Representative Mike Ball has agreed to handle SB192 on the floor of the House. Our bill will be introduced with a substitute pending. (pdf of the substitute).

The substitute favored by the House Committee on Economic Development and Tourism must be approved by the full House, so a motion to adopt the substitute will come first. This is typically noncontroversial, so expect a quick vote.

There is no BIR because the legislature has passed both state budgets, so the motion will immediately be for final passage.

There may be some debate on the bill. After what happened to the homebrew bill this year, I hope you all take the time to contact your representatives and ask them to support SB192.  I know we passed the Senate pretty easily, but the homebrew bill passed the Senate pretty easily last year as well. SB192 should be easier because it’s a jobs bill, but we need to make sure our legislators know that.

After some lively debate, HB266 failed a floor vote today 28-45. I’m really quite confused. Some of the No votes don’t even make sense. We’ll put the vote results in the Find Your Legislator tool shortly.

HB266 is not a Free the Hops bill.

The Republican caucus in the Alabama Senate and House, now in the majority party for both chambers, chose their nominees for Senate Pro Tem and House Speaker recently. This is one of the major reasons why political parties want a majority. As a caucus, they decide who they will support for these positions as a majority vote. Later on in the organizational session, the caucus votes unanimously for their nominee.

So barring something unprecedented, here are our new legislative leaders:

Senate President Pro Tempore
Senator Del Marsh (R-Anniston)

Senator Marsh has been on the Tourism and Marketing Committee, which has consistently voted in favor of our bills, since we first introduced the Gourmet Beer Bill. He has voted in favor of the Gourmet Beer Bill and Homebrew Legalization, and FTH members in his district report that he is responsive to their communication.

Speaker of the House
Representative Mike Hubbard (R-Auburn)

Since 2007, FTH members have relayed to us that Representative Hubbard supports our legislation, and he has consistently voted in favor of the Gourmet Beer Bill. Hubbard also completed the 2010 FTH Candidate Survey and reported that he supported raising the container size restriction, homebrew legalization, and the Brewery Modernization Act.

As I indicated previously, the big changes in Alabama politics should not cause worry about the future of beer legislation in Alabama. We hope to continue our relationships with and support from the new leaders of the Alabama legislature and all the legislators who are returning to Montgomery. As we begin to approach the 2011 regular session, we hope our members and supporters will help us introduce the newly-elected members to our cause.

You’ve probably heard by now. The next Governor consistently voted against Free the Hops legislation as a state representative. Also, both chambers of the Alabama legislature have switched control from a Democratic majority to a Republican majority.  This means that the leadership in the Alabama Senate and Alabama House will shift to the GOP.

Free the Hops has never given endorsements in state elections – we’ll work with the members the people choose for us to work with. And there’s no reason to worry too much about how this change will affect beer legislation for the next four years.

For Governor-elect Robert Bentley, being a No vote in the legislature is a lot different than being a veto as Governor. During a radio interview in north Alabama during the primary, Bentley indicated to the listening audience that he would not have vetoed the Gourmet Beer Bill had it been sent to his desk as Governor. While he was personally against one of our issues in the legislature, he did not think his opposition rose to the level of veto. Also remember that a veto in Alabama has little weight. A simple majority can override a veto – it’s harder to pass a bill in Alabama than it is to override a veto. Most bills effectively take a 60% super majority in order to pass. A veto simply takes 50% plus 1.

As for the legislature, there’s no reason yet to assume that a change in leadership and majority will negatively affect our agenda. We don’t yet know who the new Senate Pro Tem or Rules Chair will be, but many of the front runners have been friendly to Free the Hops bills in the past. The presumed House Speaker, Mike Hubbard, is a supporter.

We are very interested in how the new makeup of state politics will affect beer legislation in Montgomery, and we will be monitoring things very closely in the next few months.

Apparently almost everyone with posting privileges was in Montgomery advocating for our bill, so sorry this is late. HB406, The Brewery Modernization Act, received a favorable report from the House Committee on Tourism and Travel this afternoon after a public hearing. Our sponsor, Representative Oliver Robinson, introduced the bill. Free the Hop members Stuart Carter, yours truly, Joseph Baker, and Braden Pittman as well as attorney and entrepreneur John Little spoke in favor of the legislation.

ALCAP lobbyists Joe Godfrey and Brother Dan were the only ones to speak against the bill. I would like to point out that although we are almost completely opposed on issues of beer laws with ALCAP, they have always been respectful and polite at these committee meetings. Having said that, their arguments against us were the same arguments they’ve had against all of our legislation.

So now we go to the House floor and wait to get on the calendar.

The Brewery Modernization Act will be discussed in the House Committee on Tourism and Travel this Wednesday, February 3, at 1:30PM. If it gets a favorable report from committee, it will go back to the full House where it will wait for a full vote. We expect to have at least one Free the Hops member at the committee to speak in favor of the bill.

The Brewery Modernization Act was introduced into the House today – HB406 sponsored by Representative Oliver Robinson of Birmingham. No new bills were introduced in the Senate today, so expect our companion Senate bill next week.

People always ask how they can help, and I can’t stress this enough – the best way to help is to advocate for our bill with your own legislators! Individual phone calls and emails really do make a difference. I think we showed how powerful they can be last year. Remember that the Alabama legislators represent small communities. While US Congressmen  represent several hundred thousand constituents, state legislators represent only a few thousand in small communities throughout Alabama. They are generally accessible and are open to listen directly to you. State representatives often list their home phone number so that you can easily reach them.

Like last year, we at Free the Hops have a tool that will help you find your legislators and learn about their record with Free the Hops and their position on the Brewery Modernization Act.

Find Your Legislator

Go to that page, enter your address, and you can learn who your legislators are and their historic and current support for our legislation. Then please contact your Representative (on the right-hand side) and tell them you want them to support HB406: The Brewery Modernization Act, sponsored by Oliver Robinson.

You will likely find that your senator and representative are either Unknown, Leans Yes, or Leans No on the Brewery Modernization Act. The Leaners are all based on my best guess. The Unknowns are where I didn’t feel comfortable making a guess. The very few supporters are either our sponsors or legislators I have personally contacted and heard back from.

The position estimates are currently soft because we haven’t yet heard from you. The majority of our estimates of support come from our members and other supporters who have called or emailed their legislators and reported back to us. Our progress really does depend on your activism.

So please contact your State Representative and help us pass the Brewery Modernization Act. And if you hear back from them, let us know so we can track our support in the Alabama legislature.

FTH House Debate 2009.mp3

Be prepared to be angered and offended by the self-righteous ignorance, such as Richard Laird’s assertion that the quality of a church should be judged by whether or not its members would shame a legislator over a pro-alcohol vote.

First, you might want to review our “steps” page summarizing what is involved in getting the Gourmet Beer Bill signed into law and where we stand right now. The point to keep in mind is that although we introduce and push two bills (one in the Senate, one in the House), only one of them will make it all the way through both houses and onto the Governor’s desk. Having two bills is simply a strategy to maximize our opportunities.

With that in mind, the most likely path I now see to the Governor’s desk may be confusing to casual observers. For here is what will probably happen:

Although they are doing better than last year, the Senate has again wasted several days this year locked in filibuster, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see more slowdowns in that body before the ’09 session is over. So our opportunities to hit the floor for a vote in the Senate are fewer and farther between than in the House.

There is a pretty good chance the Senate will be ready to deal with the Gourmet Beer Bill next week (on either 3/10 or 3/12) but they will only be considering bills that originated in the Senate, not bills (like HB373) that originated in the House. HB373 probably won’t even be procedurally ready to hit the Senate floor anytime next week as it still has to pass the Senate Tourism committee and receive its “2nd reading” in the Senate before it can be voted on.

All that to say, if the Senate votes on any Gourmet Beer Bill next week, it will be SB132. And here’s where it might confuse some people. If that happens, our issue will have passed a successful vote in the House and a successful vote in the Senate, but each vote will have been on a different bill. Therefore, neither bill will be ready to go to the Governor. We’ll still have to pass one more vote in either the House or the Senate (definitely not both) before we can head to the Governor’s desk.

Because of the dysfunction in the Senate, the most likely scenario is that we’d bring SB132 through the House and endure one more round of fact-free grandstanding from the House’s neo-prohibitionists crying about how “child-killing, family-destroying, high-alcohol beer” is about to be legal and WON’T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN? In other words, a repeat of exactly what we just endured yesterday, but with even more passionate pleading using bogus statistics made up on the spot.

And that would probably fall somewhere in mid-to-late April. Only then will we be poised to get the Governor’s signature.

Another possible (though less likely) scenario is that we pass SB132 in the Senate next week, then a few weeks later bring HB373 to the floor in the Senate, still getting a double dose of grandstanding by Senate opponents. Or, we could skip SB132 altogether and just bring HB373 to the floor in the Senate in late April. But that’s risky because the Senate might be locked up over budget battles.

And the final conceivable scenario is that the Senate skips over SB132 next week, goes on Spring Break the following week, then sometime shortly thereafter puts SB132 on their special order calendar. And once it has passed the BIR, our sponsor could move to substitute SB132 with HB373 because they are identical and HB373 could then receive a vote on final passage in the Senate. Then to the Governor’s desk in late March or early April.

But as appealing as that shortcut sounds, it is very, very unlikely to become reality because the substitution of one bill for another for final passage would require unanimous consent from every Senator in the chamber. And while we’re pretty confident we have enough support in the Senate to pass our bill, we do have opponents in the Senate and it’s hard to imagine none of them objecting to unanimous consent on a motion that would fast-track our bill to final passage in both houses of the legislature.

See? I said it was complicated.

Next up, we need a functional senate!