Alabama Politics in
Doc’s Political Parlor
& Home of Lawn Mower Repair

Daily Home - St. Clair, Talladega lawmakers review past legislative week for local paper.

Decatur Daily - Presidential hopeful Giuliani plans fund raising trip to Montgomery next month.

Gadsden Times - Gadsden couple say they won’t appeal dismissal of case attempting to void election of Sen. Larry Means (D-Attala).

Associated Press - Divided State Supreme Court upholds death sentence.

Anniston Star - The Anniston Star comments on the impact of this weeks N.Y. Times‘ article about Alabama’s lack of adequate counsel for death-row inmates.

Tuscaloosa News - Siegelman asks supporters to send messages detailing his good deeds to sentencing judge in corruption case.

Tuscaloosa News - State’s unemployment rate holds steady at 3.3%.

(more…)

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Lost posts today (including the Daily News Digest) and lost comments from readers… I know that it is a problem.

My experience with the webhosting company has been positive enough to this point that I am hopeful they will be able to get us through this frustration, recover what is lost, and work everything out as they upgrade servers.

I will re-post the Daily News Digest immediately below this.

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Birmingham News - Continuing corruption of community college system points to Shelton State president.

Birmingham News - Riley, state board of education members expected to propose actions to limit number of legislators working in community college system.

Birmingham News - Slowdown halts work in Senate.

Birmingham News - The Birmingham News comments on expected 8600 Alabamians expected to lose Medicaid benefits April 1st for failing to provide proof of identify and citizenship.

Huntsville Times - Knight introduces tax fairness plan, proposes to remove state sales tax from food, increase threshold.

Daily Home - The Daily Home says report comparing Alabama’s income tax with other states reveals further evidence of need to decrease tax burden on poor.

Decatur Daily - Bill introduced that would require elected officials, spouses to report other state jobs.

Decatur Daily - Judge dismisses suit challenging election of Sen. Larry Means (D-Gadsden).

Montgomery Advertiser - Former chief justice joins Birmingham law firm.

Montgomery Advertiser - The Montgomery Advertiser urges lawmakers to approve measure that would end legislative immunity.

Anniston Star - The Anniston Star urges Senate to approve measure requiring disclosure of campaign advertising financing.

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The Senate has slowed down and the servers hosting the Political Parlor seem to be matching it step for step. Filibusters may have their place, but I don’t want to experience one from a web page trying to load. I haven’t seen Doc this hopping mad since he ran over a dirt dauber’s nest with the tractor mower.

Turns out that our hosting company is upgrading servers which should be much better in the long run, but it is causing some frustrating hiccups in service today. The host company believes that by tomorrow, the site’s behavior will be back to normal (or better!).

Thank you for bearing with us. And watch out for dirt daubers.

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U.S. Rep. Terry Everett

Alabama’s second U.S. House District looks like the only Alabama Congressional seat that may have much drama to it in 2008 (though, to be fair, there are some who believe Democratic Agricultural Commissioner Ron Sparks could mount a challenge to incumbent GOP Senator Jeff Sessions in ‘08).

The unknown about AL-2 is whether seven-term, Republican incumbent Terry Everett will run for re-election.

The circulating rumor that I have heard from disparate sources is that ambitious state Representative Jay Love (R - Montgomery) plans to run for the seat in ‘08 whether or not Everett retires. Politicos on both sides of the aisle believe Love to be a strong contender for the seat after Everett bows out. The idea is that if the 70 year-old Everett is undecided about whether to run again, then the rumor of a challenge from Love may nudge him off the fence toward retirement.

However, a source in the know tells me that while Love “would almost certainly run for the seat if Everett were to retire,” there is no chance that Love will run against Everett. The source believes that the rumor was started to raise the incumbent Everett’s anger against Love. And, “as far as Everett goes, I believe he is going to run again, but I don’t think you or I will know for sure until the last day of qualifying.”

Who are other candidates for Everett’s seat when he retires? Sources speculate that besides Jay Love, GOP candidates might include state Rep. Greg Wren (Montgomery), state Rep. Steve Clouse (Ozark) and state Sen. Larry Dixon (Montgomery) who lost the GOP nomination to Everett in 1992. State Sen. Harri Anne Smith (Slocomb) is often mentioned in any discussion for the seat, but I hear that she has “no interest” in going to DC. A source adds, “All of these exclude any potential statewide people who might already live in that area like State Auditor Sam Shaw, State Treasurer Kay Ivey, and Public Service Commission President Jim Sullivan.”

One observer believes “the most likely scenario on the GOP side might be a Montgomery candidate vs a Wiregrass candidate in a runoff.”

On the Democratic side, Montgomery Mayor Bobby Bright was most often mentioned as a potential candidate. One source believed that Bright might run in ‘08 even if Everett does not retire. State Rep. Terry Spicer (Elba) could be a candidate, and state Sen. Jimmy Holley (Elba) should not be ruled out.

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Related Articles:

• Sparks to Challenge Sen. Sessions?

Kudos to three GOP state senators who have taken a principled stance that would have given many of us pause.

Three state senators have refused their annual $18,840 expense allowance increase that House and Senate members voted themselves last week.

Sens. Bradley Byrne, R-Montrose, Larry Dixon, R-Montgomery, and Hank Erwin, R-Montevallo, said Tuesday they refused the pay raise and instructed the Senate paymaster to delete the raise from their monthly checks.

Erwin was adamantly opposed to the pay raise and even told the protestors in front of the Statehouse, “I will not take the pay raise today, tomorrow, or forever.” (He also said on the Senate floor that he would not accept the pay raise.)

Byrne and Dixon were adamantly opposed, though I can find no record of them saying that they would not accept the pay raise if it passed.

Still, these three stood on principle. They acted on their convictions that the pay raise was unreasonable by returning the taxpayers’ money back to the “cash-strapped General Fund.”

Hats off to these three.

An extra $1500 per month is not chump change, and walking away from it is no small act in my book.

Then there are legislators like Sen. Arthur Orr (R - Decatur) and Rep. Mike Hubbard (R-Auburn) who are opposed to the pay raise and have said they will not keep the pay raise, but they have not filled out the available form to refuse all or part of the increase. Instead, they have said they are going to give the money to charities. Sen. Jabo Waggoner (R - Birmingham) is also on record as saying he will give a “good portion to charity.”

If they feel that the raise is unmerited and that they cannot accept it, shouldn’t they acknowledge that this is money from Alabama taxpayers and return it to the “cash-strapped General Fund?” I respect their stances that the pay raise is unreasonable, but should Alabama taxpayers be footing the bill to support charities of these legislators’ choosing?

If they want to stand on principle that this pay raise is undeserved and that they will not accept it, their stance would have more meaning if they filled out the form to leave Alabama taxpayers’ money in the “cash-strapped General Fund.” An extra benefit for these gentlemen is that it would leave no room for anyone to doubt the veracity of their claims that they are not accepting the pay raise.

Again, hats off to Byrne, Dixon, and Erwin.

Edited for clarity, 10:32 a.m.

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Related Articles:

• Pondering the Pay Raise
• Putting their mouths where their money is – A Small Profile in Political Courage
• Pay Raise: Protesters, Veto, Override
• Wages Indexed to Inflation

Yep, Democratic Ag Commissioner Ron Sparks is considering a challenge to GOP incumbent Sen. Jeff Sessions in 2008.

Sparks said he would discuss the possibility of a Senate run with his advisors and hopes to make a decision in a “few weeks or months.”

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Related Articles:

• Sparks to Challenge Sen. Sessions?

Birmingham News - Legislators considering size of bond issue for schools’ capital needs, split between higher ed and k-12.

Press-Register - House committee adopts bill to keep presidential primary on February 5th, but allows Mobile and Baldwin counties to conduct early voting so as not to interfere with Mardi Gras.

Press-Register - Press-Register calls for legislature to enact Riley’s proposed tax cut plan.

Huntsville Times - Medicaid commissioner tells budget committee that advocating for program expansion “not my job.”

Huntsville Times - The Huntsville Times comments on reports that Rep. Ken Guin (D-Carbon Hill) is earning $150,000 from state sources reveals a need for constitutional reform to prevent such “double-dipping.”

Tuscaloosa News - Riley expects proposal to prohibit legislators from working in community college system to be filed this week.

Tuscaloosa News - Hundreds of adults with disabilities lobby legislators to end waiting list for services.

Tuscaloosa News - State’s schools using over 1300 portable classrooms.

Tuscaloosa News - The Tuscaloosa News urges Senate to move quickly to enact House-approved ban on pass-through appropriations.

Anniston Star - The Anniston Star states that the Alabama does not have “an illegal immigrant problem” and urges legislators to put package of bills aimed at nondocumented immigrants “on a back burner.”

Times Daily - The Times Daily calls for state to take action to decrease income tax liability for low-income families.

Times-Journal - Barron urges reform of payday loan industry, says placing transactions under Small Loan Act is not the answer.

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During my first four years in Montgomery there was always a commonly held belief that it didn’t really matter what happened in the House of Representatives to most insiders because of the different volume of bills passed as opposed to the Senate. The House has always worked at a break neck pace to pass a lot of bills. Sometimes as many as 25 a day. It was always felt that it did not matter what the House did because the Senate would kill almost any legislation passed by the House due to some procedural debate going on in the Senate. Usually the Senate debate would delay the work of the Senate long enough to prevent very few bills from becoming law in either chamber. This is not really pointing fingers at one side or the other in the State Senate feuds, it is just the nature of the upper chamber and their workings.

Something began to change in this perception over the last couple of years. While the Senate continued to have some issues that slowed their progress the House also began to slow in the number of bills they passed also. What used to be a calendar of 25 bills a day considered by the House has now trickled down to only five or six bills a day. I have discussed the good and bad of this slower process before but what is interesting is the perception created by this slow down. Suddenly there is a bottle neck created by the limited amount of legislation passing. I mean there are roughly 1,600 bills introduced each session and if only 5 bills a day pass over a 30 legislative day session….. well the math shows how little will get passed compared to how much is being pushed. This has led to different strategies for groups or organizations looking to pass bills in the legislature. What used to be a guaranteed success in passing a bill through the House is no longer the case.. This has caused a lot of groups and legislators as well to scale back on their legislative agendas and also focus really hard on passing these few bills at the top of their list.

What does this mean for the legislative process? I am not really sure but as someone who really enjoys keeping up with the process and procedures of the legislature I think the long term impact could be worth watching.

Of course as with everything else in the Alabama Legislature, anything and everything could change tomorrow!

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A reader has pointed me to Congress.org that ranks all members of Congress according to a “Power Ranking” (their criteria are found here).

The recent November flip in both Washington houses has helped make Alabama’s only two Democratic representatives, Bud Cramer and Artur Davis, the top-ranked Alabama representatives on the list from Congress.org. Republicans Spencer Bachus and Terry Everett are third and fourth respectively. Jo Bonner, Mike Rogers, and Robert Aderholt round out the list and are virtually tied.

Republican Senators Richard Shelby and Jeff Sessions are ranked 54th and 68th among the Senators.

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For the fourth year, the House has passed a bill banning “pass through pork.” This was one of the reforms touted in the Governor’s 2003 failed Amendment One tax reform campaign. The practice involves a legislator securing funds for an agency that are actually spent in a manner directed by the legislator, i.e. the funds only “pass through” the agency.

The bill also would create a legislative commission to review funds spent by the governor.

The bill, which now goes to the Senate, would require the governor to give the commission five days notice before he transferred funds appropriated for one program to another.

Some Republicans did not like the creation of the legislative commission added to the bill, though the bill passed unanimously, 103-0. (When the reform train pulls out, you want to be on board.) However, House Minority Leader Mike Hubbard (R - Auburn) seemed to agree that the bill was about accountability and transparency:

“I understand trying to stop people from hiding where money is going. That’s not right,” Hubbard said. “It ought to be where we can look at the budget and say this amount of money appropriated to wherever and know full well that money was spent there.”

FWIW, here is a Press-Register article from November on the Lt. Governor’s race that tells of Luther Strange and Jim Folsom’s support for banning “pass through pork.”

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Senate Sketches - This week’s “Senate Sketches,” Sen. Hank Sanders’  (D-Selma) weekly column for his constituents, focuses on the legislative appropriation  to rebuild Enterprise schools.

Birmingham News - Report reveals that Alabama tax burden for low income families  lightens; state moves up from highest to second place in ranking of states taxing low-income families.

Birmingham News - 8600 in state to lose Medicaid benefits on Sunday for failing to provide proof of identity and citizenship.

Birmingham News - Lawmakers give final approval of $32 million from ETF to assist efforts to rebuild Enterprise schools.

Birmingham News - The Birmingham News calls for the legislature to adopt formula for state assistance to destroyed or damaged schools to avoid controversy similar to that surrounding appropriation for Enterprise schools.

Tuscaloosa News - House passes measure to ban “pass through” pork from state budgets, bill now goes to Senate.

Tuscaloosa News - Cheney plans trip to Alabama for Sessions’  reelection campaign stop.

Decatur Daily - The Decatur Daily sees proposal by Attorney General to require sentences of 2-20 years for fleeing police as one that “panders to voters’ emotions.”

Gadsden Times - Three senators refuse to accept pay raise.

Gadsden Times - The Gadsden Times endorses package of crime bills pushed by Attorney General, urges legislature’s approval.

Montgomery Advertiser - The Montgomery Advertiser calls for legislature, governor to work together to push further tax breaks for low-income families.

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Rep. Patricia Todd (D - Birmingham) has sponsored HB331, a bill to raise the minimum wage in Alabama from $5.15 to $7.25 over two years. (The Decatur Daily appears to have misread the bill and mistakenly said that this bill would require a constitutional amendment.)

Rep. Jack Williams (R - Birmingham) is sponsoring HB322, a bill that would prohibit the legislature and any local government from raising the minimum wage above the federal minimum of $5.15, which hasn’t changed since 1997.

I have a friend who would say of Rep. Williams’ bill, “that’s one of those real good ideas that just don’t make no sense.”

First, he wants to make it “illegal” for the legislature to raise the minimum wage above that set by Congress? I do not understand the sense of that. If a majority of the state legislature wants to raise the minimum wage, they will repeal Williams’ law. All that is needed for the legislature to raise the minimum wage, with or without Rep. Williams’ law, is a majority in each house.

Second, I’m surprised that he would want to give authority to Washington over Alabama matters. This, because of something that “almost” happened in Illinois. (Williams heard “reports about a minimum-wage hike that almost stopped a Wal-Mart project near Chicago.”)

Third, in …say… six years, if a local government wants to consider raising its minimum wage because it may be in its community’s best interests, who would be in the best position to know if the idea is in the local community’s best interests? The legislature from six years prior? Or the local community at the time?

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Related Articles:

• Wages Indexed to Inflation

No one is accusing Democratic House Majority Leader Ken Guin of breaking the law, but his cozy relationships with Shelton State Community College and Bevill State Community College aren’t passing the smell test for reasons already covered elsewhere. (Three part-time jobs, including state Representative, at around $50,000 each is good work if you can get it.)

We hear there is more to be uncovered in the symbiotic and unhealthy relationships between legislators and the two-year community college system. I had hoped that Tom Corts (as interim Chancellor of the two-year system) was going to be able to right the ship. For example, he sent the investigating team to Shelton State that gave us this report, “College personnel interviewed by the committee indicate that this person [Ken Guin] has no office on campus, does not regularly appear at the campus and is of limited service to the college.” Ultimately, the task may have been too frustrating for Corts.

Corts’ suggestion that the two year system may need its own Board to receive proper oversight was not well-received. Now that Corts is out amidst complaints about his leadership from the state Board of Education, the state Board will no doubt be feeling increasing pressure “to drain the swamp that is Alabama’s Department of Postsecondary Education.”

Taxpaxers and voters, you and I, deserve better.

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I have a couple of bills that will be coming up this week in the House and while these issues will not set blog world on fire they do make a difference in the criminal justice world.

** Confession- I am one of those horrible, lowlifes in our society commonly referred to as an attorney so I often bring a number of these bills that I think will improve the criminal justice process.

The first bill is HB 391 which changes the way testimony can be taken from an underage child who is the victim of violent crime or other form of abuse. Currently under the law a judge can take testimony from a child in the judge’s chambers as long as the person accused of committing the crime is seated the room with the child. Now you can imagine what that does to a child’s psychology and how it would be to get the truth behind what really happened in the case. This bill will do what several states across the country have already done and that is allow for closed circuit testimony where the child testifies in a separate room and the defense attorney and prosecuting attorney can both ask questions without the accused being present.

The second bill is HB 424 which is commonly referred to as the “Notoriety” bill. Currently in Alabama there have been several cases of someone being in prison for a shocking crime of rape, murder, child exploitation or sometimes all three and the convicted felon decides to make money off of his crime. The felon makes their money by selling art of the crime committed, stories of how they committed the act, and even re-enacted poems of these horrible crimes. Believe it or not, are you ready for this, people have bought these items online sometimes for thousands of dollars. Under Alabama law this is perfectly legal. This bill would bar this from ever happening again.

Now I know the reactions to some of these bills are “well this is just feel good stuff.” I often hear from people who say that “you should be writing a new constitution or something big and bold.” While all of this may be true it is also a fact that there are many issues big and small in our state that must be addressed even if they do not produce the kind of grand legislative debate that people want to see. Sometimes the legislature just a responsibility to enact laws that tweak the system here and there but make a big difference in the lives of a whole lot of people.

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