Alabama lawmakers lowered taxes, raised prescription fees for independent pharmacies and gave paid parental leave to teachers and state educators in the 2025 legislative session.

A productive 15 weeks, but there are always more bills that fail than pass.

Here are some of the proposals that got attention, but not final votes.

Overtime, other tax cuts

Hourly workers in Alabama have gotten to keep since early 2024 more than $300 million via a law untaxing the overtime they work.

That will end at the end of June as lawmakers did not extend the cut that proved much more expensive than thought when it was signed in 2023.

House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels, D-Huntsville, argued for the cut’s extension, but the Republican supermajority opted instead for cuts they said would be distributed more broadly among Alabamians, the largest of which took a penny off the state’s sales tax on groceries. That’s worth about $122 million per year.

The Senate opted not to pass some of the other House-passed tax cuts, including proposals to double the state’s income tax exemption from $6,000 to $12,000 for individuals 65 years old or older who withdraw funds from a defined contribution retirement plan and raising the standard deduction from $2,500 to $3,000 for individuals.

Gambling

Can a bill die if it was never filed?

Omnipresent in the State House, a proposal to allow a lottery and expand gambling in the state was discussed behind closed doors, largely in the Senate, but Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Range, could not muster enough GOP support to move a bill.

A contentious issue for more than a decade, it’s doubtful a gambling bill will be on the agenda next session when all members of the Legislature are up for reelection.

“Not by me,” Albritton, R-Range said when asked if there will be a bill in 2026. “I think it’s dead for a long time.”

Occupational licensing reform

Sen. Chris Elliott’s effort to put dozens of state occupational licensing boards under one umbrella office failed this year, but expect it back for a fourth attempt in the future.

The boards that license, discipline and collect fees and fines from thousands of Alabamians are all managed by boards that can contract out management services to third party managers. Elliott, R-Josephine, says the system is “wasteful and inefficient and embarrassing.”

While many of the boards run without problems, there have been issues with several paying managers large portions of the revenue they take in, not adhering to state law or charging fines and fees above what is allowed under state law.

Archives board

Senate Bill 5 which would let the governor and legislative leadership appoint members of the Alabama Department of Archives and History Board and expand its membership was in play on the final day of the session, but never got the final votes it needed. Currently, new members are selected by the existing board and confirmed by the Alabama Senate.

This is the second year Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Josephine, sponsored the bill over the objections of Democrats. It passed the Senate earlier in the session and then the House with a change.

Differences between the Senate- and House-passed versions were worked out in a conference committee Wednesday morning, but the bill did not make it to concurrence votes in either chamber.

“It just ran out of time,” Elliott said.

He said he’d bring it back next year.

Expanded availability of ready-to-drink spirits

To the disappointment of both retailers and Alabamians who enjoy ready-to-drink spirits, a years-long effort to expand the availability of premixed, canned cocktails like High Noon and Ranch Water died this year despite having advanced further than in previous attempts.

Currently, RTD spirits are only available for purchase at liquor stores. A number of state lawmakers, however, were hoping to change that with bills that would have allowed for the drinks to be sold alongside beer and wine at grocery and convenience stores. Senate Bill 268 was one such bill, carried by Sen. Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, who has led the charge on expanding RTD spirit availability for years.

While SB268 never made it out of the Senate, it’s House counterpart, House Bill 521, carried by Rep. Craig Lipscomb, R-Gadsden, was passed out of the House, though was assigned to but never scheduled to be taken up in a Senate committee, where it remained until the 2025 session ended on Wednesday.

App store age verification bill dies, while bill companion becomes law

While a bill requiring all smartphones and tablets to have obscene content filters automatically enabled for minors was signed into law by Gov. Kay Ivey on Wednesday, its companion bill, which would require app stores on smart devices to verify a user’s age before granting unrestricted access, was left behind.

Both bills were introduced by Sen. Clyde Chambliss, R-Prattville. Senate Bill 186, the obscene content filter bill, passed out of the Legislature on May 1, whereas Senate Bill 187, the app store verification bill, passed out of the Senate in April, was assigned to a House committee but ultimately never scheduled to be heard.

Both pieces of legislation were designed, Chambliss has said, to better guard minors from graphic content readily accessible on smart devices, and included significant enforcement mechanisms, including fines of up to $5,000 per violation for smart device manufacturers and app stores.

The bills saw minor opposition from some groups, including lobbyists representing free enterprise, some of whom pushed back against punishing manufacturers for violations, rather than the producers of obscene content themselves.

Drag show ban in public libraries

Efforts to prohibit drag shows in public libraries failed to reach Ivey’s desk this year after the Alabama Legislature ran out of time on its final day of the 2025 session.

Carried by House Majority Leader Scott Stadthagen, House Bill 67 would have prohibited any public library in the state from presenting or sponsoring a drag performance in the presence of a minor without the explicit consent of the minor’s parent or legal guardian.

An earlier version of the bill would have also applied to public schools, though that provision was stripped out in committee at the behest of public school theater organizations, which often perform shows with actors dressed as members of the opposite sex, which could be interpreted as being in violation of the bill.

The bill did not have any strict enforcement mechanisms, with no civil or criminal penalties for violations. The threat of a library being defunded for noncompliance, however, would persist, given the Alabama Public Library Board’s recent action to pause funding for the Fairhope Public Library due to complaints of the library failing to remove challenged books from its youth section, including “Sold,” a book about a girl sold into sexual slavery in India.

Gender ideology discussion ban in public schools

Sometimes referred to as the ‘don’t say gay’ bill, House Bill 244 would have prohibited gender ideology or sexual orientation instruction at public schools, though it failed to receive final passage before the end of the 2025 legislative session.

Carried by Rep. Mac Butler, R-Rainbow City, the bill would prohibit teachers from displaying pride flags or insignias, including pins, and teachers or school staff from using “pronouns inconsistent with a student’s biological sex, ” though the pronoun provision was removed before passing committee. It proved controversial when reaching the House floor, but managed to pass out of the chamber in a bipartisan vote, and later, out of a Senate committee.

Despite being ready to be taken up in the Senate on May 1, the upper chamber failed to vote on HB244, leaving it in the graveyard of bills of the 2025 session.

Parole reform

A years-long effort to reform Alabama’s Board of Pardons and Paroles, first launched by Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, but accelerated this year with a new Republican-backed bill, failed this year despite advancing farther than ever before.

The Pardons and Paroles Board has faced renewed scrutiny in recent months after its chair, Leigh Gathney, was grilled by lawmakers last year for the board’s failure to both adhere to its own guidelines, and update those guidelines as is required by law. Since Gwathney took over as chair in 2019, the board’s parole grant rate declined from 53% in 2018 to just 8% in 2023, a rate far below the recommended grant rate, a figure generated from the board’s guidelines, of 81% or greater.

While the board’s parole grant saw a sudden shift upward last year, climbing to its highest level in five years in January, some lawmakers had grown increasingly frustrated with how the board operated.

England had introduced a bill to reform the board for years, with his version establishing an oversight body for the board that would require it to follow its own parole guidelines, or produce a report explaining reasons for deviation. No versions had made any substantial ground in the Legislature, however, with England’s latest version this year never reaching the House floor. In April, however, Sen. Clyde Chambliss, R-Prattville, introduced his own bill to reform the Pardons and Parole Board, Senate Bill 324, which would have expanded board membership from three to five, and required Senate confirmation for each member. It would have also required the board to select its own chair, whereas today, the governor is the chair appointing authority.

Chambliss’ bill advanced quickly through the Legislature, passing out of a Senate committee, the Senate, and a House committee in less than a month. While ready to be taken up in the House as of May 1, it was never voted on in the lower chamber, leaving it dead for the year.

Chambliss was able to get an amendment on the 2026 General Fund that made part of the funding for the board contingent on the board revising its parole guidelines.

Law enforcement scholarship program

Part of the public safety priorities for Ivey was House Bill 188, which would have established a scholarship program for law enforcement officers and their families, failed to come up for a vote amid hours of filibustering from Senate Democrats.

Carried by Rep. Allen Treadaway, R-Morris, the bill would have covered up to $3,000 per academic period for tuition and required educational expenses, and would be available to children and spouses of eligible members of law enforcement. It was one part of Ivey’s anti-crime bill package, and the only inclusion that failed to reach her desk.

After the Legislature had adjourned for the year shortly before midnight on Wednesday, House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, R-Rainsville, lamented the failure of lawmakers to get HB188 to Ivey’s desk.

“I’m especially disappointed the police scholarship bill didn’t get through, I don’t even understand that one,” Ledbetter told reporters just outside the House floor at the Alabama State House in Montgomery.

“It was a priority for me and for the governor. We offer scholarships to so many others – why not to the families of officers who sacrifice for us every day? If we want to retain police officers, we need to support their families too. That bill should have passed.”

Religious instruction during the school day

A high-profile bill backed by Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth to require public schools to allow release time for religious instruction failed this session, despite passing the Senate.

House Bill 342 by Rep. Susan DuBose, R-Hoover, and Senate Bill 278 by Sen. Shay Shelnutt, R-Trussville, would have changed a 2019 law that lets local school boards permit religious release time.

The proposed change: make it mandatory by replacing “may” with “shall.”

DuBose’s bill stalled in the House Education Policy Committee amid concerns about local control and instructional time. After the Senate passed Shelnutt’s bill, it was assigned to the House State Government Committee – where it failed to advance.

After the vote, Ainsworth criticized the School Superintendents of Alabama in social media posts, accusing them of using “taxpayer-funded lobbyists to kill a bill allowing Bible study and character education as an elective course in public schools” and calling for greater scrutiny of their political involvement.

Superintendents and school board leaders said they weren’t opposed to religious release time, but to the mandate. The 2019 law already allows such policies, though many districts have chosen not to adopt them.

Alabama Daily News’ Alexander Willis and Trisha Powell Crain contributed to this report.

The Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Medicaid expansion expanded Medicaid coverage to nearly all adults with incomes up to 138% of the Federal Poverty Level ($21,597 for an individual in 2025) and provided states with an enhanced federal matching rate (FMAP) for their expansion populations.

To date, 41 states (including DC) have adopted the Medicaid expansion and 10 states have not adopted the expansion. Current status for each state is based on KFF tracking and analysis of state expansion activity.

These data are also available in a table format. The map may be downloaded as a Powerpoint.