14-05-2025
Shroud Award given to bill updating vehicle safety guidelines for children
Rep. Ron Bolton, R-Northport, smiles as he holds up The Shroud Award in the Alabama House of Representatives on May 14, 2025. Bolton received the award, given to "the deadest bill of the session," for legislation that would have revised weight and height standards for children's safety seats. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)
The House of Representatives' annual Shroud Award Wednesday went to a bill that died on the House floor in February.
HB 18, sponsored by Rep. Ron Bolton, R-Northport, would have updated safety regulations for children in vehicles for the first time in almost 20 years.
The award is given to the 'deadest bill of the session.'
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'There's no question of Rep. Bolton's good intentions, but to say his bill was complicated is being just a little bit kind,' Clay Redden, the House public information officer, said as he read a resolution presenting the Shroud. 'Representative Bolton's bill read like chapters from a pediatrician's anatomy book or an instruction manual and manual of how to operate a nuclear reactor.'
The bill failed a procedural motion known as a budget isolation resolution (BIR) on Feb. 27 amid pushback from both Democrats and Republicans.
'And let's not forget what Rep. Marcus Paramore pointed out just before the BIR failed, this bill would have made it nearly impossible for him, Rep. Leigh Hulsey and Rep. Susan DuBose to drive themselves to work,' Redden read from the resolution Wednesday.
Bolton signed the back of the Earl Mitchell Memorial Plaque, joining an 'illustrious group of people' who have received the Shroud Award.
Bolton's bill won the award over HB 489, sponsored by Rep. Jeremy Gray, D-Opelika, HB 277, sponsored by Rep. Ernie Yarbrough, and an unnumbered bill by Sen. Greg Albritton, R-Range.
HB 489 would have brought name, image and likeness to high school athletics. It was not voted on in the House Economic Development and Tourism Committee.
HB 277 would have created a sales tax exemption for firearms, ammunition and hunting supplies on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. It was not voted on in the House Ways and Means Education Committee.
Albritton's nonexistent bill would have been another attempt at legalizing gambling in the state.
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