Mixed Bag Last Week, Pattern Developing

Just as soon as I posted the blog that the legislative knot appeared to be unwinding that rope almost came back and slapped me in the face. I was wrong. Just when it appeared that the session was going to start flowing again it continued to have problems. In the House, the Republican Caucus stopped filibustering because all the bills being considered were House Democrat and Republican bills without any Senate bills on the calendar. The Black Caucus did not seem happy with this however and felt like some in the Democrat leadership had betrayed them so they continued their filibuster with Rep. John Rogers basically controlling the entire House flow of legislation. In the end we did pass a few bills including one that would provide for greater access to overseas voting. After those few bills passed Rep. Rogers and Holmes started their filibuster again which ended the week.

While the Senate is still locked in strong filibuster by Sen. Phil Poole and Sen. Bobby Singleton I am very thankful to Sen. Poole and the entire Alabama Senate for allowing House Bill 41 which is the Autism Support Act to be passed into law. It was Autism Legislative Day in Montgomery and I was great to have so many parents in town to talk one on one with their legislators about the need for the State of Alabama to do a better job in providing autism services.

A pattern is starting to appear in the House. It looks like the Black Caucus is filibustering the first half of every legislative day before allowing abotu 4 bills to pass then going back into filibuster mode to shut down any further work. Next week we will be dealing with the General Fund Budget in the House and I expect the filibustering will end for a while to pass this budget then it will most likely resume again as we start back on regular business.