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Endorses Shaw
The race
Alabama Supreme Court, Place 8, is on the November 3, 2026 general-election ballot. The roster is verified against the Alabama Secretary of State's official 2026 general-election sample ballot (SOS grade): incumbent Greg Shaw (R) against AshLeigh Meyer Dunham (D). Both primaries, scheduled for May 19, 2026, were canceled because only one candidate filed in each party.
Greg Shaw (R) — Incumbent. Shaw is the court's senior justice, first elected in 2008 and now seeking a fourth six-year term — his last, since Alabama law bars a judge from running after age 70 and he is 67. His file is 40 years of Alabama appellate work: 16 years as a staff attorney for the Supreme Court, eight years as a judge of the Court of Criminal Appeals, and 16 years as a justice. On the bench he is a documented jurisdictional restraint vote: in the court's 2015 order halting same-sex marriages he was the lone dissenter, arguing the court lacked jurisdiction to issue the ruling — a process position, whatever one's view of the underlying issue. In April 2026 he authored an 8–0 opinion in Ex parte 3M holding state-court proceedings must stop while a federal appeal on removal was pending — federalism and orderly jurisdiction, applied for a corporate defendant. Conservative columnist Steve Flowers calls him a "steady mainstay conservative."
AshLeigh Meyer Dunham (D) — Challenger. Dunham is a Jefferson County Juvenile Court referee and a fertility-law attorney at Magic City Fertility Law (University of Alabama 2007; Cumberland School of Law 2010). She completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2026. Her candidacy is openly issue-born: reporting compiled by AFJ Action records that she decided to run after the court's 2024 LePage v. Center for Reproductive Medicine decision treating frozen embryos as children under Alabama law. She is a mother through IVF herself and campaigns on fairness, equal access to justice, and restoring trust in the courts.
Pros and cons
Shaw: Credits: Four decades of appellate service at every level of Alabama's appellate system; a documented willingness to dissent on jurisdictional grounds even against his own side's preferred outcome; unanimous opinions enforcing federal jurisdictional order. Dirt/limits: No ethics or discipline file surfaced in this pass; the honest limit is longevity itself — voters are asked for a fourth term ending when he is in his mid-70s, which Alabama's age rule already caps. Dunham: Credits: Front-line family and juvenile court work as a referee; a completed voter questionnaire; a candidacy candid about its motivating issue. Dirt/limits: She has never held appellate office, and her campaign's founding premise is disagreement with a ruling of the very court she seeks to join — she asks voters to change the court's direction on reproductive law, which is a results-first judicial philosophy, not restraint.
OUR CALL
Our call: endorse Greg Shaw. A proven, restrained, jurisdictionally careful conservative record over 24 years on appellate benches beats a challenger whose stated reason for running is to move the court on one substantive issue. Dunham's juvenile-court service is real and credited above; it does not outweigh Shaw's file under our standard — proven judicial activism is the heaviest judicial flaw, and a campaign launched to reverse a specific decision points the other way.
Vote Greg Shaw.
For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage on our website. Vote early. Research your candidates. Choose the best moderates, whatever their party — no extremism from either side. And encourage your friends and family to do the same. --- Sources — Alabama Secretary of State — official 2026 general election sample ballot — https://www.sos.alabama.gov/sites/default/files/sample-ballots/2026/gen/Lee-Sample.pdf • Ballotpedia — AshLeigh Meyer Dunham (Candidate Connection survey, 2026; Shaw incumbent, primaries canceled) — https://ballotpedia.org/AshLeigh_Meyer_Dunham • AFJ Action — State of Justice, January 2026 (Dunham's LePage-motivated candidacy) — https://afjactioncampaign.org/blog/state-of-justice-january-2026-vacancies-and-elections-updates/ • Steve Flowers — Greg Shaw profile (40 years appellate work; age-70 rule; final term) — https://steveflowers.us/2025/04/22/april-23-2025-greg-shaw-steady-mainstay-conservative-senior-judge-on-state-supreme-court/ • JD Supra — Alabama Supreme Court Appellate Alert, April 24, 2026 (Ex parte 3M, Shaw, J., 8–0) — https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/alabama-supreme-court-appellate-alert-3736799/ • Ballotpedia — Alabama Supreme Court (Shaw lone jurisdictional dissent, 2015 marriage order) — https://ballotpedia.org/Alabama_Supreme_Court AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.