Alabama top stories in brief

• A recent poll conducted by the polling and analytics company Cygnal for Alabama Daily News and Gray Television shows strong support for both new gambling and school choice initiatives among Republican voters. About 71% of those polled said that they would support a state lottery, expanded casino gambling and legalized sports betting. About 59% said that they would support a school choice program to allow parents to use state funds to send their kids to a school of their choice, public or private. The poll surveyed 515 Republican primary voters and has a 4.31% margin for error according to Cygnal. 

• On Feb. 8, the Autauga-Prattville Library Board announced new library policies enacting severe book bans on sexual or LGBTQ+ content for children under 17. After the announcement, one board member resigned. The Library Board stated the changes were created along with the Library director, Andrew Foster. However, Foster claims he was not aware of the changes until the announcement. Foster also said that the changes will cost a significant amount of time and money. Last year, four other board members resigned after county appointments were made without consulting the current board. 

• A dispute between Dothan megachurch, Harvest Church, and the United Methodist Alabama-West Florida Conference has made it to the Alabama Supreme Court. The Harvest Church is claiming they owe no money to the conference because they did not include a “trust clause” when they built their current property making the conference the owner. The conference has stated Harvest Church must follow disaffiliation procedures. More than half of the United Methodist affiliated churches in Alabama have disaffiliated from the United Methodist. 

• In her state of the state address, one of the top issues brought up by Gov. Kay Ivey was a proposed bill which would “establish education savings accounts for the parent of an approved, participating student to offset the costs of qualifying educational expenses.” The bill, SB61, would provide a tax credit of up to $7,000 to qualifying families to allow them to put those funds towards expenses for qualifying schools, including private schools. Families would be considered eligible for the program if they fell below 300% of the federal poverty level. Currently, that would mean that a family of three would be considered eligible if their household income was under $75,000. Ivey also expressed support for new legislation that would bring a lottery to the state along with other gambling options, support for a medical highschool in Demopolis, reiterated some of her earlier calls for higher workforce participation in Alabama and spoke on the development of two new Alabama prisons. 

•  A new bill proposed in the Alabama Senate would remove oversight of the Distressed Institutions of Higher Education Revolving Loan Program from the State Treasurer. The program was established last year by the legislature with the clear intent of stopping Birmingham Southern College from closing. The college’s application was denied by the state treasurer, Young Boozer, because BSC did not have enough collateral for the $30 million loan. In a recent letter, Boozer defended his decision and described BSC as “beyond distressed.”

Our articles you might have missed

• In her latest edition of The Breathing Room, Hannah Irvin addresses the difficulty that many of us have when it comes to asking others for help. She encourages everyone to reach out to others for support when they are going through difficult times in life. 

• Wesley Miller returned to Sylacauga in his final installment of The Alabama Ramble with The Sunrise News. This time, he dives into the hiking community, explores the local museum and, of course, samples some delicious local food. 

Alabama legislative update

• As of Feb. 10, 242 bills had been filed by members of the Alabama Legislature; of these, four have been passed by the Senate and have gone to the House. 

• SB28 is a constitutional amendment related to Houston County. It would give the Houston County Commission the authority to appoint members to the Board of Houston County Health Care Authority. 

• SB39 would allow for state-owned dams to participate in voluntary inspections. This bill is an amendment to a bill passed last year which allowed private dam owners to opt into dam inspections. 

• SB48 would require that schools post classroom curriculum on their websites at the beginning of the school year. Under the bill, teachers would be required to provide information about the materials in their class upon request made by guardians.

• SB54 would require the State Textbook Committee to review magazines, newspapers and regularly published journals that are used at least once a month for classroom instruction during the academic year by public K-12 schools. 

Announcements

• We are excited to announce a new column called The Longleaf Hiker, which will be published by Xander Swain, our Roundup writer. The column will focus on the outdoors of Alabama and surrounding states. From hiking and kayaking to adventuring deep below in the cave systems under the Appalachian and Smoky Mountains, Xander will be taking our readers through his own personal experiences outdoors. He’ll detail his excursions and write about the unique natural history in the southeast. The column will be published on our site on the first Friday of each month, with Ko-Fi members receiving it a week in advance. The first issue of The Longleaf Hiker will come out on Feb. 23 for Ko-Fi members and March 1 for regular readers and will feature a trip to the Kathy Stiles Freeland Bibb County Glades Preserve. Make sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn for updates!

• We’ll be providing general updates on the Alabama Legislature every two Roundups. If there are any bills that you’d like to have us explain in detail, let us know and we’ll do our best to cover them. 

• We’ve made a quality of life improvement to our newsletters. Readers that wish to make adjustments to which newsletters they receive or to update the email address we send them to can do so by clicking “update your profile” at the bottom of our emails.