House Pro Tem Chris Pringle (R-Mobile) covered everything from the new state house’s bomb-resistant walls to Alabama’s workforce pipeline Tuesday morning at the Business Council of Alabama’s Tuesday Morning Issues Briefing in Montgomery.
Pringle, who has been overseeing the transition to the new state house, offered the most detailed public accounting yet of the building’s design, financing, and timeline.
The Retirement Systems of Alabama is building and will own the facility under a 25-year rent-to-own arrangement. Alabama prepaid roughly $150 million upfront, which allowed RSA to invest the funds and reduced the state’s annual payment from approximately $50 million to around $30 million per year, Pringle said.
The new chamber will be 30% larger than the current one, with the House and Senate chambers on the same floor facing each other. Every official meeting room will be live-streamed, Pringle said, and the building will feature significantly improved Wi-Fi, a persistent complaint among members in the current building.
Security will be substantially tighter. The new building will feature a single entry point with scanners, the ability to instantly lock down the facility, and a fast-pass system for regular visitors. Pringle said the security footprint around the broader capital complex has also expanded, with more state troopers patrolling a larger area.
Members have until July 31 to remove all personal belongings from their current offices. The state will then conduct an inventory before the final move. All new furniture will be provided in the new building.
Pringle also floated the idea of convening briefly in the original state capitol before the session ends, which would allow Speaker Ledbetter to become the only speaker in Alabama history to preside in all three buildings.
On workforce development, Pringle pointed to Mobile as a case study in the urgency of the state’s career and technical education investment. Mobile alone is requesting $30 million from the CTE package this session because the city expects 15,000 jobs — many of them high-paying welding positions tied to Navy submarine expansion — to come online in the coming years.
“We’ve got a real problem to train the workforce we need to fill these jobs,” Pringle said. “The Navy is coming to Mobile. It’s expanding and growing all over the state.”
Pringle framed infrastructure investment as the unglamorous but essential foundation for economic development, describing a layered approach that includes grid capacity, water, sewer, and highway access.
“The problem with being a legislator and doing things like infrastructure — the important things we have to have to bring jobs and businesses to our state — it’s not sexy,” Pringle said. “It doesn’t make for good TV commercials. But it’s the responsible thing to do for the citizens of the state.”
Pringle said passing the budgets remains the Legislature’s top constitutional responsibility and his top priority for the back half of session. The Education Trust Fund budget stands at $9.9 billion and the General Fund at $3.7 billion. Pringle said the ETF budget is expected on the House floor Thursday.
“There is no minimum number of bills we have to pass,” Pringle said. “We are to appropriate the funds of the state and deal with whatever else we deem necessary. We need to take our number one primary responsibility and get these budgets passed.”
Tuesday was day 20th of the legislative session. There are 10 legislative days remaining.
Sawyer Knowles is a capitol reporter for Yellowhammer News. You may contact him at [email protected].
