The Senate filibuster over electronic bingo in Macon County ended yesterday amid controversy. Read all about it in the Birmingham News.
Afterward, Rules Chair Lowell Barron (D - Fyffe) tried to organize “baseball,” a tradition in both houses. (You may read here Rep. Cam Ward’s account of baseball in the House last year.) In a nutshell, in 10 minutes everybody in the Senate would get to present one bill. If anybody objects to the bill, it’s killed. The idea is that Senators will bring non-controversial bills that no one objects to, perhaps of local interest to the home district, and everybody has the opportunity to take at least some little success home.
Tensions were high because of the controversial end of the filibuster, and Sen. Ben Brooks (R - Mobile) was unhappy that his bill to reform coastal insurance was not coming up. Baseball was not a hit.
One lobbyist’s observation…
The anger from ending the filibuster certainly spilled over, and will be lingering today.
They attempted to work a “non-controversial” 10 minute calendar that had at least one bill for every senator, and they couldn’t even do that. If they can’t make a 10 minute calendar work, I think they may as well go home. The confrontation between Barron and Brooks was really pretty ugly - Barron kept saying that Brooks couldn’t harass him into putting his bill on the calendar, even saying at one point that he’d never do it. Tension is very high.
The take here is that Brooks may have misplayed the hand. No question he is quite committed to the bill regarding coastal insurance. But with most of the session gone in most unproductive fashion and many folks in the chamber already agitated about the end of the filibuster, what is the harm in taking 10 minutes to zip through some non-controversial bills where every Senator can get something passed? Can anybody find me three Senators who would believe that trying to bully Lowell Barron is a good way to get your bill passed?
Another observer agreed that if the Senate can’t even play their traditional baseball, it really doesn’t look good for the session.
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Politics and strange bedfellows…
Among the many proposals to get the Senate unjammed, here’s one interesting story. At least it is to me…
An unlikely Senate coalition came to life last week and quickly died.
The Senate has been hogtied in a filibuster over the bingo bills for Greene and Macon County. A proposed coalition would have had Democratic Senators Myron Penn, Quinton Ross, and Bobby Singleton along with the Senate minority coalition (Republicans and dissident Dems) move those bills forward and end the filibuster. In return, GOP Senators Scott Beason and Ben Brooks would get considerations to move bills important to them, namely on immigration and insurance reform respectively. Republicans would have some language in the bingo bills about holding back expansion of gambling and could ostensibly say they were “containing gambling.”
It’s not difficult to see why this coalition “blew up,” in the words of one Montgomery insider.
The short-lived coalition was driven more by pragmatism than ideology and faced considerable obstacles. For example…
- ALFA - ALFA is one of the strongest political groups in the state, especially on the Republican side. It does not want immigration reform or insurance reform, two raisons d’etre for the coalition. One insider believed that ALFA would prefer the entire session is killed so that there is a special session for budgets - the idea being that there would be less chance of something going against ALFA in a special session focused on budgets.
- AEA - Paul Hubbert and Gov. Riley have worked on an education budget that includes large cuts to higher ed. AEA would not want any re-shuffling of the deck that could give a strong hand to anyone proposing to put money back into higher education at the expense of K-12.
- Governor Riley - Riley also does not want to unravel the progress made to this point (such as it is) on the education budget.
- Senate Democrats - Senate Democrats would not be eager to see a new majority diminish the role of the Rules Committee in setting the agenda. Since the new coalition would be motivated by pragmatism and not ideology, a real consideration would be the ire that the three Democratic Senators would draw from their Democratic colleagues.
- Gambling considerations - Many Republicans particularly want to insulate themselves from the gambling issue and want to be certain they cannot be viewed as promoting gambling.
- Senate Rule 9 - The coalition would have enough votes (18) to prevent the Senate from adopting the special order calendar from the Rules Committee, but without other votes it would not have enough (21) to substitute another special order calendar. Without a special order calendar, the regular order is used, and that is not typically a particularly productive means of getting to a bill that’s important to you.
A Senator here or there peels off, and the whole idea doesn’t hold together. But for one brief shining moment last week… you had the possibility of two most unusual sets of bedfellows - one in the coalition and one aligned against it.
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The general editor of the Bible Literacy Project fires back a defense of the textbook The Bible and Its Influence in response to Sen. Scott Beason’s criticism of the project.
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Country Crossing in a proposed project in Houston County designed to have electronic bingo.
State Sen. Harri Anne Smith (R - Slocomb) introduced legislation less than two weeks ago to allow voters to decide in November whether they want electronic bingo in the county. Electronic bingo is allowed under current law.
Today, she holds a press conference in which she reads a prepared statement.
An excerpt:
Since I introduced this bill, I have heard from hundreds of people from all walks of life. In the newspaper, on the internet, by phone, on radio and TV and on the street, the good, solid citizens of our community have let me know in no uncertain terms how strongly they feel about this issue.
The consensus is obvious to me. A majority of the people of Houston County clearly want the Country Crossing development to move forward because of what they believe it will mean to this area in terms of jobs and economic development.
For that reason, I have today contacted the Senate committee chairman and asked that my bill be stopped, permanently.
And she took no questions.
Her handling of this will not be her finest moment in the campaign for the 2nd Congressional District seat. The introduction of the bill and its withdrawal suggest that she wanted to sail in the flagship position on the issue but had difficulty knowing which way the wind was blowing.
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Sen. Scott Beason (R - Gardendale) jumps into theological waters and offers his take on “The deception of the Bible Literacy Project” for WorldNetDaily yesterday.
Those can be difficult waters to navigate.
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Helen Hammons writes this report for the Parlor about an interesting question raised on the Senate floor yesterday.
While the Senate continues to be stuck, probably on purpose, on SB191 Senator Myron Penn’s bill related to bingo, electronic included, in Macon County, Senator Scott Beason (R-Gardendale) raised an interesting issue at the microphone on the floor of the Senate on Tuesday morning. Are legislators shirking their duties and responsibilities by continually, on select issues, asking people to vote on legislative issues?
“Frankly on some of these issues, I’m not just talking about he gambling issue, it seems to me the Legislature wants to say, ‘Let the people vote; Let the people vote.’ Well, the people vote as a last line of defense. It is up to us to look at the issue, study the issue, debate the issue, come up with the best possible legislation for the people of the state - the best we can do. Then it’s up to the people to decide if what we did was right.
“What the Senate and the House have done over the last number of years, has been to shirk the responsibility of deciding what we think is best for the people of this state and whoever has the political clout to pass something through this Legislature and get it out to a vote of the people wins the day. That’s not the way it’s supposed to work. This Legislature, this Senate, this House of Representatives downstairs should not shirk their responsibilities in deciding what is best and coming up with the best plan. What will give people the opportunity to have the best lives they can possibly have.
(more…)
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The Parlor is hearing from both sides of the aisle that state Sen. Tom Butler (D - Madison) was quite unhappy that Senate Minority Leader Jabo Waggoner (R - Vestavia Hills) was in front of the story about Butler’s potential party-switch and Congressional candidacy. One GOP insider told me at the time Waggoner’s remarks appeared in the newspaper that it was a mistake on Waggoner’s part to get ahead of the story. Another GOP’er told me yesterday, “Yeah, Butler did get ticked. It was because Jabo was going around the state house bragging that he got another party switcher, and Butler just wasn’t ready to make that commitment yet. Kind of blew up in Jabo’s face.”
Sen. Butler has since decided not to run for the 5th Congressional District, and we hear that Butler will not change parties at least until after the session. He has already been caucusing with the Senate Republicans, and since he is now not qualifying for the Congressional race as a Republican, there is no practical reason for the distraction of a switch in the middle of the session.
It’s difficult to imagine that a decision as big as whether to run for Congress would be undone by anger over this matter (though one version of the circulating story is that it was); more likely this unhappiness was a small stick added to the fire that was already evaporating the idea that he would announce a change of parties and run for Congress as a Republican.
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Gay Nell Tinker, former Hale County circuit clerk and now the ex-wife of state Senator Bobby Singleton (D - Greensboro), faces 13 felony charges related to voter fraud in Hale County.
It was the third arrest in a years-long investigation by the Alabama Attorney General’s Office into voter fraud allegations involving elections in 2004 and 2006.
Sen. Singleton has also been named a suspect in the investigation by Attorney General Troy King.
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Democratic state Senator Tom Butler will announce that he is changing parties and run for the state’s 5th Congressional District seat as a Republican, according to two sources close to the situation. Sen. Butler of Madison is one of the “dissident Democrats” who caucuses with Senate Republicans in a minority coalition.
Many believed that Butler’s differences with Senate Democrats were more personal than political. State Sen. E. B. McClain (D - Midfield) once described Butler’s relationship with the party as wounded. (Another Senate insider described it to the Parlor in much the same way. See also here.) Democrats had hoped that he would return to the party’s mainstream (for example, in 2000 he was an Al Gore delegate to the Democratic convention and in 2004 he endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark) to provide Senate Democrats a 21-vote, “filibuster-proof” majority. Instead, Gov. Bob Riley has apparently welcomed Butler, and Butler has put aside unhappiness he was reported last year to have with Riley, at least to the point that he will run for Congress as a Republican.
Butler is four years older than the man he seeks to replace, Democrat Bud Cramer. If he loses the race, his party switch will not dramatically alter the state Senate landscape since he had caucused with Republicans already, though it will presumably squash Democrats’ efforts to bring him back to the majority caucus.
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A lawyer close to the subpoenaed legislators visited with the Parlor and talked a bit about the situation.
It’s a little odd how this grand jury is being conducted.
They didn’t interview anybody. Like you said in your blog, they didn’t ask anybody to come in. They served them with subpoenas.
They subpoenaed everybody in the legislature that had had any economic interest in the two-year system. But they don’t appear to have an evidentiary trail on any of them. Their bosses are represented by Post Secondary Education. Post Secondary Education would have the contracts, the information about hiring, but the Justice Department doesn’t appear to have any of that. If I were doing it, I would not have subpoenaed legislators to the grand jury without an evidentiary trail.
It looks like a fishing expedition, and they could gather information without embarrassing people. There are substantive concerns they should be investigating. I want to draw a distinction between their legitimate interest in gathering information and the way in which it’s conducted. It has appeared to be about maximum public damage. The media was tipped off so they could be there [when the subpoenas were served]. Most of the time with something like this, you call somebody’s lawyer, set it up, and they arrange a time to come in. These people would have come in.
There are two agendas at work. Some in the Justice office are badly partisan, and believe that anything you can do to embarrass someone gives you an advantage. Others in the division of labor are working the case, trying to do a good job, but they appear to lack both history and first-hand and documentary information.
I asked why four senators were released from their subpoenas. Since the conversation, other legislators have been excused from subpoenas.
| “I want to draw a distinction between their legitimate interest in gathering information and the way in which it’s conducted.” |
I presume they had to release them. The senators wanted more time. They wanted to buy 30 days to get individual legal representation, to figure out what their exposure was, to get up to speed on what the government was looking at. If they couldn’t get 30 days, you have to presume they said they would plead the 5th Amendment, and once they plead the 5th, you have to release them because you can’t bring somebody and make them plead the 5th on the stand just to embarrass them.
The questions that I understand they want to ask are how did the person get the job, what are their qualifications for it, what do they do, who is their supervisor, and what proof do they have that they did it. But they don’t seem interested in the background info or evidentiary trail that they could have access to.
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Helen Hammons covered the public hearing for SB292 yesterday and provided this report for us.
A senate bill (SB292) by Senator Zeb Little, D-Cullman, that would give the Legislative Council oversight of policies adopted by the state Board of Education in its capacity as overseer of the two-year college system remains in a Senate committee with Little planning to enter a substitute for the bill when it comes back up in the Education Committee.
A public hearing was held Wednesday morning, during which the arguments which have been made on both sides in various newspapers and other publications were further delineated by the participants.
(more…)
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A travel day for me, and I miss hearing news in timely fashion…
Turns out that the federal government has compelling interest in the testimony of at least nine past or present legislators, according to Associated Press:
Four state senators — President Pro Tem Hinton Mitchem, D-Union Grove; Rules Chairman Lowell Barron, D-Fyffe; Judiciary Committee Chairman Rodger Smitherman of Birmingham; and Dean of the Senate Bobby Denton, D-Muscle Shoals — received subpoenas, their attorney, Michel Nicrosi, said Thursday.
In the same article, the Department of Postsecondary Education confirms that four system employees received subpoenas to talk to investigators:
The four are Rep. Blaine Galliher, R-Gadsden; Rep. Jack Page, D-Gadsden; Rep. Randy Hinshaw, D-Meridianville, and former Democratic Rep. Neal Morrison of Cullman.
Lessee… the Birmingham News Breaking News site identifies Rep. Merika Coleman, D - Midfield, as the ninth to receive a subpoena.
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…and What’s Horse Manure got to do with Anything?
Helen Hammons is once again roving the halls of the legislature, and sent us this report.
Pre-clearance from the Justice Department came last Friday related to the policy known as "double dipping," Chancellor Bradley Byrne, head of the two-year system, sent a memo (available here in pdf format) to his college presidents on Tuesday, March 4, stating the policies involved were to be implemented "effective immediately."
The memo set out the following information to the presidents:
(more…)
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I’ve been wanting to write about Sen. Phil (for Philibuster) Poole, D - Moundville, aka The One Man Shenanigan, for a couple of weeks now, but Bob Gambacurta in the Montgomery Independent will now catch you up pretty fast.
My mother would use the word “unseemly” to describe Poole’s over-the-top conduct on the Senate floor.
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Helen Hammons turns her eyes (and ears) to the state Senate today and wrote this report for us.
Things got heated again in the Alabama Senate Thursday afternoon during discussion of Senator Mitchell’s bill (SB167) banning PAC-to-PAC transfers a bill which also redefines what entities constitute a political action committee (PAC) and providing more avenues for people who wish to hide just who is behind all the money contributed to various political entities.
The filibuster on PAC-to-PAC started in the morning and after a break for a joint session, continued briefly Thursday afternoon, with the Senate finally adjourning around 2:40 p.m., while some senators from both sides were in negotiations, it was said to come, to try and come to some agreement on the issue of exactly what was and wasn’t going to be included in any definition of a PAC.
The flare up between Senator Ben Brooks and Senator Phil Poole came about as follows:
(more…)
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(R) Jeff Sessions (1-19)
(D) Vivian Figures (33-1)
(D) Artur Davis (1-49)
(R) Mike Hubbard (13-1)
(?) David Bronner (OFF)