Earlier this week, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the State of Alabama and the Alabama Department of Corrections for long-standing violations of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, adding that “constitutional compliance cannot be secured by voluntary means,” and therefore legal action would be required.
State Sen. Clyde Chambliss (R-Prattville) warned of such an outcome nearly a year ago. In January, before the 2020 regular session, Chambliss called it “do or die” time for the state on the prison issue.
During an interview with Mobile radio’s FM Talk 106.5, the Autauga County lawmaker pointed to those remarks and said there were plans in place, but coronavirus caused them to stall out.
“To me, it was not unexpected,” he said. “As a matter of fact, last year about this time — maybe even on your show, I said if the legislature didn’t handle it in the upcoming session that I fully expect them to file suit. Yeah, we had plans, and we were working toward the construction part, and the other portions — the mental health, the health care, the violence, the sexual assault. We had bills that we were working on to handle all of that. Then COVID came, and the session was shortened. That’s unfortunate, but that’s what happened. And here we are.”
Chambliss also noted the legislature has doubled funding for the Alabama Department of Corrections and said he hoped that a judge would take that into account.
He also commented on Gov. Kay Ivey’s plan to build three new facilities — each in Escambia, Elmore and Bibb Counties — and argued there were risks involved if the Alabama Legislature tried to intervene in Ivey’s go-it-alone approach.
“The legislature has taken a couple of cracks at it, at least,” he said. “We passed two bills in the Senate that would have dealt with it. They didn’t make it through the House. There’s just a lot of politics involved, both within our party but also across the aisle of getting a bill of that magnitude through the Senate. We can look at trying to save 20%, maybe 25% off of the governor’s plan. But if we shoot at that and miss, then we’re going to have the DOJ plan, and that’s going to be a 250% increase on the governor’s. It’s a high-risk situation, and unless you know that everybody’s united behind a legislative plan, it’s very, very risky.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.
