“You didn’t have to make it like you did, but you did, but you did, and I thank you.” – David Porter and Isaac Hayes

As the old joke goes, the Alabama Legislature has done all the damage it can do for the year.

The legislature’s regular session wrapped up nearly two weeks ago. Barring Gov. Kay Ivey calling the legislature back in for a special session, this should wrap up lawmaking for 2024.

While those of us with a word processor and an opinion often point out the negative consequences from legislation considered or passed by our state’s legislative branch, I think it is important to point out there are several positive developments to share, as well.

Based on public opinion, many of you reading this may consider my first positive to be a negative. The package to create a state lottery as well as allow casinos and possibly sports gambling, too, failed by the closest of margins.

Since casinos and lotteries are prohibited by the Alabama Constitution, an amendment to the state constitution was required to allow them. Amendments require three-fifths of both the house of representatives and the senate to approve placing the issue on an election ballot for voters to consider.

After passing through the House, the lottery and gambling legislation fell one, measly vote short in the senate from reaching that threshold.

This will benefit many of us who do not understand the casino and the lottery always win in the end, but it is disappointing for those of you jonesing to lay the points on the under of a five-team parlay. To be clear, I have no idea how sports betting works.

Another positive was averting the crisis of having the Democratic presidential ticket possibly being left off the ballot in the November elections.

This was a possibility due to Alabama’s early deadline for political parties to submit the names of their presidential and vice-presidential candidates. The deadline fell before this year’s Democratic National Convention when the candidates are officially nominated.

The legislature passed a temporary deadline extension for this year which should take care of the problem. Ohio is in a similar situation but has not yet passed an extension, so it will be interesting to see how this plays out in the Buckeye State.

Since the deadline has become an issue in Alabama during the 2020 and 2024 presidential elections, look for legislation to provide a more permanent solution in the coming years.

Thirdly, the legislature attempted to shore up the state’s sunshine laws and create greater access to public records.

This can be a fine line to walk as the public – whether represented by the media or just the average Joe – should have access to as many public documents as possible and as quickly and cheaply as possible. However, in some instances, the complexity or sheer volume of documents requested can require days or weeks of effort by an agency’s staff to supply.

The new law sets specific deadlines for public agencies to acknowledge a request for public documents, creates criteria for how a public agency must respond to a request, and creates longer timelines for record requests requiring an extensive amount of time and effort to fulfill.

There is probably no way to create perfect legislation on this topic because of the variety of public records and the requests made for them, but this hopefully will be a step in the right direction.

Fourthly, house bill 358 provides tax credits to employers who assist their employees in paying for childcare services for the employees’ children younger than age six. The idea is to help parents of young children enter the workforce whereas they may have been reluctant to do so due to concerns about the cost of childcare.

The new law also provides tax credits to childcare providers should the providers meet the necessary conditions.

Finally, house bill 73 caps the increase of property taxes from year to year. With the new law, property taxes can, at most, only increase by 7 percent based on the previous year’s assessed value of the property no matter how much the value of the property increases.

This should prevent exorbitant, instant tax increases if you happen to own property in a rapidly developing area. The limit does not apply if property values rise sharply based on the property owner’s improvement of the property. This is reasonable legislation, although Alabama’s property tax system could use an overhaul, but that is a different article for a different day.

Like most developments in life, policymaking is never all bad or all good. If your favored legislation did not make the cut, maybe next year will be your year.