Category: Alabama Legislature
House Passes Business-Friendly State Emergency Bill
The Alabama House passed a bill Tuesday that would ensure some businesses can’t be closed during states of emergency while their competitors remain open.
House Bill 103 by Rep. Jamie Kiel, R-Russellville, would allow businesses and places of worship to remain open as long as they comply with any emergency order, rules or regulations issued by the governor and state or local agencies.
“This bill does away with the connotation of essential and non-essential businesses existing in the state,” Kiel said on the House floor.
Kiel previously told Alabama Daily News that last year in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, he saw local clothing stores and boutiques and sporting goods stores forced to close while other larger stores remained open selling the same products.
“If you’re gonna allow a business that sells T-shirts to stay open, then all businesses that sell T-shirts should be able to stay open,” Kiel previously said. “If one business is allowed to open under certain conditions, then all businesses can be open under those same conditions.” Read more.
More from the Legislature: Special Session, Oversight Bills Advance
Bill Would Allow Law Enforcement to Take Those in Mental Health Crisis Into Protective Custody
A bill working its way through the Legislature would allow law enforcement officers from designated agencies around the state to take people into protective custody if there is “reasonable cause to believe that the individual has a mental illness and is an immediate danger to himself or herself or others.”
The individual doesn’t have to be charged with a crime and the detainment is not an arrest. The hold can last up to 72 hours if not extended by a probate judge.
“This is for those acute cases, to get those individuals stabilized in a hospital setting and hopefully get them care,” sponsor Rep. Wes Allen, R-Troy, told the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. Read more.
Senate Approves School Board Bill, Other Legislative Briefs
A bill that would create more enforcement mechanisms for local school board members to ensure state requirements are being followed passed the Senate on Thursday.
The Senate approved several amendments to Sen. Vivian Figure’s Senate Bill 170, including a change from Sen. Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, to give more weight to recommendations of penalties by a peer review panel created in the bill and removes the State Superintendent from the disciplinary decision process.
“I am all about due process and making sure everyone is treated fairly at every level,” Figures, D-Mobile, said about the amendment.
Read more.
House Passes Bill Requiring Pre-K and Community Corrections, Aniah’s Law and Others
Here’s a rundown of legislative action in the Alabama House of Representatives Tuesday. Read more.
Birmingham Mayor, Council Pushing Two Separate Wish Lists in Legislature
This year, the city of Birmingham is sending two sets of lobbyists to Montgomery — one from Mayor Randall Woodfin’s office and one from the City Council.
Councilors made that decision last month, claiming they’d been excluded from planning the city’s legislative agenda, and on Tuesday they approved a legislative agenda of their own — one that only slightly overlaps with Woodfin’s priorities.
The primary area of agreement between the two agendas is about bolstering city revenue through fines. Both the mayor and council are pushing legislation that would increase penalties for littering, dumping and weed abatement. Both also want to tie parking tickets to car tag renewal, providing a built-in enforcement mechanism for a ticketing system that currently lacks one.
Woodfin and the council also are both pushing for an increase in the maximum number of entertainment districts allowed in a municipality. Birmingham has four such areas — Pepper Place, Uptown, Five Points South and Avondale — where people are allowed to drink alcohol outside, though they must have purchased that alcohol from a restaurant, bar or venue in that district. State law caps the number of entertainment districts a city can have at five; Woodfin and the council both hope to raise that number to 15.
The similarities mostly end there. Read more.
Ivey Declares Monday Supermarket Employee Day
MONTGOMERY — Gov. Kay Ivey proclaimed Monday Supermarket Employee Day in Alabama as a way to honor grocery store workers who continued to work throughout the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more.
Report Shows Lower Recidivism Rates in Community Corrections Programs; Legislation Pending
Criminal offenders who served their sentences in programs in which they stayed in their own communities under supervision were on average significantly less likely to commit new felonies than other offenders under the Alabama Department of Corrections oversight, a recent study found.
But some community correction programs had recidivism rates much higher than others and varied in the fees offenders had to pay. Meanwhile, the programs for non-violent felony offenders aren’t available in some areas of the state.
“The better the program and the better managed it is at the local level, the lower the recidivism rate,” said Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur and chairman of the Alabama Commission on Evaluation of Services. Read more.
Citing Census Data Delay, Lawmakers Seek to Move 2022 Elections
Police Jurisdiction Bill Gets Public Hearing
Bills Would Allow Student-Athletes Compensation for Likeness
MONTGOMERY — Bills in the Alabama Legislature would allow student-athletes at Alabama institutions of higher education to be compensated whenever their name, image or likeness is used in promotional material. Read more.
More About the Legislature
Bill Would Create Sexual Assault Survivor ‘Bill of Rights’
Leadership Pleased With First Two Weeks of Session
Census Data Delay Puts Redistricting on Hold, Could Impact Candidates
A delay in U.S. Census Bureau data until this fall could mean an odd situation for the state’s elected officials and those who wish to unseat them in 2022. State campaign finance law allows candidates to start fundraising in late May of this year. But the required redrawing of legislative and congressional districts based on the new Census data now won’t be complete likely until late in the year. Read more.
Leadership Pleased With First Two Weeks of Session
MONTGOMERY — House Speaker Mac McCutcheon, R-Monrovia, says he is pleased with what has been accomplished so far in the legislative session and expects the same amount of productivity when lawmakers come back in a week.
“What we’ve gotten done over these last two weeks is phenomenal,” McCutcheon told reporters upon the House’s adjournment Thursday. “We’ve even done better than I thought we would.”
Three priority bills — renewing and revamping economic development incentives, untaxing COVID-19 relief funds and providing limited liability to businesses, schools and organizations from COVID-19 related lawsuits — all passed in short order and have been signed into law by Gov. Kay Ivey.
Increased safety precautions, including limiting public access to the State House, will still be in place when legislators come back, McCutcheon said, but there could be a loosening of restrictions as time moves on. Read more.
