Arise’s Akiesha Anderson shares some good news from last week’s action at the Alabama Legislature. Those breakthroughs include the introduction of a House bill to reduce the state grocery tax, with nearly every representative joining as a co-sponsor. We also saw progress on several criminal justice reform bills, including the passage of SB 154, which will ensure far fewer Alabamians will have their driver’s licenses suspended due to inability to pay fines or fees.
Issue: Criminal Justice
Arise legislative update: May 15, 2023
Arise’s Akiesha Anderson breaks down recent developments at the Alabama Legislature, including the committee approval of a troubling bill that could redirect a large amount of public school funding to private schools. She also discusses legislation we’re excited about, including the continuing progress of a bill that would greatly reduce the number of driver’s license suspensions due to unpaid fines or fees.
Arise legislative update: May 1, 2023
Arise’s Mike Nicholson provides an update on a few criminal justice bills in the Alabama Legislature’s 2023 regular session, including one to end many debt-based driver’s license suspensions. He also explains ways Arise is providing up-to-date information on bills we’re watching and how you can get involved with our movement for change.
Alabama shouldn’t make housing insecurity a crime: Vote ‘No’ on HB 24
HB 24, sponsored by Rep. Reed Ingram, R-Pike Road, would make it a Class C misdemeanor to loiter on a public roadway or the right-of-way of a public roadway. This effectively would criminalize Alabamians who are experiencing homelessness and asking for help. Here are three reasons why Arise opposes this bill:
Alabama should invest in solutions to housing insecurity, not criminalize poverty.
- Being housing insecure shouldn’t be a crime. Neither should asking neighbors for help.
- This bill would create unnecessary hardship for people who lack housing. They also could increase the likelihood of tense encounters between police and marginalized Alabamians.
- This legislation could have the unintended consequence of exacerbating the overcrowding and funding crisis within our county jails.
Multiple federal courts already have deemed this type of law unconstitutional.
- Passing this bill would result in expensive litigation that would waste Alabama taxpayers’ money. And the most likely outcome would be for the state to be retold what a federal court already has stated: Laws like this are unconstitutional.
- A federal judge intervened in March 2023 to block a similar municipal law and to prevent the Montgomery Sheriff’s Office and the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency from arresting people who were soliciting donations. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also has ruled these kinds of laws violate the First Amendment.
- By criminalizing poverty in this way, our state would be demonizing a marginalized segment of our population. Alabama also would be wasting valuable resources on lawsuits seeking to impose fines (or potentially jail time) on the people who can least afford them.
- This bill would be a bad and unconstitutional approach to an issue that requires empathy and communal engagement, not callousness and incarceration.
Putting people in jail over housing insecurity would be both cruel and expensive. Investing in housing and other support services is a much more humane and efficient approach.
- More than 3,700 people in Alabama experienced some form of homelessness in 2020, according to the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. More than 300 of them were veterans.
- In 2022, Madison County reported that it cost approximately $55 a day to incarcerate someone in their county jail. Based on that amount, if all 3,500 or so of Alabama’s housing insecure population were incarcerated for the full three months of jail time allowed under this bill, it could cost taxpayers more than $17 million a year.
- That $17 million would be much better invested in affordable housing, health care access and other social services that are proven to prevent housing insecurity. As an added benefit: No one would go to jail for being poor.
It’s time for Alabama to stop criminalizing poverty: Oppose HB 24
HB 24, sponsored by Rep. Reed Ingram, R-Pike Road, would make it a Class C misdemeanor to loiter on a public roadway or the right-of-way of a public roadway. This effectively would criminalize Alabamians who are experiencing homelessness and asking for help. Here are three reasons why Arise opposes this bill:
- Alabama should invest in solutions to housing insecurity, not criminalize poverty. Being housing insecure shouldn’t be a crime. Neither should asking neighbors for help.
- Multiple federal courts already have deemed this type of law unconstitutional. This bill likely would result in expensive litigation that would waste Alabama taxpayers’ money.
- Putting people in jail over housing insecurity would be cruel and expensive. Investing in housing and other support services is a much more humane and efficient approach to addressing this issue.
Arise legislative update: April 17, 2023
Arise’s Akiesha Anderson provides an update on two bills we’re watching in the Alabama Legislature this week. We are urging the Senate to support a bill that would end many driver’s license suspensions for debt-based reasons. And we are urging a House committee to oppose a bill that would add harmful and confusing limits to Alabama’s absentee voting process.
Alabama Arise Action Legislative Day 2023
Arise held our 2023 Legislative Day on Tuesday, April 11. More than 100 supporters joined us in Montgomery to hear updates on our policy priorities and urge their lawmakers to untax groceries, expand Medicaid and end debt-based driver’s license suspensions. Thank you to everyone who spoke out for a better Alabama for all!
Vote ‘Yes’ on SB 154 / HB 264 – Sen. Barfoot & Rep. Wadsworth’s bills to end debt-based driver’s license suspensions
Debt-based driver’s license suspensions are harming people and communities across Alabama. SB 154 by Sen. Will Barfoot, R-Pike Road, and HB 264 by Rep. Tim Wadsworth, R-Arley, would ease this burden for thousands of people. Here are four reasons to support these bills in the Alabama Legislature’s 2023 regular session:
95% of the nearly 170,000 suspended driver’s licenses in Alabama stem from unpaid traffic tickets, not dangerous driving.
- Nearly 170,000 Alabamians have their driver’s license suspended not because they are habitually reckless or dangerous drivers, but because they have failed to pay a traffic ticket or failed to show up in court to discuss an unpaid traffic ticket.
- This legislation would provide that an individual’s driver’s license may not be suspended for: (1) failure to pay a traffic fine or (2) failure to appear in court for a post-adjudication hearing regarding a traffic fine.
- This legislation still would keep dangerous drivers off the road in numerous ways. (1) It would allow points to accrue to a driver’s license for each traffic violation. When someone reaches 12 points, they would be considered a habitually reckless and dangerous driver and would have their license suspended. (2) It would allow a court to suspend a driver’s license for failing to appear at an initial court hearing or missing more than one post-adjudication compliance hearing. (3) It would allow a court to suspend a license if the individual misses more than half of their payment plan’s stipulated payments in a year.
- This legislation does not apply to DUIs or people with commercial driver’s licenses.
When someone loses their license, they often also lose their ability to keep or obtain employment. That makes it virtually impossible to obtain the funds needed to pay for their ticket.
- The intent of this legislation is to ensure responsible drivers who have minor traffic infractions but can’t afford to pay the ticket or the payment on time do not lose their license simply because of the lack of financial resources.
- Gov. Kay Ivey aims to add 500,000 workers to the workforce by 2025, but that goal will be extremely difficult to meet when nearly 200,000 Alabamians have their licenses suspended for unpaid debt.
- In 2023, 31% of underemployed and unemployed Alabamians cited lack of transportation as the main reason they weren’t working up to their potential.
Many people whose licenses are suspended for debt-based reasons such as unpaid tickets make desperate choices to clear their debt.
Research shows that:
- 89% had to forgo basic needs like food, utilities or medicine.
- 73% were forced to request charity that they wouldn’t otherwise have needed.
- 48% took out a high-interest payday loan to pay off their tickets.
- 30% admitted to committing crimes like selling drugs or stealing to pay off their debt. So the practice of debt-based license suspensions actually decreases (rather than enhances) public safety.
If the thousands of Alabama drivers who lost their licenses for debt-based reasons had kept their licenses, Alabama would have brought in an extra $277.8 million in revenue over the last five years.
- If the 165,958 Alabama drivers who lost their licenses for failure to pay or failure to appear had kept their licenses – and their jobs – Alabama would have brought in an extra $277.8 million in revenue from income and gas tax revenue over the last five years, according to research by a UAB economist.
- In contrast, the total amount Alabama could bring in if it collected all the outstanding debt owed by these drivers is $144.2 million total. So we’re sacrificing $277.8 million to try to collect $144.2 million.
Vote ‘Yes’ on SB 154 / HB 264 – Sen. Will Barfoot & Rep. Tim Wadsworth’s bills to end debt-based driver’s license suspensions
- 95% of the nearly 170,000 suspended driver’s licenses in Alabama stem from unpaid traffic tickets, not dangerous driving.
- When someone loses their license, they often also lose their ability to keep or obtain employment. That makes it virtually impossible to obtain the funds needed to pay for their ticket.
- Many people whose licenses are suspended for debt-based reasons such as unpaid tickets make desperate choices to clear their debt.
- If the thousands of Alabama drivers who lost their licenses for debt-based reasons had kept their licenses, Alabama would have brought in an extra $277.8 million in revenue over the last five years. We’re sacrificing $277.8 million to try to collect $144.2 million.
Arise legislative update: April 10, 2023
Arise’s Mike Nicholson highlights three criminal justice reform bills that we’re watching and supporting during the Alabama Legislature’s 2023 regular session. This legislation would help modernize our state’s sentencing system, reduce the burdens of high fines and fees, and ease voting rights restoration for many Alabamians who were formerly incarcerated.
Arise legislative update: March 6, 2023
Before the Alabama Legislature returns this week, Arise’s Akiesha Anderson welcomes everyone with an update on an upcoming special session on federal American Rescue Plan Act funds and an overview of Arise’s member-chosen policy priorities for 2023.
Fresh opportunities to push for a better Alabama
The Alabama Legislature will welcome 37 new lawmakers to its halls when its 2023 regular session begins March 7. Alabama Arise sees this as an opportunity to educate new legislators and identify new allies on issues of importance to our members. We urge folks to join us in calling for change, including at Arise Legislative Day on April 11.
Eliminate the state grocery tax
In early February, 11% of Alabama households said they sometimes or often didn’t have enough food to eat. And those hunger challenges are even more severe in communities of color. More than 23% of Black Alabamians and 13.6% of Hispanic Alabamians said they sometimes or often didn’t have enough food.
Untaxing groceries would help families across Alabama keep food on the table. As we have for more than two decades, Arise once again will support bills this year to remove the state’s 4% sales tax on groceries. We also will support replacing the grocery tax revenue by limiting or ending a tax loophole for the wealthiest households. This legislation by Sen. Andrew Jones, R-Centre, and Rep. Penni McClammy, D-Montgomery, would empower Alabama to untax groceries while protecting funding for public schools.
Expand Medicaid to close the health coverage gap
For nearly a decade, Alabama has been outside looking in on a good deal. While hundreds of thousands of Alabamians continue to struggle without health insurance, state leaders have failed to expand Medicaid. Alabama is one of just 11 states that has yet to expand Medicaid. And that inaction has left more than 220,000 Alabamians in a health coverage gap.
Fifteen rural hospitals in Alabama are at imminent risk of closing this year if state leaders don’t act soon to protect health care access. Gov. Kay Ivey should act swiftly to expand Medicaid herself, but the Legislature’s support also will be vital. Arise will keep working to educate lawmakers and the public on the economic, budgetary and humanitarian benefits of Medicaid expansion.
Take bold steps to reform our criminal justice system
Legislators have an opportunity and an obligation to make strides in solving the many problems within Alabama’s criminal justice system. This issue has added urgency as Alabama faces a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit alleging unconstitutional prison conditions.
Many avenues for progress exist. Arise will urge lawmakers to end the practice of suspending driver’s licenses for debt-based reasons. We will advocate for reform of the state “three-strikes” law, known as the Habitual Felony Offender Act. And we will support a bill to require the jury to be unanimous before imposing the death penalty.
Address housing and transportation needs
State House insiders expect the Legislature to go into a special session this spring to decide how to use remaining federal funds under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). From the start, Arise has taken the position that Alabama should use some of its ARPA funds to jump-start public transportation and help thousands find an affordable place to call home.
During the probable special session, we will continue to uplift the need for these investments in the people of Alabama. Learn more at alarise.org/arpatoolkit.