By TODD STACY, Alabama Daily News

Today I’m talking with Bradley Byrne, the outgoing congressman from Alabama’s 1st District. This is actually my third “In the Weeds” interview with him. The first was when I went up to DC to interview the entire delegation about two years ago and the second was just before the March 3 Republican Primary for U.S. Senate.

It may seem like overkill to do another one so soon, but there are specific reasons I wanted to talk to Bradley in this moment. First, I love doing exit interviews of sorts because people get contemplative as they are looking back on a job or career. Second, I am really curious about the future of the Republican Party in this very precarious moment and as an outgoing congressman, he has an interesting perspective. We talked at length about all that, and I think you’ll enjoy it.

Byrne has had a 25 year career in politics. He was on the State School Board from 1994 to 2002, before being elected to the State Senate from Baldwin County. I got to know Bradley back in 2007 when he was appointed to serve as Chancellor of the two year college system. Those were heady times. I worked for Gov. Bob Riley at the time and we were all engaged in what felt like this battle for the soul of state government. The system of patronage that had been set up was really something: all these state lawmakers had do-nothing jobs at community colleges, sometimes multiple jobs making a few hundred thousand dollars. Bradley blew the system up, with the help of clever lawyers and aggressive federal prosecutors, and the rest is history. You never forget who you were in the trenches with, so to speak, and so there’s lots of us who won’t forget Bradley Byrne’s work back then.

Of course, the unspoken combatant early on in that war was the Alabama Education Association. You’d never be able to prove Paul Hubbert was involved in the two-year patronage system, but he certainly benefited from it in the Legislature. Looking back it’s no surprise that AEA went after Bradley Byrne so aggressively in his run for governor in 2010. Given his dismantling of the two year patronage system and tough rhetoric toward AEA on the campaign, it was only a matter of time before Hubbert retaliated, which he did in the form of about $8 million of brutal attack ads that ultimately sank Byrne’s campaign. Of course, there were other factors and I could talk for days about it, but that was the biggest one. Anyone who has worked in Alabama Politics for some length of time has surely contemplated how the state might be different had Byrne prevailed as the GOP nominee for governor in 2010 instead of Robert Bentley.

As exciting as all that was back then, I have to say I think Byrne has been at his best as a congressman. When he won the special election to replace Jo Bonner in 2014, he was immediately like a duck to water in Washington, D.C. He went on the Armed Services Committee, which is important for shipbuilding in Mobile, and the Education and Labor Committee, where is has been a natural fit. He talks about his work on both committees in our talk, as we as some interesting tales from the somewhat mysterious Rules Committee. I love good stories I haven’t heard before and he has some.

It’s important in Congress to have a healthy respect for the institution but to also never be intimidated by your surroundings, and I’d say that described Bradley. He wasn’t there long enough to get a committee chairmanship our the plum appropriations spot or some of the other things people wait around 20 years for, but he punched above his weight and delivered on issues important to his constituents. And that’s the job.

This year,

By TODD STACY, Alabama Daily News

Today I spoke with Tommy Tuberville, who last week defeated incumbent Democrat Doug Jones to win election to the United States Senate. Do we call him Senator-elect? I don’t know, people are awfully sensitive about the office-holder-elect thing right now. But, it’s a fact that Tuberville would rather be called “Coach” anyway. And it certainly was his football coaching career, including nine years at Auburn University, where Tuberville earned the near-universal name recognition and reputation for straight talk that made him a formidable candidate for Senate.

He ran against also formidable competition: a sitting congressman popular in his district, the secretary of state who had twice been elected statewide, and, of course, the man who held this very Senate seat before moving on to the upper echelons of the Trump administration. Tuberville outlasted them all, and then easily defeated Jones by a 60-40 margin.

But, the fun part is over. Now it is time to govern, and Tuberville has spent part of this week in Washington, D.C. preparing to do that. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of this transition phase. The team the senator surrounds himself with – including outside advisers – and the culture they build together from the very beginning will go a long way toward how successful Tuberville will be as a senator.

Talking to him, it sounds like he is taking it seriously and moving fast. Much like a newly hired football coach, Tuberville has to fill out a staff, starting with a chief-of-staff. Everything flows down from the chief and that person has to be empowered on hiring decisions from the beginning. The scheduler controls a senator’s entire world and serves as a gatekeeper at a time when everybody wants five minutes with the new senator. And the communications director has to transition Tuberville from the last six months of largely avoiding the press to turning his media savvy into a strength. They are big decisions and you get a lot of outside opinions, but the coach seems to have an idea of the kind of people he wants, with a premium on Alabama roots and Capitol Hill experience. I cannot imagine how many resumes they are getting right now.

Aside No 1: Let’s face it, football metaphors were already part of political jargon and now it’s only going to get worse. Let’s embrace it together as I promise to be the least campy as possible about it.

Aside No 2: If you want to go deeper into the staff hiring process, including who is being mentioned for Tuberville’s chief of staff, that was covered toward the bottom of Friday’s edition of Inside Alabama Politics.

I asked Tuberville what committees he’d like to serve on, to which he replied with the obvious ones: Armed Services and Agriculture. Armed Services is a “Super A” committee under Republican rules and Agriculture is a regular “A” committee. That means it is possible he could tack on a third lower-tier committee like Budget or Veterans Affairs if he really wanted to. For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t recommend Budget (it’s not what it sounds like) but I would recommend Veterans Affairs.

We also talked about the importance of working across the aisle in this upcoming time of a divided government overseeing a divided country. I found his comments on that especially interesting.

So, here’s our interview, in the weeds.

Todd C. Stacy Hey, Coach, how are you? 

Coach Tommy Tuberville Oh, it’s just a beautiful day and rainy here in Auburn.  Rain from the hurricane today. 

TCS: Yes, sir, I was actually driving back from D.C. yesterday and it started raining about when I hit Knoxville. And that’s a long drive in the rain. But I appreciate you taking the time.

By TODD STACY, Alabama Daily News

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – It has been just over a year since Steven Reed was elected mayor of Montgomery, a historic moment that brought national attention a city known as the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement electing its first black mayor.

But the celebration was short lived because in just a few months, Reed was dealing with multiple major challenges: a fight with the Legislature over a planned occupational tax, a worsening threat from the coronavirus pandemic and calls for policing reforms in the wake of the killing of George Floyd.

Now, Reed is taking on perhaps his biggest challenge yet: trying to convince the people of Montgomery County to raise their property taxes to pay for improvements to the long-troubled Montgomery Public Schools. Technically, the mayor has no authority over the school system. It’s governed by the county school board and superintendent. But Reed has become the biggest cheerleader for the plan, which he says is essential to turn local schools around, help recruit more businesses to the city and even keep Maxwell Air Force Base from relocating.

Here are the basics of the tax plan:

* Local schools are largely funded by property taxes, which are calculated in millage. A one mill tax would assess $1 for each of the $1,000 of assessed property value. So, if you’re home is worth $100,000 and the local education property tax is 10 mills a month, as Montgomery County’s is, your tax is $10 a month. If your home is worth $200,000, then your education property tax is $20 a month, and so on. Note: this is only the education portion of the tax. There are other local property taxes assessed by millage.

* The referendum on the Nov. 3rd ballot would raise Montgomery County’s education millage rate from 10 to 22. So, instead of taxing $10 for every $1,000 of home value, $22 would be taxed. That means education property taxes on the $100,000 home would increase from $10 to $22 a month. For the $200,000 home, the education property tax goes from $20 a month to $44 a month.

* According to Reed and other advocates, the plan would generate more than $33 million for local schools to pay for badly-needed maintenance and construction, more teachers, counselors and security guards and improve course offerings like AP and career tech.

Opposing the tax plan is John Pudner’s Take Back Our Republic group, which argues that the school system can’t be trusted with more tax money and that the process to pass the tax through the Legislature was rushed and had little public input. Anyone who has been around Alabama Politics for long knows Pudner’s name. He is well known for his conservative grassroots campaigning and was instrumental in defeating both Gov. Bob Riley’s Amendment 1 tax plan in 2003 and Gov. Kay Ivey’s school board reorganization amendment in March of this year.

A simple “Vote No on Higher Taxes” message is easy enough to sell, and Pudner usually does it pretty well. Brian Lyman and Krista Johnson of the Advertiser have more on that effort.

Still, Reed is confident the amendment will pass. He thinks the same coalition of voters who elected him a year ago will come through for him again on this tax package.

Here’s our full conversation, In the Weeds.

 

 

Todd C. Stacy: This past week marked one year since your election as mayor. That was obviously a historic moment, but it has been a lot of work since then. Can you reflect on that milestone?

Mayor Steven Reed: You know, it has been a blur. The last year really has been a lot of work, a lot of change, but I think it has also brought a lot of promise as well.

By TODD STACY, Alabama Daily News

Today we are talking to Sen. Doug Jones, who is one week away from the election to determine whether he gets to stay in the U.S. Senate or if voters will send him home after almost three years in favor of Republican Tommy Tuberville.

Jones came to the Senate in truly unique fashion. Alabama had not elected a Democrat statewide in more than 10 years. But when Republicans nominated the controversial Roy Moore and allegations of a history of sexual impropriety with minors surfaced, a combination of crossover, write ins and staying home among Republicans helped boost Jones to victory.

Flash forward to today, and this election does not seem unique. In fact, looking at the polling and other dynamics, it is more like typical Alabama elections, with voters tethering closely to their party or ideology. For all his inexperience and tendency for gaffes, Tuberville is not Roy Moore. Attacks on his coaching career, business endeavors and charitable efforts haven’t exactly landed in a way that would create a groundswell of conservative opposition that existed with Moore.

The latest polling in the race, first reported by Alabama Daily News, shows Jones trailing Tuberville 41% to 55% among likely voters. That aligns with a previous poll taken by AUM that showed Tuberville leading 54-42%. The Jones camp, however, insists that some of the recent polling has been off, and they have pointed to a FM3 Research poll that showed Jones leading Tuberville 48-47%.

Any objective analysis would conclude that Jones has an uphill battle in this race, but he is out there fighting it. They have been about as active as you can be in a pandemic and taking the race to Tuberville in some effective advertising aimed at moderate voters who don’t vote solely on hot button issues. That’s a contrast from Tuberville, who has avoided almost all public appearances and media interviews in favor of small gatherings and letting his ads do the talking. (Tuberville’s campaign did not respond to multiple requests for an interview recently, but we’re still hoping he’ll say yes.)

My conversation with Jones was pretty timely: just hours before he had cast a vote in the Senate against proceeding with the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. This was the last procedural hurdle before the actual confirmation vote, in which Jones also voted no.

That issue, Supreme Court confirmation votes, is one of the biggest weapons Republicans wield against Jones. He has voted against the confirmation of two of President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominees, and though he has explanations for both, that’s a cut and dry issue for many conservatives. I was grateful to get an opportunity to talk about that with him as it was still very fluid and fresh.

We also talked about abortion, another issue in which his nuance defies the black and white way many on both sides see the issue. Perhaps the most surprising comment there was the way he spoke of Alabama’s 20 week abortion ban and how he didn’t have a problem with it. If you know anything about abortion politics, that’s news.

Another interesting topic we discussed was court packing and ending the filibuster, which some Senate Democrats are threatening to do in retaliation for Republicans confirming Barrett so close to the election. Jones isn’t for either, and his explanation for why is interesting. Finally, in the hypothetical of a Joe Biden presidency, he talked being a moderating voice to a president who will be tugged to the left by the liberal base.

Anyway, here is our interview, In the Weeds with Senator Doug Jones.

 

Todd C. Stacy: Hey, Senator, thanks for taking the time. 

Sen. Doug Jones: Todd, it’s great to be with you. Thanks for having me today. 

TCS: I saw that the cloture vote was earlier and you were against.

Sometimes Election Day can be a little boring.

Everybody wants to know what’s going on. Text messages fly back and forth wondering “what are you hearing?” and the like.

No new information really starts coming in until the polls close at 7:00, leaving a lot of politicos and politically-inclined people to suffer most of the day wanting to talk politics and wondering about the results.

Well, have we got a podcast for you.

Just as we did for the March 3rd Primary, political consultant David Mowery and I recorded a special “In the Weeds” podcast discussing the ins and outs of Election Day.

We talk about turnout, the surge in absentee voting, the Senate race, the House races and the emergence of Club for Growth in Alabama.

If you need something to whet your political whistle on this Election Day, listen to our little show.

Or watch it, if you want. This is the first time we’ve brought a video element to the podcast, which, despite some alignment issues, seems to have worked out okay.

 

Today we’re going in the weeds on workforce development.

This is a topic we have covered a lot at Alabama Daily News because it is a key cog in the economic development wheel. Alabama is not a fast growing state, and to attract industry we have to demonstrate that our existing workforce is capable of making companies successful if they locate here. Much time and effort has gone into Alabama’s workforce development model over the decades, and I’d say in the last few years it has really hit its peak in terms of efficiency.

Despite historic challenge, state leaders see ‘upskill’ opportunity amid outbreak

But like everything else these days, the pandemic has impacted the state’s plans.

At the start of 2020, Alabama’s economy was rolling. With a historic low 2.7% unemployment rate in February and tens of thousands of jobs being added every month, the biggest problem for economic and workforce development leaders seemed to be having enough trained workers to fill available jobs. In fact, the state had recently launched an ambitious plan to credential an additional 500,000 workers to meet rising employment demands.

Then, the coronavirus hit and much of Alabama’s economy came to a screeching halt. Unemployment reached 14.7% in April before rebounding slightly to 9.9% by May. Ironically, as many as 500,000 working Alabamians were displaced from jobs either directly or indirectly due to the outbreak.

Instead of seeming ambitious, that workforce development goal is now considered a necessity for the state’s economic recovery and getting hundreds of thousands of Alabamians back to work. And state leaders are optimistic that the planning already in place will put Alabama ahead of the curve once the pandemic ends.

But instead of training workers to meet the high employment demands that existed before the virus, state officials see an opportunity to help current workers become more employable in the post-pandemic economy.

For decades, Alabama’s workforce development efforts consisted of myriad job training programs and schools. There’s our K-12 public school system, which is where all education starts, and the two year college system, which has 24 community colleges scattered throughout the state. There’s also the Alabama Industrial Development Training agency, which works within the Department of Commerce. They have several industry-specific job training centers throughout the state and they are the ones who connect hiring industries with job seeking workers.  Over the years, these different entities have sometimes duplicative missions and turf battles. But the last three governor’s administrations have sought to streamline the system into a more cohesive network.

In recent years, Gov. Kay Ivey has transitioned the state to programs that are intended to work directly with industries to see what skills are needed and shape training efforts accordingly. This “occupational DNA” is mapped out by the Governor’s Office of Education and Workforce Training in partnership with the Alabama Workforce Council to help set workers on more productive “career pathways.”

Beyond job training, the state is also leveraging federal resources to remove barriers to individuals entering the labor force, such as providing child care and offsetting so-called “benefit cliffs.” This is fascinating stuff.

The U.S. Department of Labor recently approved the state’s plan to use federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act resources to help socially and economically disadvantaged populations. According to Ivey education and workforce adviser Nick Moore, WIOA funds can be used to provide childcare, transportation and housing assistance to those seeking work or job training.

Some individuals can experience a “benefit cliff” upon entering the workforce,

Intro by TODD STACY, interview by CAROLINE BECK, Alabama Daily News

This week we dove into the CARES Act and specifically how much federal money the state is receiving, where it is going and how it is being spent.

To catch you up, in March Congress passed and the president signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act. It provided $2 trillion dollars in payments from the treasury aimed toward propping up the nation as we headed into the breach of the pandemic. About $560 billion went to individuals and families in the form of stimulus checks, about $500 billion went to stabilize corporations and institutions to keep the economy from crumbling, about $377 billion went to small businesses as part of the popular Paycheck Protection Program. About $153 billion went to public health efforts, about $70 billion went to prop up government programs and services, and about $340 billion went to state and local governments. 

Alabama’s share of that money is $3.7 billion. That’s a lot of money when you consider our General Fund budget in 2021 is about $2.4 billion. 

As taxpayers, it is important to ask where all that money is going and how it is being spent. This past week, Alabama Daily News reporters Caroline Beck and Mary Sell did just that. Caroline filed through all the numbers to report exactly where funds are going and then went to the very top to interview Finance Director Kelly Butler about it. More on that in a minute. Mary dug specifically into Alabama’s colleges and universities, which are getting $275 million in all. I encourage you to go read both stories if you haven’t already. 

Now, CARES Act money has gotten a lot of attention recently because of the high profile fight between Gov. Kay Ivey and the Legislature over the Coronavirus Relief Fund. If you’re listening to this, I’m confident you know what happened, so I won’t rehash. But in the end, that $1.9 billion fund was appropriated to various state agencies with the Legislature holding back some in reserve. 

The other half, or roughly $1.8 billion, was allocated directly to state agencies, institutions or health care providers. According to Mr. Butler, there were already existing grant programs in place so there was no need to go through the Legislature. 

About $449 million went to health care providers, which include hospitals, nursing homes, clinics and other facilities. Hospitals are quick to point out that they only got about a third of those funds and their revenue losses totaled more than $740 million for March and April. $217 million went to K-12 education; $191 million went to Rural Health Care providers; $115 million went to laboratories for CDC-led disease prevention and enhanced detection; $132 million went to transportation grants; $64 million for child care grants; $54 million for airport; $48 million for the Governor’s emergency education relief fund, $37 million for Community Development and Service Grants through ADECA, $20 million to public housing; $16 million to low-income energy assistance; and $13 million to Head Start. 

And don’t forget the $1.9 billion the state has to dole out through the Coronavirus Relief Fund. 

All this money passing through from the federal government keeps state accountants busy, particularly at the Department of Finance. That’s the agency most responsible for processing applications, measuring the need versus the federal guidelines and being accountable for how the money is spent. 

Leading that agency is  Butler. One lobbyist recently told me Butler just became the most popular person in town and the guy to know for all those who are seeking out coronavirus. So when Caroline said she was going to interview him, I said why not do it In the Weeds?

For those that don’t know, the Finance Director is one of the most powerful positions in state government. It certainly is the highest ranking Cabinet member beyond Chief of Staff,

It has been a while since our last podcast, two months in fact. I sincerely apologize for that and I appreciate so many folks saying they missed the program. As always, the point of this podcast is to talk about politics at an in-depth level, including from interviews with various politicians and officials.

This week we are talking education, and I was pleased to sit down with State Superintendent Dr. Eric Mackey. Now, the coronavirus outbreak has impacted just about every aspect of life, including on public policy. But I would argue that education has been one area most profoundly impacted, both in terms of its effect on student achievement and the long term policy implications it will bring. Most schools in Alabama took spring break either the first or second week of March and then never returned to school. The Governor’s order to close schools statewide came on March 26 with a full two months of school left. Systems scrambled to come up with learning from home options and suddenly parents became part time teachers.

Specifically in Alabama, the outbreak came at a time when the state was attempting to move forward with some policy initiatives that are aimed to improve student performance. A lot of that has been put on hold, which Dr. Mackey talks about in detail. One policy Alabama is trying to move forward with is implementation of the new Alabama Literacy Act. A lot of people are familiar with Alabama’s top rated First Class Pre-K program and the incredible difference it is making as it expands to more students throughout the state.  The same studies that show quality pre-K can improve education outcomes also show that those gains can be quickly lost if students don’t continue to grow in their learning. There’s no question that the biggest obstacle for that in Alabama is children falling behind on their ability to read and comprehend. Children who do not read at grade level by fourth grade are unlikely to graduate, which is why Alabama passed a literacy law last year with a renewed focus on early reading, identification of reading problems in students, and stronger preparation for teachers. And, yes, students are required to read on grade level before being promoted to fourth grade, an approach other states have taken with success to show for it. However, this program will not work without proper funding, and the Legislature delivered with a full $27 million appropriation that will fund summer reading camps, regional literary specialists and special support to the lowest performing schools. We have the law, we have the money, and now it’s time to implement it, and that’s no small feat. I asked Dr. Mackey about how that’s going so far and what to expect over the next year.

Perhaps the newsiest item we discussed is the department of education’s plan to build a statewide online learning portal. This would be for K-12 students whose parents may not want them to return to traditional classrooms this fall. The online platform will also be an option should school systems have to close their physical doors again. This is a big deal for a few reasons. Obviously, if done right it could be a game changer for giving parents a needed option and making sure students don’t fall further behind. But more broadly, it represents maybe the biggest single step toward school choice the state has ever seen. My understanding is that it is meant to me temporary, and in fact if could be paid for with federal coronavirus relief  money. But, if parents like this option and it works quality wise, you could see a larger proliferation of online learning in the future. We already have virtual academies like the once run by K-12, but this is much broader in scope. Anyway, that was breaking news this week and you’ll get to hear Dr. Mackey’s full discussion of that.

So here it is, my interview In the Weeds with state superintendent Dr.

Super Tuesday is upon us, and Republicans and Democrats in Alabama will be voting on races and initiatives up and down the ballot. At stake are the nominations for U.S. Senate, two open Congressional seats, a Supreme Court seat, a few appellate court seats, and President of the United States.

Despite all the anticipation it brings, sometimes Election Day is boring with little actually happening during the daylight hours. Alabama Daily News Publisher Todd Stacy and award-winning political consultant David Mowery have you covered with a new “In the Weeds” podcast full of commentary about all the races on the ballot, plus the constitutional amendment on education governance.

Presidential, Senate races on Alabama’s Super Tuesday ballot

 

 

By TODD STACY, Alabama Daily News

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – Bradley Byrne is a fighter.

That’s what Alabama’s 1st District Congressman says differentiates him from the field of other candidates in the race for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, and there’s plenty of evidence that his previous experience backs that up. Over a political career that has taken him from the state school board and the State Senate to the Alabama Community College System chancellor’s office and the U.S. House of Representatives, Byrne’s fights have been famous.

Perhaps the most successful was Byrne’s bout with the state’s two-year college system, which had been mired in a patronage scandal until he, a reform-minded governor and federal prosecutors came in to clean it up.

Perhaps the least successful was his run for governor in 2010 that saw him on a quixotic quest to take on the then-all-powerful state teachers’ association, only for that group to marshal untold resources to defeat him in the end.

Now Byrne finds himself in the middle of another high-profile fight as he seeks to win a U.S. Senate seat by first outmatching two better-known Republican rivals in former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville. The winner of the Republican primary — or runoff, if needed — will face incumbent Democratic Sen. Doug Jones in November.

Most every campaign with this much at stake can turn negative, and sure enough, the final weeks of this race have seen those top three candidates concentrate their fire on each other.

Tuberville, Sessions and some outside political groups are hammering Byrne for the oldest political sin in the book: telling the truth. In 2016, after audio surfaced of then-candidate Donald Trump bragging about being powerful enough to grab women’s private parts, Byrne condemned the comments and called on Trump to step aside as the Republican nominee, saying he was “unfit” to be president.

Weeks later, Byrne affirmed his support for Trump and by all accounts has been a loyal defender of the president ever since. Still, for a party dominated by Trump in which one’s loyalty to him can be the only litmus test voters care about, the episode has had a residual impact.

For his part, Byrne calls his decision at the time “a mistake” and responds to questions by pointing to the president’s embrace of him on different occasions, including a post-impeachment White House event when Trump called Byrne by name and thanked him for his support.

As we meet in his campaign office in downtown Montgomery on a Friday afternoon ahead of the Alabama Republican Party’s winter dinner, Byrne is coming off a full day of campaigning. He’s traversed the state multiple times this week, including a trip across north Alabama earlier in the day. No one would blame him for being worn out, but as we begin the interview he is relaxed and determined to make his case for why he’s the best choice for Republicans to take on Jones in November.

As ably as he answers the political questions with all the requisite poll-tested talking points, Byrne’s real strength is policy. He’s eager to talk about policy, legislation, budgets – anything other than the sometimes silly issues that can dominate campaigns. How do we fix the debt? I have a bill that redefines mandatory spending, actually, he says. What issue isn’t being discussed enough? How about health care, so let’s talk about the Medicare Wage Index, he says.

Such acumen is what has endeared Byrne to the wonks of state and federal government for more than a decade, though it is less endearing to the increasing number of voters who prefer style over substance. Which is why Byrne again finds himself in a fight.

Read and listen to our full interview below.