Jeff Poor
Your Alabama Legislature wants you to think very highly of it. That’s not unusual for many aspects of the human experience.
In this arena, it matters a lot because favorability translates to votes, and votes are how you get elected.
In Alabama, the path to favorability typically involves giving a nod to the ideological right.
Immediately after the 2026 legislative session, House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter wanted the public to know how conservative the legislature had become under his leadership.
“I think our record speaks for itself. I mean, you know, since I’ve been Speaker, Alabama has become the most conservative legislative body in the country,” he said.
By most standards, the Alabama Legislature resembles that of a purple state. Obviously, there’s not much woke-ism being handed out in Montgomery.
Not that you aren’t already aware, but there is corporate cronyism that exists in Alabama under the guise of economic development, health care, infrastructure, education, public safety or any other essential function of government.
It’s been that way since the end of Reconstruction. What is known as the Big Mules-Planter coalition has existed in Alabama, in some form, for most of the last 100 years.
For the most part, Alabamians have tolerated it over the years. That’s an implied acknowledgment that we get the government we deserve.
These token gestures have made it more palatable. In recent years, it’s been about addressing cultural concerns.
Some of those concerns have been manufactured or embellished based on what is going on across the country — the Caliphate coming to Alabama or a hostile takeover of Alabama utilities by George Soros.
Others have been important and groundbreaking in the grand scheme of the country, including the 2019 abortion ban or the 2023 redistricting effort, but ultimately resulting in profound changes to American domestic politics and policy.
In 2024, Gov. Kay Ivey signed this state’s version of a divisive concepts ban, effectively eliminating so-called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in schools, public colleges and state agencies.
For the most part, leaders across state government have complied.
But a few hostile actors have taken issue and resisted the DEI purge.
Professors have filed lawsuits claiming the prohibition on divisive concepts infringed on their First Amendment rights.
It has been a public relations ordeal for Alabama’s public colleges and universities. On one hand, they want to avoid rancor in the faculty lounge and not appear weak in the face of politics and opportunistic lawmakers, who, in their view, are using their livelihood as an election-year wedge issue.
Ultimately, the higher-ups at the UA System, Auburn, UNA, Troy, the University of South Alabama, Montevallo, Jacksonville State and the University of West Alabama realize that if they don’t comply, they risk funding cuts by the legislature and bad press elsewhere.
Often, compliance involves changing a handful of words in a syllabus, an employment manual or the institution’s code of conduct.
For a sociology professor, perhaps changing the words of the course description of some useless gender studies is a hill to die on. Not so much for that school’s administration, which is just hoping no one notices.
Why should it matter to policymakers, specifically members of the Alabama Legislature?
More importantly, why should it matter to you and me, the general public?
It gets back to what Alabama tolerates from Montgomery. During this last election cycle, our mailboxes were inundated with junk mail advertising legislative candidates as conservative fighters, typically with their pictures alongside President Donald Trump.
Yet we are repeatedly told about the virtue of compromise. When the price of a new prison, built in part with COVID money that other states used to reduce their tax burden, doubles, how did the public react?
When the governor is rarely seen in public, only popping up in a social media post put out by her office, how does the public respond?
When the legislature decides mid-session to drastically alter the composition of the Public Service Commission or the Veterans Affairs board, are there protests in the streets? No, not at all.
Alabamians put up with a lot from the state government, including legislative sessions with a lot of big ideas dying on the last day before Sine Die.
When something is enacted, especially if it implies serious pushback against ideologies unpopular in Alabama, the little things do matter.
If it means using the power of the purse strings to force a belligerent state agency or school to comply, then so be it.
Public institutions exist because the public gave the state the power to create them, including our beloved four-year colleges and universities.
That means telling the belligerent liberal arts professor that some course material is off-limits in this setting.
If we’re going to have these virtue-signaling or messaging efforts in politics to compensate for everything else that goes on in Alabama, at least do them the right way.
