On Thursday, the Alabama Senate’s special order calendar—the slate of bills offered by the Senate Rules Committee determining which legislation will be voted on that day—once again contained no bills sponsored by Democratic lawmakers. In response, State Senator Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, took to the Senate floor to criticize the Republican majority for refusing to work across party lines, having similarly decried the absence of any Democratic legislation on the calendar two weeks ago.
“It really disturbs me because as I look through this session I think that [the Democrats have] acted in good faith, and this obviously tells me that it’s not being reciprocated at the level that it should back to us,” Smitherman said.
“We’ve had local bills that have come through—today we had three that came through with no problems. We’ve had sunset bills to come through and they came through with no problems. We’ve had confirmations to this point to come through and they’ve had no problems,” the senator continued. “So it’s obvious that we came in with the spirit of trying to work together and trying to find out ways that we can work together, but to be ignored, like this calendar has done, that’s almost intentional—I have to go there with it now, it’s almost intentional.”
Smitherman called on members of the Republican caucus to hold their peers accountable and ensure that future calendars include legislation from both parties.
“Either the majority in there don’t want to do it or nobody has the courage to speak up,” Smitherman said. “We have a lot of conversations as it relates to diversity, but as I’ve said to you all before, if you don’t have somebody sitting around the table that can put the issues out there so it can be discussed, then the issues are never addressed and that is the problem that I see right here now.”
Smitherman said that he was never approached by any Republican colleagues to give any kind of input on the construction of Thursday’s special order calendar.
“The first opportunity that I’m getting to address this calendar, and these bills and these issues on here, is when we have what I call ‘the committee of the whole,’ and that is when we are out on this floor, right now,” Smitherman said. “So this is my first opportunity to be able to address these, and yes I have a right to address this too.”
“This is a Senate calendar, it’s not a Republican or a Democratic calendar,” Smitherman added.
The body went on to approve the calendar, allowing Senate business to proceed as usual, although Smitherman and four other senators voted against the calendar’s adoption.
When Smitherman previously called out the Republican leadership for failing to include a single Democratic bill on the calendar two weeks ago, Senate Rules Committee Chairman J.T. “Jabo” Waggoner, R-Vestavia Hills, claimed that party affiliation had nothing to do with the construction of the calendar. Waggoner had also indicated that he would work to include legislation from the minority caucus moving forward.
Smitherman—who has served in the Alabama Senate since 1994 and served as president pro tempore from 2009 to 2010—has previously argued that neglecting to include legislation from the minority caucus on the special order calendar violates established precedent. The senator noted that when Democrats held the legislative majority in the late 2000s, they worked to ensure that approximately one-third of the daily legislative agenda was made up of Republican bills. With Republicans now holding a supermajority, Smitherman believes that they are failing to return the favor.
