Arise’s Robyn Hyden looks back at some important policy wins — and previews what’s still to come — following the conclusion of the Alabama Legislature’s 2019 regular session.
Category: Blog
The 2019 session that was, and the one yet to come
Alabama legislators ended their 2019 regular session last week. But they’re not done yet.
Amid the threat of federal intervention, the Legislature likely will hold a special session this fall to address horrendous conditions in our state’s overcrowded prisons. This summer, Arise will continue making the case that meaningful prison reform must include Medicaid expansion. This move would cut state health care costs and help former inmates stay healthy and productive after release. And it would help people stay out of prison by strengthening treatment for mental illness and substance use disorders.
Arise will renew our call to fund these needed investments by fixing Alabama’s upside-down tax system. With high sales taxes and big tax breaks for rich people, this broken system is the worst of both worlds. It pushes struggling families deeper into poverty, and it doesn’t bring in enough money to provide adequate funding for corrections and other vital services. Untaxing groceries and ending the state’s deduction for federal income taxes would be two huge steps to undo that damage.
Breakthroughs on civil asset forfeiture, voting rights
Arise members’ advocacy led to progress on civil asset forfeiture and voting rights this year. Lawmakers voted unanimously for SB 191, sponsored by Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, which will increase transparency around forfeitures in Alabama. And they approved SB 301, sponsored by Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, which will expand access to absentee ballots.
Our supporters were key in stopping numerous proposals to erect harmful new barriers to Medicaid and food assistance under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). We also saw major breakthroughs on several recent Arise issue priorities and endorsements:
- HB 225, sponsored by Rep. Adline Clarke, D-Mobile, will forbid pay discrimination based on race or sex.
- SB 30, sponsored by Sen. Cam Ward, R-Alabaster, will ensure that inability to pay filing fees won’t block low-income Alabamians from pursuing their rights in court.
- SB 228, sponsored by Orr, will increase jail food funding and prevent sheriffs from pocketing any leftover money.
Two other topics dominated the headlines at the State House this year. Legislators moved quickly to pass an abortion ban that is certain to face a lengthy, expensive court challenge. They also hustled to pass a 10-cent gas tax increase for infrastructure improvements during a special session in March.
The work that remains undone
But lawmakers showed much less urgency when it came to investments in human services. While Alabama’s funding for K-12 and higher education is increasing, it’s still well below 2008 levels. Similarly, General Fund (GF) revenues are rising. But it’s not nearly enough to reverse decades of underinvestment in Medicaid, mental health care, child care and other services.
The Legislature also waited until the session’s final week before finally deciding the GF, rather than the education budget, would pay for the state’s share of the Children’s Health Insurance Program. CHIP supports coverage for more than 170,000 Alabama kids.
Some climbs remain steeper than others. Reforms of payday lending and the death penalty struggled to gain traction this year. So did proposals for automatic voter registration and early voting. But Arise members – unafraid and undeterred – will keep working for those changes and others to promote opportunity, prosperity and justice for all Alabamians.
Arise legislative recap: May 31, 2019
Good news: We saw a breakthrough on civil asset forfeiture when the Alabama Legislature passed SB 191 this week! The version of the bill that lawmakers sent to the governor omits many of the due process protections that were in the original version. But it still will shine more light on this practice. And greater transparency is a good first step on the road to reform.
Arise’s Dev Wakeley discusses what SB 191 does – and the work that remains to be done – in this week’s legislative recap.
On civil asset forfeiture reform, transparency is a good start – but there’s more to do
Civil asset forfeiture in Alabama lacks public accountability and tramples the property rights of thousands of people. Hundreds of Alabamians lose cash, cars and other property under this practice every year. Many of them are never convicted of a crime – or even charged with one. And many people can’t afford to hire a lawyer to challenge these seizures in court.
To remedy these injustices, Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, introduced SB 191 this year. This bill, as revised in the Senate, will require law enforcement agencies to report information about civil asset forfeitures to a central database. It also will require an annual report about the size and scope of these seizures across our state.
The Senate passed the bill 33-0 Tuesday, and the House voted 102-0 for it Thursday. The bill now goes to Gov. Kay Ivey.
SB 191’s passage is a good step toward bringing more transparency to Alabama’s forfeiture process. But the bill falls far short of the reform that Alabama needs.
How a strong bill lost most of its best provisions
SB 191 started its journey through the Legislature as the gold standard of forfeiture reform. As introduced, it would have substantially overhauled Alabama’s forfeiture practices to fit with traditional notions of due process.
The original bill would have required a felony conviction before property became subject to forfeiture in most cases. It also would have required the state to meet a higher burden of proof in connecting property to a crime. And it would have mandated a detailed, publicly searchable database laying out the full scale of seizures in the state. The bill would have made Alabama’s forfeiture protections some of the strongest in the country.
Then law enforcement agencies that bring in millions of dollars from forfeitures sank their claws into the bill. Their interference threatened to kill reform entirely, and it led to the bill being scaled back drastically. The Senate removed all of SB 191’s substantive provisions that would have protected Alabamians from abuse and overreach.
Rep. Connie Rowe, R-Jasper, said the director of the Office of Prosecution Services wrote the substitute bill. Rowe presented SB 191 to the House Judiciary Committee, which quickly approved it Wednesday.
Real reform remains possible and badly needed
SB 191 will indeed increase transparency on civil asset forfeiture. But this small step forward is only the beginning of reform, certainly not the finish line. Civil asset forfeiture is abused routinely, and other states already have taken steps to limit or stop it. Unfortunately, Alabama lawmakers have punted on major reforms this year.
The amended bill likely will become law now that it would do little more than require data collection. But advocates must refuse to allow the database to be used as an excuse to delay changes that would rein in abuses of civil asset forfeiture.
Our government already has enough data, spread throughout various law enforcement offices, to create a comprehensive picture of forfeitures. And many of the records of those expenditures and seizures likely are subject to Alabama’s Open Records Act.
Entities that receive money from forfeitures have derailed major reforms this year and laid the groundwork to seek future delays. Even so, SB 191 will create helpful new reporting requirements to help shine a light into the murky waters of civil asset forfeiture in Alabama.
And when that data is laid out, opponents of reform will have run out of excuses. They’ll no longer have even paper-thin rationalizations for denying the truth: Civil asset forfeiture is unjust and unnecessary, and Alabama should abolish it in its current form.
Arise legislative recap: May 24, 2019
The uncertainty over 2020 CHIP funding showcases the fundamental problem with Alabama’s budgets: Our state doesn’t bring in enough money to fund basic needs adequately.
Arise’s Carol Gundlach explores that topic in this week’s legislative recap.
CFPB’s move to gut consumer protections shows need for state-level payday lending reform
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) should serve consumers, not the industries it regulates. That’s why Alabama Arise submitted a comment last week objecting to the CFPB’s plan to reverse an important consumer protection. And that’s why Arise will continue to push for needed reforms at the Legislature.
The federal ability-to-repay rule, set to take effect in August, would require payday and title lenders to ensure borrowers could repay loans they take out. In 2017, the CFPB under then-director Richard Cordray created the rule to help shield consumers from getting caught in cycles of deep debt.
Like many state-level protections, the CFPB’s rule also aims to provide an escape valve for borrowers caught by predatory lenders. It would allow borrowers to repay the loan in installments by repaying a portion of the loan at a time and reborrowing the rest.
For many borrowers, that greater flexibility would lessen the damage from high-cost payday loans. Alabama allows lenders to charge annual percentage rates (APRs) of up to 456% on a two-week payday loan. The CFPB’s new protection wouldn’t reduce the absurdly high interest rates that payday loans carry. But it would provide a more realistic pathway out of debt for people who desperately need one.
Thousands of Alabamians took out 30 or more payday loans last year. That’s not a healthy borrowing pattern, and it doesn’t result from people borrowing for short-term emergencies. Nobody has 30 water heaters break in a year (despite what a flood of copycat comments might have you believe). The CFPB’s rule would help keep borrowers from becoming trapped in the debt cycle.
Foxes overseeing the henhouse
If Cordray were still running the CFPB, the original rule might be implemented this summer as scheduled. And that rule could shape a healthier lending market, free from many of the abuses pervading the payday lending industry.
Unfortunately for struggling borrowers, the CFPB’s leaders since 2017 have worked to undermine its foundations. During his time as acting CFPB director, Mick Mulvaney began the attempted rollback of the ability-to-repay rule, as well as other measures to weaken consumer protections. Industry groups have supported the repeal effort every step of the way.
Current director Kathy Kraninger has continued and fully endorsed Mulvaney’s approach. Kraninger said during her confirmation hearing last year that she couldn’t identify “any actions” of Mulvaney’s “with which I disagree.” Kraninger also couldn’t estimate or calculate the APR on a payday loan under questioning from U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., in March. It was a sad display from the head of an agency that’s supposed to stand up for consumers.
Alabama can’t rely on the federal government to protect consumers
The regulatory capture at today’s CFPB shows that we can’t wait for federal action to protect consumers. It’s up to the Alabama Legislature to limit exorbitant APRs on payday loans, and lawmakers have numerous options. Reform efforts have ranged from a 36% APR cap to a more modest plan that would give borrowers 30 days to repay loans, up from as few as 10 days now.
All these reform efforts have the support of a majority of Alabamians. But under pressure from the powerful payday lending industry, legislators keep killing these proposals in committee year after year.
The federal backslide on regulation of payday lenders is a significant barrier to a more reasonable lending environment. But it’s not the end of the story. Progress is possible at the state level, and it will require an overwhelming push from Alabamians demanding change. The path forward on payday lending reform begins with folks like you.
Arise legislative recap: May 17, 2019
Legislators talked a lot about pregnancy and childbirth at the State House this week, but the spotlight has left some disturbing facts about the reality of health care in Alabama in the shadows. Arise’s Jim Carnes talks about why it’s so crucial for Alabama to expand Medicaid to strengthen the state’s health care system and promote healthy families.
Arise legislative recap: May 10, 2019
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is threatening to reverse a rule that promotes financial security for borrowers across the country. This week, we look at the CFPB’s proposal to eliminate a requirement for payday lenders to determine whether borrowers have the ability to repay before lending to them. Arise’s Mike Nicholson discusses this proposed change ahead of the May 15, 2019, comment deadline.
Visit this link by May 15, 2019, to tell the CFPB to keep this important consumer protection intact.
CHIP funding uncertainty shows a core problem in Alabama’s budgets
The Alabama Legislature has yet to decide how to fund health coverage for more than 170,000 children next year. And that’s a symptom of a fundamental illness that has plagued our state’s budgets for decades.
The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is one of Alabama’s most successful programs. Through Medicaid and ALL Kids, CHIP supports health coverage for 14% of Alabama’s children. Alabama’s 1997 adoption of CHIP and its later decision to expand eligibility to children in households that make up to 317% of the federal poverty level (nearly $68,000 for a family of three) has made our state a leader on children’s health coverage in the South.
Alabama’s investment in CHIP ensures that kids can get the health care they need to learn and thrive. And CHIP is a great deal for our state. For every $1 Alabama spends on CHIP, the federal government provides more than $3 in matching money. (CHIP parents pay an annual fee and copays that can’t total more than 5% of their annual income.)
Unfortunately, Alabama often struggles to provide its share of CHIP funding, even during a “good” budget year. Gov. Kay Ivey recommended that CHIP’s state match for 2020 be paid out of the Education Trust Fund (ETF), which receives most of the “growth tax” revenue from sales and income taxes. But the Senate balked at this idea and removed CHIP from the ETF budget it passed last week. Meanwhile, the General Fund budget that the House passed in April also includes no CHIP funding.
In the next couple of weeks, both chambers are expected to take up the budget that the other one passed. In the meantime, the parents of more than 170,000 Alabama children wait to learn whether their kids will still have health insurance this fall.
It’s time to stop lurching from one crisis to another
CHIP is one of Alabama’s most popular programs, and we fully expect the House and Senate to fund it. But the uncertainty illustrates the central problem of Alabama’s budgets: We don’t bring in enough money to meet basic needs. In past years, Medicaid has been the subject of funding crises. This year, the threat of a federal lawsuit over abominable conditions in state prisons may force a special session. And in 2021, CHIP may be at risk as a temporary boost to the federal matching rate ends.
Every year, Alabama seems to have at least one essential service that it struggles to fund adequately. And every year, the Legislature juggles too little money, robs Peter to pay Paul, or grasps at another source of one-time funding to squeak through another year. Barely maintaining the status quo is no way to promote shared prosperity. And it’s no way to make life better for everyday Alabamians.
Alabama Arise has a solution to break the cycle of uncertainty and invest in our state’s future. And it’s a solution that’s beginning to interest lawmakers as they consider how to pay for CHIP, Medicaid, corrections and other necessities.
Ending the FIT deduction would strengthen Alabama’s future
That solution is to end Alabama’s income tax deduction for federal income taxes (FIT). It’s a loophole that only two other states – Iowa and Louisiana – allow in full. (Three other states allow a partial deduction.) And it’s a skewed tax break that primarily benefits the richest households among us.
For those who earn $30,000 a year, the FIT deduction saves them about $27 on average. But for the top 1% of taxpayers, it’s worth an average of more than $11,000 a year. Closing this tax loophole would bring our state’s upside-down tax system closer to balance. It also would allow Alabama to end the state sales tax on groceries without cutting school funding.
Ending the FIT deduction would bring in an additional $719 million a year. That’s enough to pay for Medicaid expansion, secure long-term CHIP funding and invest in education, corrections and other pressing needs.
And this new revenue wouldn’t be just one-time money. It would be there every year to help Alabama meet the needs of the state and its people.
As one legislator told us recently: “This is the only plan that makes sense.” We think so, too, and we’re working hard to convince more lawmakers that they need to support this proposal, for the sake of our children’s health and for all of us.
Arise legislative recap: May 3, 2019
Protecting the right to vote is essential to ensure everyone’s voice is heard. Arise’s Dev Wakeley discusses several bills introduced this session that would strengthen voting rights for all Alabamians.