It’s the time of the year, ladies and gentlemen, when every publication under the sun is releasing their year-end lists, and Yellowhammer is no exception.
Below are the top moments in Alabama politics in 2013. Did we rank something too high? Too low? Miss something completely? Let us know in the comments section below, or join the discussion on Twitter and Facebook.
Honorable mention: Bachus announces final term (will be big in 2014); Alabama delegation splits (House, Senate) over Ryan-Murray budget deal; 60 Plus Association launches Alabama chapter and begins going after AARP; Court upholds Alabama’s new legislative district lines; Alabama passes “the strongest Second Amendment protections in the country”; Alabama Tea Party leader gives emotional testimony before congress; ALGOP tries to remove College Republicans chairwoman for comments about gay marriage; Alabama plays host to potential 2016 presidential candidates (Walker, Carson, Huckabee, Jindal); Alabama’s unemployment rate hits 5 year low
10. Byrne’s return
Former state senator, two-year college system chancellor and gubernatorial candidate Bradley Byrne launched Reform Alabama, a non-profit public policy organization, shortly after the 2010 election cycle ended. That led many political observers to surmise that Byrne was angling to challenge Gov. Bentley in 2014. But after an attempt to make Bentley’s Amendment 1 a wedge issue failed to gain traction, it looked like Byrne’s time in the public eye was coming to an end.
Then Rep. Jo Bonner decided to take a job with the University of Alabama System, opening the door for Byrne to get back in the game by running for Congress in Alabama’s First Congressional District.
Byrne led the race from wire to wire. He finished at the top of a 9-candidate GOP primary. He then outlasted conservative bomb thrower Dean Young in the runoff before making quick work of Democrat Burton LeFlore in the general.
Byrne will be sworn into office at the beginning of the second session of the 113th Congress on January 7, 2014.
9. Shelby takes on gun control
Alabama’s senior U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Tuscaloosa, doesn’t go to the mic on the Senate floor very often. So when he does, it tends to be a pretty big deal.
Such was the case on April 17 when Shelby decided to speak out against gun control legislation being pushed by Democrats in the wake of the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT.
“Mr. President, I rise to defend the Second Amendment to our Constitution,” Shelby said emphatically to begin his remarks. Those words became one of Yellowhammer’s most “liked” and “shared” Facebook graphics of the year.
Shelby and his Republican colleagues successfully beat back the gun control measures.
8. Roby to Appropriations
Yellowhammer was first to break the news that Rep. Martha Roby, R-Montgomery, was going to land a spot on the powerful House Appropriations Committee on Nov. 25. Nine days later, Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-KY, made it official.
Getting on Appropriations is such a big deal that Roby was willing to give up her seat on the House Armed Services Committee, House Agriculture Committee and the House Education and Workforce Committee in order to get it done.
“Appropriations has oversight on the whole range of government spending,” Roby explained. “This new role provides a unique opportunity to push for the kind of conservative spending priorities that will put us on a sustainable financial path for future generations.”
7. Budget chairmen resign
Budget chairmen are some of the most powerful players in state politics, overseeing how the state’s resources are allocated.
Rep. Jay Love, R-Montgomery, and Rep. Jim Barton, R-Mobile, had been the House’s budget gurus since Republicans took control in 2010.
Love announced his resignation from the House effective Aug. 1, and shortly thereafter took on a role with the Business Council of Alabama’s newly formed Business and Education Alliance. Barton resigned the following week to partner up with longtime Montgomery lobbyists Alison and Phillip Kinney to form Barton & Kinney, LLC.
Their resignations, combined with other lower-profile departures from the legislature, led House Republicans to include a bill in their upcoming 2014 legislative agenda to cut down on legislators leaving office mid-term to become lobbyists.
6. Sessions takes national spotlight during immigration reform debate
National media outlets from the New York Times and CNN to Fox News and Breitbart all hailed (or excoriated) Sessions as the GOP’s leading voice against the Gang of Eight’s comprehensive immigration reform proposal.
The bill ultimately passed the Senate with Obama cronies chanting “YES WE CAN!” in the gallery, but that didn’t stop Sessions from rallying the Republican majority in the House to squash it.
Between his role as the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee and his vehement opposition to amnesty, Sessions really carved out some space for himself on the national scene this year.
If Republicans manage to retake the Senate in 2014, Sessions and his Alabama colleague Sen. Shelby could potentially be chairing two of the body’s most powerful committees — Budget and Appropriations.
5. Alabama Democrats hit rock bottom
2010 may be remembered as the year that more than a century of Democrat rule in Alabama came to an end, but 2013 is the year the Party really bottomed out.
Former Alabama Democrat Party Chairman Mark Kennedy flat out left the Party and started an entirely new group, optimistically (i.e. comically) named “The Alabama Democratic Majority.”
Immediately after Kennedy bolted, acting Alabama Democrat Party Chairwoman Nancy Worley told her Executive Board the Party was “broke, broke, broke.” So broke, in fact, that 30 minutes after Worley took over as head of the Party, they were booted out of their headquarters because the rent was overdue. Then the water company said they were cutting them off… followed by the power company… followed by the banks informing her that Party credit cards were maxed out and being cancelled.
The Party is some $500,000 in debt, a good chunk of which goes all the way back to 1999 when the Party took out loans to help finance then Gov. Don Siegelman’s ill-fated lottery campaign.
The once mighty Party is now largely divided along racial lines, with Kennedy & co. having left Joe Reed, chairman of the Party’s black wing, behind.
4. Tea Party takes on Common Core
The repeal of Common Core standards was the top priority for many grassroots conservatives around the state in 2013. Numerous Tea Party organizations were omnipresent in the halls of the State House during the week before the Common Core repeal bill was to come up in committee. But just as the repeal movement started gaining momentum, a disastrous public hearing stopped it in its tracks. The repeal bill unfortunately died in Senate committee.
State Board of Education member Mary Scott Hunter has been the face of pro-Common Core Republicans in the state. She has stated publicly that the Board of Education made the decision to pass Common Core and doesn’t want the legislature telling them how to do their job.
Alabama’s Republican National Committeeman Paul Reynolds passed a resolution at the RNC’s Spring meeting rejecting Common Core. Sen. Jeff Sessions also signed on to a letter pushing to defund it.
Meanwhile, the leftwing Alabama Education Association (AEA), which doesn’t care much about actual education policy, couldn’t be more thrilled watching Republicans shred each other over the issue.
Grassroots groups continue to push for repeal, but Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh has said Common Core is “off the table” for the 2014 session.
3. Bentley refuses to expand Medicaid
In the face of increasing pressure from liberal opinion columnists, the Alabama Hospitals Association, the head of Alabama’s public retirement systems, and others, Gov. Bentley held the line for conservatives in 2013 and refused to expand Medicaid under ObamaCare.
He’s taken a much tougher tone than we’re used to hearing from the Governor Doctor, even calling out expansion proponents for citing a “bogus” study in their attempts to sway public opinion.
Organizations in favor of expansion continue to ramp up their communications efforts in hopes that Bentley will reconsider his position after he wins reelection next year.
2. Enviros descend on Alabama
Environmental activists made more noise in Alabama in 2013 than any other leftwing group. After receiving roughly $3 million from the San Francisco-based Energy Foundation to advance the Obama Administration’s “War on Coal” in Alabama, little known enviro groups like the Southern Environmental Law Center and Alabama Environmental Council became household names to Alabama conservatives.
The Alabama Public Service Commission, typically anything but a hotbed of political activity, became ground zero for the environmentalists’ assault.
Environmental activists showed up at the district offices of Alabama congressmen to give them “Climate Change Denier Awards.”
Emails obtained through open records requests revealed that government employees working for the Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham colluded with enviros in an attempt to halt a major economic development project.
The list of their 2013 exploits could go on and on and on.
Republicans in the Alabama legislature are planning legislation to protect Alabama from certain environmentalist movements in 2014. And Sen. Richard Shelby closed out the year by calling for a U.S. Department of Energy investigation into whether the groups inappropriately used taxpayer money to advance an “anti-coal agenda in Alabama.”
1. Alabama Accountability Act
Shortly before 5 p.m. on Feb. 28, in a committee room on the seventh floor of the Alabama State House, a small group of legislators, citizen activists, lobbyists and members of the press witnessed something truly historic. School choice was finally coming to Alabama.
The defenders of the status quo were stunned.
AEA Head Henry Mabry curses as he walks out of the room. "SH**" Just witnessed history. Major ed reform coming to Alabama today. #alpolitics
— Yellowhammer (@YHPolitics) February 28, 2013
The bill went on to pass in both the House and Senate. And after a couple of weeks of confusion, lawsuits, court rulings that went all the way to the Supreme Court, and general chaos, Governor Bentley signed the Accountability Act into law on March 14.
“For the first time ever, we’re giving all public schools the flexibility they need to better serve their students,” Bentley said. “This also gives flexibility to children and parents by providing new options for students who are stuck in persistently low-performing schools. All children deserve access to a quality education, no matter where they live. This provides a new option to help children receive the best education possible.”
The AEA declared all-out war, unleashing a wave of attack ads focusing on Republican legislators who supported the bill. But in spite of their efforts, Alabamians continued to overwhelmingly support the Accountability Act and, more broadly, the concept of school choice.
The Tax Credit Scholarship Fund setup by the Act has already reached 80 percent capacity, with Alabamians having donated over $19 million to scholarship granting organization charged with distributing scholarships to students in failing schools. That’s a blistering rate, considering that portion of the bill only went into effect in May.
The Accountability Act is far from a panacea that will heal all of Alabama’s education woes. But the fact that Alabama made positive education reform for the first time in over 40 years makes the passage of the Accountability Act the defining moment of Alabama politics in 2013.
Follow Cliff on Twitter @Cliff_Sims
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