In the Weeds with Alabama Daily News

As promised, we are bringing back the podcast.

A new episode of "In the Weeds with Alabama Daily News" is now available wherever you get your podcasts.

Mary Sell and I talk about the week that was in Alabama politics, from the organizational session to what might be coming in March.

We'll try to make this a weekly thing, but what will help is readers/listeners telling us what you'd like to hear us get into.

Listen to the full episode below.

By TODD STACY, Alabama Daily News

Today we are talking with Mo Brooks, the North Alabama Congressman who just this week threw his hat in the ring for the contest to replace outgoing U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby.

Brooks ran for Senate once before in 2017 when a special election was called to replace Jeff Sessions, who was appointed attorney general. Brooks came in third in that primary to the appointed incumbent, Luther Strange, and the eventual nominee, Roy Moore. He actually talks a lot about that race in our conversation, which you’ll find interesting.

Man, that feels like ten years ago, and it is politically, in many ways. The state, and specifically the Republican Party, have only grown more devoted to Donald Trump. Brooks has only grown into more of a firebrand on the right, and that’s saying something. He gained national notoriety for starting the congressional effort to challenge the 2020 election results and was rewarded with a speaking slot at the Washington rally that preceded the Capitol riot. We talked about that a lot, too.

The point is, Brooks has aligned himself with where the very conservative Republican electorate is right now, both in policy and rhetoric. That makes him a very formidable candidate in this GOP primary, and most, including myself, consider him the front runner.

Look, it’s going to be a long campaign, perhaps even longer than currently scheduled. Plenty could go wrong for Mo in the next 18 months and other candidates could catch fire. But right now he knows he has an advantage and is working to build a pace that makes it hard for others to catch up.

The feedback I hear most from readers and listeners is that people like our how in-depth and informative stories and interviews. Folks like to learn things they weren’t aware of or hear politicians answer questions they’ve not been asked.

If that’s the measure of a good interview, you’re going to like this one. We talked about why he wants to be a senator, his lengthy career in public service, how that squares with his term limit position, his family background including his mom the economics teacher, his conversations with Donald Trump, the election objection process, his infamous “take names and kick ass” speech, Stephen Miller, redistricting, earmarks and what committees he wants to be on. In short, we really got in the weeds.

I greatly appreciate Congressman Brooks and his staff for taking the time for this lengthy interview. He was gracious with his time and I believe candid with his answers. So here it is, In the Weeds with Mo Brooks.

Todd Christian Stacy: Hey, Congressman, thanks for coming “In the Weeds” with us again. 

Congressman Mo Brooks: My pleasure. 

TCS: I guess congratulations on your announcement. You’re now running for Senate. It’s official. You’re out campaigning. How’s it going so far? 

CMB As well as could be hoped. To have Stephen Miller, President Trump’s speechwriter and senior policy adviser, endorse me as a part of the announcement, I think that sends a very strong signal as to where Mo Brooks is on the Make America Great Again agenda and sends a very strong message that I, in fact, have had President Trump’s back for four straight years. And, as Stephen Miller stated, I was the number one congressman having the president’s back over that four-year period of time when it came to i...

By TODD STACY, Alabama Daily News

Today I’ve visiting with Greg Reed, the new President Pro Tem of the Alabama Senate. If you’re reading or listening, you probably don’t need reminding that Reed recently succeeded Del Marsh, who is stepping away from the Senate’s top leadership role after more than ten years. And part of what makes this interesting is Del’s tenure of service. If you think about it, the last ten years of Alabama Politics has seen a lot of upheaval: a governor resigned, a speaker was convicted, a chief justice was removed from office, to say nothing of other myriad investigations and semi scandals. In many ways, Del Marsh remained the constant within state government. Now, he gets to step away from the pressure of the pro tem role and focus on a few pet issues in the last two years of his term.

Stepping into that top role is Greg Reed. He’s no stranger to leadership. Reed has served as majority leader for the last six years, a job that requires plenty of skill in managing the needs and desires of senators. You could say he has been waiting in the wings as Marsh worked out what he wanted to do.

What I saw on the floor that first day of the session was really something. In Marsh, you had a guy who was kind of itching to turn that resignation letter into the desk. In fact, some of his former staff and I were joking about it in the gallery. And once the speeches were done, including a really interesting one from Sen. Waggoner, and the applause faded away, Marsh seemed like a burden had been lifted. Reed stood a respectful distance from the front waiting as the process moved forward, occasionally making tweaks to his remarks. When he took the podium, he wasn’t nervous at all, but rather composed and prepared. And that’s the way I would describe the new Senate President Pro Tem. He’s prepared. He brings correct change.

In my previous life, it was my job to help prepare and train politicians to speak better, connect better, or just generally communicate better. Observing the way Reed communicates it is obvious he prepares a great deal and thinks carefully before he speaks. It’s a rare enough quality in a politician. If someone is too buttoned up that can be a problem, but Reed is able to connect with sincerity, which is so important.

He has a monumental task ahead of him. This session is going to be tough. I’ve heard people say they’d be surprised if the Legislature isn’t forced to take an extended break after this week given how easy and outbreak would be in the State House. Every one of his members, Republican and Democrat, have bills they want to pass and issues they want to talk about. That takes time, which the Senate might not have much of, and the demands from each member will grow as the election year approaches.

It’s a significant challenge, but Reed seems well equipped for the challenge.

Here’s our interview, In the Weeds with Greg Reed.

Todd Stacy: Hey, Senator, congratulations on being named and unanimously voted President Pro Tem of the Senate. 

Greg Reed:  Todd, I appreciate it so much. Great to visit with you, buddy. I am excited and privileged, honored to be in this role. You know, serving the people of my district and serving the people of Alabama is a great honor. And so being elected pro tem of the Senate by my colleagues, as you said, a unanimous election is something that not only is a great honor for me, but gives me a lot of determination to continue moving forward, doing the best I can with the resources available an...

By CAROLINE BECK Alabama Daily News

For today’s In the Weeds episode, I am talking with the newly appointed Director of the Bureau of Pardons and Paroles Cam Ward. I spoke with Ward on his vision for the agency amidst the concerns over Alabama’s crowded prison system and the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit against the state over the conditions of its men’s prisons.

I talked with Ward about how his experience as a state legislator for nearly 20 years has given him valuable insight into how to improve the bureau and hopefully regain the trust of the state Legislature. I wanted to speak with Ward now that he is a little over a month into the job and as he prepares to submit the agency’s 2022 budget request to lawmakers later this month.

Before taking the oath from Gov. Kay Ivey in early December, Ward was a state senator, representing District 14 since 2010.  As the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he has been the lawmaker behind many pieces of criminal justice legislation over the years, including a number of bills set for the 2020 regular session but sidelined by the COVID-19 pandemic. State lawmakers have already signaled that prison legislation will be a main priority in the upcoming 2021 session.

In our conversation, Ward is careful not to focus on a specific number of parole hearings he would like to see in the coming months, but does say he wants to see an increase. One data point he will be looking for is the recidivism rate in three to four years, which he says the bureau has a responsibility to decrease.

Over the last year, since former director Charlie Graddick took control of the bureau in 2019, the number of parole hearings dropped drastically as did the number of paroles granted. This drew criticisms from criminal justice advocates, especially as COVID-19 was spreading through Alabama’s prisons, infecting those who could have possibly been released on parole.

Ward and I spoke about how the agency has been facing a crisis of confidence at the leadership level since the bureau has had five different directors in about nine years. Ward said one of his main goals is to bring a sense of stability to the bureau and boost overall morale for the agency’s more than 700 employees.  

Another big goal for Ward is to update the agency’s technology systems to adapt to the needs created by the COVID-19 pandemic and move away from the antiquated paper-based system the agency uses. Ward said the lack of technology is another reason why parole hearings have slowed.

One interesting project related to technology that Ward spoke to me about that didn’t make it into the recording was his plans for having a video feed for inmates to be able to call into their own parole hearings. Inmates have historically never been able to attended meetings in person and now during the pandemic, no one from the public has been allowed to attend meetings.

Ward also told me of his possible intentions to move the bureau’s central office, currently located in east Montgomery and where the three-member-board meets for their weekly parole and pardon hearings, to a different location. Ward thinks some of the new office space is unnecessary and not really conducive to holding safe parole hearings.

During our tour of the new offices, I briefly met the three board members as they were working through the day’s parole cases. They said the current hearing room was probably a third of the size of their original hearing room and think it would be better for both the crime victims and inmate’s families if the room was larger and provided two separate entrances to avoid any conflicts or possible tensions that ...

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,