Arise’s Robyn Hyden welcomes everyone to the Alabama Legislature’s 2026 regular session. Watch to see what to expect this year and to learn more about our advocacy on school breakfast, protecting funding for public schools and other member-selected legislative priorities. Click the link below for a full rundown on our 2026 priorities.

Happy new year. I’m Robyn Hyden, the executive director of Alabama Arise and Alabama Arise Action, coming to you with an update on the 2026 legislative session.

Alabama’s ’26 session will start on Tuesday, Jan. 13. Why are we starting so early this year? It is an election year, so you’ll be seeing a lot more of your state and congressional elected officials. The primary elections are going to be on Tuesday, May 19. So we’ll see a pretty quick legislative session. We’ll have a short window of time to come in and influence our priority legislation.

Thank you for your support. Our priorities this session are going to be one, extending funding for no-cost school breakfast. This was one of our biggest victories last session, and we’re hoping to continue to extend this funding to more public schools. Two will be defending public schools from further attacks, funding cuts, funding diversions like the CHOOSE Act, or tax credits, which don’t help working families. And three, we’ll be working to advance and defend all of our other member-selected issue priorities.

So if you’re not already plugged in, please keep an eye on your inbox for Alabama Arise action alerts. We will be asking you to call your lawmakers, email them, come see them at our Legislative Day in February. Stand with us to make sure that working families and low-income Alabamians have a voice and representation at the state Legislature. Thank you so much. Have a great week.