From our state house studio in Montgomery.

I'm Todd Stacey, welcome to Capitol Journal.

Today was the fifth day of the Alabama legislature's 2026 regular session.

And it was a busy day here at the state House, where several committees met and the House and Senate also convened.

We'll start our coverage in the House Judiciary Committee, which took up a measure related to immigration.

House Bill 13 from State Representative Ernie Yarbrough would empower state and local law enforcement agencies to enter into agreements with federal agencies to enforce immigration laws.

The bill is known as the Lake and Riley Act, named for the University of Georgia student who was killed by an illegal immigrant in 2024.

Congress enacted a similar law last year.

In fact, it was sponsored by US Senator Katie Britt.

The subject of immigration is obviously pretty touchy these days, which was reflected in the committee's debate on the bill.

Members of the committee, you have before you, HB 13, which was, passed out of this committee last session.

It is known as the Lake and Rally Act, and it comes from a similar bill out of Georgia.

That was passed.

Obviously, we all know the story of lake and rally.

And so in a nutshell, what this bill does is it provides an optional path for state and local law enforcement agencies to enter into an MoU with the federal government to enforce existing federal immigration laws that are on the books.

The probable cause concerns me.

On top of that, the fact that there is no recourse for law enforcement officers.

The bill gives the law enforcement officers immunity for getting it wrong.

So if they arrest my daughter, we have no recourse against that.

And it's not an isolated story.

There are thousands of law abiding immigrants in our state that will be at risk.

And I'm fearful for what it does for law enforcement, too.

My oldest child is a is in law enforcement.

He's a sheriff's deputy over in Georgia.

And I see that from this side as well.

If we pass this bill, we are going to make a larger percentage of our population fearful and maybe even antagonistic towards law enforcement, preventing them from doing the job of actually keeping us safe.

We're all here because I believe that each and every one of us wants the best quality of life for Alabamians, and I think that's why every one of one of y'all ran and won your positions.

HB 13, ain't it y'all?

That's not going to give the best quality of life for Alabama.

I have no problem with the state of Alabama creating a law that increases participation with the federal government.

With regard to, customs operations, I think that that's a great thing that state and federal government work together.

However, we need to make sure that those agents of the state is acting consistent with the limitations of the Constitution.

United States of America provides, in the execution of their duties.

Today's meeting was just a public hearing, so no vote was taken.

That's expected when the committee meets again next week.

On the Senate floor today.

Lawmakers considered a bill named in memory of a young man whose family says legal silence contributed to tragedy.

State Senator Matt Woods of Jasper is sponsoring Trey's Law, which would make non-disclosure agreements unenforceable in civil cases involving sexual abuse.

The bill is named for Trey Carlock, a Texas native who was sexually abused for years and later forced into a settlement that included a restrictive non-disclosure agreement.

Stanley says being legally barred from speaking about the abuse played a role in his decision to take his own life.

While the bill drew bipartisan support, some Republican lawmakers raised concerns about possible unintended consequences.

I think they made the right decision in doing this.

From the outside in, I'm not trying to make it judgmental here, but they agreed to a settlement and did a non-disclosure statement.

That non-disclosure statement is a lifeline very often for the institution to continue its efforts in trying to do good.

It'll have to clean up its act.

It'll have to do things and institute procedures and things or protections, which it needed to do before.

But somehow it failed.

But they paid the price and they paid the money.

The nondisclosure allowed them to continue in operation in some way.

Just the thought of our children being sexually assaulted by some lame brain adult is, is very, disheartening to me.

And I think we need to be more concerned about our children than some entity or institution.

This bill is going to allow people who end up in a situation where they don't feel like they can express themselves, they don't feel like they can talk about the terrible thing that's happened to them, to be able to unburden themselves by talking to others.

And there's a big public interest here in this.

People need to know that these perpetrators exist.

We need to be able to protect our children.

We need to be able to protect our families.

And they can't be protected if they don't know these bad actors are out and about.

So this bill is going to do a lot of things going to help victims, but it's also going to help the public be safer.

That bill passed unanimous and now heads to the House for consideration.

And Senator Woods, who passed his first bill today.

He's going to join me on Capital Journal's Week in Review on Friday and Sunday.

The Senate Health Committee met today and considered legislation on vaping in public spaces.

Senate Bill nine from State Senator Gerald Allen of Tuscaloosa, would treat electronic cigarets and other vaping devices the same as traditional tobacco products, at least under state law.

It would ban their use in most public indoor places.

The bill would also rename the Alabama Clean Indoor Act in honor of State Senator Vivian Figures, who has long advocated for restrictions on smoking in public spaces.

Allen says the idea for the bill came after an encounter with someone vaping at a sporting event.

The genesis of this bill came from Bill County, when I was sitting in a junior high football game and, a guy was sitting below me, April vaping and, and, and so a timeout came and, and I followed the young man to the concession stand, and I said, you're breaking the law.

He says, no, I'm not.

Well, I came back here and got off the involved, and he has grown and, well, the young man was right.

Okay.

So what we're doing is, is that when going into the current statue of the law and adding vaping, that public places should be protected from such activity like that.

That bill passed unanimously out of committee and now goes to the full Senate.

One issue to keep an eye on this session is I, I or artificial intelligence.

There are several bills already filed seeking to regulate the technology in one way or another.

Today we heard from advocates seeking to crack down on grok AI and its ability to generate pornography.

State Representative Ben Harrison is working with faith groups and the law enforcement community to craft a bill that holds grok AI accountable for the proliferation and promotion of pornography, especially as it relates to children.

What this bill does.

It protects those that are those websites and those, content creators and and the AI platforms that produce material, photo and video, adding material for legal purposes.

What it goes after is those people that, that purposely, entice people to create content that shows them how to create pornography, with using images of real people and where they doing, illicit things.

But what I've seen is a law enforcement officer and now is the CEO of Covenant Rescue Group and working in law enforcement.

When you look at child exploitation, we always think of the free candy vans showing up and stealing our kids from our yard or from a playground.

And even though that still happens sometimes, those days for the most part, are over.

Now we're seeing another progression in technology and digital programs that we have that, hey, this is a 21st century.

These are good things to have.

They make life easier.

But nefarious individuals are utilizing a, to develop child pornography, taking the face of your child and building nude images off of your child to the point that they can exploit not just your child and blackmail your child, but also blackmail an innocent family who might not believe that this child never sent those pictures.

So I think it's very important that one at the state level, the closest form of government to the people is the most effective form of government at the state level.

We get involved in this to make sure that we protect our kids and the families in the state of Alabama.

I also like, the articles that you can read.

Senator Britt has been talking about at the federal level, bringing in some congressional mandates and regulations to start protecting families and children from nefarious individuals who would use whatever technology they have at their hand to steal the innocence and the lives of our kids.

Today at the state House, more than 100 gathered for the annual prayer rally put on by the Alabama Citizens Action Program, or Acab organizers said the goal was to pray for state leaders as this legislative session gets going.

There are lots of rallies out here on these steps, week to week.

And, there's, off oftentimes sometimes, you know, there's a lot of, anger involved and there's a place for righteous anger.

But today we're here to do something positive, and, we're just here to pray, for God's blessings on our state in various ways.

We're praying for all of the the executive officers, the legislature, the Senate of Alabama.

We want godly leaders.

We want people that are going to adhere to the truth of the Word of God.

And we're praying for them so that we can strengthen, we can encourage them, we can build them up with prayer, because the word of the Lord says that unless the Lord builds a house, they don't labor labor in vain.

So we help them build this state on the Word of God which this nation was built on, that also be able to come over here and listen to these pastors, be so bold with the gospel of Jesus Christ and to pray, over our leaders, all elected leaders, appointed leaders over this state.

And that, is wonderful to see and be a part of.

And just a blessing.

Today also saw hundreds of mayors, city council members and other city officials gather for the Alabama League of Municipalities Advocacy Day.

The day started with a series of presentations downtown at the Embassy Suites, before the group filled the halls of the statehouse to advocate for issues important to cities.

House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter joined the League for a panel discussion, and talked about the importance of the legislature hearing from city leaders about their needs.

One I encourage all of you do is get to know your House members and the Senate.

Every council support, you know, they you know, the one thing we can do from my house is to pass on legislation that hinders your job.

And it's tough enough.

As mayor, you don't need no unfunded mandates.

And so that's certainly priority of mine.

And my other thing is, you know, get to know, you know, get to know them on a first name basis.

I think everybody in my district, you know, I've had breakfast, whether they've had breakfast with us or, are really friends.

To be honest with you, I think it's important to bridge those friendships because you don't ever know when you may need to continue to look for things.

You know, we can't we can't really go back on the success that we've had over the past few years.

We got to look and see what we do to make sure over the next five, ten years we see, you know, Alabama.

We remain true employers and the growth we have been phenomenal.

But it's also coming with growth of kind of the problems too.

Will the infrastructure need to work utilities on both road bridges.

And so we're trying to make that need to be working around the problem.

Ten years.

I also got to visit with the league today to talk a little politics.

So shout out to some new viewers watching Capital Journal for the first time tonight.

And coming up after the break, I'll sit down with League of Municipalities president, Mayor Sherry Sullivan of Fairhope and Executive Director Greg Cochran.

That conversation, when we come back.

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

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Click on the online video tab on the main page.

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Welcome back to Capitol Journal.

Joining me next is Greg Cochran, executive director of the Alabama League of Municipalities and mayor Sherry Sullivan, president of the Alabama League of Municipalities.

Thank you all so much for coming on the show.

Thank you for having us.

Thank you for having us.

Absolutely.

We had this, discussion.

I guess it was last year.

But today is Advocacy Day, a league, municipalities advocacy day.

So let me ask you and start with you, mayor.

What goes into planning for advocacy Day?

Because you've got a ton of elected officials coming, down to Montgomery, up to Montgomery, in your case, talk about what goes into this day.

We do.

We have over 300 elected officials that are coming today for Advocacy Day, and it's a chance for the league to really educate newly elected officials or seasoned elected officials about their legislative agenda for the for the session.

Let them get in front of legislators to hear what's happening here in Montgomery and to really educate them on that process and how important it is to build relationships with your legislators.

Absolutely, Greg.

I've just noticed over the past, I don't know, 5 or 6 years.

Y'all have really increased the presence of the league here in the statehouse.

Here, you know, statewide.

And that presence really matters, right, when it comes to because what happens here in the state House, the laws they pass impact every minute, especially big and small.

So talk about the importance of folks coming to Montgomery and engaging in that process.

Well, it is so important for our municipal officials to learn to collaborate with state officials at the only state officials, federal and county officials, to build vibrant communities.

And you're right, so many of the authorities that cities have are based on state law and legislators control state law.

So building that strong partnership there and understanding of what it takes to build a vibrant community is so important.

And we use these opportunities, like Advocacy Day, to bring people together and talk about those issues and how we can help one another build a stronger community.

Absolutely.

And, you know, we're going to be present there today and have some of the footage and everything.

You know, it's funny.

We talk a lot about the upcoming elections.

May 19th, we get this big primary.

Everybody's really gearing up for this huge 2026 year.

But it strikes me y'all just had elections.

Most of Alabama had municipal elections in August, right?

These are for mayor for city council a lot of counties as well.

But most nonpartisan, right.

Things like that.

So I'm curious what goes into post election.

Right.

Let's say there's an, you know, a new mayor, a new councilman, you know, things like that.

You know, especially if they're brand new, they probably need some training needs.

And other y'all kind of specialize in the same.

I'll start with you.

What goes into helping prepare newly elected officials to be successful in office?

Right.

So this year, we had, 90% of the municipalities in the state of Alabama had elections.

We had about a 35% turnover.

So you there's a lot of newly elected officials.

So it was mandated by the legislature that they are required to have, training any newly elected official and, officials who have been in office as well.

But, so over the past several months, we have done the league has done training for all these newly elected officials.

We did four sessions throughout the state of Alabama and trained over, I think it was over a thousand elected officials, trying to those elected officials on anything from bid laws to, you know, bid laws to open meetings, act, all kinds of stuff, making sure they understand their roles as a mayor or council member.

So a lot of good information and a lot of good training that's now required for newly elected officials.

Now, Greg, I know you and your staff spent a lot of time doing that.

What goes into preparing for the preparation?

Well, pre-election, we do a lot of training of clerks who are kind of the managers of elections on Election day and making sure the elections are run well and then post election as mayor, Sullivan said.

We put four workshops together throughout the state of Alabama to bring these new officials in to talk about good governance.

How do you build relationships?

How do you manage the bid laws?

So many times business folks run for office, whether it's the state legislature or a local official position, and if they need the yard cut their business, they just call someone to cut it.

We don't do that in government is, you know, you have to bid that project out and make sure that it's a fair process.

So there's a lot to teach them about good governance, reporting guidelines, finding us, making sure they're using the treasurer dollars that the citizens give them in a proper way.

So we spend a day and a half in these workshops going through it all with attorneys having ethics training with Tom all Britton coming in and talking about good ethics and conflicts of interest.

We do all that because and we'll continue to do that throughout the year.

We will host all types of conferences throughout the year to make sure that they're getting this training that they need, so that they can have the trust of their citizens to do the right thing.

Oh, absolutely.

It's one thing to win an election.

Another thing to govern.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

We all know that.

Well, look, you mentioned the agenda.

We'll be talking about today.

What are some of the high points of the league's agenda going into this legislative session?

Well, again, going off the elections, we found some things that we could improve upon in the election process for citizens to ensure that the proper votes are being counted, to make sure if there's a tie at the end of the vote, how do we walk through that process of having a reelection of those in the tie?

I don't want a coin flip.

What's wrong with the clock?

Yeah, I know right.

So I think we saw this year several times and in very close races.

So we just want to make sure that experience is better and that it's trustworthy, that people trust in it because it's so important to our democracy that we believe in that process again, whether it's at the local level or for statewide offices.

Other than that, we advocate for good governance.

You know, and how can we collaborate with legislators to make sure we're building, workforce development, that we're we're putting a business community in place to be successful.

And for those support services that all of our citizens need, we want to make sure that we have the resources to cover those.

So it's a constant working conversation with legislators to make sure we're getting those resources to the local level.

Right.

And, mayor, I mean, you're mayor of Fairhope.

A town we're all jealous of, by the way.

But, you know, it strikes me because there's there are towns with all kinds of sizes, you know, later this week and we talking with Mayor Woodson out of Birmingham, you know, huge city.

There are tiny hamlets and mid-sized towns.

But y'all found a way to come together.

How does that work when you interact with your fellow mayors and fellow officials in terms of, you know, maybe you have differences of opinion on different issues, but coming to, you know, common ground, an agenda.

You know, I think we obviously hold meetings to discuss that, but I think there's, there's like issues for all of our municipalities, whether you're large or small.

And I think you'll find those public safety, you know, roads, those kind of things.

I think the biggest message that we as municipalities try to send to Montgomery is to make sure that the legislators.

Now, please do not put anything in place that is mandated that may impact our revenues or our, regulating authority.

So I think we can all agree on that, that we want to protect our revenues at the local level, and we don't want, you know, the legislators in Montgomery telling us how we have to spend that money.

I would imagine that's a constant, constant battle for let you go.

I do have to ask you about some.

These are the four letters we hear a lot about.

Simplified sellers use text commonly referred to as the online sales tax, even if that's not entirely accurate.

But there's a lawsuit by a couple of cities to really change it.

Right?

Because they feel like they're getting shortchanged from this, online sales tax.

Other cities are joining with the counties and saying, no, we want to preserve it.

It's it's it's an issue here in the legislature.

So, Greg, understanding that you've got members on both sides of this, how do y'all navigate that kind of tricky territory?

We're trying to get good facts.

And so you go back to 2015 when the legislature adopted the state legislation.

And before that, the US Supreme Court weighed in on how can cities in states and counties collect taxes from businesses that don't have a nexus in their jurisdiction?

And so eventually they came to this suit structure, and it's a use tax.

And citizens always owed that tax, even when they were ordering off catalogs back in the day of Sears and Penney's.

But they owe it today.

So they created this where the retailer could collect it and simply remit it to the state, in the state, distribute those funds.

And in state of Alabama, that's an 8% tax.

UAB years ago, when we were debating all this, thought that the cap on that would be about $250 million collected.

We did over 850 million last year.

The pandemic really stressed ordering online.

Well, it's become complicated now, Todd, because not only are we looking at out of state businesses, Walmarts, targets, grocery stores a lot of times are putting platforms in place where they can utilize you going online or be going online and ordering our goods are the things that we want, right?

For that night dinner with.

And instead of, you walking in, picking out those things, paying at the cash register and leaving those sales tax dollars, stay in the community.

So when you go into Publix, if you're down in the Fairhope area and you're attending a conference, but you want some colas and things to put in your refrigerator while you're there, and you walk into Publix and you buy those goods when you pay, the state gets the tax dollars, the county gets tax dollars, and the city gets tax dollars from that transaction.

And it stays right there locally.

If you were to go online, though, from the Grand Hotel and order those goods, go to pick it up and take it back to your room.

Well, that's put on some platform.

It's an 8% tax, 4% goes to the state, the other 4% is split by the cities and counties throughout the state based on population.

So there's cities are seeing that.

Well, how is that fair?

You know, the the brick and mortar transaction is still taking place.

You're utilizing streets and surfaces to get to that store even though you ordered it over the line.

We just didn't think in 2015 from government side, this was going to be the way future businesses was going to be transacted.

But so we need to sit down and look at it.

And but it's important to the general fund because on a use tax that money goes to the general fund where a sales tax goes to the education trust fund.

So it's not as easy as you can say, hey, let's just switch it over to a sales tax will that can have a $300 million impact on the general fund.

And we don't want to jeopardize anything that's going on there because that's a lie.

Medicaid and all the things there.

So, it's a very complicated issue.

We've talked to leadership about it and in the legislature, and we're we're going to spend some time studying it with all the stakeholders and see if we can come to some agreement of how we accommodate our cities that rely on these revenue sources to provide city services.

Sure.

And, I appreciate how complicated it is.

I think the one thing that everybody can agree on and kind of how we got started in this, is that those brick and mortar mom and pops of which you have so many down in Fairhope, you know, we're trying to trying to look out for those.

Right.

And that's that's really important.

Unfortunately we're out of time.

I know you've got to go.

But I really appreciate y'all coming on Capital Journal and good luck with the conference.

Thank you so much.

And thank you for this time talk.

Absolutely.

We'll be right back.

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That's our show for tonight.

Thanks for watching.

We'll be back tomorrow night at the same time right here on Alabama Public Television for our Capital Journal team I'm Todd Stacey.

We'll see you next time.