TheTuscaloosa News is reporting that the following bills have died for this session. Some of them I have an opinion on and others I do not. My comments are in italics.
Hundreds of bills have died in the 2008 session of the Alabama Legislature because they did not pass in the house where they were introduced. Some of them would have:
- repealed the state's ban on sex toys.
(NOTE: I blogged the audio of the debate yesterday and there was no vote taken. Rep. Rogers just asked that it be placed on the special order calendar. I have learned from someone at the AP that "The House never voted on it. Tuesday night was the deadline for a bill to pass in the house where it was introduced.")
- required vocal groups performing in the state to have at least one original member or legal title to the name.
- applied the state's marijuana laws to the mind-altering plant Salvia divinorum.
(NOTE: YAY! They'll be back with it next year though so y'all should be prepared to fight)
- allowed Alabama voters to decide if they want a constitutional convention to rewrite Alabama's 1901 Constitution.
(NOTE: Booooo!!! Our constitution SUCKETH! You can't fart unless you get permission from the legislature)
- required additional physical education classes for high school and elementary school students.
- required schools to submit lunch menus to a state nutritionist for approval.
- required all workers in Alabama to carry state-issued identification cards.
- allowed cities to place cameras at traffic lights and issue tickets to motorists running red lights.
- protected teachers from being fired for giving personal opinion while teaching controversial subjects like evolution.
- allowed Alabama voters to decide if they want to legalize electronic bingo games at greyhound dog tracks in Mobile and Birmingham.
- changed how electronic bingo games are regulated at the dog tracks in Macon and Greene counties and protected the machines against adverse court rulings on gambling elsewhere in the state.
- reduced the number of signatures required for an independent or third-party candidate to get on the ballot in Alabama.
(NOTE: Boooooo! This one should have passed. Again...be ready next year)
- allowed laws to be passed through a process known as initiative and referendum.
(NOTE: Boooooo! We want I&R in Alabama)
- required elected officials to post on the Internet if they have any other jobs or contracts with government agencies.
(NOTE: Booooo! The public has a right to know these things)
- prohibited judges from imposing a death sentence in capital murder cases where a jury recommended life in prison without parole.
- changed Alabama's primary election day from Tuesday to Saturday.
Rep. John Rogers, D-Birmingham, tried for the fifth year to repeal Alabama's ban on the sale of sex toys, but he couldn't get the House to take action on his proposal.
"The same sponsor, and the same dead bill," said Sherri Williams, who operates Pleasures adult shops in Huntsville and Decatur.
Alabama's ban on the sale of sex toys withstood a legal challenge by Williams. But adult stores are still able to sell vibrators and similar products because Alabama's law allows an exception for people who say they are making purchases for medical reasons.
Sens. Hank Erwin, R-Montevallo, and Roger Bedford, D-Russellville, sponsored bills to apply Alabama's marijuana laws to an increasingly popular hallucinogenic plant called Salvia divinorum. Bedford's bill never got on the Senate's work agenda. Erwin's did, but ran into stalling tactics for the same reason as Denton's bill.
Erwin, who was pushing the bill for the second year, said he will try again next year because people of any age can legally buy salvia in Alabama.
Phillip Rawls - AP
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2 comments:
Loretta wrote: (NOTE: Boooooo! We want I&R in Alabama)
As Tonto said to the Lone Ranger, “What do you mean ‘we’ white man?”. Yes, you and I and many others want I&R, but entirely too many Alabamians have no clue what I&R is, how beneficial it would be if we had it at our disposal to use when necessary, or that Representative Mike Ball has introduced his constitutional amendment to make Alabama the 25th Initiative and Referendum state in every regular legislative session for the past few years.
I hold media responsible for the majority of voters being unaware. See my letter that was published recently in the Tuscaloosa News @ http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20080506/NEWS/984833897/1028/TL04.
I (Mike Ball, and others) know that his bill will be passed only after a continual and loud grassroots demand by the constituents of legislators that his bill be passed.
How many times have you seen his bill mentioned in Alabama’s newspapers this year? This AP list of dead bills is the one and only mention of it, other than letters to editors mostly submitted by me, that I’ve seen.
Furthermore, how many talk radio hosts or political bloggers have supported his bill?
wahoo! the system fails again!
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