Skip to content

Josh Moon

Alabama Legislature Week 6: You won’t miss them while they’re gone

By Josh Moon Alabama Political Reporter I have good news and bad news. First the good news: For the next two weeks, the Alabama Legislature will be on break – a much deserved vacation from the grueling 3-day work weeks and mostly 6-hour days spent thinking hard about stuff. But here’s the bad news: they … Continued
March 17, 2017

Sheriffs: DOC stole our inmates to make case for new prisons

By Josh Moon Alabama Political Reporter In order to inflate the number of prisoners being housed in State-run prisons possibly to make a better case to build new prisons, Alabama Department of Corrections officials last year began moving dozens of prisoners being held in county facilities, several County Sheriffs said during a meeting Wednesday at the … Continued
March 16, 2017

Want to see public records? It’ll cost you

By Josh Moon Alabama Political Reporter Alabama’s Open Records Act stinks. It’s worthless. It’s mostly unhelpful. And for those entities that know how to use the loopholes and rules to their advantage, the law can actually be a deterrent to accessing open records. The Alabama Medicaid agency is one of those entities. In “fulfilling” a … Continued
March 16, 2017

House Budget: 9 hours, no raises passed

By Josh Moon Alabama Political Reporter It took nine hours on Tuesday for the Alabama House to pass the same budget it started with, and by the not-so-close margin of 72-28. Your government at work. Approval of the budget was held up by an all-afternoon (and most of the night) filibuster by Democrats, who were … Continued
March 15, 2017

A new prison debuts, but more changes are coming

By Josh Moon Alabama Political Reporter A new prison bill made its anticipated debut Tuesday, but by the time it hits a Senate committee on Wednesday, it’s likely to have some company in the House. The new bill, which is sponsored by Sen. Cam Ward, removed the State from most of the process, allocating just … Continued
March 15, 2017

Make Alabama Great Again: Vote for You!

By Josh Moon Alabama Political Reporter The unemployment rate in Alabama is growing. That’s right. Growing. There continue to be more people looking for jobs than jobs being created. We have moved from a low of 6.1 percent unemployment a year ago to 6.3 last month. At this rate, poor ol’ Gov. Robert Bentley is … Continued
March 14, 2017

The bumpy road to a prison bill

By Josh Moon Alabama Political Reporter When Sen. Cam Ward left Montgomery for a trip to DC on Wednesday evening, there seemed to be a tentative agreement among Senate Republicans and various lobbyists, special interest groups and public watchdogs on a prison deal. That agreement, spelled out in a new bill Ward floated to the … Continued
March 10, 2017

No State employees raise in House General Fund Budget

By Josh Moon Alabama Political Reporter There is no raise, but the rest is about what you’d expect. The 2018 General Fund budget dropped Wednesday, as the House Ways and Means committee briefly debated and then passed it along to the full House for consideration. That budget contained few surprises, and it deviated only slightly … Continued
March 9, 2017

Sentance at least deserves a fair shot

By Josh Moon Alabama Political Reporter Poor Michael Sentance. For the better part of two hours on Wednesday afternoon, at a special called state school board meeting, Alabama’s schools chief was subjected to a barrage of complaints from the board members who serve as his boss. The complaints ranged from the issues with communication between … Continued
March 9, 2017