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the Alabama Wholesale Beer Association

1. The Home Stretch.

• The Budgets. There are still a few snags to work out, including how the state’s match to the Children’s Health Insurance Program is funded. That line item is not an island unto itself, as it impacts other agencies as well (ALDOT, ALEA, the courts). ADN’s Mary Sell has your budget primer story for the home stretch, which really is a must-read for State House types.
• Education reform. It looks like the charter school funding parity bill is dead, but Sen. Del Marsh’s big education governance overhaul bill is through committee and is in position to pass  the House this week once placed on the calendar. Senate Bill 397 passed without dissent in the Senate, so you’d think it has a good shot downstairs.
• Literacy & Computer Science. Bills seeking to improve literacy (House Bill 388) and computer science education (House Bill 216) are out of committee and in position for floor votes in the Senate this week. These are two big ones for the education community and their allies in the Legislature.
• Broadband. While the big utility broadband bill passed last week, Sen. Clay Scofield’s bill to expand and enhance the state’s existing rural broadband grant program is still awaiting a vote in the House. Senate Bill 90 is #2 on the second proposed Special Order Calendar and could get a vote today if the House moves through the education budget quickly.
• Pardons & Paroles. The news that the state had to pay out a $1 million settlement in a wrongful parole lawsuit only helps the case of those trying to reform the Board of Pardons and Paroles. Rep. Connie Rowe’s House Bill 380is first up in Senate Judiciary today, and the only question is whether lawmakers will pass it now or save it for a possible special session on prisons later this year.

2. Once dead, cannabis compromise makes comeback.

• Last week, it appeared that Sen. Tim Melson’s medical marijuana bill was dead upon arrival in the House of Representatives.
• That would be problematic because two popular laws regulating experimental research programs – Carly’s Law and Leni’s Law – were part of the bill and expire this year if the Legislature doesn’t take action.
• Now, a compromise has been worked out in the House Health Committee that will see the extension of those laws plus a new state commission charged with studying and recommending cannabis policies for the future.
• That committee is scheduled to meet today at 10:00.
• Caroline Beck and Mary Sell talked to all the parties involved and had the scoop late last week behind the paywall.
• Their updated story fresh for today is HERE.

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the Alabama Wholesale Beer Association

3. Abortion ban may not be final law.

• Tired of talking about abortion yet? Yeah, me too.
• But this is an important story…
• Alabama’s recently-enacted law almost totally banning abortions in the state may not be the law most lawmakers actually want.
• Bill sponsor Rep. Terri Collins, R-Decatur, has made clear she prefers a “heartbeat” law that includes exceptions for rape and incest. She told ADN’s Mary Sell that she thinks that’s where most Alabama lawmakers are. Of course, what they passed did not include exceptions for rape and incest because they believed that was the best way to get the law before the Supreme Court to challenge Roe v. Wade.
• Interestingly, the law does include an exception for women who could harm themselves or attempt to end their pregnancy due to mental illness. It would have to be verified by two doctors, one of whom must be a psychiatrist.
• This isn’t not a wide-open mental health loophole – in fact, lawmakers actively sought to avoid that. But, it’s not hard to see how this exception could be taken advantage of.
• Read the full story from Mary Sell HERE.

4. Haney faces scrutiny again.

• Alabama real estate investor Franklin Haney contributed $1 million to President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee, and now that donation is under federal investigation.
• The contribution from Haney, a prolific political donor, came as he was seeking regulatory approval and financial support from the government for his long-shot bid to acquire the mothballed Bellefonte Nuclear Power Plant in northeastern Alabama. More than two years later, he still hasn’t closed the deal.
• Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, has given prosecutors information regarding Haney and his son, Frank Haney Jr., and the nuclear plant project.
• Haney had briefly hired Cohen to help obtain money for the Bellefonte project from potential investors. Cohen is now serving a three-year prison sentence for tax evasion, lying to Congress and campaign finance violations.
• Haney also came under scrutiny for state-based political donations. His business donated thousands in 2013 and 2015 to political action committees that supported former Gov. Robert Bentley, who later recommended that Bellefonte be put up for sale.
• Haney is suing the Tennessee Valley Authority for scrapping a deal to sell the unfinished nuclear plant to him back in November 2016.
• Full story from Richard Lardner HERE.

5. In case you missed it…

• As referenced earlier, the state of Alabama will pay $1 million to three families of murder victims killed by a man they say was wrongfully paroled.
• The families of Colton Lee, Marie Martin and Martha Reliford allege that the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles should not have paroled Jimmy O’Neal Spencer and failed to properly supervise him once he was released. Spencer is accused of killing all three in Guntersville in July 2018.
• Gov. Kay Ivey and Attorney General Steve Marshall are supporting legislation to overhaul the Pardons and Paroles Board and give the governor the power to appoint the director of the parole board, as well as put into place sentence minimums that inmates must serve before becoming eligible for parole.
• “I am angry, certainly at Jimmy O’Neal Spencer, but I am also angry that a process designed to protect the public from deviant criminals like Spencer utterly failed them, as well as little Colton,” said Marshall, who recused himself from settlement negotiations because he knew two of the victims.
• Read the full story from Blake Paterson HERE.

• New census estimates are out and they show what Alabama cities are shrinking and which are growing.
• Birmingham, Montgomery and Mobile continue to lose population, while Huntsville is growing strong and could be Alabama’s largest city within six years. Huntsville will almost certainly overtake Montgomery as the state’s second largest city within a few years.
• Auburn, Tuscaloosa, Madison and Hoover have all grown at a fast pace. Tuscaloosa is now in the 100,000 club.
• Read more from Ramsay Archibald and see the list of the states’s 35 largest cities now compared to the 2010 census HERE.

• The time between primary elections and primary runoffs in Alabama will shrink from six weeks to four weeks under a bill that cleared the Alabama Legislature on Thursday.
• That means two fewer weeks of campaign advertising and less money spent by candidates, Secretary of State John Merrill said Thursday.
• “We believe that will make most people very happy,” Merrill said. House Bill 247 was a priority for him this year, he said.
• The bill was sponsored by Rep. Rhett Marques, R-Enterprise, and passed unanimously in both the House and Senate. It now goes to Gov. Kay Ivey for her signature. If it becomes law, it goes into effect immediately, in time for the 2020 election.
• Merrill said it applies to all elections — municipal, county, state and federal.
• Read more from ADN’s Mary Sell HERE.

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