Opinion

Saving Taxpayer Dollars and Creating a Path to Redemption  

As multiple recent state and national news stories have illustrated, overcrowded state prisons is one of the key challenges facing Alabama. While the State Legislature has made significant strides over the past few years in the area of criminal justice reform, Alabama’s prisons are still at about 166% of capacity. This creates a dangerous environment […]

The Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles Will Be Held Accountable

The members of the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles aren’t doing their jobs. In July, Jimmy O’Neal Spencer was charged with the brutal killings of Martha Dell Reliford, 65, Marie Kitchens Martin, 74, and Martin’s 7-year-old great-grandson, Colton Ryan Lee, in Guntersville. Spencer, a man with a violent rap sheet going back to the […]

A Thank You Note to Alabama’s Teachers

My oldest daughter just turned sixteen. She’s driving, and as a dad, it’s a thrilling, but scary moment in life — this week, she started the tenth grade, and the reality is that during the school year, she spends nearly as much time at school as she does around her mom and me. For young […]

State Legislature Cuts Taxes for Families, Approves Raise for Teachers in 2018 Session

The 2018 session of the state Legislature ended on March 29th, and it was a productive one for the people of Alabama. The state Legislature, under the leadership of conservative Republicans, continued to stand strong for our students, teachers, and schools. The $6.6 billion education budget – the largest education budget since the Great Recession […]

By Tim Melson

State Legislature Approves a Tax Cut for Alabama Families

As we enter the home stretch of the 2018 legislative session and wrap up the final months of this quadrennium, I wanted to take a moment and look back. While things have been moving along very smoothly this session, there have certainly been bumps in the road over the past four years, but now we […]

By Larry Stutts

Shining a Light on the Darkness of Human Trafficking

This week, the Alabama Senate passed Senate Bill 179, which establishes severe penalties for those found guilty of obstructing an investigation into child trafficking. This legislation enhances the penalties already in place, increasing the offense to a Class A felony, with a minimum jail sentence of ten years. Under current law, the obstruction of an […]

Career Technical Education is a Strength of Alabama’s School System

  What kind of K-12 education model does Alabama need to prepare our young people for the jobs of the twenty-first century? Like you, I have read story after story in the media of how the global economy increasingly relies on automated jobs. There is no doubt that the digital economy is causing a shift […]

By Clyde Chambliss

Great Teachers Make Great Students

  Over the past few years, I have made it a point to visit elementary classrooms and high schools across Senate District 14. The passion of the teachers I meet never fails to inspire me: for many teachers, education is both a career and a calling to shape the lives of young people. Most educators […]

Healthy Eats for Students & Economic Growth for Alabama Farmers

 The beginning of the school year is an energizing and sometimes challenging time for families, teachers, and students. My wife and I have three children, and I know how excited my kids always are for the first day of school. This past spring, I had the opportunity to work across the aisle in the Legislature […]

By Clyde Chambliss

Time to Fight the Opioid Crisis in Alabama

In 2016, more Americans died from drug overdoses than were killed in the entire Vietnam War. Two-thirds of those overdoses were linked to opioids, a class of drugs that includes illegal substances like heroin, but which is primarily composed of legal painkillers like oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methadone. Unfortunately, Alabama is center stage in the opioid […]