Author: Mary Sell (Mary Sell)

Gov. Kay Ivey has replaced the three members of the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.

A bill approved on the final day of the legislative session will require more regulation of a drug used in the outpatient treatment of opioid addiction.

By MARY SELL, Alabama Daily News Montgomery, Ala — An additional $318 million for K-12 schools is in Alabama’s 2020 education budget and lawmakers and education leaders say that money will make tangible differences in local schools. Gov. Kay Ivey signed the record-setting education budget into law on Thursday. “This budget represents significantly more resources...

By MARY SELL, Alabama Daily News Alabama’s public four-year universities will receive funding increases of between about 6% and more than 12% under the 2020 education budget recently approved by lawmakers. “I think all of higher education is happy with where we ended up,” Alabama Commission on Higher Education Executive Director Jim Purcell said Wednesday....

By MARY SELL and CAROLINE BECK,  Alabama Daily News MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Sen. Jabo Waggoner, R-Vestavia Hills, has been an Alabama lawmaker since 1966. “I’ve been through more sessions that anybody here, and this is one of the toughest sessions ever,” Waggoner said Friday evening as legislators ended the annual law-making stint that began March...

On their last day of the legislative session, lawmakers approved a record education budget, took a step toward medical marijuana legalization and sent to Alabama voters the decision to scrap the elected state school board in favor of a governor-appointed commission.

The Alabama General Fund will pay for a health insurance program for low-income children, Senate leaders said Wednesday. But there are still other details in the $2.1 billion budget to be worked out Thursday, which might be the last day of this legislative session.

The Alabama House of Representatives on Tuesday approved a $7.1 billion education budget, but its final passage still depends on agreement with the Senate on several points, including health insurance for low-income children.

After the House Rules Chairman threatened to block a Senate-passed medical marijuana bill, lawmakers were working on a compromise that would take a more incremental approach and keep a existing experimental treatment program in place.

Rep. Terri Collins, the Alabama lawmaker who sponsored the near-total ban on abortions that is now state law, said recently that it’s not her preferred pro-life law.

Alabama’s two proposed 2020 budgets are a combined $9.24 billion dollars, but their final passage depends on an agreement about $35 million for low-income children’s health insurance.

By MARY SELL, Alabama Daily News The time between primary elections and primary runoffs in Alabama will shrink from six weeks to four weeks under a bill that cleared the Alabama Legislature on Thursday. That means two fewer weeks of campaign advertising and less money spent by candidates, Secretary of State John Merrill said Thursday. ...

A bill to allow electric utility companies to offer high-speed internet to rural communities by way of their existing power networks cleared the Alabama Legislature Wednesday and now goes to the governor for her signature.

By MARY SELL, Alabama Daily News Alabama lawmakers this year have approved a statewide gas tax increase, told sheriffs they can’t keep money meant for feeding jail inmates and said they want a shot at the U.S. Supreme Court with the nation’s most restrictive abortion ban. The Legislature has two to three weeks remaining in...