Two major economic projects have lastingly impacted the 5th district and have indelibly dictated the politics ofNorth Alabama for most of the 20th Century. Before 1933, the Northern Alabama counties were characteristically poor, white and rural. TheTennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) arrival changed much of that, slowly transforming the demographic towards technical and engineering employees. The second major project was the space and rocketry programs includingRedstone Arsenal inHuntsville where the first large U.S. Ballistic missiles were developed. Additionally,NASA built the Marshall Space Flight Center in theHuntsville-Decatur area during the 1960s. In the late 1950s Northern Alabama came to be dominated by the high-tech and engineering industries, a trend which has continued up to the present. In recent years, theUnited Launch Alliance has located its research center in Decatur. As a result, Huntsville has become the second largest and fastest growing metropolitan area in Alabama.
For a time, the district bucked the increasing Republican trend in Alabama. It was the only district in the state that supportedWalter Mondale in 1984, but hasn't supported a Democrat for president since then. Democrats continue to hold most offices at the local level, and continued to hold most of the district's seats in the Alabama state legislature until the Republicans swept nearly all of north Alabama's seats in 2010. In the mid-1990s, it was a seriously contested seat, with longtime Democratic incumbentBud Cramer winning reelection by only 1,770 votes in 1994. However, Cramer was elected five more times with 70 percent or more of the vote and even ran unopposed in the Democratic landslide year of 2006. Cramer did not seek reelection in 2008.Parker Griffith, a retired oncologist andState Senator, won the open seat inNovember 2008. However, in December 2009, Griffith became a Republican. Until Griffith's switch, the district had been one of the last in the formerConfederacy not to have sent a Republican to the U.S. Congress sinceReconstruction. Griffith was ousted in the Republican primary by former Representative Mo Brooks.
For the119th and successive Congresses (based on the districts drawn following the Supreme Court's decision inAllen v. Milligan), the district contains all or portions of the following counties and communities.[6]
.svg)
.jpg)
_(new_version).svg)
_(new_version).svg)
