The Alabama Senate is likely to consider changing the rules on how long senators can debate and delay legislation.
The possible change follows a contentious final few days of the 2025 legislative session when many local bills and some statewide bills died amid a slowdown by Democrats. While they only hold seven seats in the 35-member body, Democrats have taken advantage of the chamber’s rules allowing them to prolong debate and force bills to be read at length on the Senate floor.
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Republicans’ concern leaving the State House last week seemed to be the number of local bills killed on the final night of the session.
“I think on local legislation, I think there’s been some issues …that we need to change a little bit because one person can hold those up all day,” Senate President Pro Tem Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, said on Capitol Journal on Friday.
Passing local bills is usually light work in the Legislature as long as everyone in the affected delegation agrees on the bill. Lawmakers typically don’t get involved with another member’s local bills as a matter of legislative courtesy. But this session, there was a bottleneck of bills in the Senate.
More than two dozen local bills died in the Senate Wednesday night as Democrats protested the failure of Sen. Bobby Singleton’s bill affecting gambling in Greene County to get a vote in the House and the GOP-backed bill to reorganize the Birmingham Water Works Board.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Mary Sell and originally published by Alabama Daily News.
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