FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
House Majority Leader Representative Scott Stadthagen - Jeff Poor Show - Wednesday 9-11-24.
I didn't mean to treat you back. I remember. Didn't know just what I had, but honey, now, I don't want to make my brown eyes, don't make my brown eyes, don't make my brown eyes. Welcome back to the Jeff Force Show. What if I talk about 065, thanks for staying with us on this Wednesday morning. We'll get some of your text here if you want to try to squeeze one in, two, five, one, three, four, three, zero, one, zero, six, and we will respond accordingly. But joining us now, he is the majority leader in the Alabama House of Representatives, a big friend of this program throughout the session earlier this year when I was on Montgomery, was his office and him personally sitting a lot of that up. But we're always delighted to have him on House Majority Leader Scott Stedeg and joins us. Leader, good morning. How are you? Doing well, sir. How about you doing? Jeff? Doing well, doing well. Well, before we get into the, the, the, the rambunctious politics of the day, how have things been going? We haven't talked probably a whole lot since signing die, but life kind of to normal right now for you. It is. It is just taking care of the family and making sure the business is running in the right direction and, you know, attending to constituents needs and been going to some of these title nine town halls that the representative do both has been doing and just going to join the summer. Really? That's good to hear. Well, it'll be back here soon and then we'll, we'll, we'll get right back into the, the blow by blow of state politics, but, uh, for now, leader, it's, it's, it's presidential election and I'll just got asked, generally ask, if you, you got to check out last night's presidential debate, if you had any thoughts. I did actually rolled in, uh, from a town hall and literally sat down and it started and I was really kind of just disappointed, um, personally, I hope, uh, it felt like it was three against one. You know, and I've never in all of my debates that I've watched, I've never known a moderator to actually come back to one of the candidates, you know, and, and participate in the debate. So it was obvious it was, you know, it was one side. It was obvious someone was more educated on the issues prior to the debate than the other. And I just, you know, I just hope America's got their eyes open their paying attention. Yeah, and that's my hope as well that you'll see some kind of, um, these things, they're, they're important, but they're only important to a degree. I think people want to see who they're supporting to be president, at least have the courage to get up on the stage and not, not, not hide from these, these opportunities. But on the other hand, I mean, most people, it's, it's a lot of it's just baked in and we maybe should have expected kind of the way this was going to go. So I don't know, I'm, I don't know this is going to move the needle a whole lot personally, but let's hope that if they do do another one of these, it'll be a better presentation. Um, let me ask you this. And so they brought us up last night with immigration and I, this, this stuff's spilling over in Alabama, especially this hate, this hate, this Haitian migrant story, uh, you got three places right now, Silicon, Connecticut County got Athens up in limestone and then obviously you have Albertville and Marshall County, uh, Athens is kind of in your orbit. But like, I, I think that like you're seeing this as a reflection of immigration policy in this country, they're moving Haitian migrants to communities all over the country. And it's really impacting people's day-to-day lives or, you know, what, what they, what they need to be on the lookout for 100% you know, and that's what it's very frustrating just talking about the debate, you know, the president, vice president can fix this right now. And you know, Trump called that out. He said, if you truly are interested in fixing the problems that we're facing, take your tail to the Capitol and fix it right now because you are in power, you can. I've heard from several, several people around the state how upset they are and just from the town hall, um, I think the council meeting is, I think it was in the silicaga that I want, it's just really disturbed me, you know, because people are upset and they elect us to serve them in public office. They are the people who are in charge, not the people serving. We answer to the people that put us here and for them to be treated the way they were, it was very distancing. I mean, I just can't believe it. And everybody's frustrated, you know, a lot of people they, they just want to know what can we do? And it's a federal issue. I think the states don't look and see what we can do, but once again, federal issue. And I think this is no, it's no mistake that they're coming. It's all organized. Um, they've got EBT cards, working visas, they probably have better ID cards about it. I guess I don't know, but it's, it's just, it's amazing how the federal government is allowing us to take place in the state of Alabama and other states. Well, and that's, I guess that was, would be where I was going to go next. Like, is there anything on the state level that can be done? You do see this. I mean, I think part of the draw is there's these jobs, uh, maybe it's poultry processing or maybe it's construction or whatever, but that, that seems to be at least in part what's drawing these migrants to Alabama. Is there anything that can be done on that front? You know, I don't know, I know there's several legislators that are looking into legislation that, you know, that the state can't participate in. I think at the end of the day, um, I think we just got to raise our voices to DC and hopefully, you know, a couple of months from now, Trump wins. We don't have to worry about this. He's going to fix the problems, um, with immigration, he's going to fill up the borders again and he's going to take care of business and what we're dealing with right now. And what we're worried about, you know, if the, if it goes the other way, I, you know, we're going to have to seriously get ready to put up a fight and, and take care of business ourselves and do whatever we can. Right. And then that's, that's like the, the importance of the state government. And I mean, it comes at a time, I think, well, no matter what happens, uh, if Trump wins, it's going to be totally different two years. If Harris wins, then it's going to be kind of up to the states and Congress, uh, to, to act as a, a bulwark or at least a speed bump to whatever they're trying to accomplish. And that's where you guys, the Alabama legislature have to be playing defense almost. That's right. You know, and I'm paid to say this, but I'm tired of articles talking about doing something that we need to see action on this. We don't need to see people's opinion on how you feel about it. We need to see action and we need to something to be put in place to fix the problems that we're seeing and we're facing. Um, and I think that's the only thing we can accept right now because they're coming in by the hundreds. And I mean, we were defenseless and it's, it's not a good feeling, um, as an Alabama and it's only going to get worse and that's with anything in this country. If, you know, once they get away with it, they're going to keep doing it, keep doing it. And it's, it's probably times 10 in the next couple of years, if we don't do something. Well, joy by house, uh, majority leaders, Scott Stadhagen here on the program, uh, the other big issue, uh, and, um, I've taught the representative DuBose and, uh, we've had the attorney general, but well, let's start with this one. The libraries and it's become the hot mutton issue of the day at Alabama because I honestly believe this is not really some kind of fundamental first amendment thing for these librarians. They just don't like being told what to do. The bureaucracy hates it when you meddling politicians get in the middle of what they're trying to do here. And that's where you're, why you're getting this pushback, but there's does, does it require an act of the legislature or do you see the, the library board, the APLS, what they've done as sufficient enough? I think they're definitely going in the right direction. I think, uh, the worry of indoctrination of our kids and seeing, you know, what they're actually seeing in the library has to, some people saying, well, you know, kids shouldn't be by themselves in the library, they should be with parents. Well, I mean, that's true, but when, like, my daughter and I go to books a million, she, you know, she goes to her sex and I go to mine, um, and then we kind of meet up at the end and review all the stuff that we are thinking about getting, um, you know, kids are not going to be with their parents 100% in time in the library. I think those books need to be separate. I think what they're doing is definitely a good step in the right direction, but we've got to make sure that the minors and the kids do not see stuff that they don't need to see. And they, you know, that's what I talked about last night. You can't even turn on literally Disney Channel and watch Mickey Mouse anymore without seeing rainbow flags and Mickey and Mickey's and many, and that's a problem. And that's an indoctrination and they're wanting our kids to accept this. So in generations that come, that's going to be the norm and we've got to put a stop to that. I mean, we just, that's not, that's not right. And that's, that's our job as lawmakers. Yeah, it's just, and this is sort of my perception, but, and I don't know, like some, some places in our culture, I mean, there's a real, uh, deficiency with parenting. I mean, it just, you know, there's no one there to play this role. But I really think this leader that, uh, these, these corporations, uh, the, the institutional left, I mean, they see their themselves as playing this parental role in our culture. And you know, it's not exactly the country's, you know, has a bunch of different cultures, but a one size fits all approach. What may work in California is not going to work in Alabama. What 100% on that, you know, um, our society and generations are changing. Um, as if you go to school right now, if you were just sitting in the chair and watch the, the parents that are dropping kids off, there's a large percentage of them that are grandparents because the parents aren't raising these kids. And that, I mean, I've never noticed that in the past. It seems to get worse that, you know, these, uh, these guys aren't having kids. They decide they don't want to have them in the, and the grandparents have to do round two appearances and they're tired and they don't have the energy of doing homework every night. And that's the sad part of our society is it is different than what it used to be in the corporations. The kids are so in tune to watching TV and cartoons all the time. They know that they can indoctrinate them through that and they can make them accept different things that they shouldn't be accepted. Um, just think about four decades ago, if you would have bring up any of these topics four decades ago, how do you think our society reacts, right? It would be so horrific for that person who we even thought about bringing it up. But now here we are, generations later in any state is accepted and it's because you're just moving the needle little by little and more and more is accepted and more and more is tolerated. And we've got to stop it because if we don't 20 years from now, there's no telling what's going to be the norm in our society. Well, the other thing it feels just like it's just kind of out of thin air and a fiend it posed upon us that like maybe 20, 30 years ago when California or New York City or wherever was like kind of testing the waters on some of this work, progressive agenda, they met about it. They had town hall meetings, they, they generally came to a consensus and the public said, yes, let's go in this direction with whatever, unisex bathrooms and transgender females, playing girls, athletics, but like you feel like you look at Alabama and it was just sort of, they're trying to impose it on the state. We'd ever got to have a discussion about it. We never talked about this being the right or wrong thing to do. It just kind of happened. And that's what people object to that's right 100% absolutely enforcing somebody's way of life on you that you don't agree with, you know, and that's, you know, just with all this transgender stuff that we're dealing with, I'm, I'm going to file a bill this year about the transgender's in front of minors. And I don't, you know, if the person wants to be a transgender, that is their American right. They can be a transgender, they can be whoever they want to be. That's not the concern. The concern is, is when you start acting in an explicit way in front of a minor, that's where it is a problem. And that's what my bill is going to address. If you want to have a, you know, drag show behind closed doors without kids involved, yeah, I don't really, I don't, that's your right. But once you start putting minors in front of that and being provocative and indoctrinate in those kids, that's where we have a problem. We have to draw the line on that. And hopefully we get that through this year and we don't have to worry about this anymore. Last question. We're wrapping up on this. I mean, is there anything else that needs to be done on with the, this, this transgender female in participating in female sports? And I know there's a law on the books. And as I said, Representative Bose has been making the rounds around the state with the attorney general. We good there. What do you think? Yeah, I think so. I originally carried the K-12, um, athlete transgender bill several years ago, uh, representing do both carried it in the collegiate level. I feel like, you know, Alabama has done their part as far as, you know, the competition athletics is concerned. I think, uh, of course, if something else comes about, we'll address it quick. But I think we've done all we possibly can do. I think it's, it's very sad and with the Olympic games and all this other stuff that we're seeing in NCAA, um, it's just very sad what's taking place and women's rights are being like taken away from them. And it's actually okay, but yet like last night, you know, the Democratic candidates talking about women's rights. She's talking about reference into abortion, what she's not talking about is the rights that she's taken away with her policies with the, the girl athletes. I mean, that's crazy. I mean, they're destroying their rights, but they're so worried about their rights to, to have the abortion, you know, and that's the whole confusion here. Um, but I think those is Alabama, we had done all we possibly can do to protect women in the state of Alabama. Leader, we got to leave it there. Uh, you've, you've been very kind to come on and make time for this program. And hopefully we can talk to you soon. Absolutely. Be safe down there in the storm, buddy. Thank you. House majority leader Scott Stadge in there, we'll be right back. This is the Jeff Moore show and if I'm talking one, oh, six, five. [MUSIC] ♫ Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love