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Our Opinion The Alabama State Senate really took the cake this session. No wait…they took everything but the cake but they would have probably gotten it, too, if they had thought about it! The fractured, uncompromising, unyielding, sometimes fighting (how can we forget Sen. Charles Bishop's infamous punch of Sen. Lowell Barron?) State Senate can be blamed for a lot of the good bills that died this session. The first day of the regular session was a low mark as senators (as well as their colleagues in the House) voted themselves hefty 62 percent pay raises. The last day ended with the Bishop-Barron fracas and with the passage of a self-serving resolution that was not immediately recognized. On a voice vote (like the pay raise) with no debate and little fanfare, senators adopted a resolution that would give them the same health insurance coverage as state employees and state school teachers. And that's a pretty good deal. State employees pay nothing for single coverage. For family coverage that runs everybody else about $690 a month, they can sign up for just $180 a month. Remember, these are supposed to be citizen legislators who hold regular jobs and serve part-time as legislators. But in addition to pushing their part-time salaries from about $30,000 to almost $50,000 annually, our esteemed senators went further and authorized themselves some cheap insurance as well! This is a resolution and we are not sure what weight it carries as opposed to a law. We don't know if Gov. Riley can, or would, veto it. Alabama taxpayers may be stuck with paying these freeloaders' insurance. We do think state senators have done a pretty sorry job this session and their sorry actions have only been compounded by their greed for a bigger paycheck and cheap insurance.
Heck, on second thought they may have taken the cake after all…and all of the icing to boot, too!
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