House, Senate advance $30 million opioid settlement allocation plan
Members of the Alabama House and Senate voted Tuesday to approve bills that allocates $30 million worth of opioid settlement funds paid out to the state to various state agencies and medical facilities.
The bills now move to opposite chambers for their final votes.
Alabama has received more than $270 million in settlement money from drugmakers over their role in the opioid epidemic. Lawmakers held several hearings over the last year to determine how to best use those funds.
The bill adopted by the House, House Bill 479, sponsored by Rep. Rex Reynolds, R-Hazel Green, is just the first phase allocations of opioid settlement money, with additional phases planned for subsequent years.
The largest recipient of settlement funds in the bill was the Alabama Department of Health, which would receive $20.5 million, followed by $5.5 million for the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles.
The state’s 988 Crisis Line would receive $3 million, a veterans treatment pilot program would receive $3 million, and various medical centers would receive $1 million.
The House passed the bill unanimously.
Bill banning firearm modifications narrowly passes in House
A bill that would ban the possession of trigger activators narrowly passed in the Alabama House Tuesday after facing considerable opposition from some Republican members.
The bill would specifically ban devices called trigger activators, which are firearm modifications that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire at a rate similar to that of a fully-automatic weapon. While federal law already prohibits trigger activators, bill sponsor Rep. Phillip Ensler, D-Montgomery, has said that having a state-level ban would help equip law enforcement with more tools to deter the use of such devices.
“Increasingly, these devices called Glock switches or trigger activators are put on the end of a handgun and it turns it into a machine gun that can then virtually not be controlled by the person shooting it,” Ensler said when introducing his bill on the House floor.
“Law enforcement are increasingly finding these, but there is not a state offense currently that makes it illegal in Alabama, so the goal with this legislation is to deter people from using them in the first place.”
The bill had recently secured the endorsement of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, the District Attorneys and Sheriffs Associations and the Fraternal Order of Police.
Nevertheless, some lawmakers expressed Second Amendment-related concerns with the bill.
“I’m just curious, does the sponsor of the bill support the Second Amendment? Do you think the Sons of Liberty would have wanted to be outgunned?” asked Rep. Mack Butler, R-Rainbow City.
“These (trigger activators) have only come about in more recent years, so it has nothing to do with the founding to begin with, of course there’s a Second Amendment right, that’s not an issue here,” Ensler responded.
House members ultimately voted in favor of the bill with a vote of 60-38.
House, Senate adopt bill to develop new plan to address behavioral health for veterans
Both the Alabama House and Senate voted overwhelmingly to adopt two companion bills Tuesday that would direct the Alabama Department of Mental Health, in collaboration with the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs to develop a comprehensive plan dedicated to the care, treatment and recovery of military veterans’ behavioral health needs.
When initially filed, the bill was far broader, directing the ADVA to establish and operate an entirely new health care system for veterans.
The initial version of the bill came as a shock to the department, who worked with the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Chip Brown, R-Hollingers Island, and Sen. Andrew Jones, R-Centre, on more narrowly defining its scope.
When introduced on both the House and Senate floors, substitutes were offered and adopted that reduced the scope of the proposal to, instead of establishing a new health care system, only develop a plan on how to provide care for veterans’ behavioral health needs.
Both the House and Senate versions of the bills saw no opposition, and were passed unanimously in both chambers.