Last week’s passage of legislation to appropriate American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding made it through the Alabama Senate with a 26-1 vote.
That lone “no” vote was State Sen. Sam Givhan (R-Huntsville), who questioned the process and some of the specific allocations of the funding.
During an appearance on Huntsville radio WVNN’s “The Dale Jackson Show,” Givhan said he did not have an opportunity to offer his input. He also suggested funding was allocated for problems in an “indiscriminate” manner, including rural health care and for sewer infrastructure for Troy and Chelsea.
“A couple of reasons,” he replied. “Number one, as far as I’m concerned, the cake was baked before it hit the floor. And you know, if they don’t want my input on it, they can pass it without my vote, OK? Number two, there were some great things in there, but there was also, I think, just some sort of indiscriminate, ‘Oh, let’s throw money at this group, throw money at that group.’ And you know, without dialing in and really looking at some other things we could have done, and also not looking at especially with rural health care — you know, just throwing money out there with rural health care, apparently to appease the Democrats without really any analysis if some of these hospitals, rural hospitals are sustainable.”
“It was just frustrating to me with the process,” Givhan continued. “There were things like … when you look at the list of sewer projects, Chelsea, which I don’t think is a poor community — there are a lot of poor communities on there I supported a hundred percent. I got nothing against Chelsea. I got nothing against Troy. Do we just need to give Troy $5 million because they’re behind on their sewer system? Do we need to give Chelsea $30 million because they are behind? Maybe there is going to be a match program, but that wasn’t defined to me. I’m like, if we’re not going to talk about it more than we did, I’m not interested.”
“So, the funny thing was [State Sen. Greg] Albritton came up and messed with me and said, ‘I have a way of alienating the far-right and the far-left,” he added. “[State Rep.] Juandalynn Givan is on the far-left. She voted against this. I guess I’m on the far-right, and I voted against it.”
@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.
