MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Democrats in the Alabama Senate on Wednesday drastically slowed action and GOP plans over two separate issues. One of which now threatens bill passage on the final day of the 2025 legislative session next week.
“It’s going to be slow,” Sen. Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, told reporters Wednesday after he delayed bill passage most of the afternoon in protest of the House’s refusal to vote on his legislation to modify gambling operations in Greene County where wagering around dog races and now pari-mutuel horse racing has existed for decades. “They’ve got 40 more (local House bills pending in the Senate), I’ll talk for 40 more hours, if that’s what game they want to play.”
Local bills only apply to one county or municipality and are usually noncontroversial. Wednesday was the last day for bills to pass and lawmakers to still have time to address a veto by Gov. Kay Ivey on May 14, the final day of the session. Singleton said he’s been told Ivey won’t sign his bill, but he wants to see it pass next week.
Singleton repeatedly said he doesn’t have an issue with the local bills awaiting approval, but wants his bill to pass too.
“I don’t see why I should allow House members to take home their bacon when I’m not allowed to fry mine,” Singleton said on the Senate floor.
Senate rules allow a member to speak for one hour on any bill the chamber is considering.
Senate Bill 90 would change some of the gambling operations in Greene County and the Green County Racing Commission, authorizing pari-mutuel wagering on historical horse racing on video machines. Singleton said the dog track already does this through opinions issued by the Attorney General that say it’s legal, but his bill would codify it into law. The bill also changed the taxes on pari-mutuel wagering.
Among the legislative issues still lingering in the Senate is the police immunity bill that is part of Gov. Kay Ivey’s priority anti-crime package. Democrats in the Senate have also threatened to fight that bill and Republicans will likely need to cloture Democrats, cutting off debate, to pass the bill.
But Senate President Pro Tem Garlan Gudger told reporters Wednesday evening that local bills will be the priority on the Senate’s final day. There were about 60 local bills pending in the Senate early Wednesday, his office said, and only five passed. The Senate also has to approve some confirmations to various boards. While not controversial, the confirmations give Democrats an opportunity to delay action by using time to speak about each. The Senate comes in at 1 p.m. next Wednesday, giving it up to 11 hours to pass bills.
“Local legislation is my priority right now because all politics is local and we want to make sure we try to take care of our members here and the members in the House,” Gudger told reporters.
Senate leadership did communicate with the House about moving Singleton’s bill Wednesday afternoon.
In the House, Rep. Curtis Travis, D-Tuscaloosa, requested that it be called up out of order. While Travis made the case that SB90 was a local bill only affecting Greene County, and therefore should be an easy vote, lawmakers for over an hour pushed back on the measure, most arguing that a local bill was not the place to deal with gambling, while also lamenting the failure of the comprehensive gambling package last year.
“We’ve come in here at the 11th hour of this session with local bills dealing with gaming, when we had a comprehensive bill last year that dealt with this issue,” said Rep. Steve Clouse, R-Ozark. “This is not the way to try to solve this issue right now, so I’m going to urge the membership here to vote no on suspending the rules for Senate Bill 90.”
Lawmakers also noted that the rules of the House differ from those in the Senate in that any legislation related to gambling must be taken up as a general bill, not a local bill.
House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, later reiterated that the bill should have been taken up as a general bill, and said he saw no chance for the measure to be taken up again.
Archives bill amendment leads to filibuster
Earlier Wednesday, Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, led a nearly three-hour filibuster over a bill to change the membership of the Alabama Department of Archives and History Board.
Senate Bill 5 by Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Josephine, lets the governor and legislative leadership appoint members of the board and expands its membership. Currently, new members are selected by the existing board and confirmed by the Alabama Senate.
Democrats had previously filibustered over the bill earlier in the session and had to be clotured to pass it in that chamber the first time.
Similar legislation was filed after a 2023 lunch event on LBGT history in the state hosted at the Archives building. Elliott and other Republicans had asked the department to cancel the event. Smitherman has previously said the bill is an attempt to “cancel” Black history in the state.
It was back in the Senate Wednesday because the House added an amendment this week to remove Senate confirmation for board members.
Smitherman said he’d always been against the bill, but especially disliked board appointments “without any oversight from us.”
Eventually, GOP leadership agreed to send the bill to a conference committee with the House, where differences could be ironed out. That didn’t happen Wednesday and is now on the legislative to-do list for the final day or the bill dies.
Alabama Daily News’ Alexander Willis contributed to this report.