Attorney General Steve Marshall maintained his fundraising lead over Democratic opponent Joe Siegelman in August. Marshall, a Republican, raised $133,566, according to his campaign’s monthly disclosure report filed with the Secretary of State’s Office. Siegelman, a Birmingham lawyer and son of former Gov. Don Siegelman, reported raising $94,449. Read more.
Gov. Kay Ivey nudged out Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox for the top spot in campaign contributions in August, which leaves her in the position of having raised more than three times as much as her Democratic challenger for the governor’s office. In reports filed this week with the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office, Republican candidate Ivey reported having raised $402,000 in cash donations in August and, after spending more than $435,000, ending the month with $337,964. She has raised close to $5.4 million since her campaign started last year. Maddox reported raising $337,742 in donations last month, and after spending $180,549, ending the month with $476,459. That brings the total raised for his campaign to $1.7 million. Read more. More contribution reports in state races:
The City of Birmingham will apply to expand its foreign-trade subzone to include a property owned by BNSF Railway, a move proponents argued would extend the Mercedes-Benz brand within the city. Foreign-trade subzones are areas within the United States in which a certain company’s commercial merchandise is not subject to import tariffs and taxes, which is intended to lower costs for companies engaged in international trade. BNSF Railway wants to add a 261-acre area near Finley Boulevard, which officials said could make the city more “business-friendly” to Mercedes-Benz, one of BNSF’s clients. Read more.
WASHINGTON – Alabama’s senators, Republican Richard Shelby and Democrat Doug Jones, were united this week on nominees who went to the Senate for confirmation. Here's a breakdown of the votes during the week ending Aug. 31. Read more.
Alabama’s senators split votes on a proposal to defund Planned Parenthood, with Republican Richard Shelby voting for a measure to remove the group from a budget bill and Democrat Doug Jones voting to retain funding. The proposal failed. However, the overall catchall funding bill passed with support of both of the state’s senators. Here are their votes on major issues in the week ending Aug. 24. Read more.
Jefferson County Sheriff Mike Hale today announced plans to put a school resource officer, mostly retired law enforcement offices, in every school in the Jefferson County School System. That plan includes forming a Threat Assessment Team to identify patterns of troubling behavior and supplying resources for managing students who display them. Read more.
Jefferson County commissioners expect to have the makings of a balanced budget for fiscal 2019 by the end of the day Thursday. That’s a welcome change after hearing Monday that some funds had been targeted for uses commissioners didn’t anticipate. “It’s not that we had less than we thought we had,” Commissioner David Carrington said Wednesday. “It’s that what we thought we had had already been allocated, primarily to the renovation of the 2121 Building.” Read more.
The days of Jefferson County residents having to go to the courthouse to file for disability or tax exemptions will be over if commissioners pass a resolution from the tax assessor for online exemptions. Read more.
Bessemer Mayor Kenneth Gulley was re-elected in municipal elections Tuesday, and it appears three of the six City Council seats on the ballot will go to runoffs, along with two of the seven school board seats. Several other cities in the state also had municipal elections Tuesday, including Gadsden, Huntsville and Montgomery. Find links to vote results.
A little less of Birmingham will be accessible to the public in the wake of Tuesday’s City Council meeting, in which the council ceded two rights-of-way to private companies. The council also voted to close portions of two downtown streets to make way for the construction of the BJCC’s new open-air stadium. Of the two rights-of-way discussions, the first — which focused on a stretch of property on the corner of 13th Street South and First Avenue South, near Railroad Park — proved to be the more controversial. Read more.
