7 Things: The unvaccinated are being fired, the prison special session begins, Alabama’s student test scores are really bad and more …

7. Brooks is bringing legislation against the vaccine mandate

• A bill cosponsored by U.S. Representatives Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville) and Andy Biggs (R-AZ) seeks to block President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate to “nullify certain executive orders regarding COVID-19 vaccine mandates and to prohibit the Secretary of Labor from issuing a rule mandating vaccine against COVID-19, and for other purposes.”
• Brooks stressed that getting the coronavirus vaccine is a personal decision, adding, “For Joe Biden to insert himself into American’s healthcare choices is arrogant, dictatorial, despicable and dangerous.” This measure is merely symbolic as the Democrats in the House, Senate and White House will not advance the bill.

6. Jessica Taylor didn’t support Roy Moore

• U.S. Senate candidate Jessica Taylor said that she did not support former State Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore in 2017 when he was up against Doug Jones for Alabama’s U.S. Senate seat. This comes after U.S. Representative Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville) made the support of Moore an issue during a forum with U.S. Senate candidate Katie Britt.
• Taylor said that she wants the focus of the Senate race and beyond to be fighting Democrats instead of other Republicans, but she said that she puts her “priorities in this order: God, family, country and then party. Roy Moore is not the type of conservative I believe should represent our party. No, I did not support him.”

5. Border patrol agents won’t ‘pay’

• At the U.S. southern border, some Border Patrol agents came under fire from President Joe Biden recently when he said they would “pay” for how they tried to control crowds of migrants. Despite Biden’s strong statements, the agents are likely to receive minimal punishment after an investigation and video support the agents weren’t whipping migrants. White House press secretary Jen Psaki continued to pretend they did something wrong.
• While Biden chose to address the agents’ alleged conduct, he’s done little to address the situation of migrants flooding across the border. Psaki also asked, “Republicans who are standing at the border giving speeches about how broken the system is, why don’t you join us and be part of the solution instead of relying on speeches?” However, Biden has not visited the border nor proposed a solution.

4. Tuberville looking to block the IRS from surveying bank accounts

• President Joe Biden has proposed a plan that would allow the Internal Revenue Service to view people’s bank transactions that are more than $600, which is a significant decrease from the current level of $10,000. U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) is working to fight the proposal.
• Tuberville will introduce legislation called the Protect the Financial Privacy Act, also raising concerns about how the information that the IRS gathers could be used, saying, “[T]hey will release all your records to the media or whoever. If they don’t like you, they’re going to come after you. All it is is the Gestapo agency for Joe Biden and we cannot allow this to happen.”

3. Pandemic learning is crushing kids and test scores

• Everyone expected Alabama’s students to struggle during the pandemic, which is happening all over the country. According to aldotcom’s analysis of test scores, “Some of the lowest proficiency levels are among the school districts that had remote learning most of last year.” More districts were below 10% of students being proficient in English Language Arts than in 2019, an already embarrassing statistic made worse by remote learning.
•  This should not come as a surprise to anyone. The health risk of keeping kids in school was never high, but the political demand that schools be closed will probably have a long-lasting impact moving forward.

2. Special session is rolling, 4 bills are being discussed 

• A limited special session on prisons began yesterday with the scope of the week already clear. A total of four bills have been introduced on prison construction, funding and sentencing reform. Alabama’s political leaders are very positive that some of these bills will be passed. House Speaker Mac McCutcheon (R-Monrovia) says the bills have been “well thought out.”
• The Democratic leadership seems open to supporting the prison construction as well, but they have an eye on sentencing reform. House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels (D-Huntsville) says this is “a very good step in the right direction.” Daniels asked that they focus on more than building prisons as part of the conversation. He stated, “I just hope that we continue to commit ourselves on the reform side and focus on reform and focus on rehabilitating.”

1. The unvaccinated are being fired, but Alabama could avoid this

• New York Governor Kathy Hochul has decided to fire up to 72,000 health care workers and activate the state’s National Guard to fill their shifts. If that doesn’t work, they could bring in foreign workers to fill the shifts. If that doesn’t work, Governor Hochul is appealing to God. She took to a pulpit and declared that “God wants you to be vaccinated.”
• Alabama has a choice to avoid this fate. Governor Kay Ivey could call a special session and allow the legislature to debate a ban on vaccine mandates, but that seems unlikely, and jobs will be lost. If Ivey will not call the special session, the legislature could, and should, vote to insert a measure that would protect these workers into the current session and any argument about President Joe Biden’s mandate is hollow.