From our state House studio in Montgomery.

I'm Todd Stacy.

Welcome to capitol journal.

Today was the 13th day of the Alabama Legislature's 2026 regular session, inching us that much closer to the halfway point, as is often the case.

Leaders kicked off the week at the Business Council of Alabama's Legislative Issues breakfast.

This time, it was State Senator Bobby Singleton, the Senate minority leader, offering his assessment of where the session stands and what we might see over the next few weeks.

He specifically talked about the state's progress building up rural Alabama with infrastructure and workforce development.

Governor Ivey has done an amazing job at moving the state forward in terms of economic development, in all of her policies on what she wanted to do, you know, whether it's Jobs Act, the CS program whatever it was, it pro-growth.

It has worked, and I' seeing it work in rural Alabama.

And so while it seemed to be a 6 to 5 quarter kind of thing, yes, A6 for our quarter gets theirs, but we're also seeing i trickle over into West Alabama to trickle over into our smaller communities.

And those are the kind of things that I think that we had to have in place to make it grow.

Before we get to legislative action.

Let's catch you up o what happened over the weekend.

Specifically in the House Republican caucus.

State representative Chip Brown of Mobile is now the acting House majority leader.

That happened after State Representative Scott Stafford Hagan, who was elected majority leader at the beginning of the term, stepped aside after a meeting of the caucus on Thursday.

Thad Hagan wants to run for chairman of the Alabama Republican Party and legislative leadership, including House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, agreed that serving as majority leader would be incompatible with running for the state party chairmanship.

Brown, who was electe vice chair of the caucus, said, quote, a core responsible ability of this position is to serve as interim majority leade under circumstances like these.

I'm proud to step up as interim Majority Leader during this critical legislative session, and remain fully committed to supporting my colleagues as they work to make Alabama an even better place to call home, end quote.

Ledbetter emphasized that a primary responsibility of the majority leader role is to coordinate reelection efforts of the caucus.

He said, quote, when your speaker Hous Republican elections come first and any other race as important as they are, comes second.

End quote.

On to legislative action.

Starting in the House, where lawmakers unanimously passed House bill 381, the Camp Safety Bill, from State Representative David Faulkner of Birmingham.

Faulkner thanked his colleagues for supporting his efforts to improve safety protocols for camps in the wake of last year's tragedy in Texas.

He was joined by Patrick Marsh, father of Sarah Marsh, the eight year old from Birmingham, who died last year during that tragic, tragic flood at camp mystic.

There's good people that serve here in the Alabama legislature on both sides of the aisle.

And when you have an issue like this, everybody, everybody could see that this needed to be done.

And, you know, it was Sarah who brought it to the attention here of Alabama.

And you know, it will it'll outlive us all.

But I think that's what this is about.

It shows that when there's when something good can come out of something really bad and, that legislatures listen, we try to listen.

I mean, I'm just grateful for Patrick and Jill given me this opportunity to honor their daughter in this way.

So this, you know, they live very close to me.

And so this was special to me.

We feel a lot of support from the Alabama house.

It's it's really encouraging to see the, the unanimous vote and and everybody, wanting to co-sponsor the bill as well, because, it's such an important issue.

And, this is going to save lives and had measures like this been in place in Texas.

Sarah would still be here.

The 2 other girls would still be here.

And, nothing's ever going to bring her back.

But, this is a big step forward to making sure that, other lives aren't lost and other families are going through this.

And that is, what we want Sarah's legacy to be.

That bill now goes to the Senate in the Senate County and municipal government committee today.

Lawmakers considered a bill that would allow the state government to take over certain cities, police departments if they aren't meeting staffing quotas.

Senate Bill 289 from State Senator Wil Barfoot of Montgomery, gives police serving in class three municipalities five years to have at least two full time officers for every 1000 residents in the city.

If that's not met, then Aliyah could take over operational oversight of the department.

It would apply to Huntsville and Montgomery.

Members of the committee and Mayor of Montgomery.

Stephen Reid pushed back on the bill.

Part of this is a core argument of where is the role of local government and what's the role of state government.

And I think for us, allowing the state to override local officials, is a bridge too far?

I know I've heard from many legislators over the years o the overreach of Washington, DC into Alabama.

Well, we don't need that repeated from the statehouse in our city halls.

Currently, our recruiting and retention are on the upswing.

Literally.

I have 23 peopl waiting to go into our academy.

I've got eight lateral post certified individuals waiting to start and 23 in the hiring process.

Our numbers are rising and they're going to be in a good place.

I've had no no residence in the city of Montgomery to come to me seeking some relief with a bill like this.

Now, not a single person.

And so this is a concern for me, obviously, as a, as a, as a member of this community, a voter in this community, that we are putting this kind of restriction, on our people because it onl it can only be viewed this way as a weaponization to som extent of the legislative body.

It's certainly not a punishment.

It you know, Montgomery has had a problem like other municipalities throughout the state and quit frankly, throughout the nation.

Fully staffing their police departments.

This is a bill that, enables the state of Alabama to come in alongside the city of Montgomery if the city can't meet certain standards on the recruitment and retention of those law enforcement officers.

I think that's, I think it's a good bill.

And I think, we'll hav some more discussion about it, and hopefully I will continue to push, that, that piece of legislation.

There was no vot taken on the bill in committee.

It should be bac before the committee next week.

State lawmakers today reacte to the passing of Jesse Jackson.

The civil rights leade died Tuesday after a long battle with a neurological disorder.

State Senator Vivian Figures paid tribute to Jackson on the Senate floor.

She was actually a delegate for Jackson during hi presidential campaign in 1984.

She talked about how he paved the way for future black candidates to compete and win at the presidential level.

Reverend Jesse Jackson, senior was somebody he conceived and so believed that the United States of America would elect an African-American president in our time.

And I must say that he, with his wife, Jackie by his side, achieved it by paving the way for Barack Obama and Michelle Obama to become our first African-American president and first lad of the United States of America.

My heart is full of love, respect, and gratitud for Reverend Jackson and to Mrs.

Jackson, for he surely could not have done it without her Dean at his side.

I am honored and proud to have known him, for he truly will be missed in the House.

It was State Representative Patrick Sellers, himself a minister, paying tribut to Jackson on the House floor.

We receive call that Reverend Jesse Jackson, passed this morning, and, he was a civil rights icon, a preacher, a true warrior, a true leader.

His last visit to Alabama and especially to Birmingham, we were able to be with him and, he was able to hold Marlin.

And the question that he asked, who baby did?

Patrick still, even though he was having his health issues, he was still able to mumble those words.

And so we pause for a moment to reflect and to remember his life, his legacy from here on out.

Thank you.

Coming up after the break, I'll sit down with Tuscaloosa mayor Wal Maddox to talk about the latest.

Would that online sales tax dispute?

Stay with us.

You can watch past episodes of Capital Journal online any time at Alabama Public Television's website.

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Welcome back to Capitol Journal.

Joining me next is Tuscaloosa mayor Walt Maddox.

Mayor thanks for coming on the show.

Oh, thank you for having me.

Well, we talked recently I guess was a couple of months ago.

Was right leading up to th legislative session about s UT simplified seller's use tax, better known as the online sales tax.

And back then, your city and a couple of others had engaged in litigation to essentially make the argument that the the application of the tax was not fair, that the cities were being shortchanged.

It got a couple of hearings an everything in the court system.

But the news recently is that y'all have withdrawn that lawsuit.

You and the other cities.

So what went through that?

Why was what led to your decision to withdraw this lawsuit?

Well, we still believe there are legal flaws within the simplified seller's use tax.

Us and the 18 other parties that are involved in this.

And it's not just big citie like Hoover, Tuscaloosa, mobile.

We're talking about cities like Gulf Shores, Foley, alabaster, Pelham, and school systems within these cities that believe there are legal.

It falls within society.

But the reason why we decided to withdraw the lawsuit was because and let me just say, first, a lawsuit was against a door.

And so the Alabama Department of Revenue, we were approached a couple of weeks ago by legislative leadership who were very interested to see if there was a pathway to solve this problem.

But the only way we could begin those negotiations was to dismiss the lawsuit without prejudice.

The 18 parties, other parties and the city.

We felt this was a good option for us to take because by withdrawin the lawsuit without prejudice, we retain our right to sue again.

Go file it agai in circuit court in Montgomery.

But we felt like we needed to engage with legislative leadership that was willing to take a more prominent role to seeing if we could find a solution to the simplified seller's use tax I see.

So while the lawsuit was ongoing, you know, there were a lot less likely to I mean, what I can understand that that would make any negotiation just kind of harder.

And so how how do you start those negotiate.

Have they started?

There's negotiations.

They have.

We've already began preliminary discussions and there's going to be ongoing, discussions not only with, legislative leaders, but also other stakeholders like the Alabama County Commissioners Association or LSA, to see if we can find a solutio that really does three things.

And I think these things are important.

One, we have to protect the state's general fund.

I think we all know that safety plays a very prominent role in the funding of the state to general fund.

Number two is really over the last ten years, municipalities and counties.

Many of them have benefited by a system that allows them to get revenue that's not necessaril generated in their communities, but they've used that revenue.

In some cases, they bonded out with that revenue.

We have to make certain that that we protect them with any solution moving forward.

And the third thin is modernizing SSA to moving it towards a destination, sourcing model, because unlike cities like Boley, Gulf Shores, alabaster, Tuscaloosa, Hoover, so on and so forth.

We are retail center and we need to have destination sourcing so we can fund our police departments, fire departments and school systems.

You also have a situation, Todd.

And this is where it gets complicated.

In Alabama, you have more than two dozen situations where you have local act or constitutional amendments, where portions of a county wide sales tax goes to school systems like Baldwin County or Limestone County.

They've been adversely impacted by associati.

So making sure that we protect those school systems is going to be another part of any solution moving forward.

When you say destinatio sourcing, what does that mean?

It means where the where you take possession of the good, it is taxed at that rate.

So if I order of something of L.L.Bean when it arrives at my door, I'm taxed at where that good is delivered.

Or if I go to Publix and I take possession of that good here in Montgomery.

I'm taxed at Montgomery's rate.

It's where you take possession of the good.

Okay, so no matter what it sounds like that's not the case right now.

Or at least it's maybe a patchwork.

It's not the case right now, and we believe it should be.

Now, the good news for cities like, Hoover and Tuscaloosa and Mobile and Foley, it' certainly it's a benefit to us because our tax rate is actually higher than the current state rate.

But here's the thin for the majority of Alabamians.

So it actually be a tax cut because that's 8% is actually higher than your local tax rate.

And sales taxes are in communities are based off the community's wants and needs.

So it really reflects where those communitie want to be with their tax rate.

Now look we're getting kind of late in the session for this to be.

I mean isn't it kind of doubtful that this would be a legislative remedy this session.

You hate to rule anything out.

But I know that.

And the mayors we've talked about this as a group.

We want a solution to be long lasting and really serve Alabama for the next 10 to 20 years.

We need data.

We need, frankly, we need data from a door to help us make an informed decision.

And so I would rather us, if possible, let's take the next few months.

Let's find a solution that meets those three goals outlined earlier.

And let's move towards something that can serve Alabama, Alabama and Tuscaloosa for years to come.

Okay.

Well, we'll certainly want to be following those.

While I have you you know, a couple weeks ago, the Saban's were down here.

Your friends, the Saban's.

Yes.

And what they were talking about was the Saban Center, the the education destinatio that everybody's really excited about has to do with teacher training, has to do with workforce development.

I mean, the sky's the limit with this thing.

We were talking earlier about how far this idea goes back, and you surprised me.

I didn't know it had roots as many as seven years ago in Tuscaloosa.

We first met with the Saban's in September of 2019, and about an idea of creating a legacy project that would be education oriented seven years later, where at the point of the Saban Center that you see today and the first meeting with Miss Terry and coach, they said, we want it to be elite.

And I think we have met that threshold.

The city has put in $65 million towards the Saban Center project.

We will own the building.

And then we have committed over 2 million a year towards its operations, the state of Alabama.

And I can't say enough about governor, the speaker you know, Danny Garrett.

On the Senate side, Senator or Senator Allen and others.

The state committed 25 million in capital and around 2.5 million a year for the state, stem hub, which will be embedded into the Saban Center.

And then along the way, the savings won't let me tell you how much they have invested but let me tell you, it's a lot.

And we have raised another 25 million above that amount.

That just goes to show you that this project, which will be an immersive Stem hub, will train a workforce in West Alabama.

Over 140,000 public education students will be able to access the Saban Center within a one hour drive of Tuscaloosa.

It is one of the most exciting things I've ever worked on.

We have to get our workforce ready to mee the needs of a Stem environment.

The same and center is going to do just that in an elite way.

As mayor.

Talk about how exciting it is.

It's going to be located right there in Tuscaloosa.

I mean, it's got to make a lot of mayors jealous that you ge this exciting project, not just I mean, yes, anything called the Saban Center is going to be exciting but for the future of education.

And we've seen how far Alabama is capable of going.

It's going to be as exciting as the mayor.

It is is exciting on two fronts.

One is the fact that not only are we going to have 200,000 plus students a year coming through, we're also going to be a teacher training center during the summer, which is good for hotel stays during the summer months, no doubt about that.

The other really cool thin about this, beyond the education portion, is that there's going to be a lo reflecting Coach Saban's history at the University of Alabama and successes, and that's also two on the local side going to be embedded into the Saban Center.

So it's certainly going to be a tourism draw.

I can't say enough about coach chemistry.

They have been unbelievable partners to the city of Tuscaloosa.

They're not only dear friends they are champions of education and raising children up to be successful.

I'll leave you with this.

Their background is education and they don't forget their days growing up in West Virginia.

Being teachers and thinking about how do we train the next generation to be ready for tomorrow.

They live by that, and they certainly have done that by leading the efforts for the Saban Center.

Well said.

We're out of time.

Mayor thanks for your time.

Thank you.

We'll be right back.

Since 1997, Alabam Public Television has provided programs, services, and resources to childcare professionals, teachers and parents.

Visit AP tv.org/education to learn more.

Welcome back to Capitol Journal.

Joining me next is Doctor Tate Hinkle, president of the Alabama Academy of Family Physicians.

Doc, thanks for coming on the show.

Glad to be here.

Well, before we get started, I know you got issues to talk about, but I was hoping you would share with our audience a little bit about the Academy of Family Physician and your role in it.

Absolutely.

So, the Alabama Academy of Family Physicians is a chapter of the national organization which represents all family doctors in the United States.

So we have probably somewhere in the north of 80% of the whole country represented.

And here in the state, we have a pretty high percentage as well.

But we're there to to serve as a resource for those family doctors that are practicing, whether it be for education, or working on issues at the state and national level that may be impacting their practice or their patients, because they're busy taking care of people.

So we're there to kind of help on the other things that happen outside the office.

Sure.

Well, let' talk about some of those issues, because, Representative Oliver was on the show just a few days ago talking about this rural, physician tax credit.

It's been through different iterations.

I know it's important to y'all.

What are y'all asking?

Oh, well, explain the issue a little bit.

What are you asking of the legislature?

Yeah.

So back in the 90s, the legislature passed a rural physician tax credit as a way to incentivize and retain physicians practicing in rural Alabama.

And they put several stipulations in that bill that were the reality of practice back then.

Right.

Almost all doctors took care of their own patients in the hospital.

There were plenty of rural hospitals open.

Well, nowadays that's a lot different.

In in practice, hospitals have closed.

Many primary care doctors do not actually admit their own patients anymore, just as a virtue of the way, you know, is more administrative in the offices these days.

And so the reality is many people that would and should access that tax credit to keep them in those areas are not able to because of some of the realities of practice nowadays.

Okay.

So maybe the law honestly is a catch up with, like you said, the realities of medicine.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So several docs have tried to access it and then have had some o the money clawed back from them just because of very small stipulations in that bill.

And actually the Tax Tribunal has heard a case on it and agreed that it was not meeting the needs of wha it was intended to of the day.

But the way the letters of the law was written it's just not reality of today.

So we're trying to update that aspect of it.

And then also, the reality of things are more expensive nowadays than they were 25 plus years ago maybe even longer, closer to 30.

So that's what we're trying to do is just really update i for today's day and age, where we're trying to get more docs and keep more docs in rural Alabama, because we still got plenty of folks that live there and we want to take care of them.

I was going to ask yo about that because you are one.

You know, you've been one.

Yes.

There.

You know, I guess Alex City.

Yes.

Auburn.

You were in Auburn for a while.

Yeah.

Talk about the realities of what it's like to be a family doctor.

You know, we all grew up with a with a family doc a lot as a small town.

Absolutely.

Family docs.

But it's different now.

You hear about mean.

The costs are different.

The margins are different.

The rates are different tha maybe the that we grew up with.

So talk about the realities facing family docs right now and the challenges that they face.

Yeah.

I would say a couple things.

Number one is if you look at the reality now that many doctors are not taking care of patients in the hospital as a function of some of the administrative burden, they have to deal with so many more prior authorizations and, dealing with, insurance denials and whatnot for patients getting care.

That wasn't a reality back, you know, 20, 30 years ago.

They can't see as many patients.

Right, whic which then hurts the business.

And also, if you look at the last 20 plus years, cost of living, obviously, inflation has occurred.

Capital cost, human resource costs have gone up.

But for the most part, reimbursement rates from Medicare and some of the other payers have really remained rather stagnant.

And so if you think about that, you know, many many businesses couldn't survive if they were still getting paid.

20.

Their rates 20 plus years ago.

But that's the reality of of practicing medicine.

We don't get to set a lot of that, those prices.

And so then what that forces a lot of doctors to do is because they can't survive on their own, is they're usually forced to sell into a hospital syste or some larger entity that can then help them with that.

And, and then that brings on its own challenges of, of that many of them want to be part of that community, want to be employing people from the community and, taking care of people.

But it's just it's much, much more difficult these day with the business aspect of it.

Well, I'm imagining if you join a hospital group or any kind of group that can absorb legal costs and liability and things like that, that's another other cost that, like you said, are piling up.

But there's still something really special about that hometown family docto that we all trust and rely on.

Absolutely.

Well, look, speaking of that, we've got we had the first meeting of the governor's Rural Health Transformation Fund slightly recently, and this is obviously coming from Congress.

We're looking at, well, in the first iteration, maybe $203 million, maybe $500 million, and it's all said and done, which sounds like a lot of money.

But everybody I talked to, says, you know what?

When you start talking about statewide with the issues we face, it's not that much.

Absolutely.

Talk about y'all's role in this, in terms of offering advice for how to best us that rural transformation fund.

Yeah, we just number one, we want to everybody know we're here as a resource for any question or or ways that we can identify ways that the money can be used effectively.

We have been advocating for years.

There's several, great programs that are already here in the state that really just need, the ability to have more money because there's been that successful.

If you look at things like the Board of Medical Scholarship Awards, Rura Loan Program, where they award a lot of money to, physician primary care physicians that are willing to go back to rural parts of the state wher there is a shortage of doctors, with a time commitment, they tie them to that time commitment so that they're there.

And that could always use more money.

There's always way more students and residents that apply for that than they can ever fund.

The tax credit or the rural programs, the rural medicine programs and the Rural Medical Scholars program at both Auburn and Alabama, that have been putting students into medical school and then into residency and back into the state for the last 20, 30 years.

You a part of that?

I was part of that.

I was part of that.

Absolutely.

A project of that of that, program and the Board of Medical Scholarship awards as well.

And so that's one place where we know that would be an easy way to, to really have a high impact of this money is keeping those, doctors or, and recruiting more to those areas because we've already proven it's been successful.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, thank yo for what you do in the example because, well, it's you it' my old friend Brittany Anderson.

Absolutely.

Over in West Alabama I mean, setting the example and, and also giving the state leaders in this building the proper advice and proper perspective that they need to make those decisions.

Absolutely glad.

So take we're out of time.

Thanks for coming in.

Appreciate it.

And that's our show for tonight.

Thanks for watching.

We'll be back tomorrow night with more coverage of the Alabama legislature right here on Alabama Public Television.

For our Capital Journal team, I'm Todd Stacey.

We'll see you next time.