Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - ACCS is just what the doctor ordered for Alabama jobs

  The recently completed 2025 Alabama Legislative Regular Session has concluded successfully. Any time you record solid balanced budgets, you have succeeded.

  Both the Education Budget and General Fund Budget are sound, thanks to the good work of the budget chairmen. Sen. Arthur Orr (R-Decatur), Rep. Danny Garrett (R-Trussville), Sen. Greg Albritton (R-Escambia), and Rep. Rex Reynolds (R-Huntsville) have done yeoman work. Legislative leaders, like Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter (R-Rainsville) and Senate President Pro Tem Garlan Gudger (R-Cullman), have provided outstanding leadership.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse - Legislative session fails to let Alabamians vote on a lottery

  The regular legislative session of the Alabama Legislature ended on May 9, with the final passage of both budgets, which is the only constitutionally mandated requirement of the legislature during its annual legislative session.

  However, there was another constitutional question that dominated the session – the perennial issue of whether Alabamians will ever be allowed to purchase lottery tickets in Alabama and keep Alabamians' money within our state. This money could help educate Alabama children, pave Alabama roads, and remedy the closing of our rural hospitals. However, these Alabama dollars currently are going to our four surrounding states of Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Mississippi, states that all allow the purchase of lottery tickets. 

The great Goat Hill stampede of 2024

  The Alabama Legislature crammed 40% of this year’s session into February.

  That’s light speed for the body. At this rate, lawmakers could finish the session in mid- to late April, over a month before the state Constitution would require them to depart.

  You might approve. The less time the legislature sits, the less time they have to pass bad laws. In recent years, the Republican supermajority has turned legislative sessions into bonfires of civil rights and voting access. If it could stop our lawmakers from throwing other freedoms into the flames, I’d end the sacrificial ritual early.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: The future of online sales taxes and Alabama's roads

  My tradition for over two decades has been to give my children money for Christmas. Under this system, there is no returning of items. They get what they want or need. There is no way that I would know what style of clothing, color or size they like. It works well.

  The most illuminating thing that occurred to me this year is that both of my daughters and my granddaughter bought all of their Christmas gifts for me online. Without question, our country and state have changed dramatically in my lifetime in terms of technology. As a result, Alabama and other states have to change the way that sales tax is collected. States have to find a solution and the will to derive sales tax from online purchases.