general, state auditor, secretary of state, state treasurer, commissioner of agriculture, state board of education member, county sheriff, district attorney, circuit clerk, or constable in Alabama.

To be clear, Alabama’s constitution already requires people to be U.S. citizens to run for most of those positions – though the judgeships, board of education positions, sheriff, district attorney, circuit clerk and constable apparently do not list a citizenship requirement in the state’s constitution.

This bill would require the people running for these offices not only to be U.S. citizens but also to be born as U.S. citizens.

Current Secretary of State Wes Allen, R-Troy, is claiming credit for the idea, according to AL.com’s Mike Cason.

Allen pointed toward Ugandan-born socialist Zohran Mamdani’s run for mayor of New York City, which Mamdani has since won, and Jordan-born Ruwa Romman’s candidacy for governor of Georgia – though current polling shows Romman has no realistic shot at winning the Democratic Party’s nomination.

Allen told Cason he wanted both “to counteract any potential future influence from abroad” and to mirror the U.S. Constitution.

However, there are two glaring problems with Allen’s reasoning. The first is his proposal goes far beyond simply mirroring the U.S. Constitution, which limits the natural-born requirement to only president and, by extension, vice president.

Syracuse University professor John M. Yinger believes the Constitution’s provision was likely added after founding father John Jay sent a letter to George Washington, who was presiding over the constitutional convention, expressing his viewpoint that the person appointed to lead the nation’s military should be insulated as much as possible from any foreign influence.

This would explain why the natural-born requirement was limited to the president and vice president. No one in Alabama’s government decides military strategy.

In fact, Alabama’s 22^nd governor, Robert B. Lindsey, was born and raised in Scotland before emigrating to Alabama as an adult.

The second problem is Allen’s implication that political ideas can somehow be labeled as foreign or domestic, mentioning Mamdani and Romman as examples of “influence from abroad.”

Both are Muslim in their faith, but so were Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X. The latter two men carried significant social and political influence in the country and were natural-born Americans.

Mamdani is an economic socialist, but so are Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who stand at the forefront of the current American socialism movement. Both were born in the U.S.

Ideas do not pledge allegiance to a country. Similar ideas can be delivered through vessels as diverse as a Huey Long or a Zohran Mamdami.

Allen could have brought forth a proposal worth consideration if he had only wanted to require all Alabama elected officials to be U.S. citizens without the natural-born addition. Instead, he chose a political stunt to boost his campaign for lieutenant governor.