Alabama Lawmakers Move Crime Bills, Sign PSC Law
Written by Brent Wilson on
April 6, 2026
This Week in Brief
Alabama lawmakers moved 10 bills through a chamber during the week of March 30 through April 5, while Gov. Kay Ivey signed 66 bills into law and took no vetoes. The week’s biggest enacted change was a rewrite of Public Service Commission meeting and utility-cost rules, while criminal penalties, Medicaid-related provider assessments and several local bills also advanced.
Lawmakers introduced 56 new bills and logged 521 roll call votes. Much of the week’s attention centered on bills dealing with utility oversight, criminal sentencing and a cluster of healthcare financing bills that would make current provider assessments permanent instead of letting them expire in 2028.
Featured: Utility Oversight, Criminal Penalties and a High-Profile Name Change
HB475 was the week’s clearest headline bill to reach the finish line. The version signed into law requires the Alabama Public Service Commission to hold meetings at least once a year on utility regulation and other topics within the commission’s authority, and it requires public notice that complies with the Alabama Open Meetings Act. The law also says commissioners can face impeachment if a meeting is not held or proper notice is not given.
The new law also reaches into rate-setting. It bars an electric utility from including certain costs in rates or service regulations, including costs related to grants, lobbying and advertising for the utility. That change affects both utilities and customers: utilities face new limits on what expenses can be recovered, while ratepayers could see added scrutiny over what gets built into their bills. The source material provided no fiscal estimate for the law, and it did not include named supporters or opponents, but the policy itself points to a familiar divide between consumer oversight on one side and utility flexibility on the other.
The broader version of HB475, marked as high-interest this week, would go further than the signed summary describes. According to the source material, that proposal would expand the PSC from three commissioners to seven district-based commissioners, create a governor-appointed Secretary of Energy to direct the agency, delay electric base-rate increases until 2029 and require at least one public meeting each year with utility representatives. It would also let the PSC investigate whether utilities wrongly included prohibited costs in rates. That version would directly affect electric utilities, the commission and ratepayers statewide, though the source material did not specify what activity it had this week beyond identifying it as active and high-interest.
Two high-interest House bills also drew attention for pushing Alabama further toward tougher criminal penalties tied to trafficking and drug deaths. HB653 would require a mandatory life sentence for first-degree human trafficking when the victim is subjected to sexual servitude. The bill would preserve a minimum life sentence in cases involving a minor victim or a defendant 19 or older trafficking a minor, and it says a defendant’s knowledge of the victim’s age is not required for liability. It also allows corporations and other legal entities to be prosecuted if an agent commits the crime within the scope of employment or on behalf of the entity.
Backers of tougher trafficking penalties often frame them as a response to the severity of exploitation and as a tool for punishing organizers as well as individual offenders. The source material, however, did not identify supporters or critics by name, and it did not provide a fiscal note on prison costs or enforcement costs. People most directly affected would include trafficking victims, defendants and businesses or organizations that could face prosecution under the bill’s entity-liability language.
HB652 would broaden Alabama’s manslaughter law to cover deaths caused when a person furnishes any controlled substance that is the proximate cause of another person’s death. Under the bill summary provided, those cases would become a Class A felony with a minimum life sentence, while general manslaughter would remain a Class B felony. The bill would exempt licensed physicians, pharmacists and dentists acting within their professional duties.
The practical effect would be to expose people who sell, give away, deliver or distribute controlled substances to far steeper penalties when a death follows. That affects criminal defendants directly, but also reaches overdose and poisoning cases that have often been part of the state’s broader fentanyl debate. The source material did not provide named opposition or support, and it did not give a fiscal impact, including any estimate of prison or court costs from longer sentences.
Another high-interest bill, HB2, would rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America in Alabama and require state and local entities and their employees to use the new name where practicable starting Oct. 1, 2026. New maps, documents, educational materials, websites and official communications would need to use the new name, while public schools and colleges could still use “Gulf of Mexico” for historical or instructional purposes. The bill includes a practical limit: existing materials would only need to be updated where doing so is practicable and would not create an operational or financial burden. That language points to the bill’s most immediate real-world impact, which falls on state agencies, local governments and public schools that would need to update public-facing materials.
SB375, another high-interest proposal, would reset compensation for mayors in Alabama’s Class 1 municipalities. Under the bill summary, the mayor’s salary would have to be at least $220,000 a year and could not change during the term, and the mayor would also receive an $8,000 monthly expense allowance for office costs. The bill would repeal older pay provisions, including separate provisions for Birmingham’s mayor. That would affect city governments, city councils and residents in the state’s largest cities. The source material did not include arguments from supporters or critics, but compensation legislation like this typically raises both governance and taxpayer questions because it directly shapes public spending on elected offices.
Other Bills Moving Forward
Criminal justice: SB233 passed a chamber this week and would increase penalties for eluding law enforcement. Under current law, eluding can be charged as a Class A misdemeanor, Class C felony or Class B felony depending on the facts. The bill would make eluding a Class D felony as a baseline, raise it to a Class C felony in cases involving a child under 14 in the vehicle, a defendant on bail, probation, parole, community corrections or work release, or a defendant with a prior eluding conviction, and raise it to a Class B felony when the offender strikes or attempts to strike an officer or an occupied law enforcement vehicle, or has two or more prior eluding convictions.
SB233 would also require minimum confinement for repeat offenders: at least 90 days for a second conviction and at least 180 days for a third or later conviction. Drivers convicted of eluding already face license suspension under existing law. The bill’s direct effects would fall on defendants, law enforcement and the courts, but the source material did not provide named supporters, critics or any estimate of incarceration costs tied to the increased penalties.
Healthcare and Medicaid financing: Three Senate bills passed a chamber that would make current provider assessments permanent instead of allowing them to expire in 2028. SB143 would remove the sunset clause from the supplemental privilege assessment, secondary supplemental privilege assessment and surcharge imposed on each bed in a nursing facility. SB144 would do the same for the quarterly assessment paid by emergency medical transport providers to support additional Medicaid enhancement payments for maintenance and expansion of emergency medical transport services. SB145 would make permanent the hospital provider privilege tax that privately operated hospitals now pay to provide funding for the Medicaid Agency.
Those bills affect nursing facilities, ambulance providers, private hospitals and the Medicaid financing structure that depends on those assessments. The source material does not include dollar figures, so the exact revenue effect is not available here. The debate built into the bills is plain even without quoted advocates: making the taxes and assessments permanent would create longer-term certainty for the funding streams, while also locking in ongoing costs on providers that were previously scheduled to expire.
Insurance and state funds: SB219 passed a chamber and would shift service contract provider registration fees into the Special Examination Revolving Fund rather than the Service Contract Revolving Fund. The bill would also clarify that fee adjustments follow changes in the Consumer Price Index and would transfer any remaining unencumbered balance from the old fund into the Special Examination Revolving Fund. The affected parties are service contract providers and the state accounts that receive and use those fees. The source material did not include a fiscal estimate for the fund transfer.
Local bills: Several local measures cleared a chamber. HB613, a House bill titled “Marengo Co., City of Demopolis; annexation,” passed a chamber this week. HB624, a House bill titled “Wilcox County; probate recording fee, increased,” also passed a chamber. HB625 would authorize electronic filing of business personal property tax returns in Cleburne County, according to its title, and HB629, titled “Mobile County; Town of Mt. Vernon annexation,” advanced as well. HB636, titled “Washington County, compensation of circuit clerk further provided for,” also passed a chamber. The source material did not provide fuller summaries for those local bills, so the digest is limited to the descriptions provided.
Signed Into Law
Beyond HB475, the governor signed a mix of constitutional amendments, court-administration changes and local bills.
HB573 proposes a constitutional amendment for Perry County to authorize a senior property tax exemption for qualified taxpayers age 65 or older on real property they own under certain conditions. That would affect older property owners in Perry County and, depending on how broadly used, could reduce local property-tax collections, though the source material did not provide a revenue estimate.
HB574 proposes a constitutional amendment for Macon County to raise the age limit for being elected or appointed judge of probate to 75 at the time of qualifying or appointment. The practical effect is to widen eligibility for that office in Macon County. The source material did not list supporters or opposition.
SB228 renames the Alabama Space Authority as the Alabama Aerospace Authority, adds the finance director and secretary of workforce as ex officio members and the chief executive officer of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center Commission as an ex officio nonvoting member, and further defines the authority’s powers and duties. That affects the authority’s governance and Alabama’s economic-development and research posture in aerospace, though no fiscal impact was included in the source material.
SB271 proposes a constitutional amendment on succession in the lieutenant governor’s office. If the office becomes vacant more than 60 days before a general election at which state officers are elected, the amendment would require a lieutenant governor to be elected at that election for the unexpired term. The bill affects statewide constitutional succession rules.
SB182 allows the Administrative Office of Courts to spend money from the Advanced Technology and Data Exchange Fund on general court operations, not only narrow justice-administration purposes, and creates separate advanced technology and data exchange funds for the Supreme Court, Court of Civil Appeals and Court of Criminal Appeals. That change could give the judiciary more flexibility in using technology-related funds, while also broadening the purposes for which those dollars may be spent.
SB277 authorizes decentralized unincorporated nonprofit associations to operate using distributed ledger technology and smart contracts, to hold property and to engage in profit-making activities subject to standards for distributing proceeds. The law also sets rules for member and administrator duties, liabilities, dissolution and winding up. That affects organizations using blockchain-style governance structures and gives them a clearer place in Alabama law.
Other newly signed bills included HB536, revising compensation for the Henry County sheriff; SB295, revising compensation for the Montgomery County probate judge; and HR327, a commendation for Brigadier General Vandiver H. Carter.
What to Watch
Criminal-penalty bills and the Medicaid-related provider assessment bills are now positioned for more attention after clearing a chamber. High-interest proposals including HB2, HB652, HB653 and SB375 also remain among the bills drawing the most public interest after activity this week.
