Many things can happen during the legislative session—sometimes even legislating!
To avoid voters missing out on stories about their legislators that they might have missed, Reran Tragedy provides the following handy digest of this week’s legislative “activity.”
This session, El Hubbardo, El Altavozorador de la Casa, seeks only two things: charter schools and pain.
-In his State of the State address, Gov. Robert Bentley spoke in appreciative tones of the sacrifices made by working families in Alabama, then asserted his intention to not do a damn thing about their problems because it involves raising taxes on wealthy people.
-House Republican members watched as Speaker Mike Hubbard, wearing what appeared to be a luchador mask emblazoned with the Alabama GOP’s logo, chained Reps. Todd Greeson of Ider and Elwyn Thomas of Oneonta and beat them with rubber hoses for three hours to send a message about what happens when House Republicans break party ranks on legislation.
-Senate members paused to mourn the recent passing of former UAB basketball coach Gene Bartow, then issued a sincere apology to the University of Alabama System Board of Trustees for acknowledging the existence of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
-Several legislators often confused Hispanic immigrants and tornadoes, noting “the large tornado population in Marshall County” and “the need for improved immigrant preparedness”—such as the construction of more “immigrant shelters” across the state—in light of what they referred to as “the Mexican Spinny-Boom Events” that destroyed chunks of the state last spring and North Jefferson County a few weeks ago.
-The House approved changing the name of the Alabama Development Office to the “Alabama Office of Hot Swedish Chicks Who Are Turned on by Employers Who Create at Least 250 New Jobs at Once.”
-The blinds were opened, the blinds were closed.
-Fresh off his last-minute switch to the Republican Party, formerly Democratic Rep. Alan Harper of Aliceville walked around with a boombox blasting his favorite LMFAO song to fend off critics from his former party.
-The House Economic Development and Tourism Committee approved a set of tax incentives to create and retain jobs in Alabama that would have the state pay a probable employer’s Social Security and unemployment taxes and facilitate “five minutes in a dark closet—anything goes” with a legislator of the probable employer’s choice.
-Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale, walked around in a “I Banned the Mexicans and Got You a Job” sandwich board. Most people tried to avoid making eye contact.
-Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee discussed how to best deal with the state’s overcrowded and underfunded prisons since Gov. Bentley has vowed not to let any nonviolent offender go despite looming budget troubles. Committee members concluded that “Death Race” would be the “most bitchin’” dystopian science-fiction film to emulate as they work toward having prisoners fight to the death for Alabamians’ amusement. The measure is also expected to attract new tourism dollars to St. Clair County, or as it will be renamed, “Vehicular Homicide Holler.”
-The Senate Social Regression Committee held a joint meeting with Gov. Bentley’s Alabama Social Regression 2014 and Black Belt Action Task Force to discuss whether anyone would notice if the word “colored” was added to the signs for certain bathrooms in state facilities.
-While eating lunch, a member of the Alabama press let out a loud, frustrated sigh. Everyone in vicinity continued as they were.
-The House Economic Development and Tourism Committee approved a bill paying anyone who may employ half a person “$5,000 per head” to create and retain jobs, though it was not clear whose heads or what types of heads to which the bill referred.
-Legislators asked Statehouse janitors if there was anything they could do to cover the smell of the corpse of the political effectiveness of the Alabama Democratic Party, which has been left to quietly rot in a corner on the second floor since November 2010.
-Rep. Alvin Holmes, D-Montgomery, spent 20 minutes on the floor of the House explaining why he does not get the popularity of the Fox show “New Girl”, concluding that it is a trite and painfully rote sitcom bolstered only by Zoey Deschaniel being the big-eyed, geeky fantasy woman du jour for yuppie twenty- and thirtysomething white guys. He also added that what the Speaker was allowing was racist, though he did not elaborate on what racist thing he was talking about.
-The House Economic Development and Tourism Committee approved a bill that would attract and retain jobs by issuing bonds to purchase live Burmese slave-children for probable employers. You know, just for whatever.
-“Look at that Alabama football boy! Y’all applaud him real loud now!”
-As a reward for his recent prominence in the media, Sen. Shadrack McGill, R-Woodville, got two juice boxes from the Senate’s Republican leadership on Wednesday.
-The live black bear apparently serving on the Senate Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry growled angrily until someone gave him directions to the bathroom.
-Sen. Roger Bedford, D-Russellville, is going to be working and sleeping at a strip mall in Wetumpka. Just until some things blow over..
-Emboldened by news of the “Gulf of America” bill proposed by a Mississippi Democratic legislator, several Alabama Republican senators quickly filed a bill that would rename the area of the Gulf of Mexico bordering Alabama’s shores as “the Gulf of Swim Back Home.”
-Nothing improved in any way whatsoever.
Reran Tragedy is Weld’s satirical blog about politics and life in Alabama and the South. Much of what you will read here is fictionalized, except for all the parts that are unfortunately true because they are about politics and life in Alabama and the South.
The artist known as Cal Alabaster Jr., if that is his or her real name, may or may not also be the author of the Alabama humor blog called “King Cockfight.” If true, you may read Cal’s work there at kingcockfight.wordpress.com and follow Cal on Twitter @KingCockfight.
