April 27, 2012 Group Watch: This Week in the Legislature

Tuesday (the 22^nd meeting day of the 2012 regular session): The House passed bills to establish a single electronic system that businesses may use to file or pay state and local sales taxes, use taxes and rental and lease taxes, and requiring the posting of a human trafficking hotline telephone number in massage parlors, inexpensive hotels, strip clubs and similar establishments. They failed to achieve the required votes to consider a bill to require all school superintendents to be appointed and not elected. The Senate Job Creation and Economic Development Committee approved a bill to make limited changes in the state’s immigration law. The Senate approved bills to ban texting while driving, with some exceptions, and to prohibit insurance plans through a health insurance exchange in Alabama from providing coverage for elective abortions. They also approved bills to provide tax breaks to Alabama homeowners who set up catastrophe savings accounts to cover a high deductible on home owners insurance and to require homeowners’ insurance companies to provide premium and loss information by zip codes and counties to the state Insurance Department, which will post it on the web.

Wednesday (a committee day): The House Ways and Means-General Fund Committee approved bills to raise court fees by $23 million per year and to exempt dormant businesses from a tax for the privilege of doing business in Alabama. They also conducted a public hearing on a bill to add a $1 cigarette tax but did not vote. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a House-passed immigration bill with some changes and a House-passed bill dealing with scrap metal sales.

Thursday: The House passed a number of local bills and general bills to legalize home brewing of beer, wine and cider and to require new construction at colleges and universities containing dorm rooms and classrooms to have state-approved safe rooms. The Senate, like the House, approved a number of bills of local application only. Additionally, they approved bills to make it easier for independent and third party candidates to get on the ballot, to clarify the state ethics law by allowing state workers and education employees to receive a gift worth $50 or less, and to approve a House-passed measure saying that terminating an ectopic pregnancy doesn’t count as an abortion under state law, and doctors are not required to report the terminations to the state health department like they do abortions.

Group Watch 4/27/2012: AL’s Childhood Poverty Rate Growing

A recently revealed study shows that a growing number of Alabamians under the age of 18 are living in poverty. The study conducted by the Southern Regional Education Board shows Alabama with the fourth highest childhood poverty rate as of 2010. Alabama falls behind New Mexico, Mississippi and Washington D. C. In 2005, Alabama had the eighth highest childhood poverty rate. The report shows that children from poor families generally graduate high school, attend college and earn degrees at much lower rates than their more affluent peers. Children from poor families also typically start school less prepared than children from more affluent families.

Group Watch 4/27/2012: $1 Cigarette Tax Unlikely

The chairman of the House Ways and Means-General Fund committee said that a $.20 to $.30 cigarette tax would have a better chance of making it out of his committee, but even that amount would be a longshot to make it out of the Alabama House of Representatives. The committee heard testimony on three bills seeking to raise the tax on cigarettes with the proceeds going to help Medicaid, the cash-strapped General Fund or both. Legislative staff estimates that the state would receive an extra $227 million each year if the tax on cigarettes were increased by $1. While most of the testimony was in support of the increased tax, a coastal business person testified that further tax increases will force Alabama smokers to purchase products across the state line.

April 20, 2012 Group Watch: This Week in the Legislature

Tuesday (the 20^th meeting day of the 2012 regular session): The House Public safety and Homeland Security Committee approved a bill to make changes to the state immigration law. The Senate Constitution and Elections Committee approved bills to allow state employees and public school employees to receive gifts worth $25 or less, and to raise the annual salary level that requires public employees to file an annual financial disclosure form from $50,000 to $75,000. The House passed bills making it a crime to have sexual relations with an animal, allowing certain precious metals to be stored in Alabama warehouses, to allow restaurants to put cork back on a bottle of wine and send it home with the customer, and to establish a sales tax holiday for the purchase of items like generators and weather radios needed to prepare for bad weather. It also approved bills that ban lawsuits against restaurants and other companies claiming the company caused a person to gain weight, prohibit inmates from having access to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, and remove ectopic pregnancies from the list of procedures that doctors and hospitals have to report as types of pregnancies. The Senate approved a heavily amended bill to tie legislators’ compensation to the state’s median household income but delayed consideration of several bills addressing homeowners’ insurance.

Wednesday (a committee day): The House Constitution, Campaigns and Elections Committee discussed, but took no action on, a proposed constitutional amendment to allow display of the Ten Commandments in state buildings. The House Commerce and Small Business Committee held a public hearing on a bill to give the state a uniform, statewide regulation of fireworks. The House Ways and Means-Education Committee approved a Senate-passed bill to give teachers $300 for classroom supplies. The House Ways and Means-General Fund Committee approved a Senate-passed bill providing a supplemental appropriation for prisons as well as funds for a woman who was wrongfully incarcerated. The House Education Policy Committee approved a bill to change the mandatory age for children to attend school from 7 to 6 years old. The Senate Health Committee approved bills to require the “morning after pill” be administered in the presence of a physician and to allow limited sales of baked goods, canned jellies and jams, and dried herbs from home businesses. The Senate Education Committee amended that chamber’s charter school bill to require more stringent reporting requirements. The Senate Finance and Taxation-Education approved an education budget.

Thursday: The House passed bills to make changes to the state’s immigration law, to establish a uniform grading system for evaluating the performance of schools and systems in Alabama, and to allow litigants in a civil case to take depositions and conduct discovery in another state. They also approved a conference committee report on legislative pay. The Senate approved a number of bills of local application only. Additionally, it approved general bills to allow pharmacies to sell cold and allergy medicine with ephedrine or pseudoephedrine and to allow businesses destroyed by tornadoes last April to keep their tax breaks if they have to move to a new location to reopen.

Group Watch 4/20/2012: Principal Perspective

The Bloom Group is now on Twitter, and we’d like to invite you to follow us as we tweet up-to-the-minute information from inside the Alabama Legislature, as well as direct you to more in-depth articles of interest on the top current political issues being debated in Montgomery and around the state. You can see our Twitter feed on our website homepage, click the “Follow Us” link in the top left-hand corner of our Group Watch e-newsletter or click here. We’re looking forward to using this new tool to keep you abreast of the news that’s important to you and your business or organization.

Group Watch 4/20/2012: Investigative Team Gets a Leader

Retired state school superintendent Dr. Ed Richardson will lead the investigation into the Birmingham City Schools. Last week the state board, at the recommendation of current superintendent Dr. Tommy Bice, voted to launch an investigation into the board’s decision-making power and process. Richardson, now 73, was once described as prickly on his best days but has shown some signs of mellowing. The Birmingham school system will soon find out if this is true.

April 13, 2012 Group Watch: This Week in the Legislature

Tuesday (the 18^th day of the 2012 regular session): The House Ways and Means Committee approved a bill just introduced last Thursday that authorizes charter schools in Alabama. This is the second bill on this matter approved by the committee in two weeks. After hours of debate, the House approved a $1.39 billion General Fund budget, which is $400 million less than the current fiscal year. They also approved spending measures for recipients in The Children First Trust Fund and the Coalition for Domestic Violence.  The Senate confirmed five new trustees for Auburn University: Birmingham attorney James Pratt, Auburn banker Robert Dumas, Montgomery businessman Clark Sahlie, Mobile real estate mogul Ben Thomas Roberts and Birmingham attorney Elizabeth Huntley, who resides in Clanton. They also approved bills to establish a new pension plan for public employees hired on and after January 1, 2013; to provide $2.3 million to the state Department of Education to ensure all of Alabama’s 1,848 teachers and principals with certification from the National Board of Professional Teaching Standards get the $5,000 salary supplement they were promised; to provide training and continuing education for members of city and county school boards; and to streamline the process for businesses filing tax returns with cities and counties.

Wednesday (a committee day): The Senate Finance and Taxation-Education Committee approved a bill to let Athens State University have its own board rather than be regulated by the State Board of Education. The Senate Finance and Taxation-General Fund Committee passed a bill to make sure businesses destroyed by the April 2011 tornadoes keep their state abatements if they have to move to a new location to reopen. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a public hearing on a bill to repeal the state’s immigration law but did not vote on the measure. The House and Senate Judiciary Committees approved bills to create the crime of looting after a natural disaster and to make changes to the Alabama Athlete Agent law. The House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee held a public hearing on a bill to make changes to the state’s immigration law but did not vote on the measure. The House Judiciary Committee passed a bill to revise Alabama’s system of sentencing.

Thursday: The House passed a bill to allow schools to be flexible with schedules to start later in the summer and extend summer vacations for some families. The vote was 62-20. The Senate voted 23-3 to give final approval to a bill aimed at restoring a settlement over the state’s financially troubled prepaid college tuition plan. The House also passed bills to allow the United Ways of Alabama to participate in the state employee insurance program; to make it a crime to fail to report a missing child, the death of a child and falsely reporting to law enforcement about such children; to extend the termination date for the distribution for coal excise and privilege taxes, and to prohibit the issuance by ADEM for solid waste landfill permits until after May 31, 2014.

4/13/2012 Group Watch: Senators Delay Work on Education Budget

The Senate Finance and Taxation-Education Committee was scheduled to take up the education budget this week, but the committee chairman postponed it for one week to get additional input from his colleagues. The Senate is handling the initial work on the education budget, and the House did the same with the General Fund budget for non-education agencies. The House narrowly passed a General Fund budget Tuesday night after lengthy debate.

4/13/2012 Group Watch: Senate Committee Approves Covenant Marriage Bill

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 5-1 to approve a bill that would allow Alabama couples to choose to enter into “covenant marriages,” which would require premarital counseling and make it harder for couples to divorce. Under provisions of the bill, couples marrying in Alabama would not be required to enter into covenant marriages, but if they chose the option, they would not be allowed to file for no-fault divorces for incompatibility or breakdown of the marriage. Instead, they would be required to prove infidelity, criminal behavior, abuse or abandonment, or have to live apart for two years before they could be granted a divorce.

4/13/2012 Group Watch: State to Investigate Birmingham City Schools

The State Board of Education voted unanimously to initiate an investigation of the Birmingham City Board of Education. The State School Superintendent said he drafted the resolution approved by the board after he attended a meeting earlier in the week and became troubled by allegations that surfaced during the meeting. The Superintendent said he is putting together a team to review how governance is occurring in the Birmingham system. He voiced hope the investigation will help the board and the district’s 25,000 students.