Bill overhauling Alabama's largest water utility heads to governor's desk despite local outcry
Alabama legislators passed a bill on Thursday that would strip Birmingham of control over the state's largest water board and transfer power to the governor and surrounding suburbs, reigniting a decades-long, polarizing debate.
Proponents of the bill point to frequent rate hikes and say that the move will prevent catastrophic events that have happened in cities like Jackson, Mississippi, or Detroit, Michigan. Opponents of the bill say that it is a power grab that diminishes the power of Black residents in Birmingham, Alabama.
Birmingham city officials currently appoint six of the nine board members' seats, giving Birmingham leadership unrivaled influence over the decisions affecting the city's water. Board members approve rate hikes and manage infrastructure projects.
If signed into law, SB330 would make the board just seven people. The mayor of Birmingham and the Birmingham city council would appoint two board members, while the governor, lieutenant governor and three neighboring county commission presidents would each appoint one board member.
Five counties rely on the Birmingham Water Works Board, but over 40% of the utility's 770,000 customers are concentrated in the city of Birmingham, and 91% are in Jefferson County. The new system would give more weight to Birmingham's neighboring counties that house the reservoirs that supply the system.
Republican lawmakers from the Birmingham suburbs sponsored the bill, saying that it will improve the efficiency of the system. They say aging infrastructure and lack of investment means residents pay for water that just gets leaked out of old pipes.
'So many elected officials have been getting so many complaints, and I'm sure yours have too, about the quality and the price of Birmingham water,' said Republican Rep. Jim Carns, who represents Blount County, one of the places that will now appoint a board member.
The water board had approximately $1 billion in debt in 2023, according to the most recent financial statements, and the board has the second highest credit score, according to bond rating agencies.
Carns said that the regional board would make the utility more frugal. AL.com reported that the utility has been accused of lacking transparency in recent years and has sometimes made costly errors in distributing bills. Trust in the board was further undermined in recent years after high-profile ethics scandals.
Many in Alabama's vocal Democratic minority conceded that the board wasn't perfect, but they also condemned the move as a political takeover that would wrest power from Birmingham's majority Black residents and redistribute it to customers in the city's mostly white suburbs.
'Frankly the language used today was insulting, with words like competence being thrown around as if the city of Birmingham is not growing by leaps and bounds,' Democratic Rep. Kelvin Datcher of Birmingham said after the bill passed. He questioned how the new board's composition would address any of the bill sponsor's concerns about efficiency.
Democratic legislators also took issue with the fact that they were excluded from the overall process.
'Each of us in this chamber would be rightfully concerned if outside representatives attempted to dictate how water systems operate in our districts without consulting us or even including us at the table, or, hell, even the room where this legislation was created,' Rep. Neil Rafferty of Birmingham said.
Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin joined Birmingham city council members for a press conference to echo those concerns.
'The ratepayers deserve to be at the forefront of this conversation, and they have not been,' Woodfin said. 'Let's call it what it is. This is a political power grab. This is not in the best interest of our citizens.'
The bill passed along party lines 66 to 27. It now goes to Republican Gov. Kay Ivey 's desk.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NBC News
an hour ago
- NBC News
Republicans focus on trans athletes in their early attacks against Jon Ossoff in Georgia
Republicans seeking to unseat Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff in one of the key races of the 2026 midterm elections are leaning heavily into attacks over transgender athletes in women's sports in the early stages of the campaign. In recent weeks, two GOP-aligned outside groups have launched ads on the issue. And GOP Rep. Buddy Carter hit the airwaves with an ad prodding Ossoff on the issue soon after launching his campaign. Republican candidates and campaigns have frequently leaned on culture war issues in recent years as a way to excite the base and frame Democrats as out of touch, particularly in red-leaning states. And they're even more emboldened after President Donald Trump bombarded then-Vice President Kamala Harris with an onslaught of ads that attacked her support for transgender people during the 2024 election. But while Democrats are gearing up for a difficult re-election fight for Ossoff in a state Trump won narrowly in 2024, they think the issue will be drowned out by voters' concerns about the economy, particularly Trump's handling of it. Even so, it's an issue for which Democrats lack a consensus about how to respond to GOP broadsides, as prominent members of the party grapple with whether to embrace protecting the transgender community as part of their values, deflect the question or come out against including transgender athletes in women's sports. Ossoff is the only Democratic incumbent defending a seat in a state Trump won last year, making him far-and-away the top target for Senate Republicans. Still, some Republicans admit that Ossoff will be difficult to beat, particularly now that Gov. Brian Kemp decided not to seek the seat. The early Republican criticism of Ossoff points to the Democratic senator's vote on legislation in February that would make it a Title IX violation (jeopardizing federal education funding) for states to allow transgender women and girls to participate in female sports. The bill failed to get the 60 votes it needed to advance in the Senate. One Nation, the nonprofit aligned with Senate Republicans' main super PAC, has spent at least $400,000 airing an ad reminiscent of a key tagline from one of Trump's anti-Harris ads from last year: 'Man to man defense isn't woke enough for Ossoff, he's playing for they/them.' Carter's opening salvo of ads included a spot touting the congressman's MAGA credentials while a person purporting to be a transgender woman holds sports trophies and stands in front of a transgender pride flag talking about how Ossoff has been an ally to the community. Asked about the GOP criticism of that vote, Ossoff campaign communications director Ellie Dougherty told NBC News in a statement that 'American parents don't need federal bureaucrats confirming our children's genitalia,' a reference to how a state might enforce the mandate in the Republican bill. Scott Paradise, who managed Republican Herschel Walker's losing Senate campaign in 2022, told NBC News that Ossoff's first Senate run in 2020 provided a 'perfect storm' that allowed Ossoff to position himself as a 'centrist' by narrowing his focus to 'bread-and-butter issues.' 'If he's talking about the economy or he's talking about moments where he has stood with the right — whether it's Middle East, to the extent he has on immigration — it's easier for him to muddy the waters. But this is such a black and white issue in a center-right state' that allows Republicans to try to frame him as out of step, he said. Polling broadly shows the American public doesn't support transgender women playing in female sports. Last month's NBC News Stay Tuned Poll, powered by SurveyMonkey found 75% opposed it and 25% supported it. Other national polling has found similar trends. That's one reason why Trump's campaign focused heavily on the issue in ads, arguing that Harris was outside the mainstream and pointing to her past support for gender-affirming treatments for prison inmates. After the election, Democrats have disagreed over whether the party's position on transgender rights, particularly in women's sports cost them electorally. Asked about the attacks last month during an interview on "Political Breakfast," a podcast hosted by Georgia's public radio affiliate, Ossoff said the big early spending is a signal to him that "demonstrates the national GOP understands the strength that I'll be bringing to this re-election campaign." The Democrat called Republicans, particularly GOP political consultants, "obsessed and preoccupied with this issue." Thinking ahead about "top of mind" issues for voters in 2026, Ossoff added, will it be "whether or not federal bureaucrats are investigating the sexual biology of adolescent athletes? I don't think so," he added. Amy Morton, a Democratic strategist in Georgia, elaborated that she believes the midterms will instead be a "referendum on the economy" and Trump's handling of it, emphasizing the Democratic attacks on the GOP's broad policy bill that's working its way through Congress. "They're going to continue to lean into that issue because they don't want to talk about the issues that are really impacting Georgians," she said, adding, "They made a strategic decision to wrap their arms around Donald Trump so there won't be a degree of separation between his failure as an executive and their failure." A Democratic strategist who worked on Sen. Raphael Warnock's successful re-election in Georgia in 2022 added that like their former boss, Ossoff's high-profile elections have helped to define him in the state, making them skeptical that a GOP attempt to brand him as extreme will stick. They added that while Warnock's 2022 Republican opponent, Herschel Walker, leaned heavily on social issues during his unsuccessful bid, Kemp won comfortably with a very different message on the same ballot, showing how a campaign can focus on the issues it wants and leave others to the side. "You saw Brian Kemp run an extremely disciplined race on the economy. You were hard pressed to get Kemp on the record about abortion in 2022 — the man was laser-focused on small businesses, jobs and the economy. That was the consistent message you heard out of Brian Kemp. You compare that to Herschel Walker and, you can do the math: 300,000 votes," the Democrat said. But the economy was also a top issue in the 2024 election, and Trump and the Republican Party still managed to turn their attacks on trans issues into a memorable tagline that stuck with some voters. That's why one national Republican strategist told NBC News that the attack isn't a "replacement" for a cogent economic argument, but "part of the equation. 'It's an issue that obviously had a massive impact in 2024. The Trump campaign's 'Harris is for they/them' ad is one of the greatest ads of our generation in that it's so simple and was so effective,' the strategist said. Ads about transgender participants in women's sports can run "on top of: Oh, he also voted to help ensure that illegal immigrants get government-paid health care and he voted against the Laken Riley amendment in 2024 before it was convenient," the strategist added. While the transgender sports attacks are drawing headlines, both sides have been running ads focused on spending in Washington too. Democrats have attacked the GOP's policy bill working its way through Washington, and Republicans hit Ossoff for backing former President Joe Biden's signature spending bill in 2022. Tharon Johnson, a Georgia Democratic strategist who worked for Biden's 2020 campaign in Georgia agreed that Republicans are "going to be hard-pressed to make Jon Ossoff into this radical" in part because of his work both in office and on the campaign trail. And while he believes the situation Harris found herself in last year isn't the same one Ossoff finds himself in now, he said Democrats can still draw a lesson from it: "Respond sooner, and more effectively." So far, Ossoff's response has been to stay focused on the economy and try to frame the debate as about local control.
Economist
2 hours ago
- Economist
What's happening in LA could be a template for the Trump administration
IS THE UNREST in Los Angeles a one-off? Or is it the beginning of a summer of unrest, and of crackdowns by President Donald Trump, who has no patience for protesters in Democratic cities?
NBC News
6 hours ago
- NBC News
Oklahoma inmate Richard Glossip to face new murder trial but without death penalty
Oklahoma's top prosecutor said Monday the state intends to pursue a new murder trial against inmate Richard Glossip but without the death penalty after the U.S. Supreme Court vacated his capital conviction in a rare victory for a death row prisoner. State Attorney General Gentner Drummond's decision to retry Glossip, 62, on a first-degree murder charge came out of a status conference hearing. In a news release, Drummond said, the evidence still implicates him in the 1997 murder of Oklahoma City motel owner Barry Van Treese. Glossip, a motel manager working for Van Treese, has maintained his innocence while he was on death row for almost three decades. While Drummond, a Republican, has not agreed with Glossip's innocence claims, he was supportive of the Supreme Court's ruling in February, when the majority of justices, he said, agreed "it is now an undeniable fact that he did not receive a fair trial." He said in a statement Monday that he would ensure Glossip receives an impartial one now. "While it was clear to me and to the U.S. Supreme Court that Mr. Glossip did not receive a fair trial, I have never proclaimed his innocence," Drummond said. "After the high court remanded the matter back to district court, my office thoroughly reviewed the merits of the case against Richard Glossip and concluded that sufficient evidence exists to secure a murder conviction." Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna, a Democrat, had previously indicated that Glossip would not be eligible for the death penalty now if he were to be retried. Drummond said he would seek a life sentence for Glossip at his next trial. "While I cannot go back 25 years and handle the case in the proper way that would have ensured true justice, I still have a duty to seek the justice that is available today," he added. The continuation of the state's prosecution against Glossip resumes a twisting case that saw him dodge death several times with nine separate execution dates that had to be postponed. Various courts had delayed the executions as he appealed, while state corrections officials also came under scrutiny a decade ago for botched execution attempts. But Glossip's case had been championed in recent years by a bipartisan group of Oklahoma legislators after an indepe n dent report they commissioned in 2022 found that "no reasonable jury hearing the complete record would convict Glossip of first-degree murder." The report centered on the state's primary witness, Justin Sneed, who had confirmed to the report's investigators that he had discussions with multiple family members about "recanting" his testimony over an 11-year period. Investigators also said the district attorney's case file included documentation describing how the state provided Sneed information "so he could conform his testimony to match the evidence" from other witnesses. Glossip's original 1998 conviction was overturned in 2001, when a state appeals court found that the evidence against him was weak. But the state took him to trial again, and a second jury found him guilty in 2004. At Glossip's trial, Sneed, a motel handyman, admitted that he killed Van Treese, but said that it was at Glossip's direction and that he had been promised $10,000. In exchange for testifying against Glossip, Sneed received a life sentence while Glossip was given the death penalty. Prosecutors said Glossip orchestrated the plot because he was embezzling from the motel and feared being fired. The Supreme Court tossed out Glossip's capital conviction in a 5-3 ruling. Justice Neil Gorsuch did not participate, presumably because he was involved in the case when he was on a federal appeals court that includes Oklahoma. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the majority's ruling that prosecutors "knew Sneed's statements were false" and that "because Sneed's testimony was the only direct evidence of Glossip's guilt of capital murder, the jury's assessment of Sneed's credibility was necessarily determinative here." "Hence, there is a reasonable likelihood that correcting Sneed's testimony would have affected the judgment of the jury," she added. After the Supreme Court's decision, Glossip was moved off death row, but was held without bail in the Oklahoma County Detention Center on a first-degree murder charge. A next court date in Glossip's case is scheduled for June 17. Glossip's attorney, Don Knight, did not immediately comment about the prosecutors' decision, but had welcomed the Supreme Court's ruling in February that spared his longtime client from the death chamber. "He had nine execution dates, three last meals, and obviously, to finally get relief has been huge for him," Knight said, "and he's thrilled beyond words."
