My work with the Plymouth Rock Foundation frequently brings me to Massachusetts, and my calling with the Association of Free Lutheran Congregations frequently brings me to Minnesota. Both are “blue” states. The Massachusetts House of Representatives consists of 134 Democrats, 25 Republicans, and one Independent; the Senate is 35 Democrats and 5 Republicans. All statewide officers are Democrats.
By contrast, Republicans dominate the Alabama House (72-29, with four vacancies as of August 2025) and Senate (27-8). All statewide officers are Republicans.
“With a majority like that in Alabama, you ought to be able to pass any conservative bill you want,” my conservative Massachusetts friends sometimes tell me. And they are amazed when I tell them just how difficult it is to get a good bill passed, even in Alabama.
Part of the reason, I think, is that when the Republican Party becomes the “establishment,” people call themselves Republicans not because they hold strong conservative convictions, but because it is politically advantageous to do so. And so we find RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) not only in blue states like Massachusetts but also in red states like Idaho and Wyoming. And yes, we have a few in Alabama – unfortunately, in high places.
A key example of this can be seen in our failure to eliminate Common Core, which remains in place in Alabama public schools. Its proponents pass it off as a set of K-12 educational standards for teaching and testing English and mathematics. But many conservatives believe that Common Core actually lowers academic performance, neglects instruction in basic skills, opens students to indoctrination and social manipulation, neglects the teaching of sound moral values, and brings local education increasingly under federal control.
Alabama polls show widespread opposition to Common Core, and the Alabama Republican Party has called upon the legislature to pull Alabama out of Common Core. But repeated attempts to end Common Core have been derailed in the legislature. A 2013 bill was blocked in a Senate committee and never came up for a vote. The 2022 Alabama Numeracy Act supposedly strengthened mathematics instruction, eliminating math ties to Common Core, but many conservatives say that was merely window dressing and Common Core remains.
There are several reasons we can’t get the legislature to eliminate Common Core:
- Bills can easily be derailed in the Alabama Legislature. Committee chairmen have enormous power to “bury” a bill and prevent it from coming up for a vote, as can the President Pro Tem and the Speaker of the House. Legislators can delay bills with lengthy, often-irrelevant debate and frivolous objections and amendments. During the last days of the legislative session, the minority party can “logroll,” agreeing not to hold up the “bread and butter” appropriation bills with excessive debate if the GOP leadership will agree not to bring up certain bills the Democrats find offensive, such as bills prohibiting critical race theory, requiring the posting of the 10 Commandments, or eliminating Common Core. GOP leaders who don’t particularly like these bills but wouldn’t dare vote against them, can use these tactics or cave into these pressures as a way of getting them off the table for another year.
- The entrenched bureaucracy of the Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE) can use delaying or misleading tactics to get the legislature off its back. For example, ALSDE claimed they had gotten rid of Common Core, when they only made a few cosmetic changes, renaming it “Alabama College and Career Ready Standards.” Legislators then back off, thinking we should leave education to the professionals. These legislators must remember that the Alabama Constitution, Article IV, Section 44, vests legislative power in the legislature, and in Magee v. Boyd (2015) the Alabama Supreme Court held that Section 44 gives the legislature plenary power over education except where expressly prohibited elsewhere in the Constitution. If the ALSDE is not providing the kind of education Alabamians want, the legislature has not only the authority but also the duty to act through appropriate legislation.
- Powerful entities such as the Business Council generally align with the Republican Party, but although they tend to be conservative on most fiscal matters, they are less conservative on other issues. Their lobbyists contended that good schools would attract people to Alabama, that attracting people would improve the business climate, that Common Core would improve Alabama schools, and therefore, they supported Common Core, thus dividing Republicans.
How do we get rid of Common Core?
First, we should demand of our legislative candidates, as well as Alabama State Board of Education and local school board candidates, that they firmly promise to support bills and measures to eliminate Common Core, not just on final passage, but on all intermediary committee votes along the way.
Second, we must be informed on what Common Core is, what is wrong with it, and what its current status is in Alabama and our local schools. Eagle Forum of Alabama and Moms for Liberty are good sources for becoming informed.
Third – and I’ve been on both sides of this, so I offer this for consideration – we should urge our legislators to support measures to streamline the legislative process, not to railroad bills, but to prevent them from being bottled up by tactics that prevent them from coming to a vote.
Once, when a bill I opposed was voted down in committee and the committee chairman said he would bring it back to the table at the next meeting, I whispered to a conservative senator that the committee chairman was violating parliamentary rules. The senator whispered back to me that there is a higher rule: “A committee chairman can do whatever he wants.”
Maybe that’s how it works, but is that the way it should be? Is that the way we want it?
Many parents and grandparents are praying that candidates will not just say they are for children but, like their counterparts in Florida, will truly remove Common Core.
Colonel Eidsmoe serves as Professor of Constitutional Law for the Oak Brook College of Law & Government Policy (obcl.edu), as Senior Counsel for the Foundation for Moral Law (morallaw.org), and as Pastor of Woodland Presbyterian Church of Notasulga, Alabama (woodlandpca.org). He may be contacted for speaking engagements at [email protected].
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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