The House finished our second week of work with a couple of notable pieces of legislation passing. Rep. Jeff McLaughlin passed his bill to pass PAC to PAC transfers. Jeff has passed this bill out of the House every year I have served there and it always gets re-worked once it goes to the Senate. It has never made it through the entire process. Good luck to you Jeff I know the feeling!
Last year I sponsored legislation that was passed out of the House Judiciary Committee to grant subpoena power to the Alabama Ethics Commission. We are the only state that has an ethics commission which does not have the power to subpoena records for their investigations. I introduced the bill again this year as did Rep. Alvin Holmes. The two bills were identical and moved out of the House Judiciary to the floor of the House. Rep. Holmes bill was in front of my bill on the calendar. Since it was just plain silly to pass two identical bills I had my bill pulled and supported Rep. Holmes in passing his legislation. I was glad that it passed the House by a large margin. If we are serious about passing this legislation there are no excuses this year in not doing so. Republicans rightly conceded that this issue is something we have said we have wanted for a long time so we will support any measure to get it done even if that meant giving a Democrat credit for it. The issue is more important in this case and I hope the Republicans willingness to show bi-partisanship in the House will now encourage the Senate to pass this important measure.
While the week went smoothly in the House a couple of committee meetings showed that there are some storm clouds on the horizon. The House Tourism and Travel Committee held a public hearing regarding gambling in Alabama. Both sides are always passionate on this issue and this year promises even more fireworks than before.
All in all a good week in the House but I believe the hard debates are really just around the corner.
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   Sen. Steve French, Sen. Zeb Little, Rep. Ken Guin, and Rep. Cam Ward will be blogging here during the 2010 Legislative Session. House Passes PAC to PAC and Ethics Posted by Rep. Cam Ward, on January 22nd, 2010, at 1:54 pm1 comment to House Passes PAC to PAC and Ethics |
ChangeI wish my friend Hinton Mitchem godspeed and good luck after his retirement from public service. Hinton, on Monday, announced what many had suspected — he will not seek re-election. I remember meeting Hinton for the first time while I was a student at Auburn University. He served the people of his [...] Ten Minutes in the House, Senate Moves On Here is a quick preview of the upcoming week in Montgomery. This week will be a standard legislative schedule for the House. We will be in session on Tuesday and Thursday with committee meetings scheduled for Wednesday. Back in the Day... Union Avenue in Ozark in the 1920s |
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[...] The Alabama House has been quite busy passing legislation, including a bill to require P.E. for some students (no waivers as are often used today), a bill to give subpoena powers to the state ethics commission and a bill to ban PAC-to-PAC transfers. [...]