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State Senate President Pro-Tem Greg Reed - Jeff Poor Show - Tuesday 6-25-24
A couple guys in first class on a flight from New York to Los Angeles, Canada. Welcome back to the Jeff Port showing, if I'm talking 106.5, they're just sticking with us on this Tuesday morning. We do appreciate it. Tech Slide will get in touch with the show. It's two five one three four three zero one zero sixty to be a touch with the program. All you gotta do is text me and I keep my pledge here. Do my best to respond to whatever it is that you are is on your mind. So keep them coming. We always appreciate the feedback. Still come on this morning's program. Al Manry, public and party chairman John Wall in about an hour from now. He is our Tuesday regular so stay tuned for that. But joining us now a very glad he can make time for us. We're always appreciative when he does come on the program. But he is the president pro tip of the Alabama State Senate. Senator Greg Reed, pro tip. Good morning. How are you? Good morning, Jeff. How are you, sir? Doing well. Doing well. Thanks for coming on and it's become kind of a standard tradition here. Whatever I have a lawmaker on at this point in time. Have you recovered from the 2024 legislative session, sir? Listen, man, I'm I'm still in the process of recovery. But things were great. We had a really exciting session. A lot of focus on conservative government and policies that are important to Alabama. It was it was an intent session. But we had a good session with some good outcomes and but I'm I'm in the process of trying to catch up with a few things around my district. I've had areas in my district in Northwest Alabama that have been really important. So I spent a good bit of time with constituents and folks in my area and that's been fun over the last month or so. So I'm excited to be with you here today to kind of talk about some of our accomplishments. Well, let's start there. You know, you got a lot done that first half and I'm telling you, I mean, it was you could have stopped about the time of the softball game and called it a year and probably had a it wouldn't have been the best session, but it wouldn't have been a terrible session. It went from there. The intensity Senator, once we got passed a halfway point, it felt like the entire rest of the session, you're just sitting on the edge of your seat cuz everything was kind of like, I mean, who knew what was going to happen? What was it like from your point of view? Well, I think that was that was true. There was, you know, it's trying to make laws and defend the values of Alabama and that's always intent. And you got conflict. You got issues on both sides. The Democrats have a focus on issues important to them with the Republicans have our focus and ideas that are important. And so you look for intensity within the session. That's always a little bit of the process. But I would agree with you that there were a lot of issues that were in this session that made the session in general be a little more intense, maybe, than what I had seen in times past. You know, one of the things that we did with this session and this was intentional by the Republican caucus is that we had several issues. I guess we kind of classified them as red meat issues, topics that were of significance to Republicans and our constituency across the state of Alabama that we wanted to make sure we got done. So we kind of blocked out time. Really that first five weeks of a legislative session, we went in session every day during that five-week window to deal with some some pretty heavy topics that were important to our members and important to the Californians. So you're right. By the time we got to the break or by the time we got to the softball game kind of the middle of the session, it had been pretty intense already. And we had worked on a lot of things that were very important to our membership. So I was proud of it, but it wasn't easy. Well, it felt like, you know, early on, at least, it was morally accomplishing unresolved things from the past couple of years. And I mean, we could throw out school choice, but the device of concepts and so on and so forth, even the ballot harvesting issue, getting those boxes checked because these had been things and sometimes you know, it does take a few years to get it just right to where everybody could kind of call us around one of these big, big bills. So that's the way it looked to be from the outside looking in. Well, I think you're exactly right. I mean, what we did in a very methodical process as Republicans, we went through a grouping of about 12 or 14 different significant items that we wanted to work on. And you're right. Some of these had been issues that had been conflicted in the past. They had held on for a year or two that had been some topics that had been discussed. It seemed like everybody had kind of coalesced around specific items. We took some polling from our membership to say, hey, what are the things that are most important to you? And the member said, hey, these are the items. And so we took those. We were in solidarity with our caucus and said, all right, everybody's strapping and here we go. We're going to deal with these issues and you're right. It was, you know, divisive concepts, the ballot harvesting issue on securing Alabama's elections. You know, a piece of legislation that was important to me, I carried this piece of legislation called the parents' right to know. I mean, obviously, educators do a great job in educating our children. We want to be helpful and supported as much as possible. But we want parents to have the right to know what their kids are learning at school. And having that information provided on a website and a process where parents could offer a question if they wanted to or even a complaint that would move up through the system to the Department of Education and eventually to the legislature was a process that our members felt was very important. And we got great feedback from parents, great feedback from educators that had an attitude that said, the more information we provide to parents, the more engaged they are and can be in their children's education. And the more involved parents are with their kids' learning, then the better the outcomes are across the board. So that was an issue you had some conflict to it, but it got some high marks. It's been a real positive piece of legislation. But those were the kinds of things that, you know, that we worked hard on. We had another topic that was a conflicted topic between several groups. Excuse me. But this was an issue associated with property tax assessment caps. We had a situation where real estate prices had gone up significantly in the state in different areas, right? And you were having people that their taxes had gone up on their property, you know, 20 and 30 and 40% in a year. And that was an issue that we just felt like had to have some controls on it. There was a lot of negotiation related to that, but we wound up in a good place to where we put a cap on almost tax increases, recognizing obviously if the value of your property goes up at some level, then maybe you have to pay a little more in taxes if that's based on the value of your property. But some of those values and some of that assessment had just gotten way out of hand. And so that was a conflicted topic related to protecting business folks and property owners, people's homes. That was a big issue. It was a hot topic that we worked through. But that was one of those other topics. I see another crazy one that we dealt with. And some of the things that we deal with, if you will, no Jeff, you wind up in a place thinking, do we really have to pass a law about this? You know, but the craziness that we had seen out of DC related to Biden administration trying to put restrictions on state in regards to the use of different kinds of appliances, where you were trying to tell folks in their own homes that they can't have a gas stove. I mean, my goodness. So we passed legislation called the right to energy options that basically said, keep the federal government out of the kitchen and allow folks to buy whatever appliances they want and use whatever resources they need to cook their own food and their own house. And so those kinds of things sometimes you have to scratch your head, but in protecting all of the Indians related to some of these far overreaching themes from what we see from folks in Washington, the Biden administration and sector, those were elements that we worked on too, that were really important to our members. Joy by a state Senate president pro temp Greg Reed here on the program. Talk about the workforce package. It seemed like to me just kind of watching that kind of drop in about halfway was a work in progress. Um, tell us typically, Senator, don't these things kind of come in early, like, you know, the past sessions, they were dealt with very on the front end. This was unique in that it kind of came on the back end. Well, and again, Jeff, that was intentional. I mean, we had issues like those we just discussed that were very important to our members. We felt like they were important to Alabama. Not that the working for Alabama package was not a priority, it obviously was, but we wanted to get focused on those other issues first and be able to work intently to get those accomplished intentionally, get those to the side already haven't been accomplished and then move on very aggressively after the break to the working for Alabama package. And there was a lot of, there was a lot of unity on the working for Alabama package within the Republican Party. Even Republicans and Democrats had focus on that issue, which was focused on workforce participation, economic development growth, trying to focus Alabama's energies, resources on planning for economic development the right way, being able to do things from a regional perspective, recognizing from an economic development and a workforce growth and a workforce participation element. What's going to work in Florence is not going to work in Dauphin. And what's good in Cherokee County may not work in Washington County. And so trying to have an attitude with several of the elements that we went through on that package to allow Alabama's efforts to be focused on economic growth and on training a workforce was something that was super important. And I think the overall attitude of the working for Alabama plan basically looked to answer the next question, which was last year we did the incentive packages, which are some of the most aggressive incentives to attract industry corporate headquarters, manufacturers to Alabama. And if you're aggressive with that program, the next question that these folks that are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in Alabama, for instance, are going to ask is, how can you guarantee me that I'm going to have a workforce today and a workforce 10 years and 25 years from now, if I'm going to come and put my manufacturing facility in North Alabama or in South Alabama, how can I be comfortable with that? And I think that was one of the issues that we tried to work on answering, which was an ongoing plan with multiple elements in it that were basically answering that question for investors that Alabama is a great place to be, great values, strong work ethic. And we're going to have a plan working with educators, high school, two-year college, four-year college, industry, understanding what industries asking for what they need regionally across the state. And they're able to put our best foot forward in making sure we had a trained workforce. And I think one of the most interesting elements of that package was the workforce diploma, basically the telekid in the ninth or tenth grade. If you want to be a machinist, or you want to be a welder, or you want to work in industrial maintenance, we've got a program and a plan that will allow you to be able to move forward, have conjunction at the end of your high school years with a junior college in your community to where you're going to get workforce training, you're going to have dual enrollment scholarships, and we're going to wind up with these bright, brilliant kids that are 18 and 19 years old coming out of high school with a workforce diploma and certificates for their area of trade specialty and going to be able to go to work making a significant income. No debt, no opportunity for them to have to wait around before they go to work with significant skills, go right into apprentice programs, right into job opportunities. And I think it will make a world of difference not only in the lives of those kids and their family and their future families, but it'll impact Alabama's economy tremendously. And so the working for Alabama package was kind of all focused on that. How do we get more folks in the workforce? How do we wind up making sure that the best training that is possibly available is going to be that for Alabama and enjoy, and much of our focus is going to be on young people. Senator, lastly, the elephant in the room, obviously gambling, and it didn't come together. A lot of finger pointing, especially from your colleagues downstairs, but from your point of view, the way that my perception was this, and I want to see like it felt like the house in the Senate were never fully on the same page. Like, and this seemed to be the problem in the past when you guys upstairs would pass a bill in the house. This is not what we want. Like, is the ultimate solution going to take kind of more of approach from people from both chambers to get gambling done in the state? Well, I agree that the differential between what the house was looking for and what the Senate was looking for was different. And certainly, I applaud the house and the speaker of the house. They had a very intense program. They were diligently to come up with a package. We respected that and the Senate kind of stood to decide while they moved forward on elements that were important to them. But I had said all along, representing the attitude of Senate, that our membership is not going to be as willing to go for some of the items that the house had proposed. And that element of back and forth was what is to be expected when you're looking at any issue, certainly a topic this big, was the attitude of the Senate willing to do gaming legislation, to do gambling legislation this session. The answer is yes. It's just that we weren't willing as a Senate based on the feedback from our membership. We weren't willing to embrace all of the concept that the House of Representatives had proposed. So the Senate took what the House did. We modified it, changed it. We eliminated some casinos. We eliminated some other elements of table games and those kinds of things. The sports betting program, some of those things our members just weren't comfortable with. And so we fashioned the Senate plan, sent it back to the House in hopes that they would concur on what we said. They did do that. And that was understandable in a lot of ways because they had several elements that were imported to their membership. So I think it's time went along. We wound up in a place to where this is the House position, this is the Senate position, and we pretty much weren't going to move all those positions to get to an overall compromise. But the one thing I can say, having been in the legislature for a number of years and basically been in leadership for 10 years, we've had legislation in gaming almost every year I've been in the legislature. But there was more accomplished this session in understanding exactly where the membership is going to be on this issue. And we'll have to wait to see what the attitude is going to be of the membership in those that are interested in moving some of this legislation again in the next session. That will remain to be seen. But I think understanding and having now knowledge, like it or not, where the membership is on the topic, I think everybody's got a very good idea. The Senate is going for conservative in its approach. The House is going to be a little more focused on some of these other elements that they think will raise additional revenues. And I'm sure they will. So as we move forward, kind of see where it goes next in regards to the gambling topic. Senator, we're a real short on time here, but thanks again for making time for us. So let's try to get this, let's make this happen again soon. Yeah, I appreciate it. What you do, and letting folks know what we're engaged in is trying to accomplish. Certainly while we're in session, it's very important. And so the fact that you invited me to be with you and be with your listeners today is privileged for me. So God bless you, God to see that you move forward. I look forward to being with you again. Thank you. Senator Greg Reed there. We got to get a break. There'll be right back. This is F.P. Talk. 106 five. Whaaat?