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Alabama State Legislature

From dKosopedia

The Alabama State Legislature is a bicameral legislature consisting of a 105 seat House of Representatives and a 35 seat Senate. As in other state legislatures, the single member districts in both nchambers are of closely equal population size. The current districts were realigned based upon the 2000 Decennial Census.

To be eligible for the office of State Senator, a person must be at least 25 years of age; for the office of State Representative, at least 21 years of age. Both State Senators and State Representatives must be qualified voters and must have been resident citizens of Alabama for three years. They must have lived in their respective counties or districts at least one year immediately preceding their election. They must continue to reside in their respective counties or districts during their terms of office.

Members of the Legislature serve for terms of four years. They are elected on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November in the years 2002, 2006, 2010, and so on. The office of legislator is unique in that the term begins on the day after the election and expires on the day after the election four years later.

The Legislature convenes in regular annual sessions on the first Tuesday in February, except (1) in the first year of the four-year term, when the session will begin on the first Tuesday in March, and (2) in the last year of a four-year term, when the session will begin on the second Tuesday in January. The length of the regular session is limited to 30 meeting days within a period of 105 calendar days. There are usually two meeting or "legislative" days per week, with other days devoted to committee meetings. Special sessions of the Legislature may be called by the Governor, with the Proclamation listing the subjects which the Governor wishes considered. These sessions are limited to 12 legislative days within a 30 calendar day span. In a regular session, bills may be enacted on any subject. In a special session, legislation must be enacted only on those subjects which the Governor announces in his proclamation or "call." Anything not in the "call" requires a two-thirds vote of each house to be enacted. [1]

Pork Barrel Politics

Legislative pork barreling is a time honored if morally repulsive political tradition in Alabama. On January 15, 2006, during the first committee meeting of the new legislative session, the Alabama state legislature adopted a plan to evade the consequences of an October 2005 Alabama Supreme Court decision preventing Alabama legislators from passing out pork barrel projects in the form of "Community Service Projects" as unconstitutional because it transferred the decision-making to individual legislators. The new re-pork barreling plan, which establishes a State Executive Commission on Public Services Projects, was adopted on a nearly unanimous voice vote in the Alabama House of Representatives rather than a roll call vote so that individual legislators could avoid reponsibility for their actions. Source: n.a. "Shooting Fish in a Barrel." The Birmingham News. Janurary 15, 2006.

External Links

See also

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This page was last modified 17:58, 11 November 2007 by Chad Lupkes. Based on work by dKosopedia user(s) Allamakee Democrat, BartFraden and Jbet777. Content is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.


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