Sam Mattison
Alabama Political Reporter
The Senate redistricting bill cleared the House on Thursday after an 8-hour delay tactic by the House Democrats.
The debate about redistricting started early Thursday morning with the House convening at 12:01 a.m.
Alabama House Black Caucus members, amid an email they called “racist” sent by Representative Lynn Greer (R-Rogersville), had promised to slow down bills in the House “to a crawl” on Wednesday.
They delivered on that promise by having the redistricting bill being read at its entire 252-page length on Thursday. The reading took 8 hours and the Democrats don’t seem to want to stop with their delay tactics.
After the bill’s reading, the House voted on the adoption of the redistricting bill with votes being along party lines.
While the reading was happening in the House, the House redistricting bill was being read in the Senate.
President Pro Tempore Del Marsh (R-Anniston) said it will be read until midnight on Friday. The bill won’t be completely read until noon on Friday.
The House did plan to adopt a new agenda right after the redistricting bill was adopted. However, during the adoption process, Representative Juandalynn Givan (D-Birmingham), who was absent yesterday, weighed in on the Greer email controversy that sent the House of Representatives into recess yesterday.
Givan’s comments were extremely critical of the House Republican leadership and after Representative John Rogers (D-Birmingham) told Greer he wanted to “punch his nose off,” Speaker of House Mac McCutcheon (R-Huntsville) called a recess.
The House remained recessed for two and a half hours until it adopted a new calendar after re-convening around 9:30 p.m.
