How would the federal government function if Republicans held 77 of the 100 U.S. Senate seats in Washington, D.C.?
If that were the case, imagine the endless possibilities of changing the country to make a tangible improvement for our children and grandchildren.
Based on what we've seen since Inauguration Day, there would be no hesitation in acting on it.
However, it likely would be a stark contrast to the Alabama State Senate, where Republicans hold a similar 27-to-8 seat majority.
As noted on numerous occasions, two Democrat state senators have commandeered the lion's share of speaking time in the Senate over the past few years.
State Sen. Rodger Smitherman (D-Birmingham) and Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton (D-Greensboro) have successfully abused the State Senate's tradition of being a deliberative body to thwart the will of Alabama voters for some time now.
But don't you dare point this out.
"[I]f they don't like, they can take their ass home," Singleton declared at a Business Council of Alabama (BCA) event last week.
Democrats controlled the Alabama State House from 1874 until 2010. During those 136 years, did Democrats allow two Republican senators to impede the daily business of the Alabama State Senate regularly, year after year?
No, yet here we are.
Such as it is, Republicans set the rules, and Democrats use them as they wish with little fear of repercussions.
The Republican supermajority seems to tolerate it because if it were to start cracking down with cloture votes and rules changes, Senate Democrats would hijack every floor and committee procedure to prolong the legislative day and run out the finite time annually allocated for the legislative session as mandated by the Alabama Constitution.
Rather than burning calories to shut down the obstructionist tactics, Republicans allow it. So, who can blame Democrats for operating with impunity?
It is hard to imagine raising hundreds of thousands of dollars to have the ability to invest the time and energy required to win a State Senate seat as a member of the majority party only to be told to take a backseat to a Democrat elder because such a system exists.
That is the Alabama State Senate.
For whatever reason, a week earlier, the indefatigable Singleton showcased his views on national politics, replete with intellectually vapid performative antics. Completely unrelated to the bill on the floor, his primary target was the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) Elon Musk.
"I just thought I would stand up here and speak truth to power today because y'all are sitting here willing as a party, the majority party, to allow a South African to be running your Oval Office," he said, referring to Elon Musk.
He proceeded to lecture the chamber, with few paying attention, about Elon Musk during his derogatory invective-filled, borderline racist diatribe.
"Are you really Americans? Because that's the same kind of stuff that folks did with that old cross — that flag with that cross on it," he said. "They were anti-Americans. They're the ones who wanted to overthrow our government — the Confederacy. Y'all acting like y'all from the old Confederacy."
The bastardized left-wing narration went on and on from there.
Keep in mind that Alabama is a state that voted for Donald Trump by a nearly 2-to-1 margin over Kamala Harris.
If Alabama voters were aware of this bizarre phenomenon — would they, should they accept their duly elected representatives putting up with this on a regular basis?
Posing such a question is apparently unacceptable, as well.
Singleton elaborated on his declaration at the BCA event on the Senate floor earlier this week.
"It is interesting that in this body, which we are a deliberative body, that people don't want to listen to deliberation these days," he said. "I was listening to a tape from a conservative talk radio show that went on this weekend down in south Alabama where we were accused of being bottom-basic embarrassment based on the fact that two senators from the minority caucus who just took over the mic."
Guilty as charged.
If the honorable gentleman from Hale County wants to use his time and talent to criticize Elon Musk on the Senate floor, then so be it. The rules allow for it, and for the time being, we must live with it.
However, rolling out Dollar General-brand MSNBC talking points that were ineffective during the 2024 presidential election cycle and claiming them to be part of a deliberative process of the Alabama Senate is folly.
Singleton's unstated objective was to delay the consideration of a bill that would change the Department of Archives and History's governance and allow the agency to best reflect the will of the governed.
The dirty little secret is we're not laughing with you, Senator. We're laughing at this pathetic effort to portray simplistic hyperbolic rhetoric as a courageous gesture.
Jeff Poor is the editor-in-chief of 1819 News and host of "The Jeff Poor Show," heard Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-noon on Mobile's FM Talk 106.5. To connect or comment, email [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @jeff_poor.
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