(Left to right) Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainville; Alabama Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth and Alabama Senate President Pro Tem Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, preside over a joint session of the Alabama Legislature honoring veterans on March 19, 2026 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
The Alabama Legislature has seemed discombobulated in recent years.
It’s not just what happened on Thursday. The last day of a session is always frantic. Bills die without warning as a host of priorities try to squeeze through the closing door.
But look at a controversial bill to require party registration to participate in Alabama primaries. This wasn’t one of those “controversial because it hurts Alabamians” bills. No, HB 541 divided the GOP. The state party wanted it. Many elected Republicans did not.
Managing that sort of legislation — whether you’re trying to pass it or kill it — takes a careful, coordinated strategy. As best as I can tell, Senate leadership Thursday put it on the calendar without any clear plan for handling it. They could have clotured Democrats to force it through. Or they could have let Democrats talk it to death. Instead, they did a little of both, cloturing Democrats but also jumping in and out of the calendar to avoid dealing with the bill.
The GOP caucuses in both chambers once got marching orders from leadership at the start of the session. A lawmaker disobeyed at their peril. Many grumbled about it. But the bills went through.
For better or worse, that’s not how things work anymore. Outside the budgets, the last four sessions have felt driven by individual legislators, lobbyists or whatever shiny object attracted the attention of conservatives.
The 2026 session continued the pattern. Some good bills came with a lot of awful ones, but there was never any sense of a grand strategy. Consider these lists representative, if not inclusive.
Positive developments
Breast and prostate screening: It shouldn’t be notable to see an Alabama lawmaker do something substantive about health care. But it is, and this was. Rep. Frances Holk-Jones, R-Foley, drawing on her own battle with breast cancer, pushed through legislation requiring insurers to cover secondary screenings — the exams that follow after a mammogram detects an abnormality. Similar legislation sponsored by Sen. Steve Livingston, R-Scottsboro, will do the same for prostate cancer.
It’s a crime that our nation forces many to choose between poor health or financial ruin. Anything that relieves the burden is a win.
Parole considerations: You know what a self-defeating criminal justice policy is? It’s telling the incarcerated that there is nothing they can do — no education, no rehabilitation — that can reduce their sentence. It discourages those in prison and puts corrections staff in danger. Hope maintains order.
And yet, for years this was Alabama corrections policy. The Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles peevishly overlooked accomplishments to maintain punishment. Legislation from Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa will require board members to consider inmates’ attempts at improvement. Another bill sponsored by Sen. Sam Givhan, R-Huntsville will allow the board to use sanctions other than incarceration in case of parole violations, a response to a terrible incident last year where a man on parole who had rebuilt his life was sent back to prison.
Budgets: Alabama’s two budgets are tight, reflecting worries about the near-future of the state economy. But there are decent things in there, including modest pay raises for state employees and more money for health insurance (though not as much as state insurance boards sought). Another increases weights for populations covered under the RAISE Act, which gets more money for certain populations, including rural students, rural kids, kids in poverty and English language learners.
Better off dead
That closed primary bill: If I were a Republican legislator — especially one in Huntsville or the college towns — I’d be glad that HB 541 died. Giving GOP activists even more power over nominations is a surefire way to get even more extreme candidates. That’s not something the GOP can afford to do in rapidly growing places like Madison County.
Gun sales tax holiday: Taking the sales tax off firearms for a weekend would not impact the education budget much. But a state with one of the nation’s highest rates of gun violence does not need to make it easier to buy a firearm.
Archives changes: GOP lawmakers are still very angry that the Alabama Department of Archives and History hosted a program three years ago acknowledging the existence of LGBTQ+ Alabamians. So angry that they keep trying to make it a purely political board, obeying the conservative whim of the moment. Somehow, this manages to be both Orwellian and pathetic.
Immigration bills: We had a proposal to ban naturalized citizens from holding state office. Anti-democratic. Vicious. Elitist. And a really great message for a state that desperately needs immigrants to address workforce issues.
Right idea, wrong reasons
Grocery tax holiday: Alabama’s grocery tax is unusual, unfair and predatory. A grocery tax holiday, as outlined in a bill sponsored by Rep. James Lomax, R-Huntsville, and amended by Rep. Mike Shaw, R-Hoover, would give Alabamians a two-month respite from the tax. So what’s the problem?
The holiday takes place in May and June. Conveniently, those are also the months of the primary (May 19) and the primary runoff (June 16). After the elections, your tax returns. There’s a callous expediency to the bill that feels insulting.
Keep an eye on it
Blue Cross bill: I’m not convinced a bill letting Blue Cross Blue Shield reorganize itself as a nonprofit holding company is about “keeping jobs,” as Sen. Andrew Jones, R-Centre, the sponsor of the bill, claimed on the floor of the Senate. Alabama may have many issues, but it has an endless need for health care workers.
A waste of time that will likely cost us
“Gulf of America:” Yes, southern Republicans must treat the word of Donald Trump as sacred revelation. But the Legislature’s approval of a bill designating the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” was a landmark in obsequiousness. Disrupting schools and agencies over a passing fancy the president had 15 months ago has no purpose. And when a more pro-geography administration comes in, we may have to change it.
A waste of money that will absolutely cost us
CHOOSE Act expansion: Legislators in their wisdom increased the funding for Alabama’s effective voucher program from $180 million to $250 million. This took place ahead of income-based eligibility caps coming off on Jan. 1. If you live in Alabama, congratulations: you’ll soon be paying the tuition of students enrolled at Indian Springs School in Pelham (tuition: $31,800 a year) or The Highlands School in Birmingham (tuition: $20,950 a year). And you have no choice.
The state’s education budget chairs argue that allocating a finite amount of money to the program will act as its own income cap. I’ll believe it when we have a budget year when legislators refuse to give the CHOOSE Act any more money.
The diabolical
Legislators v. nature: It feels like a long time ago, but the Alabama Legislature earlier this year voted to make it much harder for environmental regulators to address environmental problems in the state. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Donnie Chesteen, R-Geneva, prevents the Alabama Department of Environmental Management from adopting regulations stricter than the federal government and makes it next to impossible to pass new ones.
ADEM has suffered from underfunding and political interference for decades. But it should have the ability to act against polluters and protect the public. Legislators made that much more difficult.
Attacks on higher education: The Alabama Legislature’s war on colleges, the free exchange of ideas, and common decency continued with HB 580, sponsored by Rep. Troy Stubbs, R-Wetumpka. This bill would destroy professors’ abilities to represent themselves in faculty senates, turning them into catspaws for administration and making it far easier to fire instructors with tenure. It’s yet another step in turning Alabama’s colleges and universities into conservative re-education camps.
PSC Changes: Sometimes the Alabama Legislature lives down to its reputation. Faced with outrage over Alabama’s region-leading power bills, lawmakers from both parties knew what to do: Protect utilities from anything resembling accountability and stop the public from interfering. You really don’t need much more proof to see that we live in an oligarchy, not a democracy.
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Author: Brian Lyman