| Marilyn Lands is an American politician who has served as a Democratic member of the Alabama House of Representatives for District 10 since March 27, 2024. She moved to Huntsville, Alabama, when she was two years old after her family came to North Alabama for her father's work on the Saturn V program. Lands currently resides in the Huntsville area and represents parts of Madison County in the Alabama legislature.
Lands won her seat in a special election held on March 26, 2024, defeating Republican candidate Teddy Powell with 62.3% of the vote. The special election was called after former Republican Representative David Cole resigned in August 2023 following his guilty plea to a voter fraud charge. This victory marked a significant political achievement, as Lands had previously run for the same seat in 2022 and lost to Cole by approximately 1,000 votes, receiving 45% of the vote compared to Cole's 51.6%.
Lands built her political campaign around reproductive rights, making it a centerpiece of her platform in deeply conservative Alabama. She openly shared her personal experience of receiving an abortion 20 years ago after genetic testing revealed that her fetus had trisomy 13, a genetic disorder that would not allow the baby to survive. Her campaign gained national attention when she released a video featuring her story alongside that of Alyssa Gonzales, another Alabama woman who had to travel out of state for abortion care after Alabama's restrictive abortion laws took effect.
Professionally, Lands is a licensed professional counselor who has operated her own private practice since 2016. Her career background includes experience in banking and the aerospace industry, providing her with diverse professional experience across multiple sectors. She has been active in community development and has served on numerous nonprofit boards throughout her career, having chaired over a dozen nonprofit organizations.
Lands earned multiple degrees to support her professional career. She holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, followed by a Master's degree in Business Administration and Management from the same institution. She also completed a Master's degree in Counseling Psychology from Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University, which prepared her for her work as a licensed professional counselor.
In the Alabama House of Representatives, Lands serves on three committees- the Boards, Agencies and Commissions Committee, the Madison County Legislation Committee, and the State Government Committee. She has been active in sponsoring legislation since taking office, including HB89, which provides presumptive Medicaid eligibility for prenatal care to low-income pregnant women. The bill, which has bipartisan support with three Republican co-sponsors, was approved by the Ways and Means General Fund Committee in February 2025.
Lands' election victory was celebrated by Democrats as evidence of voter backlash against extreme reproductive restrictions. Her campaign strategy of focusing on abortion rights and reproductive freedom proved effective in a district that had historically leaned Republican, with the seat flipping from red to blue by a margin of nearly 25 percentage points. The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee called her victory a "political earthquake" and a "harbinger of things to come" for future elections.
Following her electoral success, supporters of Lands launched a new political action committee called Respect Alabama, aimed at recruiting, training, and electing more women to office in Alabama. The PAC, which includes involvement from her son Jordan Cozby, a Yale Law School student, focuses on supporting Democratic women candidates and aims to break the Republican supermajority in the Alabama legislature. |