Organizations that advocate for low-income families, public transportation, criminal justice reforms, gun safety, voter participation, clean rivers, and freedom from censorship in public libraries lost more than they won during the Alabama legislative session.

The groups held a conference call Tuesday to summarize the highs, lows, and in-betweens of the legislative session that ended May 9. They said they will continue to pursue goals that typically take years of work and would be back next year to fight against what they consider bad legislation.

“We all know that the organizations on this call are playing the long game,” said Jennifer Greer, one of the organizers of the Zoom call. “And that really seems to be how we make change at the local level in Alabama.”

Organizations on the call were Alabama Arise, the Action Coalition for Transit in Alabama, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, the Alabama Rivers Alliance, the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, the League of Women Voters of Alabama, and Read Freely Alabama.

Jennifer Harris of Alabama Arise, which has lobbied on behalf of low-income families for decades, praised renewed efforts to advocate for Medicaid expansion during the session, although no legislation received serious consideration.

“We do have hopes that we will continue that movement and that next year we will finally be able to close the coverage gap,” Harris said, referring to the lack of healthcare coverage for the approximately 300,000 Alabamians who could benefit from expansion, which was authorized under the Affordable Care Act more than a decade ago but which Alabama’s Republican governors and legislative leaders have opposed. Alabama is one of 10 states that have not expanded Medicaid.

Harris said Arise supported bills to give teachers and state employees paid parental leave. Both bills passed one chamber but did not win final approval.

Alabama Arise also supported bills to exempt diapers, baby formula, other baby products, maternity clothing, and menstrual hygiene products from the state sales tax. Those bills also passed one chamber but fell short of final approval.

Carol Gundlach of Alabama Arise said a big loss for the session was the passage of the CHOOSE Act, which will allow parents to use up to about $7,000 in taxpayer dollars to help pay for private school. The bill creates education savings accounts that parents can use to help pay tuition and other educated-related expenses. It was Gov. Kay Ivey’s top priority of the session and Republicans hailed it as an important step to give parents more control over education. Gundlach said the diversion of funds from public schools is a step toward the privatization of education.

As far as legislative wins, Gundlach said Alabama Arise supported a bill to create a tax credit program intended to provide incentives for developers to build more affordable housing. That was part of a package of bills intended to increase Alabama’s low workforce participation rate. Gundlach called that a step in the right direction. But she said Arise wanted the workforce package to include some funding for public transportation.

On that topic, Marva Douglas of the Action Coalition for Transit in Alabama said the defeat of a bill to add $5 to the annual registration fee for vehicles to support public transportation was a setback. The bill, SB91, by Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison, D-Birmingham, would have raised an estimated $26 million a year for the Alabama Public Transportation Trust Fund, which the Legislature created in 2018 but has never funded. The bill died in committee and did not come up for a vote in the Senate. Douglas said Coleman-Madison plans to introduce the bill again next year.

Paula Wilson of the Alabama chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said there were 16 bills on firearms in the Legislature this year, including 14 that promoted gun safety. None of those 14 passed, although one, HB36 by Rep. Phillip Ensler, passed the House. HB36 would have created a state law against devices that enable semi-automatic handguns to fire multiple rounds with a single trigger pull, often called Glock switches. Ensler’s bill received support from law enforcement but failed to come up for a vote in the Senate on the last day of the session.

Wilson said Moms Demand Action opposed the passage of a bill that prohibits credit card companies from using a code that distinguishes gun purchases and that says a government entity cannot keep a list or registry of privately owned guns and gun owners. That bill, SB281 by Sen. Tim Melson, R-Florence, passed overwhelmingly, 32-0 in the Senate and 85-5 in the House.

Krysti Shallenberger of Read Freely Alabama, which opposes censorship efforts aimed at libraries and librarians, said it was a difficult session although several of the bills that the organization opposed did not pass. That includes HB385 by Rep. Arnold Mooney, R-Shelby County, which would have made librarians criminally liable for distributing “sexual or gender oriented material” to minors without parental consent. The House passed HB385 but it died in the Senate. Shallenberger said she expects the bill to return next year.

Shallenberger said the passage of HB89 by Mooney stripped the public of their right to elect the library board in North Shelby County. Instead of being chosen by voters, the library board members will be picked by the state lawmakers who represent the library district.

Elaine Burdeshaw of the Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice said the defeat of what was called a “second-chance bill” was a setback. The bill, by Rep. Chris England, D-Tuscaloosa, would have allowed about 150 people serving life in prison whose crimes did not cause a physical injury to receive consideration for new sentences. People eligible to apply for new sentences would have had to meet specific criteria, including that they have been in prison at least 24 years. Advocates for HB29 said it was a sensible reform because those who would be eligible to apply for new sentences would not receive life without parole sentences if they were sentenced under current law.

Burdeshaw said a legislative win was the allocation of $2.3 million from an opioid settlement fund to the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles to use for transitional housing for people suffering from substance abuse disorder. That was part of HB479 by Rep. Rex Reynolds, R-Huntsville.

Elliott Spillers of Alabama Appleseed said another legislative win was the passage of SB322 by Sen. Clyde Chambliss, R-Prattville, which calls for the Alabama Department of Corrections to establish a new team of 15 employees who will work in constituent services, including the responsibility for communicating with family members of state inmates.

The legislation came after relatives and friends of inmates told the Legislature’s prison oversight committee during a public hearing in December about being unable to get information from prison officials after learning that their loved one had been injured or hospitalized.

Kathy Jones, president of the League of Women Voters of Alabama, said a low mark for the session was the passage of SB1, which makes it a crime to help a person obtain or turn in an absentee ballot application, with some exceptions. Republicans, who passed the bill over opposition from Democrats, said it would stop ballot harvesting, the distribution and collection of absentee ballot applications by third parties to unduly influence elections. Opponents of the bill, citing the lack of examples of that happening in Alabama, said the bill was unnecessary and would criminalize the assistance that some elderly people and others need to cast their ballots.

The League of Women Voters, along with the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, Greater Birmingham Ministries, and the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program have filed a federal lawsuit to try to block the new law.

The groups “H.I.V.E. Alabama” and “MAD? Make A Difference” hosted Tuesday’s Zoom call.