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Legislative votes to keep double dipping

By Jared Felkins
The Times-Journal

Published April 15, 2008

A state Senate committee has approved a bill that would override the new state policy prohibiting two-year college employees from serving in the Legislature after 2010, including two DeKalb County representatives.

The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee voted 5-2 Tuesday for a bill by Democratic Sen. Linda Coleman of Birmingham. The bill would allow city, county and state employees to serve in public office, provided they use paid or unpaid leave to attend to their public duties.

Coleman works for the city of Birmingham. She said a ban on double dipping would disenfranchise many people from public office.

The bill comes as good news to Reps. Todd Greeson and Jack Page, both members of the DeKalb County legislative delegation who work for community colleges. Greeson, R-Ider, is a workforce developer with Northeast Alabama Community College and Page, D-Gadsden, works for Gadsden State Community College.

“We will see how it will do on the Senate floor,” Greeson said. “There’s a lot going on right now with the budgets. There has been talk of something like this being done. It seems to be the more fair way of doing things rather than having to take vacation days. We will see how it stacks up on the Senate floor. That will be a good test for it.”

Page said he had not seen the bill, but supports its intent.

“This bill sounds like it would be a good first step,” Page said. “What people have to understand is this is a part-time Legislature. If this bill protects the rights of the citizens of Alabama to make a living and offer themselves up for public office, it’s a good bill.”

An identical bill, sponsored by Rep. Marcel Black, D-Tuscumbia, is scheduled for consideration Wednesday by the House Governmental Operations Committee.

At the urging of state junior college Chancellor Bradley Byrne, the State Board of Education adopted a policy last year that requires legislators who are two-year college employees to make a choice when the 2010 elections occur: quit their college jobs to run for re-election or keep their college jobs and retire from the Legislature. Until then, the policy requires them to use leave time to serve in the Legislature.

The policy, which is supported by the Republican governor, has been challenged in court by some legislators who have the backing of the Alabama Education Association. Montgomery Circuit Judge Johnny Hardwick has put the leave policy on hold until he rules in the case.

Gov. Bob Riley criticized the legislation in a statement Tuesday.

“These bills are the latest legislative shenanigan being pulled to stop the clean-up of the two-year college system. The people want the system reformed and double dipping to stop, but some legislators are dragging out every trick in the book to keep it from happening,” Riley said.

The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration.

– The Associated Press contributed to this report

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