Amid protests that extended to both chambers, the Alabama Legislature on Wednesday approved changes to the state’s controversial immigration law that keep most of the law intact. Montgomery Advertiser
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TGOMERY, Alabama -- Gov. Robert Bentley has called the Alabama Legislature into special session beginning at 9 a.m. today. Lawmakers had been planning for some time to be called into a special session to address the redrawing of legislative districts. However, Bentley kept lawmakers guessing in recent days, saying there was no final decision. The Birmingham News
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Amid protests before and after the vote, the Alabama Senate approved changes to the state’s controversial immigration law Wednesday. The 20-7 vote came after a lengthy debate and just after protesters blocked a hallway leading to the chamber. Protesters later blocked a hallway in the House of Representatives. Seven protesters were arrested, including Mary Bauer, the legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The changes preserve most of the law, known as HB 56, and add a new provision that requires the Department of Homeland Security to post a quarterly list of the names of any undocumented alien who appears in court for a violation of state law, regardless of whether they were convicted. A second amendment would allow the use of a credit card or a voter ID to prove residence if a person does not have their state driver’s license available, a response to the arrest of a German Mercedes-Benz executive last November. Montgomery Advertiser
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Alabamians should see on Wednesday, the last day of the legislative session, just how badly the Republicans who control the Statehouse want to continue down the path of anti-immigrant extremism. The lawmakers’ challenge was to fix last year’s terrible immigration law, House Bill 56, which turned state and local police officers into papers-checking immigration agents and imposed a grab bag of criminal punishments and deterrents on undocumented immigrants and on businesses and charitable organizations that help or hire them. The only real solution is the full repeal of the law, but bills to do that have died. Republican leaders have said they want to make the law more “efficient,” but have vowed not to weaken it. So the question as time runs out is whether the Legislature will approve any “tweaks” through a new measure, House Bill 658, that has already passed the House, or some other bill originating in the Senate. The New York Times
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In an editorial published today, The New York Times says that the “only real solution” to Alabama’s immigration issue is the full repeal of the 2011 law, though bills to do that have died. The editorial, titled “Alabama’s Disgrace,” argues that the bill offered to revise last year’s law, House Bill 658, preserves the “malign intent” of the original measure and makes some of the provisions even worse. For instance, it expands the citizenship requirement to include passengers in a stopped car and doubles the time that someone can be jailed while awaiting a status check. The Times also says that House Bill 658 does “nothing meaningful” to protect humanitarian or religious groups that try to help immigrants, and adds: “It may be that only the courts can rescue Alabama from itself.” Mobile Press-Register
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Williamsport, Pa., used to be celebrated for its past — as the 1938 birthplace of Little League Baseball and host of its annual World Series. Then the city found natural gas. Now this once-sleepy chunk of north-central Pennsylvania is a big star on the map of an emerging national energy rush. Six hotels are new or being built, and about 100 companies have moved to town, sometimes so fast that the head of the local Chamber of Commerce has told executives wanting guided tours to wait. "I've said, 'Look sir, get in line,' " says Vince Matteo, chief executive of the Williamsport/Lycoming chamber. "Now I know people in their 20s with high school (diplomas) making $120,000 a year." USA Today
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RALEIGH, N.C. North Carolina's main business lobby wants legislators who opened their annual session Wednesday to cut future unemployment benefits and issue taxpayer-backed bonds, a move it says would save employers money while closing a debt to the federal government. North Carolina's chamber of commerce wants the General Assembly to cut the maximum unemployment benefit from about $506 a week to $350 weekly, The News and Observer of Raleigh reports (http://bit.ly/JSFrOZ). The North Carolina Chamber also wants to cut the period of state-provided benefits from 26 weeks to 20 weeks. Any benefits that unemployed workers now receive beyond 26 weeks are funded by the federal government. Extended federal benefits are set to expire at the end of this year, although Congress could extend them. Charlotte Observer
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WASHINGTON -- Despite the risk of economic and political fallout, Senate Republicans Tuesday said they're standing with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) in picking another fight with Democrats over tying spending cuts to a debt ceiling increase this year. During remarks at a fiscal summit in Washington, Boehner warned he will require that matching spending cuts be tied to raising the debt limit when it hits its cap late this year. The Huffington Post
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BATON ROUGE — A proposal that would have set up a body of elected and appointed officials to craft the health insurance exchanges that anchor President Obama's health overhaul has failed to gain traction in the Louisiana Senate. Shreveport Times
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In the annals of loopholes, one that the Federal Election Commission, the nation's election watchdog, created in 2008 could rank as one of the most absurd. The FEC's Republican commissioners decided that shadowy nonprofits running political ads (think: the US Chamber of Commerce) could hide the identities of people who donate more than $1,000, as long as those donors didn't earmark their money for a specific ad. So, for instance, a donor couldn't say, "I want you to run an ad attacking Nancy Pelosi next Monday at 7 p.m. on NBC." Donors and political operatives are not idiots, of course, and figured out how to capitalize on the loophole by just giving that money without specific requests, allowing groups like the Chamber to keep more and more donations in the dark. Mother Jones
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