Who Had the Best & Worst Week in Montgomery?

“Best and Worst Week in Montgomery” is a weekly feature on Yellowhammer Politics in which we recognize the people or organizations who had the BEST week or WORST week in town. You can view last week’s addition here. If you would like to nominate someone for this feature in the future, send us an email through our contact page.

Best Week in Montgomery: Henry Mabry and the AEA

Last week the AEA had The Worst Week in Montgomery…or so it seemed. After pulling out all the stops to prevent the passage of any form of charter schools legislation, the Senate squeaked out a watered down charters bill that would hopefully give the House something to build on. We summed it up by saying, “For laying down on the train track to stop charter schools, only to be run over by the school choice locomotive — the AEA had the Worst Week in Montgomery.”

Things changed this week as a House panel concluded that the Senate charters bill was too far gone to save. The House abandoned charters for this session and the AEA had a victory over one the the GOP’s biggest priorities.

The AEA also received some help from a couple of unlikely GOP allies in the Senate who joined the Democrats and usual AEA lackeys to prevent HB 160, one of the GOP’s top jobs bills, from gaining enough votes to pass a BIR.

It wasn’t long ago that many were trumpeting the impending death of the AEA. Henry Mabry’s job was constantly in question. Not anymore. For the unfortunate success of their all-out assault on education progress and job creation — the AEA had the best week in Montgomery.

The tax & spend contingent has been cranking out the talking points over the last couple of weeks as Alabama’s financial crisis reached a fevered pitch. A $200 million Medicaid shortfall put the state’s healthcare system in jeopardy and the fact that states must pass a balanced budget left many wondering how the Governor and legislative leaders would stick to their no-new-taxes-pledge.

In the end, the GOP leadership put their foot down and repeatedly said that taxpayers believe the state already takes enough of their hard-earned money. Rather than put a greater burden on the shoulders of the taxpayers, the GOP made the tough decisions and proved you can pass a balanced budget even in times of financial crisis.

For claiming it was impossible to approach this financial crisis without raising taxes, only to be proven wrong in the end — Tax & Spend Liberals had The Worst Week in Montgomery.