Birmingham Water Works bill advances
The bill to overhaul the Birmingham Water Works Board was approved in a House committee Tuesday without changes, putting it in place for a final vote Thursday.
Senate Bill 330 sponsor Sen. Dan Roberts, R-Mountain Brook, has said the new oversight structure that will include more board members from outside of Birmingham and Jefferson County will bring in more financial and management experience to the utility that’s been plagued with billing, infrastructure and leadership issues. Birmingham Water Works serves 770,000 customers in five counties, most of them in Jefferson County.
The bill passed the Senate unanimously last week, House members Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, and Rep. Jim Hill, R-Odenville, spoke against it Tuesday during a public hearing in the House Commerce and Small Business Committee. Givan stood up for the current board and the improvements it’s making. Hill is opposed to the bill because it does not allow for a board member from St. Clair County.
Bill renaming Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America dies in committee
A bill that would rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America died Tuesday in a Senate committee with little fanfare.
Carried by Rep. David Standridge, R-Hayden, House Bill 247 was designed to mirror President Donald Trump’s executive order also renaming the Gulf of Mexico, and would require state and local entities to use the term in new maps, documents, websites and communications beginning October 1.
The lone question from members of the Senate Committee on County and Municipal Government came from Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison, D-Birmingham, and with just one word.
“Why?” Coleman-Madison asked.
Standridge said the bill was to put Alabama in line with not just the federal government, but to align the state with other states that have advanced similar proposals, including Florida, Texas and Louisiana.
The bill died in committee, however, after members were deadlocked in a vote of 4-4. With only four legislative days remaining in the 2025 legislative session as of Tuesday, the bill’s failure to advance in committee likely spells the end for the effort for the year.
House moves measure to require Alabamians to remove masks during protests at request of police
After a lengthy debate and pushback from Democrats, the Alabama House passed a bill Tuesday that would require individuals to temporarily remove masks while participating in a protest, demonstration or other public assembly at the request of a law enforcement officer.
“This bill simply requires that, when requested, people remove masks for identification,” said Rep. Jamie Kiel, R-Russellville, the sponsor of the bill, when introducing it on the House floor.
Failure to comply with a law enforcement officer’s request to temporarily remove a mask would constitute a Class C misdemeanor, and fall under the state’s anti-loitering law. Three exemptions are outlined in the bill, including those participating in masquerade parties, public parades and educational, religious or historical events, and at the direction of a doctor’s guidance.
For roughly an hour, House Democrats spoke out against the measure, largely as a threat to the right to peacefully assemble.
“I just don’t want people to have their right to protest taken away because they choose to wear a mask to protect a family member, or for whatever reason that they choose to wear a mask,” said Rep. Marilyn Lands, D-Huntsville. “I feel like that’s an individual freedom and I feel we’re going down a slippery slope here in taking freedoms away from people.”
The bill passed out of the chamber in a vote of 74-22. It requires passage in both a Senate committee and on the Senate floor before it can be sent to the governor’s desk for final approval.
Heavily-modified wire transfer bill designed to catch fraud passes House
In a near-unanimous vote, the Alabama House adopted a bill Tuesday that would lower thresholds for money transmitting companies and businesses to report suspicious cash transactions. The bill is heavily modified from its original form, which was designed to capture a portion of international wire transfers from undocumented immigrants.
“Basically what it does is it increases the data that is required for wire transfer businesses to collect, and increases penalties and fines (for violating reporting and record-keeping obligations),” said Rep. Jennifer Fidler, R-Silverhill, the sponsor of the bill.
Under federal law, any wire transfer of $3,000 is subject to reporting requirements, the same threshold the state of Alabama used. Under Fiddler’s bill, this threshold would be lowered to $1,000, and penalties including fines of up to $5,000 per violation would be imposed.
Through a substitute, the bill was stripped of any mention of charging fees on international wire transfers, which could have been recouped by the payers in the form of tax credits.
The bill passed with a vote of 82-2, and now heads to the Senate.