With the success President Donald Trump has seen advancing a conservative agenda during his first few weeks in office, one might expect Alabama's Republican-super-majority legislature to take advantage of that momentum to tackle popular right-wing issues.
However, 1819 News editor-in-chief Jeff Poor said to expect a "relatively quiet session" compared to last year as lawmakers wait to see how things shake out at the federal level.
On last week's episode of "1819 News: The Podcast," Poor joined 1819 News' CEO Bryan Dawson to discuss Gov. Kay Ivey's State of the State address and what to expect in the 2025 legislative session.
"It's a fascinating phenomenon because I would have thought, wow, look at Trump go, look at Trump go. And then when people look around and say, 'Wait, why aren't we doing that here?'" Poor said. "But just kind of talking to some Montgomery insiders tonight. They see it the opposite. They see as well, yeah, Trump is taking up all the spotlight, all the stage, and it's probably going to make session a little quieter because we're not going to be expected to do as much. People are going to be so focused on federal politics, national politics, and he's doing all this stuff."
Poor said House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter's (R-Rainsville) recent responses to questions about Medicaid expansion and in vitro fertilization point toward a legislature content to let Trump take the lead.
"Nathaniel Ledbetter today, during his press gaggle, all the lefty reporters, 'Are you going to do Medicaid expansion? Are you going to do Medicaid expansion?' He said, 'No, we're going to wait to see how this Trump administration works out before we do anything like that,'" Poor said. "And he gave a similar response a couple of months ago on my radio show about IVF. And I wonder if that's going to be sort of the response. Like, look, 'We could do a bunch of stuff at the state level, but we probably ought to get out of the way of the federal government right now and let them do their thing.' And whether you think that's satisfactory or not, I don't know. But I'm talking about the general 'you.' But I think it's going to be a relatively quiet session for that reason."
Poor said even Ivey could follow Trump's example and affect rapid change like she did when she used her "supreme executive power" to unilaterally remove Kent Davis as commissioner of the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs.
"Think of what she could do with that," Poor said. "...Does she even need the Alabama legislature to do away with DEI? Do we need a weak device of concepts bill? So much of the power is in the legislature. But if you take this precedent to its, you know, its logical ends, the governor could be doing a lot of the things I think you see Donald Trump doing right now."
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