The Greene County Democrat

Tag: House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter

  • Newswire : As Alabama faces $35 million SNAP (Food Stamps) budget gap, lawmakers consider cuts

    By Chance Phillips, Alabama Political Reporter

    The federal budget signed into law earlier this year will cut the share of SNAP’s administrative costs that the federal government pays from 50 percent to 25 percent, starting in late 2026. Based on numbers from the Alabama Department of Human Resources, this will increase the amount Alabama has to pay by around $35 million a year.
    According to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, over 735,000 Alabamians are participating in SNAP, and receive on average under $200 per person per month in benefits. One report produced by the USDA in 2023 found almost 40 percent of program beneficiaries in the state were children.

    State Senator Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, told APR during a July interview that state legislators “will need to find the money” this upcoming session to compensate for the reduction in federal funding.

    While the federal budget bill was still awaiting the Senate’s approval, Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville, currently the frontrunner in the gubernatorial race, expressed concern that Alabama couldn’t afford the cuts to SNAP being debated. Some of the cuts in the House’s initial bill were scaled back before the budget was signed into law, but the reduced share of administrative costs and an incentive program based around benefit cost sharing remained in the final bill.

    Ashley Murray of the Alabama Reflector reported that at a recent public appearance, Tuberville “vowed to reduce SNAP enrollment so that the program will not cost the state when he hopes to be governor.” He cited budgetary effects as a major concern. “It’s going to cost us $200 million my year of starting in terms of paying for SNAP,” Tuberville said at the event. “That’s not going to happen. We’re going to get that down.”
    “Sen. Tuberville believes SNAP should be used temporarily by those who fall on hard times,” Mallory Jaspers, the communications director for Tuberville’s gubernatorial campaign, clarified in an email to APR. “As Governor, he will make sure SNAP is a hand up, not a hand out.” Jaspers did not respond to questions about what data or studies have informed Tuberville’s views about SNAP.


    A report from the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service found that nationwide almost 90 percent of SNAP beneficiaries lived in a household with a child, an elderly individual, or a disabled individual during the 2023 fiscal year.

    On Thursday, APR spoke with state Representative Reed Ingram, R-Pike Road, about the pending funding cuts for SNAP and the upcoming legislative session. Ingram also recently pre-filed a bill that would mandate the Alabama Department of Human Resources apply for a waiver allowing the state to exempt various unhealthy foods from the program.

    The representative told APR he believes restricting how beneficiaries can spend SNAP benefits will help the state deal with the cuts to federal funding. “You’re gonna have some attrition [in the program] when you’re cutting out the biggest part, when people can go in and buy four or five cases of Coca-Colas when they buy their groceries and stuff,” Ingram said.

    “I would say that 20 percent of that is probably going to be junk food that they were buying before, so if it’s going to be to where we’re going to limit it, I don’t mind cost sharing to make sure people don’t go hungry, by no means,” he continued. “We don’t want anybody going hungry, but it’s got to be a nutritional injection that we put in if we’re going to inject money into that program.”
    Ingram also said that Alabama’s ranking as the third-worst state by life expectancy inspired him to pre-file the bill. He added that House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter has tasked a committee of doctors and healthcare professionals with suggesting “what it’s going to take for Alabama to get back on their feet and turn this thing around.”
    However, LaTrell Wood, a hunger policy advocate with poverty-focused nonprofit Alabama Arise, said restricting what SNAP benefits can be spent on won’t save the state any money.

    Instead, it would “increase the amount DHR has to spend, because there are system design costs and outreach costs for state agencies,” Wood told APR. “We can’t afford to get distracted right now. Many members of our delegation in D.C. just voted to send the state a significantly large bill, while completely eliminating funding for SNAP Ed programs that encourage healthy eating, and unjustly policing people because of their income will not save money.” She suggested that stores might even opt out of accepting SNAP as a result, explaining that this could be an issue “particularly in rural areas that may only have a convenience store.” Wood also argued that further restrictions on spending SNAP benefits “turns what is a systemic issue into an issue of individual choice.”

    “Any policy approach that limits Alabamians’ access to food based on demographic, whether it is somebody’s income, race, or where they live, undermines the realities many of our communities’ members are facing when it comes to accessing affordable healthy options,” she wrote.
    Ingram and Orr both told APR they would not support measures like increasing taxes on unhealthy foods, or banning sugary drinks above a certain volume, to help promote public health.

     

  • Court hearing scheduled for August 14th Legislature approves new Congressional map over objections from Democrats

    Congressional District map adopted by Alabama State Legislature at Special Session, now subject to court review.
    By: Jacob Holmes, Alabama Political Reporter

    For the second time in two years, Alabama has a new Congressional district map. And this one, like the last, is headed for a court challenge.
    The Legislature has spent the last week debating the maps, although there wasn’t much debate to be had within the individual chambers; rather the criticisms of Democrats falling on the deaf ears of a Republican supermajority. 
    No, the real debate was behind the scenes between Republicans in the House and Senate, who pushed their own versions of maps containing just one majority-minority district.
    Those differences were put aside in a quick conference committee Friday that made a handful of changes that effectively brought the Black voting age population (BVAP) in the new District 2 to nearly 40 percent, higher than the original plan proposed by Sen. Steve Livingston, R-Scottsboro, and lower than the Pringle Congressional Plan from Rep. Chris Pringle, R-Mobile. It also lowers the BVAP in U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell’s District 7 from about 55 percent to just over 50 percent, barely maintaining a majority-minority district.
    Because the new map came out of conference committee, each chamber only had an hour to debate the map, with no real time to analyze it outside of the BVAP numbers.
    Republicans have argued the map complies with the orders of a three-judge federal panel and the U.S. Supreme Court by creating an “opportunity district” in which Black voters have an opportunity to elect the candidate of their choice.
    Democrats have criticized that framing, stating the map does not comply with the court’s opinion that a remedy map should create two majority-minority districts “or something quite close to it.”
    Congresswoman Terri Sewell said, “We expected to have two districts, with at least a 50%= majority to comply with the Supreme Court decision. The redistricting map produced by the Alabama Legislature is unfair and unacceptable to Black voters “
    Representative Chris England of Tuscaloosa said after the Legislature’s vote, “This body had no intention of delivering a fair plan. Their plan is influenced by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who is desperately trying to hold on to the five seat Republican advantage in the U. S. House of Representatives. We will have to go back to court to try to draw fair districts to represent Black voters in Alabama.”
    The Legislature will have the opportunity to find out who was right at a hearing of the three judge panel on Aug. 14.
    Livingston said there were three prongs of the court order to follow, including compactness and recognizing communities of interest, which the Republicans prioritized. 
    But the map relies in part on arguments the courts have already rejected, including the prioritization of keeping Baldwin and Mobile counties whole and together as a community of interest.
    Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, on Wednesday said the Republicans were basically “dropping an F-bomb on the Supreme Court.”
    Ivey quickly signed the map into law on Friday evening.
    “The Legislature knows our state, our people and our districts better than the federal courts or activist groups, and I am pleased that they answered the call, remained focused and produced new districts ahead of the court deadline,” Ivey said, despite the fact that federal courts will be the ultimate arbiters of whether the map is Constitutional.
    Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Reed, R-Jasper, called the map a “fair solution” that “offers more opportunity for all voters.”

    Both House and Senate committees brought in Othni Lathram, director of the Legislative Services Agency, to detail where he felt the court opinions were ambiguous in what remedy would satisfy the violations of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
    He also pointed out that, although the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the lower court in a 5-4 decision, conservative Justice Brett Kavanuagh dissented on portions of that opinion.
    “In those portions you are really reading a four-judge opinion,” Lathram said. “That’s a plurality, and it’s not legally binding.”
    House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, echoed that sentiment after the map’s passage Friday, noting that only one judge need be swayed by the new map.
    “I think the movement that we have and what we’ve come to compromise today is a good shot.”
    The Milligan Plaintiffs, who submitted their own remedial plan backed by House Democrats, denounced the state’s attempt at a remedial map.
    “Let’s be clear: The Alabama Legislature believes it is above the law. What we are dealing with is a group of lawmakers who are blatantly disregarding not just the Voting Rights Act, but a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court and a court order from the three-judge district court. Even worse, they continue to ignore constituents’ pleas to ensure the map is fair and instead remain determined to rob Black voters of the representation we deserve. We won’t let that happen.
    ‘ Since the beginning of the redistricting process, we have testified before the State Legislature, sent letters, and proposed maps — then we sued to defend Black representation and won. We will not rest until the State of Alabama complies with the Voting Rights Act and enacts a map with two districts where Black voters have a real opportunity to elect their candidates of choice and the Legislature fulfills its duty to obey the law,” said Evan Milligan.

    Meanwhile, the map appears to give the state the best chance to keep the status quo with it’s six Republican Congressional seats to just one Democrat seat; Alabama GOP chair John Wahl said immediately after the U.S. Supreme Court decision that he thought the state could draw a map where Republicans actually have a chance to win all seven seats.
    Livingston told Alabama Reflector that he had spoken with U.S. Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-California, about the redistricting process.
    “He said ‘I’m interested in keeping my majority,” Livingston said. “That was basically his conversation … he’s just telling us to do what we can do. We did the best we could.”