The Alabama Legislature could have a long and contentious final day of the 2025 legislative session Wednesday with several controversial bills pending, including some of the governor’s priorities, and a slew of local bills.
Fights with Democrats on multiple fronts could slow the day and the Senate GOP may have to cloture the minority party over a bill to give more legal immunity to law enforcement officers.
What the final 11 hours in the Legislature will look like was still to be determined as of Tuesday morning.
“Our top priority on the session’s last day will be passage of local bills that are essential to the cities and counties we represent, and, beyond that, concurring on conference reports and voting on several lingering measures that still await our attention,” Senate President Pro Tem Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, told Alabama Daily News.
“It is my hope that Wednesday will allow us all to set aside any personal agendas and cast up or down votes on the issues important to the citizens we each took an oath to serve.”
Sen. Bobby Singleton, who significantly slowed Senate action last week on the Legislature’s penultimate day, said there is path to a smooth and fast-moving final day, but it requires the House passage of his local gambling bill for Greene County and changes to the police immunity bill and one overhauling the board of the Alabama Department of Archives and History Board.
Local bills backlog
Hundreds of local bills that only affect one county or municipality are filed every session and are usually not controversial. But they’ve piled up in the Senate this year; just five were approved Wednesday amid the slowdown from Singleton and 60 are still remaining. Last week, he pledged to delay every local bill remaining if his legislation to change the gambling laws in Greene County doesn’t advance. House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, said that was unlikely.
On Monday, Singleton said he’s had no conversations with leadership.
“I’m hoping that we have an opportunity between now and Wednesday to talk. I’m still hopeful and confident that leadership in the House will see where we are and try to unclog this backlog in the House and the Senate,” he told ADN.
If his bill doesn’t move, Singleton said he planned to slow votes on bills in the Senate.
Local bills matter to lawmakers because they directly affect the communities they represent. Even if Singleton doesn’t object to them, passing more than 50 local bills on Wednesday will eat up a significant amount of time. Leadership may have to prioritize the list and leave some for next year.
It’s possible that lawmakers will simply not have enough time to take up all bills, Ledbetter told Capitol Journal on Friday.
“We’ll probably have close to 1,000 bills that have been filed this year, we’ve probably passed between 250 and 300, so 70% of the bills that’ve been filed probably aren’t going to get passed, for different reasons,” he said.
Police immunity
Arguably the biggest, most controversial piece of Gov. Kay Ivey’s priority anti-crime bill package, House Bill 202 would impose higher legal thresholds to prosecute or sue members of law enforcement.
Democrats in the House and Senate have argued against the bill at every opportunity and now it needs a Senate vote and then a House concurrence vote to agree with a change made in a Senate committee.
Singleton said Democrats will try to amend the bill further on Wednesday. He said he expects Republicans to cloture Democrats, meaning debate is stopped to keep Democrats from delaying votes.
For Ivey House Bill 202 remains a top priority, as does House Bill 188, which would establish a scholarship program for law enforcement officers and their families, a bill that has proved far less controversial. It needs a final Senate vote.
“Going into this session, I said bolstering public safety would be my No. 1 priority,” Ivey said in a statement to ADN. “That remains true going into the last day of this legislative session, as we have two important bills needing floor votes – House Bill 202 and House Bill 188. We can back the blue by passing House Bill 202, which will provide law enforcement with enhanced legal protections that allow them to carry out their duties courageously and effectively.
“We will support long-serving law enforcement families through dependent scholarships by passing House Bill 188. The Alabama Legislature stands with our men and women in blue, so I am confident they will send these bills to my desk so I can sign them into law to create a Safe Alabama.”
While not part of Ivey’s anti-crime bill package, another bill designed to target crime is House Bill 265, carried by Rep. Joe Lovvorn, R-Auburn, which would enhance criminal penalties for those resisting arrest. While the bill only requires Senate approval, and House concurrence if the Senate modifies the legislation, Lovvorn said that he’s prepared to refile it next year should lawmakers run out of time.
“It’s hard to get a lot of things across here in the last couple days, and we have to be realistic of what is possible,” Lovvorn told ADN Monday. “January is not that far away; we can go ahead and start pre-planning with bills and legislation for the next year.”
Lovvorn also chairs the House Rules Committee, which puts together the chamber’s special order calendar of bills the body will address any given day. He told ADN that committee members have yet to develop a House calendar for Wednesday, but will likely meet either Tuesday or Wednesday morning.
Archives bill
The bill to reorganize the board that governs the Alabama Department of Archives and History required a cloture motion in April the first time it passed the Senate and could again.
It was sent back to the Senate last week when the House amended the bill to take off the requirement that new appointees get Senate approval. The bill will be in a conference committee Wednesday morning where a few Senate and House members can try to work out their differences, and then send the bill back to each chamber.
Its passage Wednesday could depend on whether senators are willing to cloture again, sponsor Sen. Chris Elliott said.
“And I think the answer to that is, we’ll have to see,” Elliott, R-Josephine, told ADN. “And I think a lot of that has to do with back the blue (the police immunity bill) and some other controversial bills that may put us in a cloture position. If we’re already in a cloture situation, it makes doing the archives bill that much easier.”
Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, led a nearly three-hour filibuster over the bill last week. He’s said changing the board and how members are appointed is an attempt to erase Black history in the state.
If the amendment put on in the House is removed in conference committee, Singleton said Democrats “are fine” with the bill.
Elliott filed a similar bill after a 2023 lunch event on gay and lesbian history in the state hosted at the Archives building. Elliott and other Republicans had asked the department to cancel the event.
Elliott has said the self-appointing board didn’t feel it had to listen to the Legislature or the executive branch.
“This bill sends an important message to the entire bureaucracy in Montgomery that there is accountability,” Elliott said Monday.
Immigration
Legislative leadership is also hopeful to see a number of bills targeting illegal immigration pass through the Legislature by the end of the day Wednesday.
In February, lawmakers filed a flurry of bills targeting illegal immigration, all designed to complement President Donald Trump’s federal crackdown on illegal immigration. Two of them, Senate Bills 158 and 63, which would strengthen laws prohibiting undocumented immigrants from voting and require law enforcement to collect DNA samples from undocumented immigrants in custody, respectively, were signed into law by Ivey on Monday.
Many of the around a dozen bills targeting illegal immigration, however, are unlikely to pass this year. In his Friday appearance on Capitol Journal, Ledbetter said he still hopes a majority of them will.
“I think there were 12 bills, probably won’t get all of those out, but I think the major ones of that package that protect the border of Alabama, I think those will get across the finish line,” he said.
Bills close to final passage include House Bill 302, which would require labor brokers that recruit six or more foreign workers per year to use the federal E-Verify program, and Senate Bill 53, which would require local law enforcement agencies to verify the immigration status of arrested individuals. HB302 requires Senate approval and House concurrence, whereas SB53 requires only Senate concurrence with changes made to the bill in the House last week.
Education-related bills still alive
House Bill 244, sponsored by Rep. Mack Butler, R-Gadsden, would expand current restrictions on classroom discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity. The ban, which currently applies from kindergarten through fifth grade, would extend to prekindergarten through twelfth grade under Butler’s proposal. It would also prohibit public school employees from displaying flags or symbols representing sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms.
“I’m very hopeful and optimistic that it will pass,” Butler told Alabama Daily News. If it doesn’t, he said he’ll bring it back next session.
House Bill 67, sponsored by House Majority Leader Scott Stadthagen, R-Hartselle, restricts drag shows at public schools and libraries to allow only children who have their parent’s permission to attend. It also prohibits minors from sharing facilities with members of the opposite sex during overnight events sponsored by certain state entities, which include K-12 schools, unless the other individuals are part of the child’s family.
Both those bills need Senate votes.
Alabama Daily News’ Trisha Powell Crain contributed to this report.