1. Storms strike Southeast

2. State House update: Education budget jockeying begins

3. Marsh wants ‘comprehensive’ action on education

• Alabama Senate leader Del Marsh, R-Anniston, said Monday he expects  a “comprehensive education plan” during lawmakers’ 2020 session.
• Marsh, the Senate president pro tem, said legislators want to see improvements in education benchmarks, including standardized tests.
• “Everything is on the table,” Marsh said. “The amount of money being spent, we have to answer taxpayers on why these scores aren’t getting better and what we have to do to improve that?”
• Of note: Alabama students scored last or near last on the National Assessment of Education Progress reading and math tests this year, a decline from two years ago.
• “What else can we do as a state to improve education scores?” Marsh asked.
• Read more from ADN’s Mary Sell HERE.

4. Big approps bill filled with bipartisan Christmas goodies

• [I just really love that photo of the Capitol. Don’t you?]
• Congress has reached a deal on a $1.4 trillion government-wide spending package that will avoid a government shutdown and take care of a number of unrelated issues.
• In a divided government, not a whole lot of consequential bills actually pass and become law. So, with this must-pass spending bill, lawmakers sought to attach provisions that might not have passed on their own. In fact, some have been sought for the better part of a decade.
• The bill repeals three long unpopular Obamacare provisions lawmakers have been looking to axe for years: the Health Insurance Tax (HIT) that was set to impact small business employers and employees, the “Cadillac Tax” that would have imposed a 40% tax on the most generous health insurance plans (many enjoyed by union members), and the medical device tax.
• The bill provides $1.375 billion for President Donald Trump’s border wall, plus increases for early childhood education, election security systems, and affordable housing programs.
• In short, Republicans and Democrats both got a lot of what they’ve wanted for years, but it came at a price tag: the bill adds $400 billion to the deficit.
• The House is expected to vote today and the Senate later this week.
• Read more HERE.

5. SPLC votes to unionize

• Employees of the Montgomery-based Southern Poverty Law Center civil rights organization have voted to unionize.
• SPLC employees voted to join the Washington-Baltimore News Guild. The vote was 142-45, according to the SPLC union twitter account.
• A supermajority of employees this fall requested representation by the Washington-Baltimore News Guild, Local 32035 of The News Guild-Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO.
• The move to unionize follows upheaval at the organization that saw the departure of longtime leaders and the announcement of a review of workplace culture.
• Read more from Kim Chandler HERE.
• Also read Brian Lyman’s report in the Advertiser HERE.

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Alabama’s Electric Cooperatives

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