The Alabama State Legislature will congregate once again at the Alabama State Capitol building in Montgomery for the 2024 Legislative Session, on Tuesday, Feb. 6. These Legislators will create and vote on new bills potentially revealing and recognizing new laws around Alabama.
Nine Representatives and four Senators represent West Alabama in Montgomery. Several of these Legislators have held their position for years including Representative Cynthia Almond, Chris England, and Senator Gerald Allen. However, some Legislators will be gathering in Montgomery for their first legislative session in 2024 including newly elected Representative Bryan Brinyark.
Brinyark is excited to begin his journey as a representative for his constituents in District 16 which includes Fayette County, and parts of Lamar, Tuscaloosa, and Jefferson counties. Brinyark won in a run-off election in January and immediately assumed and performed the duties assigned to an Alabama State Representative.
“After the election, I got thrown into the fire,” Brinyark said. “The next morning, I had to be in Montgomery for the Republican caucus meeting so, it came very quickly.”
Brinyark also began working quickly on an emergency issue that impacted many of his constituents; the area of Wiley that was without water for many days. Before Brinyark ever stepped foot on the house floor, he began working for his community.
“The EMA has worked hard to set up water distribution centers in several locations,” Brinyark said. “Right off the bat, we’ve got something that’s happened that I’ve had to be hands-on in, trying to represent the people and get something worked out for them temporarily and then also a long-term fix. It’s been very interesting.”
That didn’t stop Brinyark from making plans to help the community that he will address in Montgomery. Brinyark’s main concern is the infrastructure issues in Fayette specifically, Highway 43 and its potential restructuring.
“The four lanes of Highway 43 are important to Fayette County because the county has to be able to recruit industry to be able to grow and maintain its population,” Brinyark said. “You can’t have a situation where people are graduating from high school and they may not want to go to college, and yet they still can’t stay because there are not enough good paying jobs that can support a family.”
Brinyark is proposing a plan that would help grow the city of Fayette and the county by bringing more industry and jobs to the area so residents will be motivated to stay and work.
“To recruit industry, you got to have the infrastructure,” Brinyark said. “Infrastructure is a big part of attracting industry because these companies must be able to get their products to market easily. They don’t need to be wandering around on two-lane roads, trying to get their big trucks to market; that’s not a very attractive thing.”
Another unattractive situation in Brinyark’s district is the lack of internet availability. This issue goes together with the recruiting of industry to the area.
“We are aware of those situations and looking for ways to fix those,” Brinyark said. “I know we’re taking care of some of that right now. Tombigbee Electric Co-Op is bringing fiber to bury right now.”
Brinyark is eager to begin his legislative journey, but he must lean on his incumbent colleagues to show him the ropes of what it’s like to serve as a representative.
“I’m looking to get my feet on the ground, learn the system, and create good relationships,” Brinyark said. “Seven months ago, I had never even dreamed about doing it. Right now, I’m in a learning mode, and it’s drinking water from a firehose, as far as learning the system.”
Thanks to friends, family, and other positive influences on Brinyark, he realized the possibility of running and eventually winning a seat was attainable. He also realized he could make a difference in his community as a leader.
“I had more reasons to do it than not to do it now at this point in my life and my career,” Brinyark said. “I felt like this is something I needed to do. If I was going to sit there and fuss about what I see coming out of Montgomery, I should be willing to go down and try to help so that’s what I’m going to try to do.”
Brinyark is ready to help Alabamians with the likes of Almond and England when this legislative session kickstarts in February.
“I’m looking forward to working with these friends of mine in the house,” Brinyark said. “I’ve had relationships, friendships, and working relationships with most of the Tuscaloosa delegation for years, and it is going to be wonderful to be able to work with them.”
Almond is one representative Brinyark will be working with throughout his time in Montgomery.
Almond’s attention is centered on her local government needs involving Tuscaloosa City Schools. A tax referendum for city school support and a zoning board adjustment are immediate issues Almond would like to fix.
“Ultimately, it’s a vote of the people,” Almond said. “But before the people can vote, we, the legislature, have to approve it going to a vote.”
Almond is excited about the opportunity she and other Legislators have to help Alabama’s health care system with this upcoming session. One idea she supports is a healthcare school in Alabama.
“(This school will) address the shortage of health care workers we have in our state and of course, every other state in the country,” Almond said. “One of her (Alabama Governor Kay Ivey’s) top three priorities are to establish a new healthcare school in the state of Alabama.”
Alabama has schools that are used similarly to the plans made for the healthcare school that will be in Demopolis. The Alabama School of Math and Science in Mobile, the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham, and the Alabama School of Cyber Technology and Engineering in Huntsville.
These schools are designed to train and develop young men and women interested in these jobs and keep them in Alabama working and contributing to the state economy. Ivey, Almond, and others who support the creation of this school believe it will address the shortage of healthcare workers and meet several needs for Alabamians.
Another bill Almond hopes to carry, and sponsor is a workforce housing bill. Last year, she and others working with her introduced the bill to the floor, but this year they aim to pass it.
“The idea is basically to incentivize the private sector to develop more workforce housing; For people who work but need assistance,” Almond said. “We’re not talking section eight housing, we’re talking working-class families who need assistance whether that’s paying their housing bills, subsidized housing of sorts; It’s a business approach to a social problem that we have. Housing costs are so high, working families can’t even afford those payments.”
While Brinyark and Almond work amongst other Representatives in the House, Allen works in the Senate and has plans of his own in 2024.
Unlike Brinyark and Almond, Allen has already filed two bills for this upcoming session. One is his Star-Spangled Banner bill, where Public K-12 schools must broadcast the Star-Spangled Banner each week during instructional hours. This bill, if passed, would be an amendment to Alabama’s State Constitution.
“It’s come up several times already and we plan to be very aggressive with the bill this time,” Allen said. “It’s important to make sure that young people, our children, of our state, understand how important this is.”
Allen’s second bill is to provide the Freedom flag to be displayed on public property, but any unapproved flag on public property will be deemed a misdemeanor crime.
“2,400 U.S. citizens died that day (on 9/11); we need to remember what took place,” Allen said. “Several other states have passed pieces like our bill, but our bill goes into more detail about what flags are approved to fly publicly. “
Like Brinyark, Allen also seeks to improve infrastructure in Alabama and in the counties he represents. Even though road work leads to traffic, the work done to improve roads and bridges across Alabama is necessary for the safety of Alabamians.
“Tuscaloosa is growing,” Allen said. “We’re at 233,000 citizens, plus we have not quite 40,000 students on campus. Not only that, but we have 6,500 full-time UA employees. That’s why the infrastructure around Tuscaloosa is so important.”
Critical Race Theory is a field of study that has been controversial across the United States. The Alabama House of Representatives passed a bill banning CRT under the category of “divisive concepts” in 2022. Allen was asked by several of his constituents why this happened, but Allen was quick to caution and warn them about the theory and its effects in schools.
“We need to be very careful what we’re teaching our children,” Allen said. “We need to do the basics, reading arithmetic, things we should be doing in education rather than teaching our children a different form of ideology or value system. We need to be teaching what we should do in education rather than shape and develop something that’s not right.”
A potential gambling bill also seems to be in the works and will more than likely be heard in this upcoming session. Currently, in the United States, 37 of 50 states have legalized gambling in some fashion; Alabama is one of the few who haven’t. Allen believes Alabama doesn’t need the revenue from gambling or even a lottery system to function well. Allen argues more harm can come than good from this potential bill.
“The feedback I’m getting is going to be a difficult piece of legislation to pass out of the House,” Allen said. “It’s a very sensitive off-the-bar floor piece of legislation. When you’re dealing with gambling, you’re dealing with people’s lives; the flip side of the coin views that come with gambling, whether they are spousal abuse, child abuse, or bankruptcy will involve divorce. When something happens like this […] we’ve got other state agencies in the state that must pick up the pieces and help that family.”
Although gambling revenue could bring in millions to Alabama’s economy, the risk outweighs the reward to Allen. Alabama’s in a good spot financially, passing both budgets every year which is important to Allen and his colleagues.
“We have two healthy budgets, the Education Trust Fund budget, and the general fund; they’re both healthy,” Allen said. “Why would we grow government when we don’t have to?”
Almond and Brinyark aren’t against gambling like Allen, but both want to see the actual bill itself before they decide on making a change to the State’s Constitution.
“I would say as long as we are presented with a bill that seems to have been well thought out and put together and the money would go for things that seem to be appropriate, then I can vote yes,” Almond said. “The only reason I would vote no on that would be if I feel like, we don’t have a bill that’s well thought out put together or that the is money going into things that we shouldn’t be putting money toward.”
Brinyark takes a different stance on the issue than Almond and Allen, but he’s not in support of gambling.
“Firstly, I’m not for (gambling),” Brinyark said. “I think that people ought to have the right to vote on it.”
Brinyark wants Alabamians themselves to decide on such an important bill.
Several bills will emerge on the House and Senate floors in this upcoming session that some Legislators will be passionately for or against.
Whether beginning your first term in Montgomery like Brinyark or going back for an 11th year like Allen, Legislators all over the state of Alabama are working for you the people in 2024 and beyond.