MONTGOMERY, Ala. – After House Majority Leader Paul Lee invoked cloture twice early in Tuesday’s legislative day, Rep. A.J. McCampbell, D-Demopolis, told members of the press he felt House leadership was being unfair.
“I want you all to understand that the people that would be dissenting, the Democrats here, we are down here wanting people to understand all the nuances of these bills, but because of cloture… nobody got to talk about the merits of the bill,” McCampbell said after the first two bills of the day passed.
The cloture motions came after Democrats announced on social media they were going to push back on Tuesday’s agenda.
“House Dems are not going to let the Republican majority pass the controversial bills on the calendar today without a fight. Tune in,” said in a Facebook post from the Alabama House Democratic Caucus with a livestream link to debate.
The Democrats started this fight early on, taking up the whole hour allowed to debate the adoption of the special order calendar. This is usually an uncontroversial vote that moves quickly.
McCampbell said this discussion was a technique to slow things down because Democrats did not want to vote on the controversial bills at the top of the calendar.
He said his chief complaint about the cloture motions was that they stopped dissenting voices from being heard. He said the Democrats won’t stop fighting controversial bills.
“Now I don’t think it’s fair for the people of the whole state that all people’s voices are not heard,” McCampbell said.
“When you don’t get an opportunity to debate a bill and literally hash out all of the problems and concerns you have on the floor from the sponsor of the bill, then you are denying the people the opportunities that they should have to hear our concerns,” he added.
The Democrats’ slowdown and the controversial bills led to a long legislative day. The House went into recess around 5 p.m. and reconvened at 7:30 p.m. Debate lasted until nearly 10 p.m.
After the House adjourned for the day, Speaker of the House Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, said McCampbell was wrong that the cloture was unfair. He said it’s important to keep debate moving so that the chamber can debate on all of the bills on the calendar.
“They talked about the calendar for an hour. I certainly got a lot of respect for Rep. McCampbell, but I think that after (debate) gets redundant, it’s time for us to move on,” Ledbetter said to reporters. “…I hate that he thinks that way, but the other side feels opposite from that. They’re ready to move on with the bills that they’ve got on the calendar and see them there too. Everybody has their chance, and so everybody had the chance to speak that wanted to.”