2017 Legislative Session Set to Begin
The 2017 Legislative Session is about to begin Tuesday, February 7th.
Lt. Governor Kay Ivey says prison reform will be a top issue.
“The average citizen needs to know that these people are incarcerated at 175 percent capacity. Entirely too much. We need to address the issue because it’s human safety, security and human health is at stake,” said Ivey.
Ivey says the governor’s proposal is to consolidate 14 prisons into 4 large prisons.
The State will borrow 800 million dollars in bonds, which will be paid back 50 million dollars a year for 30 years.
However, political analyst Steve Flowers says that’s going to be an uphill battle for Governor Bentley.
“It’s going to be his paramount focus. But the governor has lost a lot of following if he had any to begin with in the legislature. I don’t want to say he is irrelevant, but he is pretty weak,” said Flowers.
Flowers also says the legislature will have to spend time redrawing district lines after a Supreme Court order calling 12 districts into question.
“It’s not a major tweaking, but they’ve got to tweak the lines to comply with the federal court. And that’s going to be on most legislators minds,” said Flowers.
As for the Lt. Governor, she has her own things she would like to see completed before the session ends.
“I’m still hoping the legislature will address real and true budget reform so that we can consider things like un-earmarking and free up some moneys that are no longer needed for what they were originally designated for so that we won’t always be in this crunch,” said Ivey.
