Republican candidate for Alabama attorney general Jay Mitchell on Friday criticized his GOP primary opponent Katherine Robertson over her acceptance of campaign funds from “radical pro-abortion activist Hugh Culverhouse Jr.”
Robertson’s campaign received the $150,000 from Culverhouse on Aug. 22, according to campaign finance information. Any contribution of $20,000 or more has to be reported soon after receipt as a major contribution.
The University of Alabama’s law school was once named for Culverhouse, but school leadership parted ways with the Florida philanthropist in 2019, at the same time he was loudly critical of the state’s new law that bans almost all abortions.
“Katherine Robertson didn’t just take $150,000 from a radical pro-abortion activist—she took it from a man who openly mocked Alabama and attacked our pro-life law,” Mitchell said in a written statement Friday. “Taking his money is a betrayal of Alabama values.”
Robertson’s campaign staff quickly fired back Friday afternoon, pointing out that Culverhouse has also financially supported President Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. Katie Britt.
“Mitchell’s latest attempt to mislead voters comes as no surprise after lying to the people of Alabama in his campaign for the Supreme Court, only to quit weeks into the job,” campaign manager Annabel Martinson said in a written statement.
Mitchell was reelected to the high court in 2024 and stepped down in the spring to run for attorney general.
“Not only has Jay Mitchell misled voters and donors in Alabama by raising money for one race and using it for another, he’s actively soliciting and accepting contributions from woke anti-Trump Chicago trial lawyers who have a long history of bankrolling radical liberals such as Kamala Harris, Rashida Talib, and Elizabeth Warren.”
Mitchell in June accepted $100,000 from the Chicago firm Keller Postman Law.
The UA board in June 2019 voted to return $26.5 million in donations from Culverhouse and removed his name from the law school, saying his expectations of the money was “inconsistent with the essential values of academic integrity and independent administration” at Alabama.
In 2019, Alabama Daily News reported emails released by the University of Alabama System showed the dispute between the school and Culverhouse started before his abortion comments.
Culverhouse had claimed in a Washington Post op-ed that the university’s actions were in response to his comments criticizing the state for its new abortion law and calling on prospective students to boycott the law school.
In July 2019, Culverhouse took out an ad in the Wall Street Journal to criticize the law and further call for a boycott.
“Parents should not send their children to any school, university or college in Alabama,” he wrote. “Corporations and businesses operating in Alabama need to show that they care about the rights of their employees by boycotting the state until its government overturns this unconstitutional and barbaric law. All Americans should make the cost of this illegal and unjust law felt in local and state economies, by refusing to buy any product or service originating there.”
The May 2026 GOP primary election for attorney governor is shaping up to be the most competitive and expensive contested race on the ballot.
According to the latest information available on the Alabama Secretary of State’s site, Mitchell has taken in $1.72 million since announcing his campaign earlier this year. Robertson has collected $1.66 million. Barbour County District Attorney Pamela Casey has raised about $95,000. Monthly campaign finance reports for August are due next week.
Robertson’s Culverhouse contribution isn’t the first to be criticized by Mitchell. In early August, his campaign said hers “is funded almost entirely from more than $1 million of out-of-state dark money.”
Robertson has received $1.1 million from First Principles Action, Inc., a nonprofit in Nashville run by the former executive director of the Republican Attorneys General Association.
Robertson’s campaign defended those donations and pointed out that at the time, about half of Mitchell’s funds had come from his previous Alabama Supreme Court campaign.