How chaos and gridlock overtook a deep red state legislature

Although Texas is the largest of the red states, it is far from the reddest. Donald Trump won Texas by roughly 14 percent in the 2024 election; he carried deep red Alabama by 30 percent.Republicans dominate Alabama politics, from the governor’s office to the state legislature. Both of Alabama’s U.S. senators are Republicans: Tommy Tuberville and Katie Britt. But that doesn’t mean the Alabama State Legislature is totally monolithic or without conflicts.In an article published by 1819 News on April 1, reporter Craig Monger describes the chaos that Alabama state lawmakers are experiencing.”After years of agitation from members of the Alabama House of Representatives, members spent the first day of the legislative week railing against lawmakers in the upper chamber for the gridlock induced by some senators holding up House bills,” Monger explains. “Alabama’s legislative rules vary between the House and Senate. While House members are permitted some freedom to hold up legislation, that power is substantially amplified in the Senate, granting them wide latitude during debate to slow the legislative process.”Monger continues, “For years, especially towards the end of the session, Senate members have used their allotted debate time to hold up bills on the calendar, often to protest or for no apparent reason whatsoever. Last year, tensions boiled over, leading to a brief but tense civil war between the two bodies.”The filibustering in the Alabama Senate, according to Monger, is being “driven” by two Democratic state senators: Roger Smitherman and Minority Leader Bobby Singleton. Meanwhile, in the Alabama House, State Rep. Allen Treadaway, a Republican, is attacking the Alabama Senate’s rules.”The Republican supermajority can cloture debate on a bill, a power it rarely exercises,” Monger reports. “Even so, cloture on debate can only slow the filibuster and often seems to create a more vindictive attitude among the censured party. On Tuesday, (March 31), when the House gaveled in for the next-to-last week of the session, State Rep. Allen Treadaway (R-Morris) took the podium. Holding up a piece of paper containing the bills awaiting Senate consideration, Treadaway lambasted the upper chamber, its rules and procedures, and the seeming lack of appetite on Senate lawmakers to change things…. Treadaway presented information he claimed demonstrated that Alabama has the ‘weakest lieutenant governor in the Southeast, probably the country’ because of the office’s limited power.”Monger adds, “Treadaway also questioned the Senate’s appetite to change the rules that cause the yearly contention, calling on lawmakers to reciprocally hold up Senate legislation until matters are fixed.”

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