House Republicans determine areas of importance for legislative session

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) - Alabama House Republicans released their top priorities for the upcoming legislative session called “Standing Tall for Alabama.” These are general topics and specific bills that they will support or oppose as a body.

“I believe the caucus platform committee has crafted a document that truly reflects the issues and concerns of the need that matter most to fellow Alabamians,” said Rep. Randall Shedd, the chair of the House Republican Caucus Platform Committee.

Supporting law enforcement, veterans, small businesses, and teachers were some of the expected topics on their list.

A ban on critical race theory and a lack of more pandemic priorities did leave room for question. The caucus says the pandemic brought the importance of broadband to the forefront, so this is their priority item for that area.

“Alabama House Republican caucus will pass legislation appropriating historic funding for broadband expansion in rural regions of the state,” said Shedd.

Any other pandemic relief the caucus will follow Gov. Kay Ivey’s lead.

“The Alabama House Republican caucus will approve legislation to ban critical race theory and other extremist social doctrines from being taught in the state’s taxpayer-funded public school classrooms,” Shedd added.

Critical race theory is banned in the state board of education’s administrative code, but this bill would prevent the board from reversing the ban. And after gambling was debated down to the last minute of the previous session, it is not a caucus priority.

“We did discuss it in the caucus meeting, but I think at the end of the day there were just too many unanswered questions,” said House Majority Leader, Representative Nathaniel Ledbetter.

Not every single bill that will be Republican-sponsored is on this list so we can expect more to come but for right now these are the things the caucus will be focusing on heading into the session that starts Tuesday.

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