MONTGOMERY — The Senate adjourned on Thursday after hours of delay and filibuster by Democrats blocking votes on bills relating to changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, Ten Commandments school displays and a bill requiring post-election audits.
State Sen. Pro Tem Garlan Gudger (R-Cullman) said the bills would be brought back up after lawmakers return from spring break.
"There are technical rules that we have on the floor and we want to make sure we always have the majority that's out there of 21 votes or more. There was two people that had to go do speeches right now and we didn't want to take a chance of a quorum call and us not be in charge of that so the technical rules are we wanted to make sure that we stayed in control on the floor and not having that definite we wanted to go ahead and make it definite which is go ahead and adjourn and we'll bring those bills back up when we come back (March) 31st and (April) 1st," Gudger told reporters on Thursday.
Under Senate rules, members have wide latitude to delay and question bills on the floor. Filibustering is a tactic used by Senate Democrats to slow down bills they oppose. Republicans have a supermajority and sometimes use cloture, a motion to end debate on a bill, while Democrats do not. A cloture motion takes 21 votes to pass. No cloture motions were made on Thursday.
Democrats usually respond to a cloture vote by attempting to slow Senate business even further.
On the Gulf of America bill, Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton (D-Greensboro) said on the Senate floor during debate, "I got folks lined up to talk about this bill."
"If we're clotured on it then we're just going to burn the house down for the rest of the day and the next week and the week after that and go to Spring Break, still going to be burning it down during Spring Break and come back in five days with the budget, burn it down and have it read at length," Singleton said. "Burn it down, cloture me on it. Going to be a long last few days. So, pick your poison, pick your poison. We're going to talk about this for a while. The Gulf of Mexico should remain the Gulf of Mexico."
There are six legislative days left in the 2026 session.
To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email [email protected].
Don't miss out! Subscribe to our newsletter and get our top stories every weekday morning.
