What went wrong in the 2025 Alabama regular legislative session

May 17, 2025 – MONTGOMERY, AL – Yesterday we looked back at the ten most consequential bills that did pass. Dozens of bills did not pass.

A lot of conversations are being had right now about what went wrong on those last two legislative days that resulted in bills dying by the dozen for "lack of time." Democrats and the Senate rules are getting blamed for "killing" the bills; but there are only 8 Democrats in the 35 member body so if Republican Senators did their jobs there SHOULD be nothing that Democrats can do to stop the GOP supermajority from enacting their agenda.

The Alabama Legislature is limited by the Alabama Constitution to a maximum of 30 legislative days to handle the people's business. If general public guys and gals were told that they got paid $62,212 a year to finish a job, but were limited to 30 business days to finish the project, most of us would show up at 8 or 9 am and work 8 or 9 hours a day. If most of us were Senators and we worked with that work ethic – we probably would have passed everything that we wanted to pass and then finished the job in 26 or 27 days and went home.

The problem with the Alabama Senate is they really don't work that hard. First of all, they don't work on weekends, Mondays, or Fridays. That limits their work to a maximum of three days a week and usually Wednesdays are set aside for committees. Secondly, it is rare for the Senate to show up on Tuesdays before 1:00 p.m. and often it is 2:00 p.m. before they begin work. A lot of Alabama citizens have jobs where our shift does not begin until after lunch – not a problem that just means that we are typically going to have to work till 8, 9, of 10:00 p.m. Unfortunately, the Alabama Senate does not have the same work ethic as most Alabamians. Typically, those Tuesday workdays did not begin before 1:00 or 2:00 p.m. and ended (typically) sometime between 4:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. It was normal for House members who usually went in to work an hour or two before the Senate showed up to hear 'The Senate is already done' well before the House finished their business. The Senators had a busy evening of receptions with all you can eat buffets and free adult beverages lined up paid for by lobbyists and trade associations to attend Tuesday evenings which apparently took precedence over moving legislation.

A typical Alabamia worker who had a short working day to begin the week would have finished strong on their next working day; but alas state Senators apparently are not typical Alabama workers. They typically came in on Thursdays between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. Your typical Alabama worker (again getting paid $62,212 to be there for just 30 days of actual work a year) would assume that meant a nine or ten hour working day would follow. Not so. There were a lot of Thursdays where at 1:00 or 2:00 p.m. when the Senate was congratulating themselves for all the hard work they did and leaving for the day. Again House members (who typically started their working day ahead of the Senate) were often still on the floor of the House conducting their business and the word would come down "The Senate is already finished." On a typical legislative day (Tuesdays or Thursdays) your average State Rep. arrived an hour before their Senate colleagues and left the Statehouse and hour (or more) after their Senate colleagues.

Then there are the Senate rules. If any Senator did not like the proposed special order calendar they were working on, they could talk for an hour about why they did not like the calendar. Senators Bobby Singleton (D-Greensboro) and Rodger Smitherman (D-Birmingham (D-Birmingham) exercised that option repeatedly. The GOP response to that could have been to simply add an hour to the working day; but too many times Senate leadership caved and agreed to take the bill (usually a GOP priority) off the calendar or agreed to put a Smitherman or Singleton priority bill on the calendar to placate the Democrat leaders so they could have as short a working day as humanly possible.

If Republican leaders in the Senate did not placate the Democratic opposition then Singleton and Smitherman would talk for hours on bills. Again, if Senate Republicans actually believed that a workday should normally mean eight to ten hours of work each and every day this would not be a problem. The Republican supermajority could simply cloture the Democrats after an hour and a half of debate on each bill and move methodically through each business day passing 7 or 8 bills a day. Do this early and often and the GOP agenda items could all move early in the session, forcing Democrats to cave if they ever wanted to see one of their bills pass in the session; but the spirit of bipartisanship......and the desire to go home early or to go to the all you can eat gulf seafood shindig repeatedly mattered more to Senate Republicans than moving legislation.

By the 29th legislative day, 47 of members local bills had not passed. These are bills that address county or city government issues within the members' home counties, Bill on that list included: giving the Sheriff of Fayette County a pay raise (HB76), allows Elmore County to place a county wide tax on vapes (HB496), allowing Chilton County 911 to use a credit card (HB461), allowing Pine Level to annex more land (HB598), extending the city limits of Cullman (HB586), de-annexing land from the city limits of New Hope in Madison County (HB395), making Jefferson County employees be members of the General Retirement System (HB343), etc. One would have thought that leadership would have stayed until midnight to address these local bills so that the last day could be spent addressing GOP priority pieces of legislation. No, again going home early was important to GOP Senators than addressing legislation so they went home – still with no agreement in place with Democrats for the last legislative day.

With just one day left in the Session, one would have thought that the Senate would have gotten there at 8:00 a.m. with dozens of bills yet to pass; but again no, they did not get in to work until 2:00 p.m. Singleton and Smitherman were openly laughing and mocking Republican Senators as they gleefully filibustered every one of the local bills. The GOP Senators were only able to pass 11 of the 47 local bills (including the ones above) before abandoning the remaining 36 bills to die.

Angry members of the House of Representatives spent most of the day on recess watching this trainwreck unfold upstairs waiting for the Senate to make changes to House legislation so they could vote to concur.

The Senate did pass HB 199, sponsored by Rep. Travis Hendrix (D-Birmingham) which allows the Board of Pardons and parole to electronically monitor a juvenile delinquents.

They also passed HB 202, sponsored by Rep. Rex Reynolds (R-Huntsville). Gov. Ivey's 'back the blue bill' – it changes the standard by which law enforcement officers can claim criminal and civil immunity. The Senate passed that 25 to 6 after a two hour debate. The House voted to concur with Senate changes to this legislation just 24 minutes before midnight.

They also passed HB 581, sponsored by Rep. Terri Collins (R-Decatur). It revises the distribution of Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in-lieu-of-tax payments in Morgan County by reallocating funds to support a legislative delegation office, the Morgan County Rescue Squad and local education.

The Gulf of America bill, the scholarships for children of police officers, the Ten Commandments bill, banning drag shows in public libraries, and many many more died when the Senate ran out of time near midnight on the 30th legislative day.

There is a lot of talk about changing Senate rules so that this doesn't happen again. Senate Republicans are blaming Senate Democrats and the rules for the disaster that was the ending of the 2025 legislative session; but GOP Senators need to look in the mirror as the biggest culprit was not the rules or the handful of Democrats in the chamber; but a culture of extreme laziness within the Senate Republican Caucus. If they had actually worked eight hour days in Senate chambers like the voters (most of whom work 40 0r 50 hours a week) assumed they would when they voted to send them to Montgomery, instead of strings of four, three, and two hour (or less) legislative days – there would have been no running out of time in this session – or any other.