If the three-month Legislative Session is a marathon run in business clothes, “sine die” (the twirling legal Latin phrase used for the last Legislative day) is a tie-yoking, necklace-clutching 100-yard dash to midnight, along a course where downhill sprints quickly turn into uphill slogs. Legislators and other participants in Monday’s lawmaking finale didn’t have to [...]
The Legislature managed to pass most — but not all — of the major bills in the hopper in the 2013 session. Below, a wrap-up of the status of bills as the Alabama Legislature consigned the 2013 Regular Session to history on Monday. Budgets: Gov. Robert Bentley quietly signed the Education Trust Fund and General [...]
A rancorous legislative session ended Monday with Democrats throwing a few jabs at Republicans, and Republicans knocking out a proposal from Gov. Robert Bentley to delay the implementation of the controversial Accountability Act. The final day also ended with the state’s two budgets signed into law and a sweeping gun rights law headed to Bentley’s [...]
The House of Representatives’ annual award for the “deadest” legislation of the session went to three bills sponsored by Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Birmingham, that would have legalized medical marijuana. “These joint proposals authorized the medical use of marijuana, and legalized marijuana for personal use,” said the resolution, read by House Public Information Officer Clay Redden. [...]
Gov. Robert Bentley quietly signed the state’s two budgets into law Monday, budgets that include a two percent pay raise for teachers but no equivalent increase for state employees. Besides the raise, the $5.765 billion Education Trust Fund budget includes a relatively small $3.9 million increase for the two-year college system, an extra $1.5 million [...]