Gun Bill in Senate

There’s some hand wringing going on in the Senate over whether or not to concur with the House-passed version of the Omnibus Gun Bill. “In spite of the NRA throwing their full support behind the House bill, we’re already being attacked by some members of the Tea Party because we didin’t just run over the sheriffs and district attorneys,” one Republican Senator emailed Yellowhammer Sunday afternoon.

I reached out to a member of a Birmingham-area Tea Party group who expressed frustration at the prospect of allowing the perfect to become the enemy of the good. “I think this compromise bill could go down the tube if we’re not careful,” he told me via email. The Rainy Day Patriots Tea Party group has sent out multiple emails advocating for the bill’s passage.

The Business Council of Alabama also remains unsupportive of the bill.

“As we consistently have stated, three conditions were presented in order for the BCA to support this bipartisan legislation: absolute immunity from civil liability for businesses; equal application to everyone in Alabama; and an opt-out provision. Two of these three have been accomplished,” said BCA President & CEO Billy Canary.

Intra-party squabbling among Republicans is the only thing that could derail the bill at this point. It will all likely play out on Tuesday.

Medicaid Overhaul Coming Up in House

Senator Greg Reed‘s Medicaid overhaul bill, SB340, will be first up on the House Special Order calendar on Tuesday. If passed, it would provide for the delivery of medical services to Medicaid beneficiaries on a managed care basis through regional care organizations or alternate care providers.

Reed’s bill is the result of intense negotiations with stakeholders in the medical industry. State Health Officer Dr. Don Williamson says he believes the reforms will save the state between $50 and $70 million over a five-year period.

To better understand the Medicaid debate, check out Yellowhammer’s in-depth (but hopefully easy-to-understand) look at the issue by clicking HERE.

On a related note, the Healthcare Compact, sponsored by Rep. Mike Ball and Sen. Greg Reed, may also be coming up this week. According to the House GOP’s “We Dare Defend Our Rights” legislative agenda, the Health Care Compact, with Congressional consent, “would place the authority and responsibility for healthcare regulation to the member states, and would provide the funds to the states to fulfill that responsibility. By becoming the fifth state to join this interstate compact, Alabama would send a strong message to Washington that demonstrates states can do a better job of efficiently running their Medicaid programs if the federal government would stay out of the way.”

Tweaks to the Accountability Act

The House last week passed a bill by Rep. Jim Carnes (HB658) that clarified language in the Accountability Act by explicitly stating that no school is required to enroll any student attempting to transfer from a failing school. Senate Pro Tem Del Marsh has a related bill up in the Senate this week that gets into more detail.

In addition to the above clarification from Carnes’ bill, Marsh’s bill (SB360) would also do the following:

• defines a failing school as one that has rated in the bottom 10 percent on the state standardized assessment in reading and math for three or more times in the last six years
• states that a student seeking to transfer from a failing school must first attempt to enroll in a non-failing public school within the same system
• states that organizations seeking to provide scholarships as laid out in the Accountability Act may only award them to students in failing schools whose family income is no more than three times the federal poverty level
• allows scholarship donors to receive a tax credit equal to 100 percent of their donation (it was originally 50 percent)

Budgets

The House of Representatives passed a $5.7 billion Education Trust Fund budget a few weeks ago. That’s roughly three percent higher than this year’s budget. Included in the House-passed budget are several provisions that the Senate has been mulling over including a two percent pay raise for teachers and a $12.5 million increase in pre-k funding.

Senate ETF Chairman Trip Pittman has been pushing hard to reduce the teacher pay raise to one percent, with a possible one percent bonus. When the ETF budget hits the Senate floor for debate on Tuesday, that will likely be one of the main topics of discussion.

Meanwhile, the General Fund Budget is heading to conference committee where three representatives and three senators will try to reconcile to differences between their two budget proposals. Relatively minor differences between the two budgets include funding levels for prisons, the judicial system, and the Department of Environmental Management.

What else is going on?
1. NRA urges Alabama Senate to concur with House-passed gun
2. Birmingham Attorney Elected NRA President
3. Alabama Enviro Groups Gear Up for Fight
4. FDA makes morning-after pill available over the counter to 15-year-olds
5. Sessions Signs Letter Seeking to Defund Common Core