MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, sat down with Alabama Daily News recently to discuss priorities for the coming legislative session, which he said would include efforts to address crime, mental health needs for veterans and more.
“The crime in Alabama has become hurtful to our economy,” Ledbetter told ADN. “It hurts our economy, it hurts our property sales, it’s just something that we’ve got to look at.”
Ledbetter previewed legislative leadership’s plans to address crime in the state on Thursday during a Montgomery Chamber of Commerce event, sharing that lawmakers’ planned to introduce a seven-bill package designed to increase law enforcement hiring and retention and expand crime suppression groups across the state, among other things.
Speaking with ADN, Ledbetter shared that the effort to address crime began in early 2024 after Reps. Patrick Sellers, D-Pleasant Grove, and Travis Hendrix, D-Fairfield, approached him in a plea for the Legislature to address rising instances of gun violence. Both Sellers and Hendrix represent districts in the Birmingham area, which last year saw its highest number of homicides since 1933.
Ledbetter said that since that meeting, he has worked with a number of different stakeholders on developing the legislative package to address crime, including Gov. Kay Ivey, Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth, Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Secretary Hal Taylor, Montgomery County Sheriff Derrick Cunningham, and Alabama Sheriff Association Director Hoss Mack. He has also recruited the help of Reps. Allen Treadaway, R-Morris, Rex Reynolds, R-Hazel Green, and Russell Bedsole, R-Alabaster, all of whom have a history in law enforcement.
Addressing mental health needs in the state, particularly for veterans, was another priority Ledbetter said lawmakers would be focusing on this year.
“We’ve done a lot with mental health, but I think it’s always going to be a continuous motion,” he said. “I think this year you’ll see us come out with some help for veterans. We’ve worked on that some, we got a committee that’s working on it, Rep. Ed Oliver, (R-Dadeville, chair of the House Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs), works on it for me and that committee has done a great job.”
Ledbetter was referring to the Veterans Mental Health Steering Committee, established last year to develop a plan to address the mental health needs of Alabama’s nearly 400,000 veterans. That committee is required to finalize and submit a plan to the governor by June 30, and was allotted $3 million to be used to fund pilot programs from the state’s share of opioid settlement money.
A private-public partnership was also named by Ledbetter as a potential mechanism to address veteran mental health that may materialize this year.
“We’ll see a public-private partnership (to address veteran mental health needs), I’ve had Alabama Power approach me that they want to be involved,” he said. “There’s a model in Tennessee that we are going to look at, and the governor’s on board with that.”
In a recent appearance on Capitol Journal, Sen. Garlan Gudger, Senate Republicans’ pick to be the next president pro tem next month, also named mental health and substance abuse treatment as priorities in the session that starts Feb. 4. Gudger said the state needs a long-term substance abuse treatment facility.
Developing and adopting the state’s General Fund and Education Trust Fund budgets are always a top priority for the Legislature, and with federal money drying up, sales tax revenue declining and state revenue growth slowing, some state leaders have urged a fiscally conservative approach to crafting budgets going forward.
However, Ledbetter said he did not anticipate any cuts in next year’s budget, citing rolling reserve funds in both the GF and ETF being “pretty healthy.”
“I don’t see anywhere where we have to cut, we’ve got robust budgets,” he said. “I think from an operational standpoint, we’re in good shape, and I credit our members and the (budget) chairmen for that because they’ve done a really good job.”
One large hit to revenue the state took last year was due to lawmakers cutting state income tax for overtime. Originally projected to cost the state about $34 million a year, the Alabama Department of Revenue estimated the true cost to be $230.7 million through September.
The tax cut sunsets in June and House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, D-Huntsville, will bring a bill to make it permanent. He said it’s generating other tax revenue for the state and wants a study to verify that.
Ledbetter said the cost of the tax so far is surprising, but he supports some sort of extension.
“I think it surprised all of us, the amount of money that it took, we thought it’d be a $40 million hit and now we’re looking at over $200 million,” he said. “So I think that’s a problem, but I do think that we’ll continue it in some form; we may keep it like it is for now, we’ve got to look at the numbers on how it benefits back to the budgets.”
Gudger also listed economic development and immigration reform as priorities in the Senate.
“From what I’m understanding from my colleagues, there are a lot of economic development bills that will be coming up,” Gudger said. “Usually that’s a package that comes through the governor’s office and the department of commerce. So that will be coming our way.
He also said there will immigration reform legislation. It’s expected to be complementary to policies of the new Trump administration.
“We have to work with the federal government to make sure we don’t overstep or duplicate services that they’ve already put in place,” he said. “Our job is to do what is best for Alabama, and as we say, all states are border states now.
“…Obviously we want the right people who have gone through the immigration process to got their work visas or green cards to be able to stay here, that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about illegal immigration. So I think from that you will see some reform.”
One matter Ledbetter said he did not see the Legislation addressing was Medicaid expansion.
Ledbetter first floated the idea in January of 2024 were he spoke to the idea of Alabama potentially expanding Medicaid via a public-private partnership model. State lawmakers were later briefed in February on an expansion plan developed by the Alabama Hospital Association, and in April, were briefed by state lawmakers from North Carolina and Arkansas about how expansion benefited their own states.
When asked if Medicaid expansion may be something the Legislature tackles this year, Ledbetter said it was doubtful, particularly under a second Donald Trump administration, which he predicted would seek to move away from the existing model in which the federal government provides a significant portion of funding for states that expand Medicaid.
“I think as far as the (Medicaid) expansion, I don’t see anything coming,” he said. “I think the governor really is concerned about it; we’ve had conversations with her, we’ve had conversations with Senate leadership, and in the near future I don’t see it.
Regarding a second Trump administration, Ledbetter said that he believed the president-elect’s policy agenda would benefit Alabama economically in a big way.
“If you look at the possibility that we’re going to be maybe drilling for fuel, I think that helps the economy,” he said. “Some people are scared of the tariffs, but I’m of the mind that it’s going to help bring jobs back to Alabama and it’s something that we need. I think our state’s going to benefit greatly from Trump being in the White House.”