Hank Sanders: Senate Sketches #1474: Family is so powerful!

  Family is so powerful. It’s powerful in our conception. It’s powerful in our birth. It’s powerful in our life. It’s powerful in our death. Family is so powerful.

  I thought specifically about the power of family this week because I was asked by the pastor of Brown Chapel, Rev. Leodis Strong, to make remarks at the Faith + Family + Friends Day. He wanted me to share about my family experiences, and that translated in my mind to the power of family. Family is so powerful.

Darrio Melton: Republicans missed the Labor Day memo about hard work

  This Labor Day was a time for family and friends to come together and enjoy a day off in celebration of the American Labor Movement--the men and women who have worked hard to guarantee honest pay, safe working conditions, and fair treatment for the people who built this country.

  The labor movement was never about getting something for nothing. It was about the honesty and dignity of a hard day's work.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: Alabama is one big front porch

  Shelby County, Alabama sits in the geographic center of the state and is the birthplace and childhood home of Gov. Robert Bentley. It is also renowned for being the fastest growing county in Alabama for the past four decades. Shelby County has become a mecca for suburbanites in the Hoover/Birmingham metropolitan area.

  Shelby County has not always been a suburban enclave of Jefferson County. While Governor Bentley was growing up, it was a rural county much like most of the counties in the state. Shelby County was part of a four county center that was known as the home of the first organized Republicans in the state.

Rhonda Brownstein: Report highlights racial disparities in school discipline – once again

  Suspensions are just one of the ways schools are meting out shockingly cruel punishments for minor school infractions.

  With each new study, it becomes even clearer that harsh school discipline policies are not only outrageously discriminatory toward African-American children but highly destructive to our country.

Andrew Schwartz: Engaging the American workforce

  Labor has literally and figuratively built America, but all that hard work is rarely celebrated. Even the establishment of Labor Day required major sacrifices: Congress quickly created the national holiday after U.S. troops opened fire on striking workers during a protest at the Pullman Palace Car Company in 1894. So much has changed in the 120 years since the Pullman Strike that it is understandable that the turmoil surrounding the event has faded from the collective American consciousness. Modern workers now have important legislated protections—including a 40-hour workweek, a minimum wage, and the right to a healthy and safe working environment. But even after considerable gains in labor rights and workplace safety, much remains to be done to improve the relationship between employees and their jobs.

Jacob G. Hornberger: How about closed borders between the states?

  Here is an idea to consider, based on the protectionist and anti-immigration positions held by leading GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and many of his fellow conservatives: Let’s end the system of open borders between the respective states of the Union and impose the same type of controlled system of trade and immigration that Trump favors for America’s international borders.

Craig Ford: Alabama Legislature shouldn’t waste another opportunity to pass a lottery

  There aren’t a whole lot of good things anyone can say about what’s been going on in Montgomery lately. The legislature has failed to pass a budget twice. Next week, legislators will return to Montgomery for a third legislative session to address the budget crisis, but there is still no agreement on any solution.

  But despite all of this, there is one area where some progress has been made: support among legislators for a state lottery.

Hank Sanders: Senate Sketches #1473: A giant passed our way

  Amelia Platts Boynton Robinson passed on the night of August 25, 2015. She was 110 years of age. I saw her driver’s license when I visited her just three days before she passed. It read DOB August 18, 1905. I saw the 1910 U.S. Census report showing her as 4 years of age. She was 110 although many perceived her as 104. She was a giant in the struggle for voting rights in particular and human rights in general.

Steve Flowers: Inside the Statehouse: Conservative Alabama is nonetheless a welfare state

  It is common knowledge that the Indian casinos in Alabama and throughout the country are granted federal sovereignty and are not subject to state intervention and authority. Several years ago state attorney general Luther Strange filed a hail Mary frivolous lawsuit against PCI Gaming Authority for political posturing purposes. The federal district court in Montgomery took about three weeks to rule against the state.

Darrio Melton: This budget crisis is a ticking time bomb for Alabama

  Monday marked exactly one month before the state enters full-blown crisis mode without a functional general fund budget. Governor Robert Bentley called a special session to resolve the $300 million budget shortfall, and it was a tremendous failure to say the least. Three different Republican leaders are fixed firmly on three different plans for the state of Alabama, but it seems to me the right hand doesn't understand what the left is doing, and nobody is willing to compromise to find the solutions that will work for the people of Alabama.