State Rep. Clouse: ‘Bad timing, bad luck’ prevented legislature from addressing prison issue over past several years

Next week, members of the legislature are slated to meet with Gov. Kay Ivey about a so-called plan B to tackle questions regarding Alabama’s approach to new prison construction.

A June 1 deadline had passed on a build-lease plan for financing on a proposal that would have had the state of Alabama enter into a 30-year lease with a private contractor for new facilities.

Friday on Alabama Public Television’s “Capitol Journal,” State Rep. Steve Clouse (R-Ozark), the House Ways and Means General Fund chairman, previewed the upcoming meeting with the governor and said a bill that had been drafted but not formally introduced could offer a framework, which he likened to efforts in 2016 and 2017.

However, given a series of unexpected circumstances, the legislature was never able to finalize the deal.

“I think so,” he replied. “It was somewhat patterned after the bill that we debated back in 2016, and then also in 2017. It came close to passing. I really thought we would have a chance to pass that bond issue back in 2017. Then-Governor Bentley at that time had some issues and resigned from office. That pretty much ended that session. We also had a controversial redistricting issue that we had to address — that the federal courts made us in 2017, before the 2018 election. And so, that sort of took the prison issue off the table then. Then 2018 was an election year, and you know, we just had a series of bad luck. Last year, we could have brought it up then. We had to suspend the session because of COVID-19.”

“So, you know, bad luck, bad timing,” Clouse continued. “I commend the Governor for exploring different options. The build-lease option was a different option. It seemed to be promising there at one time. Then financing did not appear to be able to come through like people had hoped. There was also issues with the whole process of a lease plan, where at the end of the 30 years, we would not own the prisons. So, I think it’s a good idea now to, you know, let’s start from scratch and go to the plan we were somewhat looking at back five years ago and for us to be able to own the prisons.”

Clouse acknowledged he was not a supporter of Ivey’s initial lease proposal and said he thought the right approach would be for the state to own the facilities.

“I don’t know if disappointment is the word,” he said of his reaction to the deal falling through. “It was just at a certain point there had been a lot of things that we had been told that just were not coming to fruition, and particularly on the cost part. And, the costs seemed to be going up, and the amount of space, the number of prisoners that we could hold in a facility was going down. So, it was obvious that the numbers just were not matching up the way that we needed them to. So, you know, like I said, it was a bold effort there to try to see if this plan would work, and I know there are probably some small pockets that they think maybe a lease-type program might work. We’ll see, maybe. But we need to own the prisons ourselves.”

@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.