Top 10 Most Memorable Moments of Session (Part Three)

Continued…

#6.

Lt. Governor Jim Folsom breaks the Senate logjam. The Senate minority caucus, unhappy with the Senate rules, had shut down the Senate for weeks. Democrats in the state Senate had attempted to pass two sunset bills 460 times in this session so that it could move on to the state budgets and other items.

As long as either sunset bill was up for debate, no other bill could be considered without 60% of voting senators agreeing. Lt. Governor Jim Folsom, later citing the constitution’s language that “the budget was the paramount duty of the legislature,” allowed the sunset bills to be postponed indefinitely by an 18-17 vote. The minority caucus disagreed with Folsom over the legality of his action and spoke of taking the matter to court.

On the 27th day out of 30 possible in the session, the Senate began to consider the budget.

To have been such a brouhaha at the time, the matter quieted down rather quickly as the Senate got to work (and later passed the sunset bills). Some will ultimately say the Lt. Governor showed decisive leadership in moving the Senate forward in its duty. Others will feel that he has contributed even further to bitter acrimony in the Senate.

The Anniston Star:

It was not the way we would have wanted the stalemate ended. But considering the alternative — protracted special sessions, the decisions of school superintendents in limbo, agencies unable to plan for next year, teachers pink-slipped, skilled employees looking for other jobs — it might prove to be the best of a bunch of bad solutions.

In the end, a lot of good legislation did not get the hearing it deserved.

#5.

Sen. Poole’s payback. There are really three paybacks at work here. Payback to Poole by the Senate, payback by the Governor, and payback by Poole.

Sen. Phil Poole (D – Moundville) switched his vote in the organizing session at the 11th hour (along with Rodger Smitherman, D – Birmingham) to give the Democratic caucus another Senate majority. Part of his payback was going to be $1 million in road projects for Tuscaloosa County. On the last day of the session, Republican Governor Riley dusted off the rarely used line-item veto and struck the earmark. (The $1 million remained in ADECA’s budget.)

After the veto was upheld in the House, Sen. Poole had his own payback by effectively killing in the Senate any bill by any House member who voted with the Governor.

Ugly politics all around.

Two Birmingham News editorials (”Riley’s remarkable roundhouse” and “Poole’s pound of flesh“) tell the story more fully.

#4.

Senate shutdown.

The Senate minority caucus of 12 Republicans and 5 Democrats fell a vote shy of organizing as the majority in the organizing session. The Democratic majority passed organizing rules that the minority felt were unfair, in that they “allowed for the majority to have an ironclad filibuster-proof control over the Senate.”

Mobile’s Press-Register:

Two of the rules of most concern are those allowing 18 senators, instead of the previous 21, to vote to stop debate on redistricting and on budgets, and another mandating roll call votes only when three senators request it. Before those rules were adopted in January, six senators could sign a document at the beginning of each legislative day asking for a roll call vote for the entire day.

With the rare exception (e.g., the pay raise and the ThyssenKrupp incentives), the Senate was completely shutdown for 26 of the 30 meeting days until Lt. Governor Folsom and the Democrats postponed indefinitely the sunset bills that were damming the process, as mentioned above.

One point I made previously… The Senate minority caucus came close enough to being the majority that they would have had their own proposed operating rules prepared. If the minority caucus had demonstrated by releasing their own rules that they were taking a high road with proposed rules that were more fair, the caucus would have nailed down its argument that the Democrats’ rules were unreasonable.