Alabama State Legislature

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The Alabama State Legislature is the state legislature of Alabama. It is a bicameral body composed of the Alabama House of Representatives, with 105 members, and the Alabama State Senate, with 35 members. Although both chambers of the Alabama Legislature are dominated by Democrats, the Legislature is considered one of the most conservative in the nation.

The Legislature meets in the Alabama State House (officially designated as such by Amendment 427 to the Alabama Constitution) in Montgomery. The original capitol building located nearby has not been used by the Legislature since 1985, when it closed for renovations. It now serves as a museum. During 2010, the Legislature was in session from January 12th to April 22nd.[1]

Legislative process

Sessions

See also: Dates of 2010 state legislative sessions

In 2010, the Legislature was in session from January 12th to April 12th.

Section 48 of Article IV of the Alabama Constitution initially set the rules for the timing and length of the Legislature's sessions. However, these rules have been changed by state statute.

The Alabama Legislature convenes in regular annual sessions on the first Tuesday in February, except during the first year of the four-year term, when the session begins on the first Tuesday in March. In the last year of a four-year term, the legislative session begins on the second Tuesday in January. The length of the regular session is limited to 30 meeting days within a period of 105 calendar days. There are usually two meeting or "legislative" days per week, with other days devoted to committee meetings.

The Governor of Alabama can call, by proclamation, special sessions of the Alabama legislature. The governor must list the subjects on which legislation will be debated upon. These sessions are limited to 12 legislative days within a 30 calendar day span. In a regular session, bills may be enacted on any subject. In a special session, legislation must be enacted only on those subjects which the governor announces on their proclamation or "call." Anything not in the "call" requires a two-thirds vote of each house to be enacted.[2]

Bills can be prefiled before sessions, starting at the end of the previous session and ending at the beginning of the session for which they are being filed. The exception to this is for sessions beginning in March every 4 years. [3]

Gubernatorial vetoes

Unlike other state legislatures, where gubernatorial vetos require a two-thirds or even a three-fifths majority vote to be overridden, the Alabama legislature has the power to override a veto with a simple majority vote in both houses. The legislature also has the constitutional power to override line item vetos by a simple majority. This has led to contention in recent years between the governor's Office and the legislature.

Role in state budget

See also: Alabama state budget

By February 5th of each year, the Legislature of Alabama receives an annual budget proposal from the Governor. The annual budget proposal is for the next fiscal year, which begins October 1st. The Legislature then revises this budget over the course of the next couple of months. Sometime between February and May, the Legislature votes on a budget. For a budget to pass, a majority of legislatures must vote in support of it [4]

The Legislature has had difficulty passing a balanced budget. For the fiscal year 2010, Alabama faces a projected $1.2 billion budget gap.[5]

Legislators

Salaries

See also: Comparison of state legislative salaries

As of 2010, members of the Alabama legislature are paid $3,958/month plus $50/day for three days during every week that the legislature is in session. They are also paid a base rate of $10/day for every day in the year, or $3,650/year regardless of when or whether the legislature is in session.[6]

The $3,958/month that Alabama legislators are paid as of 2010 for the months when the legislature is in session is an increase over the $2,280/month that they were paid during legislative sessions in 2007.[7]

When sworn in

See also: When state legislators assume office after a general election

Alabama's state legislators assume office on midnight of the day that they are elected.

Chambers

State Senate

The Alabama State Senate is the upper house of the Alabama Legislature, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Alabama. The body is composed of 35 members representing an equal amount of districts across the state, with each district containing at least 127,060 citizens.[8] The Senate serves both without term limits and with a four-year term.

Like other upper houses of state and territorial legislatures and the U.S. Senate, the Senate can confirm or reject gubernatorial appointments to the state cabinet, commissions and boards.

Leadership

The Lieutenant Governor of Alabama serves as the President of the Senate, but only casts a vote if required to break a tie. In his or her absence, the President Pro Tempore presides over the Senate. The President Pro Tempore is elected by the majority party caucus followed by confirmation of the entire Senate through a Senate Resolution. The President Pro Tempore is the chief leadership position in the Senate. The other Senate Majority and Minority leaders are elected by their respective party caucuses.

Partisan composition

See also: Partisan composition of state senates
Party As of July 2010
     Democratic Party 20
     Republican Party 15
Total 35


House of Representatives

The Alabama House of Representatives is the lower house of the Alabama Legislature. The House is composed of 105 members representing an equal amount of districts, with each constituency containing at least 42,353 citizens.[9] There are no term limits in the House. The House is also one of the five lower houses of state legislatures in the United States that is elected every four years. Virtually all other lower houses, including the U.S. House of Representatives, are elected for a two-year term.

Leadership

The Speaker of the House presides over the House of Representatives. The Speaker is elected by the majority party caucus followed by confirmation of the full House through the passage of a House Resolution. In addition to presiding over the body, the Speaker is also the chief leadership position, and controls the flow of legislation and committee assignments. Other House leaders, such as the majority and minority leaders, are elected by their respective party caucuses relative to their party's strength in the chamber.

Partisan composition

See also: Partisan composition of state houses
Party As of July 2010
     Democratic Party 60
     Republican Party 43
     Vacancy 2
Total 105


Joint Legislative Committees

Role in Alabama Constitution

See also: Amending state constitutions

Alabama has had a total of six different state constitutions, coming in 1819, 1861, 1865, 1868, 1875, and 1901. The current constitution is the longest written constitution in the United States.

The Alabama legislature under the constitution (Article XVIII, Alabama Constitution), can act to begin two different processes of amending the state's constitution:

  • If both houses of the Alabama State Legislature by a three-fifths (60%) vote agree, then a proposed constitutional amendment shall go on a statewide election ballot. If that amendment is approved by a simple majority of those voting in that election, it becomes part of the constitution.
  • Amendments can initiate in either the Alabama State Senate or the Alabama House of Representatives.
  • Amendments can be voted on either at the next general election, or at a special election date determined by the state legislature. Any such special elections must take place "not less than" three months after the final adjournment of the session of the legislature during which the amendment(s) was proposed.
  • Notice of the fact that an election on a proposed amendment is going to take place must be published in each county of the state for at least eight successive weeks prior to the election.
  • If both chambers of the state legislature agree by a simple majority vote, then a ballot question about whether to have a statewide constitutional convention can be placed on the ballot; if that question is approved by a majority of those voting in that election, then a constitutional convention will be called.

History

Creation and Civil War

The Alabama Legislature was created in 1818 as a territorial legislature for the Alabama Territory. Following the federal Alabama Enabling Act of 1819 and the successful passage of the first Alabama Constitution in the same year, the Alabama General Assembly became a fully fledged state legislature upon its accession to statehood.

The General Assembly was one of the 11 state legislatures of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. Following the state's secession from the Union in January 1861, delegates from across the South met at the state capital of Montgomery to create the Confederate government. Between February and May 1861, Montgomery served as the Confederacy's capital, where Alabama state officials let members of the new Southern federal government make use of its offices. The Provisional Confederate Congress met for three months inside the General Assembly's chambers at the Alabama State Capitol, while Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as the Confederacy's first (and only) president on the steps of the capitol.

However, following complaints from Southern bureaucrats over Montgomery's uncomfortable conditions and Virginia's entry into the Confederacy, the Confederate government moved to Richmond in May 1861.

Reconstruction

Following the Confederacy's defeat in 1865, the state government underwent a transformation. Upon the state's re-admission into the United States in 1868, Radical Republicans, including white Northerners known as "carpetbaggers", "scalawag" Southern Republicans, and "freedmen" African-Americans dominated both the state governorship and General Assembly. For the first time, blacks could vote and were elected to the legislature, a feat that would not be repeated for another one hundred years. The resulting 1868 Constitution reflected the radicals period in the state government.

Yet as in other states during Reconstruction, former Confederate and reactionary conservative forces from the Democratic Party gradually overturned the radicals. By the 1874 state general elections, the General Assembly was once again a body dominated by Bourbon Democrats. Both the resulting 1875 and 1901 Constitutions disenfranchised blacks and dismembered the Radical Republicans, creating and enforcing Jim Crow laws. It was also in the 1901 Constitution that the General Assembly changed its name to the Alabama Legislature.

The Civil Rights era

The American Civil Rights Movement began only miles away from the Alabama Legislature's chambers with Rosa Parks' refusal to change seats on a Montgomery bus in December 1955. The subsequent Montgomery Bus Boycott and the rise of both Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. to national and international prominence began a decade and a half of tumultuous political and social changes.

Throughout the late 1950s and into the 1960s, the Alabama Legislature and a series of succeeding segregationist governors massively resisted Civil Rights protestors. During this period, the Legislature created the Alabama State Sovereignty Commission. Mirroring Mississippi's own similarly named authority, the commission acted as a state intelligence agency to spy on Alabama citizens suspected of sympathizing with the Civil Rights movement.

However by the 1970s, with federal legislation enforcing bans on poll taxes, literacy tests and other blatant bureaucratic tools of discrimination, African-Americans entered the Legislature for the first time since Reconstruction.

In May 2007, the Alabama Legislature officially apologized for slavery, making it the fourth Deep South state to do so.

External links

References

  1. ↑ Alabama Legislature session dates, 2010
  2. ↑ Alabama Legislature web page
  3. ↑ Senate Rule 36
  4. ↑ National Association of State Budget Offices, 2008 Budget Processes in the States
  5. ↑ Center on Budget & Policy Priorities, “New Fiscal Year Brings No Relief From Unprecedented State Budget Problems,” September 3, 2009
  6. ↑ National Conference of State Legislatures, "2010 Legislator Compensation Data"
  7. ↑ Empire Center, "Legislative Salaries Per State as of 2007"
  8. ↑ Population represented by state legislators
  9. ↑ Population represented by state legislators
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