Alabama Senate passes — then kills — parental leave bill for school employees

Sen. Vivian Davis Figures, D-Mobile, speaks with Sen. Robert Stewart, D-Selma, on the floor of the Alabama Senate on April 23, 2024 at the Alabama Statehouse in Montgomery, Alabama. (Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector)

The Alabama Senate Thursday voted for a bill that would extend eight weeks of parental leave to education employees.

Then the chamber’s leader killed it.

SB 305, sponsored by Sen. Vivian Davis Figures, D-Mobile, would require local boards of education to provide paid parental leave for birth, adoption, miscarriage or stillbirth.

“Right now, the women working for this state or the boards of education around the state do not have paid leave to go and have their babies,” Figures said.

As initially filed, Figures’ bill would have extended 12 weeks of parental leave to both parents of a child. But in committee last month, Senate Finance and Taxation Education Committee Chair Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, introduced a substitute that cut leave from 12 weeks to six weeks; only allowed one parent to take leave and removed leave for miscarriage or stillbirth.

Orr said at the time he was trying to bring it in line with a bill sponsored by Rep. Ginny Shaver, R-Leesburg, extending six weeks of parental leave to state employees.

On the floor of the Senate Thursday, Figures offered amendments that raised the leave period to eight weeks, which the chamber approved.

Orr raised questions about the potential cost of the bill and the short time left in the 2024 session. The Alabama Legislature can only meet for three more days this year.

“My concern is that we vote these today, knowing the bill is not going to pass the House, so that we’re somewhat on record supporting eight weeks versus six weeks,” Orr said.

Figures acknowledged the bill was unlikely to pass the Alabama House of Representatives. But she said the bill was critical for women in the state, saying that the Alabama Senate – in which only four of the 35 members are women – made “decisions for (women) that you all don’t have to go through, but we do.”

“None of you have ever been pregnant,” she said. “None of you ever will be pregnant. None of you have ever had a baby. You have no idea what it’s like, not only the physical things we have to go through, but the mental and emotional things we have to go through. And the least you can do is give us time, a little time, eight weeks, to deal with that.”

The measure passed the Senate 26-2. But Senate President Pro Tem Greg Reed, R-Jasper, blocked the bill’s transmission to the Alabama House of Representatives. 

Under Senate rules, a bill originating in the Senate that first passes the chamber after Day 26 of the session needs unanimous consent from senators to go to the House. Thursday was Day 27.

Reed cited Orr’s concerns over the budget.

“Any time we look at a circumstance like this, you got budgetary requests, you’ve got budgetary requirements to have these kinds of things come into effect, and it’s going to cost the budget money,” he said. “I’ll respect the budget chair who was dialoguing with you, recognizing that it’s his job to be trying to stay in touch in regards to the costs of those topics.”

Reed said he wanted to “thank” Figures for raising the issue. Figures responded that “it really stings” that Reed blocked the bill.

“The females are a minority in elective office all over, but we are not a minority as voters,” she said. “Maybe I just need to leave the Senate and start energizing women all over, to let them know the power they really do have. And that’s maybe where we start to make the changes.”

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