In the Weeds with Alabama Daily News

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Sen. Garlan Gudger, one of the Senate’s primary negotiators this past session on the gambling legislation, said  Thursday another bill could and should come back in the 2025 session.

Gudger, R-Cullman, was one of the three senators and three House members on a conference committee that tried to work out the differences between bills allowing a lottery and expanded gambling in the state. The House-passed version was broader, allowing online gambling and sports betting and more casino-style gambling in the state. Senators wouldn’t go that far and a scaled-back compromise ultimately failed by one vote in the Senate.

That was discouraging, Gudger said, but a lot was learned and lawmakers got closer to allowing Alabamians to vote on a lottery constitutional amendment than they had in 25 years.

“I’d like to see it come back up,” he said on Alabama Daily News’ podcast, In the Weeds. “We were only one vote short. It’s not like we’re, you know, 10 votes short. And so we’ll see what happens with the leadership, if they want it to come back up. I think there will be some people that want it to.”

He said he thinks small changes to the bill could flip some of the 15 no votes in the Senate.

“Having a few tweaks would bring us a vote or two back … and I think it doesn’t take too much to do it. The question is, do we bring it up at all? I would like to see it come back, personally.”

He’s not alone. David Bronner, the Retirement Systems of Alabama’s CEO, this week said he’d like Gov. Kay Ivey to call a special session on gambling, citing how the revenue could fund raises for state retirees. 

While lawmakers got close on gambling, the bill’s failure this year caused more tension between the House and Senate than in previous years. Still, Gudger says he sees a chance for communication and work before February 2025.

“The house was a little frustrated, obviously, with us because they had passed that bill multiple times and we had not passed it at all,” Gudger said. “We gave them a different bill but they didn’t like it, non-concurred and brought it back up. So, we are at odds, kind of fighting each other. The reality is, that’s politics. We’re gonna have grudges and that’s going to linger for a little while. But the key is, in the end, how do we get something done for the people of Alabama, in my opinion, so they can have the opportunity to vote.” 

He also warned that some things said in frustration could come back to haunt members.

“This is politics and politics in Alabama runs deep and people have a long memory,” he said.

Gudger also talked about the need in 2025 for a dedicated funding stream for mental health care, particularly the 988 crisis hotline. More money could guarantee calls from those considering suicide would be answered by professionals in Alabama, who could better connect them to local resources. Currently, about 25% of calls are answered out of state. 

“We were hoping to get funding through the gambling legislation, it didn’t happen,” Gudger said. “So what do we do now?

“… We’re trying to figure that out.” 

Gudger said one of his best friends committed suicide right before the start of the session.

“I am passionate about trying to find funding for this,” he said. “I do think that this is becoming a large epidemic in the state of Alabama and by not having consistent funding for this, I think that we’re hurting Alabamians …”

Gudger is the chairman of the Senate Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Development Committee and sponsored this session one of the priority bills to over tax credits to employers who help provide child care to workers. It was part of a package of legislation leaders hope will get more Alabamians in the workforce. 

In his second term, Gudger has made a name for himself as someone who can bring his colleagues together, hence his placement on the gambling conference committee. Mary and Todd also asked the two-term senator what else might be in his future.

Gudger said he didn’t know yet what might be next when this quadrennium ends in 2026, but likely will at the end of the 2025 session. He said he’s happy in his current role representing the North Alabama district and working on economic development efforts, but if the stars and moon align for another opportunity, he’ll consider it, he said. 

“Right now, I’m happy where I am,” he said.

It has been a while since Mary and I sat down to record a podcast.

It had been a pretty slow news week until the Trump verdict broke. We talk about how that will reverberate in Alabama, plus what can be discerned from the legislative session now that the dust has settled a bit.

Listen below or wherever you get your podcasts.

Todd and Mary celebrate being able to take a bit of a breather as the Legislature takes a week off for Spring Break. There’s plenty of punditry to catch up on, though. They walk through what happened and what’s next on gambling, IVF, school choice, the budgets, AL-1 & AL-2, and, of course, the fallout from U.S. Senator Katie Britt’s national debut.

Listen below or wherever you get your podcasts.

Todd and Mary are at a meeting of the Alabama Council of Association Executives. For those not familiar, that’s the group of governmental affairs leaders that team up for regular updates on the state of affairs inside Alabama politics and government. In short, it’s an insider crowd. And so there’s perhaps no better audience to do the first live in-person recording of the In the Weeds podcast.

Today @MarySellQuillen & I were asked to do an issues roundup for the Alabama Association of Council Executives and we thought, why not record it for In the Weeds? It was lots of fun, even if my jokes were lame. Thanks for inviting us ACAE! Now to edit the podcast…#alpolitics pic.twitter.com/iq9nDRWO4q

— Todd Stacy (@toddcstacy) January 31, 2024

Attorney General Steve Marshall comes In The Weeds to review the year that was from his office on a number of different issues: redistricting, the McCraney cold case conviction, the opioid settlement, criminal code revisions and more. We also look forward to discuss what’s coming up next, including his involvement in the Trump immunity case before the Supreme Court and his legislative agenda for 2024. So as not to waste the opportunity, Todd slips in some questions about gambling and Marshall’s political future.

The newly drawn Alabama Congressional District 1 will be a much better political fit for Rep. Barry Moore than the District 2 he was recently drawn out of, the congressman told Alabama Daily News on Thursday.

Moore, technically, is challenging incumbent Rep. Jerry Carl in District 1, but most of the nine counties in it are currently in District 2, which he’s represented since 2020.

From Dothan to Dauphin Island, the newly drawn district will be one of the most conservative in the nation, Moore said.

“Being a House Freedom Caucus member, being rated the most conservative member from (the Conservative Political Action Network) last year out of Alabama, it just makes sense that I can represent the district,” Moore said on In the Weeds, ADN’s podcast.

Listen below.

In the court-mandated congressional map changes approved in October, District 2 became the state’s second opportunity district where Black voters have a chance to elect the candidate of their choice. The district in the 2024 cycle will have a Black voting population of nearly 49 percent. District 2, which formerly included all of the Wiregrass region, now goes west dips into Mobile and stretches north to include all of Montgomery County. Moore’s hometown of Enterprise, in Coffee County, was drawn out of District 2 and into District 1. District 1 was stretched from the southwest corner of the state across the lower counties to the Georgia line. It became more white.

Moore said he doesn’t think he’s politically aligned with the new District 2.

“I just knew that every time I voted in Washington, D.C., my phones were going to be ringing and people weren’t going to be happy,” Moore said when asked if he considered running in that district. “…I’m not going to adjust who I am to represent a district. I want to be who I am and be a part of the district, be like the voter, be the voice, truly, of the voter.

“So for me … it was just tough to say, yeah, I’m going to run in a district that I don’t really look like, sound like, talk like, act like, vote like,” he said. “It’s just that I am so conservative, so for me it just doesn’t seem like I could do them folks a good job and that’s not fair to those 780,000 people. I just didn’t see a path forward unless I changed who Barry Moore was and I just wasn’t willing to do that.”

There is an opportunity for a Republican in AL-2, Moore said. Eight candidates from the GOP qualified for the March 5 primary last month, along with 13 Democrats.

“There is a path forward for the right Republican, but it’s not going to be someone who’s a House Freedom Caucus member, it’s going to be someone who’s more to the middle, more moderate.”

“… There is an opportunity for some minority Republican candidates to come in and step up.”

In his race, Moore said he plans on running on his record of serving constituents.

“I’m not going to tell you what I’m going to do, I’m going to say, look at what we’ve done and see if we’ve done a good job for you,” he said.

Carl, of Mobile, was also first elected in 2020. Last month said he expects Club for Growth, a Washington-based political group, to attack him again in this race. The group opposed him in 2020 and has previously supported Moore.

But Moore Thursday said he asked Club for Growth “to sit it out” on his race because of its previous criticism of former President Donald Trump.

“I thought that was ridiculous,” Moore said. “He is the leader of our party. Like him or not, he is the man right now that I think needs to be the (Republican nominee for president in 2024.”

Republican Congressman Jerry Carl says he knows voters in the Wiregrass area, newly drawn into the congressional district he’s represented since 2021, don’t love the idea of being represented by someone from Mobile.

“And I don’t blame them,” Carl said on In the Weeds. “They’re used to having someone from the Wiregrass, in the Wiregrass and they’ve been stripped of that.”

In the court-mandated congressional map changes, Carl’s District 1 was stretched from the southwest corner of the state across the lower counties to the Georgia line. Similarly, District 2, which formerly included all of the Wiregrass region, now goes west and dips into Mobile.

Carl, a former Mobile County Commission member, is losing much of the city of Mobile and Prichard from his district.

“It is what it is at the end of the day and we have to work with it,” Carl said. “The people realize that and have been very nice about it.”

The change now pits Carl against his GOP colleague and fellow two-term House member, Barry Moore of Enterprise. 

“Neither one of us are here because we want to be here, running against one another, but (are) because of the redrawing of the map and courts making their changes,” Carl told Alabama Daily News’ Todd Stacy.

He said he started campaigning in the Wiregrass about four months ago. 

“It’s a lot of peanuts, a lot of cotton and a lot of helicopters,” he said about the agriculture and defense priorities of the area. Carl is on the House’s appropriations and natural resources committees.

He said he’s been talking about economic development and infrastructure.

Carl also said he expects Club for Growth, a Washington-based political group, to attack him again in this race. The group opposed him in 2020 and has previously supported Moore.

“Sixty percent of this district, I’ve served for the last four years, three-and-a-half years,” he said. “They know me. I’ll run on my record.”

The new district also means new media markets and campaign strategies,

We’ve got four more months to “do everything we’re supposed to have a year to do,” he said about campaigning. 

Carl also talked about the new speaker of the House and the three-week ordeal that led to the change.

Todd is on his own this week without Mary’s supervision. That leads to a long rant about issues like the Speaker’s race, the House Republican Conference and how that might impact Alabama.

More importantly, Todd talks with State Sen. April Weaver and Peggy Benson of the Alabama Board of Nursing about the workforce shortage facing that profession.