The Alabama legislature will reconvene its 2020 regular session on Monday, May 4.
The session has been interrupted by the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. A quorum of both chambers met briefly on March 31 to pass a rule allowing the leaders of both chambers to set the next meeting date when a quorum cannot be achieved during a State of Emergency.
While the legislature was scheduled to reconvene this coming Tuesday, April 28, that new rule (Joint Rule 19) will be invoked, and the House speaker and the Senate president pro tem will then respectively move to resume legislative floor activity on May 4. No other legislative action will take place on April 28.
This was confirmed Thursday in a release from Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh (R-Anniston), as well as in an internal email to House members by Speaker Mac McCutcheon (R-Monrovia) earlier in the day.
Marsh’s release stated that the legislature will prioritize the Education Trust Fund and General Fund budgets and local legislation. The last possible meeting date of the the legislature will be May 18, as set by the state constitution.
“It is imperative that we continue to meet and finish out the session as we move to reopen Alabama. The people elected us to lead and send us to Montgomery to pass budgets and keep the state moving forward,” Marsh said in a statement.
McCutcheon’s email to representatives stated his plan is for the legislature to “work on the budgets and local bills as quickly as possible and then go home sine die.”
Adjourning sine die formally ends a legislative session.
“Our goal for the remainder of the session is to conduct the people’s business that is required by the Constitution and position Alabama to repair the economic damage that has been done by the unavoidable public health quarantine,” McCutcheon said in a statement. “We remain confident that Alabama’s best days remain ahead of us, and we are eager to begin the work that will get us there.”
Safety precautions will be in effect for the remainder of the session. This includes that the current access policy for the State House will remain in effect, meaning no members of the public will be admitted into the building without an appointment. The House’s floor activities are streamed live with audio only, while the Senate streams live with video and audio.
“It is our constitutional requirement to pass budgets and provide some level of certainty to the education community and our state agencies,” Senate Majority Leader Greg Reed (R-Jasper) added in a statement. “Our Senators are ready to reopen Alabama for business but before we do that, we must resume the session to show the people that we will do our jobs as we work toward getting Alabama back to work.”
“The Senate and House leadership have firmly agreed that state budgets and local bills will be the only matters discussed, debated, and voted upon in the remainder of the session,” McCutcheon concluded. “The governor always has the option of calling us into a special session later in the year to address other issues of importance.”
Sean Ross is the editor of Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn
