Latest news with #RickRehm
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Alabama law authorizes emergency care and transport for police K9s
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WHNT) — Alabama is providing more services for Police K9s throughout the state. HB 366, authorizes emergency medical services (EMS) personnel to provide medical care and transportation to police dogs injured in the line of duty. The bill also known as the 'Lakyn Canine Act,' will ensure injured police K9s receive the same emergency medical care and transportation as their human partners. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Rick Rehm (R-Dothan), also allows K9s to be transported by ambulance or helicopter to emergency veterinary care. Additionally, the bill will protect emergency medical personnel from potential liability arising from offering critical medical care in good faith to a police dog. 'Police K9s are more than working dogs; they're loyal partners, fearless protectors and like family,' said Debbie Johnson, president and founder of K9s United. 'They charge into danger without hesitation to protect their communities, and they deserve the same urgent, life-saving care as any human officer. Passing this law is one of our proudest moments, and we are deeply grateful to Governor Ivey and Representative Rehm for standing with us to ensure Alabama's K9 heroes receive the care they've earned through their service and sacrifice.' 'The Laykn Canine Act honors our police K9s and recognizes their vital role in protecting our communities with unwavering loyalty,' said Rep. Rick Rehm. 'By ensuring EMS personnel can provide emergency care without fear of liability, we're closing a dangerous gap and guaranteeing these brave dogs get the same urgent attention any hero deserves. I'm grateful to K9s United for bringing this issue to light, and proud that we've delivered a meaningful solution that ensures we never leave our K9s behind.' The recent enactment of the new law isn't so new, our neighbors in Florida also have a similar bill in place that was signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2021. HB366 in the Alabama legislature was signed into law on May 14, 2025. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Associated Press
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Alabama lawmakers vote to make Juneteenth an official state holiday
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama lawmakers on Wednesday gave final passage to legislation that will make Juneteenth, the day that commemorates the end of slavery after the Civil War, an official state holiday. The Alabama Senate voted 13-5 for the legislation that now goes to Gov. Kay Ivey for her to sign or veto. Ivey, for the last four years, has used her executive powers to designate Juneteenth as a state holiday. The legislation will make the designation permanent. Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865 , the day enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned from Union soldiers that they were free. The news came two months after the end of the Civil War. Juneteenth has been a federal holiday since 2021. If signed into law, state offices will close on June 19 for the Juneteenth holiday as they do for other state holidays. The bill, which cleared the House of Representatives last month by an 85-4 vote, was sponsored by Republican Rep. Rick Rehm. Alabama senators approved the bill without debate. However, many Republicans in the 35-member chamber opted not to vote on the legislation. Alabama has three Confederate-related state holidays that close state offices . Alabama marks Confederate Memorial Day in April and the birthday of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in June. The state jointly observes Robert E. Lee Day with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in January.
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Alabama House approves bill making Juneteenth state holiday
Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham (left) speaks with Rep. Rick Rehm, R-Dothan on the floor of the Alabama House of Representatives on April 30, 2024 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. Givan has sponsored legislation to make Juneteenth a state holiday in the past, but the House passed Rehm's version of the bill last week. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector) The Alabama House of Representatives Thursday passed a bill to make Juneteenth a state holiday. HB 165, sponsored by Rep. Rick Rehm, R-Dothan, closes state offices on June 19, which celebrates the end of slavery in the United States. 'This is a bill that is constituent driven, that was brought to me by my constituents,' Rehm said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX The legislation passed after years of efforts by Black Democrats in the Alabama Legislature, who either saw their proposals rejected or were effectively forced by Republicans to pair Juneteenth with Jefferson Davis' Birthday, a state holiday honoring the slaveholder and white supremacist who said that Black Americans were 'fitted expressly for human servitude.' The House last year approved a bill sponsored by Rep. Juanadalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, that would have required state employees to choose Juneteenth or Jefferson Davis' Birthday as their day off, a choice not required of any other state holiday. Several Black Democrats said during the debate on the bill last year that they struggled with whether to support the legislation with the Davis requirement. The House approved the bill, but it did not come out of the Senate. Several Black Democrats in the House Thursday expressed their frustration that Rehm's bill — which makes Juneteenth a standalone holiday not tied to Davis' birthday — won approval from the majority Republican Legislature while Givan's had to be altered before it could come to a vote. 'There's something wrong that the only way it could be a good bill is that somebody else carries it, and not the people that was affected by it in the first place,' Moore said. Rep. Napoleon Bracy, D-Mobile, echoed Moore and said he was thankful the bill would pass but was upset that it took a white Republican like Rehm to pass it. 'Sometimes we need to win for our community,' Bracy said. 'We've had people that have brought this legislation for decades, and it wasn't good enough.' The bill passed 85-4 with a floor amendment by Rep. Laura Hall, D-Huntsville, that moved the effective date up to June 1 so that state employees could reap the benefits of the legislation this year. 'It was going to be taking effect on October 1, and we wanted it to take effect prior to the actual holiday,' Rehm said, supporting the amendment. Gov. Kay Ivey has signed memos for the last four years making Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth has also been a federally recognized holiday since 2021. Alabama's official state holiday calendar puts Robert E. Lee's Birthday on the same day as Martin Luther King's Birthday. The state also marks Confederate Memorial Day on the fourth Monday in April. The bill goes to the Senate. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The past that Alabama chooses to honor says a lot about us
A sculpture of enslaved men, women and children seen in Alabama Bicentennial Park in Montgomery, Alabama on January 24, 2023. Alabama was a slave state from 1819 to 1865, and Montgomery was a major slave trading destination. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector) When you come out from under the rusty monoliths inscribed with the names of lynching victims and the counties that bear the guilt of their deaths at Montgomery's National Memorial for Peace and Justice, you come to another set of monoliths lying on the ground. They're duplicates of what you've just seen. The Equal Justice Initiative, which runs the memorial, has offered them to each American county where a lynching took place. It's a reminder that the past lines our paths and runs beneath our feet. EJI says about 120 counties named in the memorial have erected local monuments to the victims of these terrors. But that's a fraction of the counties that experienced those killings. Historians and activists have to work all the time to remind us of the horror Black Americans experienced. For the most part, white American communities have forgotten. Or erased the memories. Too difficult. Too reflective of the evil we are capable of. Far too many people view Black history in the U.S. that way — not as a powerful current that has carried the nation forward, but as a tributary dumping unpleasant debris into the stream. This may explain why Alabama struggles to honor victims of slavery. There's no question we should. Almost half the state was enslaved in 1860. Each one of those men and women lived with the threat of physical and sexual assault every day of their lives. Each one could lose a parent, a sibling or a child if a white Alabamian could make a buck off their lives. Black legislators, all Democrats, have spent years pushing the state to honor Juneteenth, celebrating the end of slavery, a state holiday. HB 165, sponsored by Rep. Rick Rehm, R-Dothan and passed by a House committee last week, would do that. But under the bill as filed, the original bill, Juneteenth would have been a second-class holiday. Alabama state offices would not close on Juneteenth as they do for other state holidays. Instead, state employees would have to choose between Juneteenth, celebrating freedom, or Jefferson Davis' Birthday, honoring a violent traitor and white supremacist. Rehm removed this appalling provision on Wednesday. In the past, white Republicans have claimed they worry about creating another state holiday. Last year, Republicans forced Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, who is Black, to include the Juneteenth-or-the-racist provision in her bill that would have established the state holiday. It was a disgraceful, dishonorable demand to make of any Alabamian, let alone anyone who happens to be Black. But Givan agreed because of the importance of marking the holiday. (The bill passed the House but died in the Senate.) Now the GOP has decided that Juneteenth should be a holiday, full stop. And that a white man should get credit for it. After forcing a Black woman to make accommodations for a Confederate who killed hundreds of thousands of Americans to keep millions more in slavery. 'My ancestors are crying,' Givan said as she left the committee hearing Wednesday. This is the pattern in Alabama. We can't acknowledge the oppressed without giving the oppressor his due. We can't celebrate the bravery of the Alabamians who fought an anti-democratic government without insisting that government can't change. The state treats the victims of slavery as intrusions on a perverse hero story about Davis or Robert E. Lee being slightly misguided defenders of liberty, not the authoritarian thugs they were. So they pass laws threatening educators who teach honest history. And protect statues honoring slaveholders and lynchers. The state quite rightly has a Holocaust Commission funded with taxpayer dollars to tell people about the horrors of Nazi Germany, a regime dedicated to the industrial slaughter of minorities. But Alabama has no equivalent commission to teach children about slavery, a system of building this state on millions of Black bodies. There are few state-funded memorials to slavery or segregation. The Alabama Historical Commission operates the Freedom Rides Museum in Montgomery, but it also operates Confederate Memorial Park. EJI's lynching and slavery memorials in Montgomery are privately funded. Black lawmakers have to work with a system that has no interest in honoring our real past, one that forces terrible choices on them. Rep. Alvin Holmes, D-Montgomery, got the Legislature to make Martin Luther King Day a state holiday in 1984 by tying it to the existing Robert E. Lee holiday. They shouldn't have to do this, any more than Alabama should cling to its Confederate fetishes. But in our state, our leaders push fantasies into the public sphere without question. And force actual history to be negotiated. Like those rusty columns at the lynching memorial, the past lays before us: hard. Heavy. Difficult to grasp. All too often, Alabama chooses to stick with the fantasy. And trample the the stark and indelible wreckage it leaves behind. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
