Senate committee approves research corridor authority bill
A bill that advocates say will allow Alabama municipalities to create research and development corridors like one planned in Birmingham received its first vote on Tuesday.
The corridors would be controlled by boards of directors and the 38-page bill outlines how they’ll operate, including possible exemptions from state taxation requirements and competitive bid laws.
Substituted in committee, Sen. Jabo Waggoner’s Senate Bill 336, was approved in the County and Municipal Government Committee.
It’s a statewide bill, but Waggoner said it will apply for a project on the southside of Birmingham, a collaboration between the University of Alabama Birmingham and nonprofit Southern Research. The corridor will include biotech companies, Waggoner said.
“This is huge for Birmingham and huge for Alabama,” said Waggoner.
This bill will “make sure we are competitive and can maximize opportunities before us that will impact the entire region and state,” Waggoner said.
According to the bill, the corridor boards will be able to: “To acquire real property within the geographic boundaries of the corridor, whether by gift, purchase, transfer, foreclosure, lease, or devise, and to construct, improve, operate, maintain, equip, and furnish the property and interests in property as the board determines to be necessary for the purposes of the corridor.”
They can also “fix and revise, and charge and collect, fees, licenses, rates, rentals, and assessments and apply the proceeds thereof for any lawful purpose of the corridor, to any qualified enterprise or other business located within the geographic boundaries of the corridor…”
They can also issue and incur financial obligations.
“It doesn’t just impact Jefferson County,” Sen. Linda Coleman, D-Birmingham said in committee. “It’s about job creation and economic development for a long time.”
The bill was filed by Waggoner last week when it became clear another effort, part of Gov. Kay Ivey and legislative leadership’s seven-bill workforce development package, had run into trouble over concerns about granting “Innovation Districts” eminent domain authority and other taxing abilities.
Waggoner’s bill now goes to the full Senate.
Ivey 5th most popular governor in nation
Gov. Kay Ivey continues to be among the most popular governors in the nation, according to Morning Consult’s survey of thousands of voters in the United States on key political and electoral issues.
Ivey ranked fifth most popular governor with a 64% approval rating of her job performance among Alabama voters. Ivey has a 30% disapproval rating.
Ivey has the highest approval of GOP governors among Republican voters in their respective states at 86%.
Ivey was reelected to a second full term in November 2022.
Senate delays vote on bill for new veterans health system
A bill to create a state plan to address the mental health care of Alabama veterans was carried over in the Senate Tuesday after a brief, gruff exchange between some Republicans.
Sen. Andrew Jones, R-Center, had a substitute for his Senate Bill 135. But he didn’t get to discuss it after Sens. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, and Tom Butler, R-Huntsville, questioned the potential expense and duplication with existing services, including those of the federal Veterans Administration.
A fiscal note on the new bill was not available Tuesday. The original bill would have created an “integrated health care system” for veterans and their families. The fiscal note on that bill said the cost would be “significant.”
Albritton noted Jones’ bill didn’t go through a Senate budget committee before getting to the floor.
“I understand the frustrations (with current care) … but you can’t fix a bureaucracy by creating another bureaucracy,” said Albritton, who is a Navy and Air Force veteran.
Butler asked the bill be carried over, meaning it could return for a vote later.
Jones said he was appalled and had never seen a bill carried over without discussion.
Senate passes restrictions on state agencies entering settlements
Sen. Greg Albritton’s legislation to restrict state agencies from entering into lawsuit settlements cleared the Senate on Tuesday.
Senate Bill 319 says a state agency can’t execute a settlement unless it already has on hand the money to pay it in full. If it doesn’t have the funds, it has to alert the governor’s office and legislative leaders of the proposed terms at least 90 days before entering the agreement.
“You can’t obligate the state,” Albritton, R-Atmore, said on the Senate floor.
Albritton, chair of the Senate General Fund committee, has previously raised concerns about agencies, including the Alabama Department of Mental Health and Alabama Department of Corrections entering into agreements and then seeking additional state funding to pay them.
House passes bill increasing penalties for discharging firearm into residence
The Alabama House adopted a bill Tuesday that would increase the penalty for discharging a firearm into a residence from a Class B felony, punishable with between 2 and 20 years in prison, to a Class A felony, punishable with 10 years to life.
Rep. Barbara Drummond, D-Mobile, said she sponsored the bill after hearing from a number of gun violence victims in her district.
“I had a good friend that was killed; she is the wife of a pastor, they were at Bible study, and someone shot into the church shooting at someone else,” Drummond said on the House floor.
“They killed her. Also, a little girl, 9 years old that was laying on her couch at her mom’s house, somebody was shooting into their house after her 16-year-old brother and they killed the 9 year old.”
Drummond said that in speaking with law enforcement in Mobile, around 200 instances that would fall under her bill had occurred in the past year alone.
Some lawmakers, such as Rep. Laura Hall, D-Huntsville, said they took caution with legislation that increased criminal penalties. Still, the bill was ultimately approved with a vote of 84-0, with 18 House members – all Democratic – abstained from the vote.
Informal gambling bill discussions continue
The House and Senate members attempting to find compromise between the vastly different gambling bills passed by their respective chambers continue to talk amongst themselves, but haven’t found solid ground yet.
The conference committee of three representatives and three senators has not yet met publicly.
“We’re trying to figure out who’s voting for what and who’s not,” Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Atmore, told Alabama Daily News on Tuesday.
“It’s the same old issues and as soon as you fix one, the Whack-a-Mole pops up,” he said.
“We’re trying to find a path,” he said. “Sorry I can’t tell you what I know, but if I did, it would be untrue by tomorrow.”
The proposed constitutional amendment and enabling legislation that would allow for a lottery have been in legislative limbo since the Senate last month drastically scaled back the House’s proposal that would also allow for online and sports betting and up to 10 casinos with table games in the state.
The Senate has been less supportive of the legislation and has fewer votes to spare to get to final passage. There are now six legislative days left in this session.
Lawmakers advance bill to ensure Biden is on the state’s ballot
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The Alabama Senate voted Tuesday for legislation meant to ensure President Joe Biden will appear on the state’s November ballot, mirroring accommodations made four years ago for then-President Donald Trump.
The issue of Biden’s ballot access has arisen in Alabama and Ohio as Republican secretaries of state warn that certification deadlines fall before the Democratic National Convention is set to begin on Aug. 19. Alabama has one of the earliest candidate certification deadlines in the country, which has caused difficulties for whichever political party has the later convention date that year.
The Alabama legislation would push back the state’s certification deadline from 82 days before the general election to 74 days, in order to accommodate the date of Democrats’ nominating convention. The bill, which passed without a dissenting vote, now moves to the state’s House of Representatives.
Democratic state Sen. Merika Coleman, of Pleasant Grove, said the legislation will ensure “all people in the state of Alabama get a chance to support the candidate of their choice.” The bill passed with no debate in the Senate. Republican Senate President Pro Tem Greg Reed expressed support for the bill after the vote.
Trump faced the same issue in Alabama in 2020. The Republican-controlled Alabama Legislature passed legislation to change the certification deadline for the 2020 election.
The Biden campaign has asked Alabama to accept provisional certification, saying that has been done previously.
Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen has maintained he does not have the authority to accept provisional certification. An attorney representing the Biden campaign wrote in a letter to Allen that there were still problems with the GOP date despite the legislation and it was a provisional certification that got Trump on the ballot in 2020.
House votes to advance expansion of ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law and ban Pride flags at schools
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama lawmakers on Tuesday advanced legislation to expand the state’s ban on teacher-led discussions on sexual orientation and gender identity in public school classrooms.
The House of Representatives voted 74-25 for the bill, which now advances to the Alabama Senate. It’s part of a wave of laws across the country that critics have dubbed “Don’t Say Gay.” It would expand current Alabama law, which prohibits the instruction in elementary school, and take the prohibition through the eighth grade. It would also ban teachers and school employees from displaying Pride flags or similar symbols, on school grounds.
Opponents questioned the need for the bill and argued that it sends a message to LGBTQ+ families, students, and teachers that they don’t belong in the state.
“All of you in this body know LGBTQ people and know they are people just like you and me, people made in the image of God,” Democratic Rep. Marilyn Lands of Madison, said as she urged colleagues to reject the bill. Democratic Rep. Phillip Ensler of Montgomery, said it was embarrassing the state was spending time on “made-up stuff” instead of issues such as gun violence or health care.
The vote came after two hours of debate and largely broke down along party lines with Republicans voting in favor of the bill and Democrats voting against it.
“They want the math teacher teaching math and the English teacher teaching English, not telling Johnny that he is really a girl,” Republican Rep. Mack Butler, the bill’s sponsor, said of parents during debate. Butler and other supporters called it a parental rights bill and said those discussions should be left to parents.
Alabama’s law currently prohibits instruction and teacher-led discussions on gender identity or sexual orientation in a manner that is “not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate” from kindergarten through the fifth grade. The legislation would expand the prohibition through the sixth, seventh and eighth grades.
The bill originally sought to extend the prohibition through 12th grade. It was scaled back at the request of state education officials, Butler said.
Carmarion D. Anderson-Harvey, the Alabama director of the Human Rights Campaign, said the legislation is an attempt to install more “censorship, more book bans, more fear-mongering about flags, and make Alabama classrooms more hostile to LGBTQ+ families and students.”
“Every family in our state deserves to be respected, every young person deserves to be celebrated, and every Alabamian deserves an end to the politics of division and chaos,” Anderson-Harvey said.
Florida last month reached a settlement with civil rights attorneys who had challenged a similar law in that state. The settlement clarifies that the Florida law doesn’t prohibit mention of LGBTQ+ people or the existence of Gay-Straight Alliance groups, and doesn’t apply to library books that aren’t being used for instruction in the classroom.
The Florida law became the template for other states. Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky and North Carolina have since passed similar measures.