North Alabama lawmakers preview legislative session

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) - Alabama lawmakers are counting down the days until the legislative session begins.

Jan. 11 is only four weeks away. WAFF talked to three prominent lawmakers in North Alabama to find out the most important bills they expect to debate.

It’s an election year, so lawmakers say everyone is going to fight hard, to show they’re doing a good job.

They expect a lot of compromises, and nothing controversial. One area where lawmakers see eye to eye is improving internet access for people across the state.

“Right now there’s no infrastructure in lots of parts of the state. There are about 800,000 people that have very spotty, not strong internet access and there’s another 200,000 that actually have no access,” said Minority Leader Rep. Anthony Daniels.

“I can’t express how important broadband is to our state’s economy. It just touches everybody in their homes. It touches telemedicine, it touches education. Through the COVID pandemic we saw how important it was to have broadband access for these kids,” said Speaker of the House Rep. Mac McCutcheon.

During Monday’s Alabama Legislative Update, sponsored by the Huntsville Madison County Chamber, Alabama State Senator Arthur Orr also talked about bills, to give you better tax breaks.

“One is, to raise the standard deduction and raise the child exemption. That helps working families, that take the standard deduction. Also, start a tax cut for our retirees who are on 401k and IRA type retirements,” said Orr.

The lawmakers who spoke to hundreds of business and community leaders during the event, say other important bills should improve the roads you travel on.

But like everything in politics, only time will tell what changes and gets passed.

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