The flags of the United States and Alabama fly over the Alabama State Capitol on April 11, 2024 in Montgomery, Alabama. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
Alabama politics are never sedate. That helps when you’re pulling together a year-end list on the subject.
One thing you can say for certain: we didn’t lack for things to write about. Below, my choices for the top 10 Alabama political stories of 2024.
10. An improved public records law
Make no mistake, Alabama still makes it needlessly difficult to access public records. But a law sponsored by Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, provides something that was missing: a requirement for state agencies to respond to requests within a set timeframe. Before, agencies could ignore requests, and those spurned had little recourse except for a lawsuit.
9. Ivey fires veterans commissioner
Gov. Kay Ivey in September demanded the resignation of Alabama Veterans Affairs Commissioner Kent Davis, accusing him of delaying applications for a federal grant program and criticizing him for bringing an ethics complaint against Mental Health Commissioner Kim Boswell, which was later dismissed. Davis initially refused to step down but offered his resignation after meeting with Ivey. But in October, the Board of Veterans Affairs asked Davis to withdraw his resignation, saying they found no wrongdoing. Ivey fired Davis after the board voted to retain him. Davis’ attorney suggested that he may consider a lawsuit.
8. Marilyn Lands flips Huntsville-area state House seat
House District 10 became vacant in 2023 after former Rep. David Cole, R-Madison, resigned amid allegations that he did not live in the district when he was elected in 2022. Lands, a licensed professional therapist who ran on reproductive rights amid a national controversy over access to IVF in Alabama, defeated Republican nominee Teddy Powell for the seat. Lands’ victory was the first net gain for Democrats in the Alabama Legislature since 2002.
7. Reed out, Gudger in
Senate President Pro Tem Greg Reed, R-Jasper, announced in November that he would leave the Senate at the start of 2025 to take a job as a workforce development adviser for Gov. Kay Ivey. The Senate GOP, who hold 27 of the 35 seats in the upper chamber, chose Sen. Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, to succeed him. Gudger sponsored a bill in the 2024 session that criminalized some forms of absentee voter assistance. He was also the single Senate Republican to vote against a voucher-like school program last spring.
6. Medical cannabis woes
Over three years after the Alabama Legislature authorized medical cannabis, Alabamaians are no closer to accessing it. A Montgomery judge has entered a restraining order against the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission issuing licenses for medical cannabis cultivation amid ongoing lawsuits over the commission’s procedures and its method of awarding licenses in 2023. Attempts to address the issues in the Alabama Legislature went nowhere.
5. Legislature approves voucher-like education act
The CHOOSE Act — extending up to $7,000 to children for nonpublic education expenses, such as private school tuition — got pushed through the Legislature and signed by Gov. Kay Ivey within the first weeks of the 2024 session. The bill requires the Legislature to put at least $100 million into the program next year, and says the Legislature intends to increase that funding if demand rises. But lawmakers did not put any income caps on the program after 2027, and voucher laws in other states have blasted holes in education budgets.
4. Attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion programs bear fruit
The Legislature pushed through legislation that banned public funding of DEI programs and prohibited teachers from affirming so-called “divisive concepts” at the risk of losing their jobs. While educators protested, the state’s institutions of higher education meekly knuckled under. The University of Alabama shut down spaces for its Black Student Union and LGBTQ+ resource center.
3. Figures wins 2nd Congressional District race
In an otherwise sedate election year in Alabama, the first contest in the newly drawn district — configured to give Black Alabamians a chance to elect their preferred leaders — proved to be contentious. Democratic nominee Shomari Figures and Republican nominee Caroleene Dobson, both attorneys, emerged from an 18-candidate field. The nominees offered starkly different visions for the congressional district in what became the most expensive U.S. House race in Alabama history. Figures won the seat, meaning that in January, Alabama will have two Black U.S. House representatives serving together for the first time in history.
2. Alabama conducts three nitrogen gas executions
The state carried out three executions using nitrogen gas, the first known instances of the gas being used on human beings. The Legislature authorized the new protocol in 2018, with supporters arguing that it would be more humane. But witnesses reported all three men — Kenneth Eugene Smith; Alan Eugene Miller and Carey Dale Grayson — gasped and convulsed while being administered the gas. Those testimonies have not led state officials or federal judges to reconsider the execution method.
1. Alabama Supreme Court blocks IVF, causing national controversy
In a lawsuit over the destruction of frozen embryos at a Mobile clinic in 2020, the all-Republican Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos were children, and that the parents could sue for civil damages under an 1872 law. The decision led fertility clinics around the state to suspend in-vitro fertilization programs; sparked protests at the Alabama State Capitol and led Alabama lawmakers to scramble to pass a bill extending criminal and civil immunity to fertility clinics.
The move led to most clinics resuming services, and the lawsuits that sparked the Supreme Court ruling were later dropped. But it’s unclear if the IVF law could survive a subsequent legal challenge, particularly with a 2018 constitutional amendment that says the “public policy” of the state is “to recognize and support the sanctity of unborn life.”
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.