Hold on to your voting machine
The Alabama House of Representatives will debate Rep. Knight’s bill that would remove the state sales tax on groceries this week. The bill also removes the deduction for federal taxes paid, which means you will be taxed on your taxes. I don’t like paying sales taxes on food, but I REALLY don’t like paying taxes on taxes. Last year when the House voted on this bill Rep. Randy Hinshaw (D) ran around voting any machine he could find.
The Alabama Senate will be discussing… Well, no one really knows what they will be discussing. That is just one more example of how screwed up the Alabama Senate is. You see, in the House the leadership actually tells members what they will be discussing ahead of time so they can prepare. I know, it seems like a wild and crazy idea. Rep. Cam Ward posted the special order calendar three whole days ago. In the Senate the leadership often doesn’t make the calendar known until often just minutes before the session starts. Kind of makes it hard to prepare.
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I do not understand why they cannot move to a modern day system and get all of this stuff online. I mean honestly – how is it not possible to move all of the workings online (and away from ALISON).
Aboslutely pathetic they cannot come up with a decent workflow for all of this.
Jeff, if you were Lowell Barron or other Senate Democrat “leaders” (perish the thought!) would you want to make it easier for people to see what you’re doing?
They want to keep us in the dark because it serves their interests.
To be honest – I would do it solely for selfish reasons of wanting it online and easier to keep up with.
Although, with that said, I am also thinking like a Technical person and not a non-technical person.
Another reason Lowell Barron would not want to risk losing the majority in the Senate.
I witnessed this the last day before the session let out for spring break. The republicans filibustered due to the lack of communication from the Senate Leadership (if you may call it that). I believe only one bill actual made it to vote that day.
It is very difficult for a legislator to organize an argument when opposing a bill when they have only minutes to view the agenda. Better yet, how could a legislator have the time to actually read the bills up for discussion. To date there has been 498 bills filed for the session, surely we can make it to 500 by the end of this week.
If we are lucky the legislature will discuss the budget before the regular session ends.
That’s not going to happen, if they have the budget finished – they won’t get their special session checks (and that feeling of self-import).
On web access to the legislature, wander around “Thank God for Mississippi’s” and ponder how they were able to do it.
Do not fear – the rest of the session will be taken up by the “Milton McGregor Monoply on Bingo Bill”