Your Legislature & Doc Larry at Work

If you've never looked at a list of bills/proclamations passed each day during a session of the Alabama legislature, you've missed something. Much, we say much, of what is processed each day are proclamations honoring various individuals and other entities.

Did April May Wartsenall win the Sandpit County free throw basket ball toss? Then you can bet someone in the legislature introduced an official proclamation in her honor which was endorsed by the noble body of do-nothings and read into the record. First things first, and a working budget be hanged.

Then come the reaffirmations. Apparently many pols in Montgomery think laws that have been on the books a while or which have been repealed in other states need to be reaffirmed. Dodger Badword, your non-working erstwhile senator, used his last year in office to reaffirm Alabamians' right to hunt. We're waiting for the next logical bill, one that will reaffirm the male of the species' right to use the bathroom standing up.

Now that brings us to one of our favorite local lawmakers. It's really hard to pick between Sen. Larry Stutts and Rep. Phillip Pettus, but we're going to concentrate on ol' Doc Larry today. It seems the Franklin County volunteer fire departments wanted to establish fees to be collected from the local citizenry. This type law unfortunately needs the support of the legislature since there is no home rule in this state.

Did Doc Larry jump to help out these men and women who risk all for citizens in peril? If any of you guessed “yes,” you don't seem to know the real Larry Stutts. The good physician stated he had “bigger fish to fry” than helping out any first responders in Franklin County. It's really bad when someone makes Roger Bedford look good, isn't it?

But wait...there's more. The next day Doc Larry co-sponsored a bill making it illegal to sell entire or parts of fetuses. If you think that sounds good, you may not realize that it is already against federal law to do so.

So why? We can't think of a single instance in this state where such sales have been initiated. That brings up the next logical point. How about counterfeiting of currency? We see one or two cases of that in northwest Alabama each year, so why not pass a state law to back up the federal statutes on that crime? Maybe because it's as unnecessary as the bill on hawking fetuses?

The TimesDaily called Stutts' behavior “grandstanding.” We agree. We'll also add "smarmy" to the list of adjectives.

And to you who live in Franklin County? If you're ever disappointed in your volunteer fire protection, remember Dr. Larry Stutts' role in denying you a safer environment.



Shoalanda