Archive for: April 2007

Taken by Terry
Alabama Supreme Court
Montgomery, AL

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This shouldn’t require an explanation. The current Chief Justice is Sue Bell Cobb, the first female to hold that position.

There are some people who really, really want Senator Jeff Sessions out and Ron Sparks in. In addition to SackSessions.com, now we have Ron Sparks for US Senate: Unofficial Blue Sparks Blog.

I wonder if all this “Blue Sparks in Alabama” and “Sending an Alabama Democrat to the US Senate” might backfire a bit.

For the record, Ron Sparks has not announced a run for the US Senate and is not involved with either the blogs or the Sparksmania bumper stickers.

• DanaBlankenhorn links to this post with Alabama: Democrats Slept Through Kindergarden

On May 5 at noon, three thousand people on seven continents will brew the same beers simultaneously: 

BIG BREW X (10) celebrates a 10 year tradition of a worldwide simultaneous toast to homebrewing and the enjoyment of great beer. No homebrewer should miss it. This exciting and popular event on May 5 will have 3,000 homebrewers worldwide savoring and singing the praises of a hobby that has been around thousands of years. Organized by the American Homebrewers Association (AHA), BIG BREW celebrates National Homebrew Day, honored each year on the first Saturday of May.

Register your Big Brew site (there’s only one in Alabama right now), invite your local legislators over and introduce them to the joys of good beer!  Maybe then, they’ll decide it’s about time to free the hops.

Alabama Republican Chairman Mike Hubbard wrote a guest column in the Mongomery Advertiser where he highly criticizes the state’s Democrats for failing to keep their “Covenant for the Future.”

With half of the session gone, none of the items in the Democrats’ platform has passed the House and Senate, and most remain mired in Democrat-controlled committees or have not even been filed.

Republicans in both the House and Senate have made it clear that we will quickly pass a bill returning property tax reappraisals to once every four years rather than an annual basis if the Democrats will bring it to the floor.

The column is a slightly condensed version of a post Hubbard wrote for the new Alabama GOP blog.

• DanaBlankenhorn links to this post with Alabama: Democrats Slept Through Kindergarden

Speaking to the Walker County Republican Party breakfast on Saturday, Sen. Charles Bishop (R-Arley) spoke about the slavery apology. Nothing new was really said, but Bishop did seem to imply that Sanders lied to the senate and plans to sue the state for reparations:

“He lied to all of us. He denies that today,” Bishop said.

He said Sanders is “a well-known trial lawyer making plenty of money every time he has the opportunity to sue somebody.”

Bishop may have to vote against the apology again as the House-passed and Senate-passed versions are different. But he said he was through talking about it.

How long without a lawsuit must we go before we can say that Bishop was wrong about all this?

• H/T Doc’s Political Parlor

President Robert Witt of the University of Alabama hosting a townhall meeting tonight. I’m not sure if the development of the strip is going to be the main topic of discussion or if it’s simply on the agenda of many items, but supporters of SavetheStrip.com are expected to be there to be heard, and they are asking other interested people to attend.

It’s tonight, April 30 at 7:00PM in Morgan Hall on the UA campus.

The editors of the Montgomery Advertiser believe that the “State Senate appears dysfunctional.”

It’s hard to see how the Senate’s leadership can take much pride in running such a sloppy ship.

Two controversial but exciting bills are expected to reach a major hurdle this week. Both bills promise to bring major change to Alabama’s government.

A bill sponsored by Mike Ball (R-Madison), HB263, is a constitutional amendment to allow for an initiatives process to the state. Randy Hinshaw tells the world that the bill is going to be taken up by the the House Constitution and Elections Committee on Wednesday. In a nutshell, this would allow citizens to propose laws and constitutional amendments directly to the people of Alabama through a ballot initiative without the legislature’s involvement. To get a proposal on a ballot, a difficult process must be completed, including gathering a large number of petition signatures (in the hundred thousand range). You can find out more about this process on my I&R Page. If you want a more detailed explanation of what this bill does, you can check out a post I did last year on the same legislation.

The other bill is HB98, a bill to call a constitutional convention. It has passed committees in both houses, and is expected to be debated in the full House this week. This should be familiar to most, but basically it puts a ballot proposal to the voters of Alabama to let us decide, by majority vote, whether or not to call of constitutional convention to rewrite the Constitution of 1901. So first, the bill would decide whether or not we should even have a convention. Then, once the convention has drafted a document, the people have to again vote on whether or not to adopt it. According to a poll last year, 72% of Alabamians favor the bill. I’m pretty sure this year’s legislation is the same as last years, so here’s my examination of last year’s bill for those looking for some more depth (the dates are obviously going to be off).

• redneckin links to this post with A conversation on a Alabama Initiative & Referendum

Apparently, there are several lawsuits alleging that some Alabama municpalities are targetting minorities for traffic violations. Hoover, Alabaster, and Pelham have all had suits from the same attorney filed in federal court. The Alabaster suit was thrown out in 2005, the Hoover suit is still pending, and the Pelham suit was just filed last month.

I’ve heard stories about Hoover, but they’re all anecdotal and who knows if it’s just part of the rumor mill.

Although the city cops are being accused here, Alabama’s troopers say that racial profiling is not tolerated in their department. Alabama is rather unique in that several of our troopers are trained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws. Governor Riley has promised to expand the program which has so far trained 57 troopers.

In an earlier post, Dan listed the many resolutions passed by the legislature this year. At first glance many of them seem like a waste of time, but I really don’t think they are. We seldom spend much time on them and it’s nice for folks to occasionally receive official recoginition or condolences. The resolutions are often important to those who are affected by them and sometimes they actually do something good.

One example is HJR51 that established the official Alabama State Fiddle Championship at Panoply in Huntsville this year. I just got home from the event and it was GREAT! The participants included some of the most talented folks that I’ve ever seen from all over the country. I especially love to see the children cultivating the passion for music. I believe that it was well worth the less than 5 seconds of legislative time that it took to pass it.

Fiddlin’ around isn’t always a bad thing.

Who said it? Guess in comments, no cheating!

The forefathers, including James Madison, felt very strongly that the duties that we owe to God were outside of government’s prerogative, that government had no business interfering with the way we worship God.

I may not tell you if you got it right or not until Sunday.

It’s beach time, but I wanted to leave you guys with something that I brought up last election but it deserves an encore.

Larry the Cagle Guy (hit the play button)

The Cagle guy lost to Charles Bishop, who recently said that the slavery apology will lead to reparations. That thing cracks me up every time.

The bill sponsored by Rep. Newton (D-Birmingham) to prohibit judges from overriding juries in death penalty cases failed a BIR in the House yesterday 37-48. Currently, even if a jury recommends life without parole, the judge can “override” and sentence a convicted person to death.

“It does not surprise me,” Newton said of the vote by House members. “They’re so afraid of being misinterpreted as being soft on crime.”

Rep. Treadaway (R-Morris) said judges need to override juries when those juries “clearly disregard the law” and suggest too light a sentence.

Because the BIR failed as badly as it did, it’s safe to say it’s dead.

• Birmingham Blues links to this post with Alabama House Fails to Pass Bill to End Judicial Override in Capital Cases 

Taken by Reactionary
State Line
North Alabama/South Tennessee

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I ask for a picture from “north Alabama” and this is what I get. Clever reading, though, I did say a picture from north Alabama.

I stated earlier how the PAC-to-PAC ban, supported during the election by everybody, was amended to death in a Senate committee, chaired by Sen. Wendell Mitchell (D), with enough loopholes that it’s essentially useless. The sponsor of the legislation, Rep. Jeff McLaughlin (D), has gone as far as to say that he wouldn’t vote for the current bill. It’s already passed the House in one form and it now goes to the full Senate in another form, so here are McLaughlin’s hopes:

1. The full Senate unamends it. If the full Senate remove the language added in the senate committee so that it exactly matches the wording when it passed the House (without all the loopholes) and then pass it, it goes to the governor (I think).
2. A conference committee fixes it. If the senate passes it like it is without removing the loopholes, it can’t pass because the House passed one version and the Senate passed another. When this happens, a committee from both houses can get together and work it out. The “worked out” bill is then re-passed by both houses and goes to the governor. Hopefull the joint committee will remove the loopholes.

McLaughlin says that unless one of those two things happens to his bill, he won’t vote for it and he’ll encourage others to kill it as well. The only option at that point is to adopt another bill or vote the bums out.

The Senate Education Committee yesterday moved to pass a state-wide ban on smoking. Why did that bill go to the Education Committee? I don’t know. The sponsor of the bill says we should be more like California and New York:

“This is a very important issue,” said Figures, who chairs the education committee, an unusual committee to handle smoking legislation. “Eighteen states are smoke-free states. California and New York, if these states can go without smoking, then Alabama can. I’d like to see Alabama become the first Southern state with an anti-smoking law.”

The justification is public health. I could agree with that argument if going into a smoke-filled restaurant or bar were mandatory for the public. I just don’t think the government needs to step in when consumers have a reasonable ability to choose their own circumstances. Many businesses have voluntarily restricted smoking on their own, or created smoking and non-smoking sections. Several businesses are even investing in ventilation systems to reduce the discomfort and health affects of second-hand smoke. But no, we need the authority of the state to keep the public healthy.

The bill, SB155, absolutely prohibits smoking in all workplaces and public places except for tobacco stores and cigar bars. An amendment by Rusty Glover (R-Mobile) to exempt bars from the requirement failed.

Would someone please tell Sen. Figures that her purpose as state senator isn’t to restrict behavior that she personally disapproves of.

Just read the press release. The Alabama GOP has their blog up.

And what about their “big tent”? The Democrats have a blogroll where I am listed. The GOP doesn’t have any blogroll. I mean, I’ve already added them as a daily read… (hint hint).

The Montgomery Advertiser asked 7 black Alabamians to weigh in on the slavery apology. They said they wanted to hear “from those who would hear those words, ‘we’re sorry.’”

Very interesting. My favorite quote:

“I ain’t heard nothing about it that makes any sense to me,” said the outspoken Ramsey. “Half of them in the Legislature don’t really mean it noways, and you sure can’t make up for putting people in slavery by signing a piece of paper saying you are sorry.”

• H/T to BTL reader Anonymous (if that is his real name)