Alabama top stories in brief

• Gov. Kay Ivey recently signed a bill into law to build a healthcare science school in Demopolis. The school will be for ninth through 12th grade students and will accept 400 students. Set to open fall 2026, the school will focus on STEM courses with health care based courses as well. The goal of the school is to support Alabama’s health care industry and to help retain health care workers in the state. Funded by a $15 million allocation in the bill, the school will also be funded by a $26.4 million pledge from the Bloomberg Philanthropies. However, the project still needs an additional $24 million that lawmakers hope will be fundraised by the Alabama School of Healthcare Sciences Foundation. 

• Workers at the Vance Mercedes-Benz plant voted to reject the United Auto Workers union in a vote of 2,045 workers for and 2,642 workers against according to the National Labor Relations Board. Since last fall, the UAW has won multiple union votes across the nation. Alabama state and business leaders led an aggressive anti-union campaign, including Gov. Kay Ivey claiming the union was a threat to Alabama’s economy. The NLRB has also reported that the Vance plant is being investigated for anti-union claims filed by the UAW. Workers have accused managers of advocating against the union, going against the guaranteed neutrality Mercedes-Benz is supposed to uphold. Organizers have expressed they will try to unionize again. 

• The Alabama Public Library Service board voted to make $6.6 million of state aid for public libraries contingent on libraries conforming to new policies. These changes in the administrative code require local public libraries to make changes in their written policy in order to receive state aid. Policies must cover: material selection policies — specifically focused on how libraries plan to safeguard minors from inappropriate materials, relocation of library materials deemed sexually explicit, advanced approval of materials promoted to children, guidelines ensuring that library sections dedicated to minors will be “free of material containing obscenity, sexually explicit or other material deemed inappropriate for children or youth” and guidelines requiring minors to gain approval from a parent before checking out materials from a library’s adult section. In addition to these changes, the Alabama Public Library Service’s budget was cut by 9% for the upcoming year by the state legislature.

• Around 4,800 Alabama third graders are at risk of being held back after testing below reading level for reading. Nine percent of third graders in the state underperformed on state reading assessments this year, meaning, under the 2019 Literacy Act, these students may not be promoted to fourth grade. Students at risk of being held back, who will be notified in the coming week, may still be promoted upon completing a summer reading camp or turning in a good cause exemption such as an evaluated reading portfolio for students with individual education plans. Despite these scores, State Superintendent of Education Eric Mackey reported that reading scores were still better than expected coming off of last year’s reading assessment results which showed that 17% of third graders were reading below grade level. 

• Federal investigators found six children working at a Mar Jac Poultry plant in Jasper, prompting the U.S. Department of Labor to file a civil action against Mar Jac on May 7. The action would stop the production and sale of all goods from the Jasper plant through May 31. Lawyers representing the poultry plant said the civil action would create undue hardship on the plant’s 1,000 workers — Mar Jac Poultry is the largest employer in Walker County. Investigators reported children were working on the kill floor by deboning poultry and cutting carcasses. Mar Jac lawyers said in court filings that the employees used forged documents in order to gain employment and that the underage workers were not working in hazardous areas that used heavy machinery. 

• Advocacy group Cover Alabama, alongside more than 80 other businesses and organizations, signed a letter to Gov. Kay Ivey advocating for the state to expand its Medicare program. Nearly 300,000 Alabamians are currently uninsured, but also do not qualify for Medicare under the state’s current policies. Alabama is one of ten states that has not expanded Medicare access under 2010’s Affordable Care Act and has some of the strictest Medicare eligibility rules in the country. In the past, Republican lawmakers have generally been opposed to expanding Medicare programs, but state lawmakers have recently explored ideas of expanding Medicare through private-public partnership models that have been employed in states such as Arkansas. 

• A federal judge suggested accelerating a lawsuit against Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall on May 15. The suit against Marshall emerged last July when several reproductive and civil rights groups sued Marshall for statements he made about prosecuting health care providers who help Alabamians travel to other states to obtain legal abortion care. Marshall attempted to dismiss the lawsuit by arguing state statute allows individuals to be charged with a crime if the action is illegal in Alabama, even if the action took place in another state — a motion which U.S. District Judge Myron H. Thompson denied. Since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down federal abortion protections with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in 2022, there have been zero recorded abortions in Alabama.  

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• In the latest edition of The Longleaf Hiker, Xander Swain travels to Moss Rock Preserve, where he explores the beauty of its rare sandstone glades and completes his first outdoor bouldering climb. 

Legislative update

• The Alabama legislative session has officially ended. This means that all bills that will be sent to Gov. Kay Ivey by the legislature have been sent, but it does not necessarily guarantee they will all pass, since Ivey has the ability to veto them. This week will mark the end of the period Ivey has to veto bills, which will finalize which bills passed into law. 

Announcements

• The Breathing Room will continue to take a break this month with a plan to return in June. 

• We had some more help with this Roundup. Cady Inabinett is a recent graduate of the University of Montevallo. While there, she worked for UM’s campus newspaper, The Alabamian, and served as the editor in chief her senior year.

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