All congressional, Alabama Senate and House, and State Board of Education redistricting maps passed, nearly unscathed, through the Alabama Statehouse during the special legislative session on redistricting, in what Alabama Speaker of the House Mac McCutcheon, R-Monrovia, has described as “one of the most successful special sessions in Alabama History.”
“The past week was among the most productive during my tenure in the Legislature,” McCutcheon said in a statement Friday. “It resulted in what I believe will be considered one of the most successful special sessions in Alabama history.”
The proposed redistricting maps passed in the State House and were signed by Ivey within a week of their introduction — as well as $80 million in re-allocated American Rescue Act funds for hospitals and Nursing homes throughout the state.
“When the recently-completed special session began, many political pundits expressed doubts that the Alabama Legislature would be able to tackle the monumental task of redistricting in just five meeting days – the minimum number required to pass a measure through both chambers,” McCutcheon said in a statement Friday. “Proving the doubters wrong, we not only successfully reapportioned legislative, congressional, and school board districts within five days but also provided much-needed financial relief to hospitals and nursing homes that were hard hit by the COVID pandemic.”
A slate of controversial anti-vaccine mandate bills bounced between both chambers, with two bills filed in the Senate ultimately passing into law Thursday as the session ending sine die. The Business Council of Alabama criticized the bills and said each would “cause confusion and place Alabama employers in a no-win position.”
McCutcheon described the anti-vaccine mandate bills as “statutory protections for those whose jobs and livelihoods were threatened by the Biden administration’s unconstitutional vaccine mandates.”
“Alabama House members came to Montgomery with a sense of purpose and worked late into the night to ensure that their constitutional duties and the will and desires of the citizens they seek to serve were carried out,” McCutcheon said. “They returned home last night with the satisfaction of a mission well-accomplished.”
A lawsuit filed in the wake of the new congressional district’s passage alleges the re-draw districts “intentionally dilutes the voting strength of Black Alabamians by creating only one majority-Black voting district.”
