Senators work in the chamber of the Alabama Senate on Feb. 20, 2024 in Montgomery, Alabama. The Alabama Legislature will begin its 2025 regular session in February. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
It’s hard to keep a sense of hope as a political journalist. It’s even harder when you ply your trade in Alabama.
But this is the holiday season, a time of expectation and warm feelings. And waiting for all of us is the Alabama Legislature, which begins its 2025 regular session in less than six weeks.
The return of our lawmakers may not inspire warm feelings in you. Nor should it lead to high expectations. The last several sessions have been marked by performative cruelty against transgender youth and educators. I don’t see anything changing that dynamic in the current year.
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But that doesn’t mean we should give up. Public officials are there to serve the public. And we can and should expect them to address real issues.
So here’s my Christmas wishlist for the Alabama Legislature in 2025. These are ideals, not predictions. I’m not so dumb as to expect any politician to conduct themselves idealistically. Consider this a thought experiment, an imagining of what a responsible and productive group of lawmakers would do.
Gun safety: I’m tired of sharing this statistic. But there’s no better way to illustrate the dire state of public safety in Alabama. Our state has more gun deaths each year than New York State. Not only is Alabama’s firearm mortality rate way higher, the aggregate death toll from firearms in Alabama (population 5.1 million) is higher than the Empire State (population 19.6 million).
A state government that had a basic commitment to the public welfare would have held multiple special sessions to address the problem. Instead, we have a Legislature that thinks the solution to gunfire is more gunfire.
There is some promise on the issue. Rep. Phillip Ensler, D-Montgomery, is campaigning for his bill to make possession of “Glock switches,” which rapidly increase the rate of fire from a gun, a state crime. That could have momentum after drawing bipartisan support in the House last spring and following the horrific mass shooting in Five Points in Birmingham in September.
Legislators should consider bills mandating safe storage of firearms. A bill that Rep. Barbara Drummond, D-Mobile, filed last year would have done so in homes with children. Seems like a basic step, but the legislation never came to a floor vote.
The CHOOSE Act: So lawmakers don’t like how much an income tax exemption for overtime pay costs? Boy, do I have another potentially budget-busting law for them.
The CHOOSE Act, passed this spring, allows families to claim up to $7,000 for children each year to pay for “noneducation expenses.” This covers a lot of subjects, but it will almost certainly be employed for private school tuition. And it requires the Legislature to appropriate $100 million for the law this year, taking more money out of public schools that really can’t afford the hit.
But it gets worse. After 2027, the program is open to every Alabama household, regardless of income level. Which means that in a few years your tax dollars could help a struggling family in Mountain Brook (median income: $191,128 a year) pay tuition at the Altamont School (high school tuition: $29,140 a year).
Oh, and it’s also “the intent of the Legislature” to raise that $100 million allocation based on demand. This could blow holes in the Education Trust Fund budget. For one thing, studies have found that private schools sometimes raise tuition after a voucher program is created. And the cost of the programs spiral quickly. A voucher program in Arizona is a major contributor to school budget woes there.
Legislators need to revisit the CHOOSE Act and put some restraints on it before it becomes a headache. Because it could become an anchor on state finances with ferocious speed.
Medical marijuana: Yes, Alabama has a medical marijuana law. No, Alabama does not have medical marijuana.
The 2021 law that allowed medical cannabis tried to limit licenses and impose strict requirements on companies that participated. The politics were inescapable: the Alabama House, with a sizeable contingent of retired police officers, would almost certainly not have passed the measure without those restraints.
But that has created a predictable minefield of lawsuits from companies denied licenses and questions about the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission’s handling of the evaluation process. A restraining order against licenses was amended in October but doesn’t get us closer to cannabis for the people who need it.
It’s very hard to see how we get medical marijuana on any reasonable timeframe without the Legislature revisiting the law. The litigation isn’t going away. Lawmakers will have to make hard choices about license limits and the commission’s powers. It’s a hard lift. But if legislators are serious about giving people legal access to cannabis, they have to act now.
DEI: Pass a law allowing the state’s schools to build communities reflective of the state and allowing teachers to share the true history of the state, without any vague and mealy language intended to scare people from basic principles of truth and respect.
I’m not holding my breath that we’ll see any of these things take place next year.
But really, all I want for the holidays is a Legislature that addresses real problems and tries to come up with real solutions. That shouldn’t require a Christmas miracle.
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