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Ep 1: This Building Is A Piece Of Garbage
62 Plays2 months ago
What happens when one of the structural issues in Alabama is a physical building? Meet the dysfunctional Alabama State House. Unlike every other state, Alabama lawmakers do not meet in the capitol building. Instead, they use the State House: a moldy leaking thorn in the side of lawmakers, activists, and the general public. Is there any hope of fixing it?
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SOURCES:
https://web.archive.org/web/20121001053217/http://www.archives.state.al.us/capital/capitals.html
https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/onthisday-bloody-sunday
https://aldailynews.com/new-state-house-larger-committee-rooms-more-live-streaming/
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Transcript
Introduction to 'If It Ain't Fixed, Don't Break It'
00:00:00
Speaker
You know, we always say help is on the way, but help don't get here. Listen, this is not government. This is religion here. Lord have mercy. This building is a piece of garbage. Ain't nobody happy just to be in here. We in here trying to do work. ain't right. It ain't right. I don't see this moving Alabama for. As Rick and Bobby say, if you ain't first, you last. If it ain't this, boy. Don't think we should break Break it down. break it. How do we break it down even more?
00:00:25
Speaker
Everybody's thinking they are doing the right thing. This is not the right thing to do. I want this fixed today.
Why Focus on Alabama?
00:00:32
Speaker
Hello and welcome to If It Ain't Fixed, Don't Break It, a podcast about people, politics and Alabama. I'm Zephyr Scalzetti. I'm Faye Hobbs. And together we're going to tell you all about our home state, Alabama.
00:00:45
Speaker
Zephyr, how long have you been here? I've lived in Alabama for over a decade, basically my entire adult life, and I've been involved in advocacy and politics and activism for about seven years now. Faye, you were born here, right? I was born in the South, but I've been in Alabama since I was two years old, so to say that it is my home would be something of an understatement.
00:01:04
Speaker
I'm also fully the product of my hometown's public education system, so I expect this to be an enlightening process. Yeah, it's a scary prospect. So why Alabama?
00:01:14
Speaker
Well, as they say, write what you know, and Alabama is what we know. And perhaps more frighteningly, Alabama is coming for the rest of
Alabama's Political Influence
00:01:22
Speaker
y'all. And unfortunately, it's not coming with a side of white sauce. You might wonder what impact a place that frequently shows up in the 40s of many rankings of the 50 states has on the nation and the world at large.
00:01:32
Speaker
But from our viewpoint? We see executive orders and national laws copy-pasted from our state politicians and people in power acting above the law. In other words, the rest of the United States is starting to look very, very familiar to the residents of the Yellowhammer State.
00:01:48
Speaker
And if you want to understand American fascism and American authoritarianism, you need to understand Jim Crow. You need to grapple with the contradictions that come from a place that birthed the Confederacy and formed the heart of the Civil Rights Movement. Above all, you need to understand that Alabamians are people, just like people everywhere.
Demographics and Storytelling Approach
00:02:05
Speaker
Well, maybe not just like people everywhere, because Alabama is the third blackest state. Maybe not quite like everywhere else, because the South as a region has more queer and trans people than any other place in the United States.
00:02:17
Speaker
The South is also the most ethnically diverse region in the United States. We are marginalized. We are suppressed. We are people. And I care deeply about people. We care deeply about people.
00:02:30
Speaker
About what is hurting them, what is helping them. We care about their pain and their joy and what happens to them. I'm not a historian, but I will be talking about history to contextualize what is happening in the present.
00:02:41
Speaker
I'm not a professionally trained journalist, but I will be doing some original reporting and interviewing.
Historical Overview of Alabama State House
00:02:46
Speaker
So we hope you'll come along with us as we talk about the structures, the policies, and the people in charge who've made Alabama the way it is.
00:02:53
Speaker
The same people and structures that are doubling down on breaking Alabama instead of fixing it. And perhaps we'll find a way together to a better Alabama. And we'll be finding our way on our own because we are entirely supported by our listeners and we'll never run ads because fuck them corpos.
00:03:08
Speaker
Please support us at Patreon ah at patreon.com slash it ain't fixed pod. Just $5 a month gets you access to bonus episodes, a cool shout out in future episodes, and the knowledge that you are helping fuel future research trips, interviews, equipment, and the meat meccas that we are constrained to on this mortal coil.
00:03:27
Speaker
Also rent. Rent is very important. Also please rate, review, and share this podcast. Every little bit helps.
00:03:38
Speaker
All right, Zeph, what southern shenanigans do you have for me and our listeners this time? So, Faye, when I was deciding what to do for our debut mini-sode, which turned out to actually be a full-fledged episode, I had a lot of thoughts to work through. I wanted to give our audience a sense of what this podcast is, what we're trying to do, and use episode zero as a springboard into the full show.
00:03:57
Speaker
And I landed on the perfect thing. So, Faye, today I want to talk about one of the structural issues in Alabama. And in this case, it's a physical structure, the Alabama State House. So let's kick this off.
00:04:10
Speaker
Faye, have you ever heard of the Alabama State House? Yeah. Yeah, i have. I went there when I was a small child on a field trip. and Fourth grade? Roundabout there, yeah. Fourth grade was the 4H in state history. We learned about Hernando de Soto and a bunch of other stuff. Yeah, so about several thousand fourth graders ah visit the statehouse every year.
00:04:32
Speaker
And one of the problems we're going to talk about is the fact that the bus unloads on a major thoroughfare. That is, it is not ideal. No, it is not ideal. Waiting for the bus and like all the traffic having to stop for the bus was um a lot. Yeah, so unlike every state, Alabama lawmakers do not meet in the Capitol building. We are literally the only state that has a separate ah detached building. It's actually right across the street from the Capitol building. This is a big problem when people are going to speak to their legislators for the first time and head for the Capitol building instead, which also has several floors, and which has led to some interesting text emergencies during public hearings that I've helped with. Like, I'm here. Where are you? This doesn't look right.
00:05:14
Speaker
ah and Sometimes you're you're kind of like, hey, did you go to 11th South Union Street? Did the building have a dome on it? If it had a dome on it, no. I just want to point out the quick irony of um a place associated with a certain other faction being on a place called Union Street. South Union Street. South Union Street. That's a good point. I actually didn't think about that.
00:05:37
Speaker
Literature brain go...
00:05:40
Speaker
So this leads us to why don't Alabama lawmakers meet in the Capitol building? And to answer that question, we're going to bark on ah on a side quest to talk about the history of the state Capitol building before we get to the state house.
00:05:53
Speaker
Speaking of history, it's like mostly a museum now, right? like Because I remember going in there and seeing a lot of like uniforms of... ah A lot of gray uniforms and a lot of interesting things that do belong in a museum.
00:06:10
Speaker
that That is the correct place for them. Yeah, but it is currently also the state capitol, like the governor. That is where her offices presumably are Yeah, I do remember that part of the tour of like, okay, we need to be very quiet because there are people doing very important government things here.
00:06:27
Speaker
Well, we could argue about the very important part, but yeah. What teachers tell children. I know, I know. So i was I was actually going to ask you next, like, what what, if anything, you were taught about the state capitol in Alabama Public Schools. So you went there on a field trip.
00:06:42
Speaker
I went there on a field trip. I... remember it being the initial capital of the Confederate States of America. There was an exhibit about Jefferson Davis and and all of that jazz.
00:06:56
Speaker
There's a whole statue of him outside on the marble steps. Yeah. Yeah. He ain't from Alabama. He is not. He's from Mississippi, I believe. Something like that. Post-edit is Zephyr will insert the correct thing because it is embarrassing that I am doing a history introduction and don't remember where Jefferson Davis was born. I mean, also, I don't care about that traitor as fuck. so you know, I guess it is.
00:07:19
Speaker
Yeah. Okay. So the Alabama state capital, as it exists in Montgomery today, is actually the fourth building constructed to serve as the Capitol building. And the city of Montgomery itself is the fifth state capital of Alabama.
00:07:32
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't know that until I was doing this. And that's why I was like, no, we need to do a little segue about the Capitol. Yeah, I remember learning that it had moved around. i couldn't tell you the previous four. So the first one was in St. Stephen's.
00:07:46
Speaker
They tried to build the Capitol in Cahaba on top of, I believe, a an indigenous site specifically, like one of the mounds. And then they tried to move to
Confederate and Civil Rights History
00:07:56
Speaker
Tuscaloosa. ahha And then they made a pit stop in Huntsville.
00:07:59
Speaker
And then they finally moved to Montgomery. The first ah iteration of what we know is, you know, the the Capitol building, or at least the site, was built on so-called Goat Hill because the land was originally used as a goat pasture. It's become a moniker that elected officials and legislators wear proudly, including naming their annual softball game, the Battle of Goat Hill, which is played between the House and the Senate members. If Alabama were to generate a a third party of some sort along the the jackasses and the elephants, we could we could have a goat.
00:08:31
Speaker
So the first iteration of what we know as the modern day Capitol building finished construction in 1847 and burned to the ground two years later, presumably because it was haunted as fuck. In 1851, construction of the Capitol building part two, electric boogaloo was completed, and that's the building that we have today.
00:08:47
Speaker
So that building has been there since 1851 in that exact spot. in that exact spot ah Was it haunted as fuck because of also built on indigenous land? or i was going to go with the enslaved people who were forced to build it. Yeah. I'm going to build a building that is going to to make me more illegal and give me less rights and and terrorize me. There's a cruel irony in that. Yeah.
00:09:10
Speaker
Yeah. Although I will point out that this is one of the parallels between Alabama and the nation's capital, which was also built by enslaved labor. But that's not, you know, when you look at buildings in Alabama, you're like, oh, that was built by enslaved labor. Yes. and And so was the U.S. Capitol and the White House.
00:09:26
Speaker
that There's that scene in, in i think it's Spider-Man No Way Home, where they're talking about the Washington Monument. And like that wasn't by slaves. And they look over at the tour guide and he gets the little kind of, yeah, maybe little bit.
Jim Crow and Authoritarianism
00:09:38
Speaker
yeah Yeah, it turns out um Maryland plantation owners really loved leasing their enslaved people out. Oh, like ah what we do with prisoners nowadays.
00:09:50
Speaker
It's interesting you bring up that parallel. Oh, boy. Future episode. oh for sure. So it is it is in the state capitol. You are correct that that is where the Confederate States of America was founded. So the Confederacy, those traitorous fucks, get started in that building, specifically in the old Senate chamber.
00:10:07
Speaker
And that is why that building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as the first Confederate capitol. So we now know that we we did used to use the Capitol building for legislature. We're we're getting warmer.
00:10:19
Speaker
And by the way, that historic place's designation was given in 1960. And the timing of that just does not sit right with me. It's like all of the like Confederate monuments going up around that time. It was Stone Mountain in Georgia was ah carved up at that time, if I recall correctly. Now I got to look up when the Stone Mountain.
00:10:44
Speaker
Oh, Jesus. It was completed in 1972. Yeah, there's there. I feel like I memory hold that every time. Like, I've looked this up before. i hate that thing.
00:10:56
Speaker
Anyway, imagine why. Yeah. Anyway, um so so that the timing of this, right, of of that being designated as a historic place because of being the Confederate capital, which, again, to your point, like these things do belong in a museum, right? I'm not advocating for erasing the history of the fact that Confederacy was founded in Alabama. That's an important thing to know and remember.
00:11:18
Speaker
And it's important context for gestures at everything in Alabama. But I think it is also very important to look at when these things happen. Why is there a movement to do it then? i think all of that is important.
00:11:30
Speaker
And so to place us in time, right, the the recognition of that in 1960, the Montgomery bus boycott started in December of 1955. The movement for that was was organized very heavily at the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, which is less than a block away. So in this photo right here, it is that brick building on the right.
00:11:51
Speaker
That is where Martin Luther King Jr. served as pastor from 1954 to 1960. I think we went to that church as well on that field trip. Well, good. Yes. Things that will probably be illegal now because of that anti-DEI law. in the In the background on the left, that is, those are the capital steps right there.
00:12:09
Speaker
So, you know, this is all way closer than you think of. You know, I think a lot of times when we think of history, at least I know I felt this way before I moved to Alabama. You just sort of had like memory of like discrete places. Like, okay, this thing happened here, like putting a pin and a board. You know, this happened here, this happened here.
00:12:25
Speaker
But you don't realize not only are these things geographically incredibly close, but also there's lots of things overlapping and happening at the same time. Like Martin Luther King Jr. was born the same year as Anne Frank. Yes. We don't think about those things as in parallel, right? The interesting thing about growing up as a millennial and having the strange incongruity of, you know, 25 years ago was 2000.
00:12:50
Speaker
But in my brain... You really had to say that, didn't you? did. Looking me dead in my eyes. Oh, my God. But but my the point that I'm getting at is that it's very hard to, you have to actively think about things in their historical context. they are not Timelines are not necessarily intuitive you you it until you actually line things up and see them for a lot of people. At least I'm i'm speaking for myself and presumably other people. It's a failure of how history is taught.
00:13:19
Speaker
And it's a failure that has echoed to this moment because the moment we're living in, in the United States and unfortunately likely throughout the world. And this, this, you know, present moment of fascism and authoritarianism is because of that. I mean, there are many reasons, white supremacy, but like that this is, this is part of it, right? It's this erasure of history, erasure of critical thinking of being taught that history in, in a way that,
00:13:42
Speaker
could actually lead to movement building and to a better understanding, um as opposed to what we actually have, which is just recitation of facts. And they're just these discrete things. And it's not actually given to you in a way that's meant for you to build on.
00:13:57
Speaker
and So the official designation in 1960 of the Capitol building, so back back to the you know their National Register of Historic Places as the first Confederate Capitol, the official designation in 1960 reads,
00:14:09
Speaker
According to the National Historic Landmarks Program, the statement of significance given on the day of designation read, quote, On February 4th, 1861, delegates from six southern states, which had seceded from the Union, met in Alabama's state capital.
00:14:25
Speaker
On February 8th, the 37 delegates adopted a Constitution for the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of America. A day later, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was elected president of the Confederation.
00:14:37
Speaker
He was inaugurated on the West Portico on February 18th, the Confederate flag flying for the first time over this building. The Confederate Congress met in Montgomery until May 1861, when the moved to Richmond, Virginia.
00:14:53
Speaker
And the Capitol building is also on the civil rights trail because at the end of the third march from Selma to Montgomery, 25,000 people gathered on the steps of the Capitol to hear Dr. King deliver his famous speech, How Long? Not Long.
00:15:07
Speaker
So we're recording this right after the 60th year anniversary of Bloody Sunday, which was the first attempted Selma to Montgomery march, infamously immortalized and
Symbolism of Montgomery Capitol Steps
00:15:16
Speaker
horrifying photos of Amelia Boynton Robinson, John Lewis, and other activists being beaten and gassed on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
00:15:22
Speaker
So the successful third march from Selma to Montgomery ends on the step of the Capitol, which is also the office of Governor George Wallace. And that is a thing where... I'm going to point this out as a like a his failure of how history was taught to me because I you know was taught about the you know Bloody Sunday, Selma to Montgomery March.
00:15:39
Speaker
was kind of all in that like you know civil rights in social studies or in history class. It's one of those, like you feel stupid for not connecting the dots. like Of course it was the governor's office. But when you when you lay out specifically 25,000 people on the steps of the Capitol building, which is Governor George Wallace's office, you start to connect the dots between people power and like putting pressure, right? There is a there is an action there.
00:16:06
Speaker
They are specifically outside his office because he has the power to do what they are demanding. And he is there when it's, you know, well, I don't actually know if he was physically in the building, but like this is during a time where he presumably would be at the Capitol. This is a heavily covered press event, right?
00:16:23
Speaker
And that's the point. It is going to the seat of power to demand change. And that feels like part of the narrative that's that's lost. I mean, You know, I was taught like, yeah, they went to the Capitol or they went to the Capitol Montgomery. But no, no, no. They're they're literally outside his door.
00:16:38
Speaker
George Wallace, um just as a ah reminder, is ah the guy who did not want to integrate the schools. And he is the segregation now, segregation forever guy. Yeah. He's referenced in the film Forrest Gump.
00:16:51
Speaker
And many other films with lots of swear words attached, as they should be. So um I've attended a lot of protests and marches on those same steps. So that photo, if you can picture it, that he is standing on the steps and he's looking out at the crowd. So you can see the church now in the background. So it's basically the inverse of like the the previous photo.
00:17:11
Speaker
So perspective wise. And I was having a really hard time conceiving of where 25,000 people would fit in this space because I've been here. I've stood on those steps. I've been in that area. So I went looking for photographs because I was like, I'm having a really hard time picturing it.
00:17:27
Speaker
it It's a little hard to tell because because it is an older photograph and that's kind of blurry. I do not have a Star Trek zoom and enhance ability. But I think I can see people on the steps of the church watching.
00:17:41
Speaker
I think they're going back much further than that. Oh, yeah. Like, just as a as a de like as a demarcation point, they do go back further than that. But, yeah, that that is a lot, a lot, a lot of folks.
00:17:54
Speaker
So one of those things that you you can't really appreciate until you physically visit Montgomery is just how close all of these important sites are. So something I've always loved about Alabama is how history and everyday life are just intertwined and constantly juxtaposed with each other.
00:18:08
Speaker
The Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church is less than a block from the Capitol in I-Line, which is next to the first White House of the Confederacy, which is across from the State House. which is on South Union Street.
00:18:21
Speaker
Right. We have a here ah a perfect encapsulation of how the South is not a monolith as really nothing is. it's It's not even that it's not a monolith. It's it's actively oppressed and it is a state of violence.
00:18:37
Speaker
Jim Crow was American fascism, if you want to understand. American fascism and American authoritarianism, you need to understand what Jim Crow actually was, how it operated, and and how there is state-sponsored violence, how there is state-encouraged violence that's you know actually done by vigilantes, so lynchings.
00:18:57
Speaker
Lynchings, poll taxes, grandfather clauses, all these things are are products of... um a concerted effort to keep even the nominally emancipated black population from having any kind of actual say in government despite the fact of having a or composing a very large percentage of the population of the state.
00:19:20
Speaker
So we have multiple current state legislators who grew up in Jim Crow, Alabama. They grew up in segregated schools. The past is the present here and you have to grapple with it.
State House History and Challenges
00:19:30
Speaker
um There's so much more to say on this. And the side quest is not doing this history justice. um I am not a historian, but I thought it was a very important context to place the state house in. But we we need to wrap this up so we can get back to the main quest, which is the actual building, the state house. And yes, I promise that is what this episode is ultimately about.
00:19:50
Speaker
So we've established that the Alabama legislature used to be in the Capitol building. When did that change and why? So the building that is now known as the Alabama State House started life as the Alabama Department of Transportation building, which was then called the Highway Department.
00:20:04
Speaker
And it was never meant to be used as a publicly accessible building for lawmakers. You don't say. that You mean those columns were not deliberately just put up in the middle of the space where people were going to be talking all day? And Not even an auditorium. It's just kind of a big... It has the air of a place where people used to queue up to go to some sort of um yeah I'm curious. I actually did not dig up what the original layout of the building was because i will I will name it was the old highway department at the time. Like at the time, it was the this is the now vacated. Hey, y'all, we got this building right here and um let's make all of our major decisions in this old building. It was a little bit more complicated than that. So we're we're we're going to get into that. So, like, I mean, as much as I'd love to make fun of them for it, is.
00:20:56
Speaker
the Everything – this is something I've learned over time, right? When you look at something and you're like, this seems like an illogical decision to humans, right? There are decisions that seem logical. They have biases. They have other, you know, maybe maybe assumed reasons for why they're doing something. But, you know, each little step – Roughly seems logical, which is the case here. So from the Alabama Historical Commission, ah the building housed all three state branches of state government. The building here is referencing the Capitol building. So the Capitol housed all three branches of state government until 1940. OK, so for Supreme Court, the legislature and the governor were all in the Capitol until 1940.
00:21:37
Speaker
Okay, so they chose in the middle of the Civil War, not the Civil War, gosh. 1940. The World War II, WW Dose, the the big one, Mark two The big one, Mark II.
00:21:53
Speaker
Now I'm wondering what the, because I'm a spoily her bitch, it's I hear that the Supreme Court moved to the separate building on Dexter Avenue. Yep. So the legislature continued to meet in the Capitol and they moved to the state house in 1985.
00:22:07
Speaker
So at this point, right, this building was built in 1851. So they finally move out of it. It's over, you know, 100 years old. That's 1985. So in 1992, following a seven-year restoration and renovation by the Alabama Historical Commission, the governor and other executive branch officers returned to the Capitol. So everybody else moves back to the Capitol in 1992, which, by the way, is the year I was born.
00:22:27
Speaker
And the state legislat legislat legislature was like, nah, we're good here. So why? And I cannot do a better job of laying out why the legislators stayed. than reading these excerpts. I promise, Faye, I know i know i was cutting off a little bit, but like I need you to react to what I'm about to say because you can't even imagine. I will not even have it pulled up in front of me. I will i will let you actually read it out. you can You can react as I'm going, absolutely. But I just, I'm like, I have the answers for you and they're worse than you imagined.
00:22:56
Speaker
Oh, boy. Okay. The legislature moved from the state capitol, where it had met for over 130 years, to the old Highway Department building in January of 1986. The move was at first intended to be temporary to allow the capitol to be renovated.
00:23:10
Speaker
The architects who oversaw the renovations designed the walls in the new building to be movable if legislators chose to relocate. Prisoners made the desks used by lawmakers. Hey, I did a call forward without even thinking about it. Yep.
00:23:23
Speaker
okay They also made all of the dorm room furniture in our public universities. Moving on, future episode. But the Alabama Supreme Court gave legislators an opportunity to remain in the new building if they chose. So just side note, this isn't this is not in the article, but ah originally in the Alabama Constitution, which is in the Constitution of most states, this is not unusual. It says that the Alabama legislature should meet in the Capitol. They were...
00:23:49
Speaker
lawfully required to be in the Capitol, which makes sense, right? You don't want your lawmakers to be like, yeah, I called in to work, you know, in the 1850s when you couldn't call into work anyway. Like, no, we're not randomly meeting in some other place. yeah No, no, no. you Your ass needs to be in this in the Capitol building for you to count as showing up. not We're not meeting in Jebediah's barn or anything like that.
00:24:10
Speaker
But yeah, exactly. So the Alabama Supreme Court gave legislators an opportunity to remain in the new building. So this is the the future statehouse if they chose. Work on the state capitol dragged on for nearly seven years and legislators who had offices and refrigerators in the statehouse but not in the state capitol voted not to return.
00:24:29
Speaker
I mean, I too would pick the place with refrigerators and offices rather than the one that doesn't. It it it is an upgrade over the over the historic capitol building. Yeah, I mean, again, so so just for context, we have 140 legislators.
00:24:44
Speaker
There are 105 state representatives and there are 35 senators. So for none of them to have offices is a problem. Like office space right now in the in the state house is extremely cramped and is already problematic. But for them, I can't even conceive of a legislature like not having any offices. That's really hard for me to wrap my mind around.
00:25:03
Speaker
Yeah, no, um sort of hearkening back to the olden days where, you know, nominally you were supposed to be sort of like a part-time legislature. I mean, they are still part-time, but I'm just saying like a lot of a legislator's job is is like doing meetings.
00:25:19
Speaker
um I mean, where are you going to store your papers? I mean, this is this is before electronic devices too. So like genuinely, like where are you going to put a lot of legislators, at least the the lawyers, they have a copy of the Alabama state code, which is the, the,
00:25:32
Speaker
law books and it so if you can imagine in this room if i had wall-to-wall shelves the number of books that the alabama state code is would take up the entire wall like half of the wall and i have seen that exact setup like in legislators offices they're very thick books so i mean just even having access to like the law books to reference the code that you are writing legislation about right you you need to put that somewhere you know if you're meeting with lobbyists and and I know lobbyists usually is a dirty word. There's a difference between lobbying and paid lobbyists. If you are if you are asking your representative to do a thing, does that qualify you as a lobbyist?
00:26:11
Speaker
You are lobbying them. So what I'm pointing out is like, where are your constituents going to meet with you? Presumably from the terminology, the lobby, was like having a conversation with your representative in the lobby would, I would assume, be etymology. Well, now have them hallway, which is not ideal. No. The hallways are narrow. That's for through traffic. That is not for meeting people.
00:26:35
Speaker
Well, that is currently how the setup is. What I'm hearing is that we need a new building for our legislators. We'll get to that. So the legislature moved from the state capital, where it had met for over 130 years, to the old Highway Department building in January of 1986. This move was originally supposed to be temporary to allow the capital to be renovated, and the architects who oversaw the renovation designed the walls in the new building to be movable if legislators chose to relocate.
00:27:01
Speaker
Prisoners made the desks used by lawmakers. But the Alabama Supreme Court gave legislators an opportunity to remain in this new building, which would become the future statehouse if they chose. Work on the state capitol dragged on for nearly seven years, and legislators who had offices and refrigerators in the statehouse, but not the state capitol, voted not to return.
00:27:20
Speaker
A decision that I can actually say that I am 100% in agreement with the Alabama state legislators. I, too, prefer places where there is office space and refrigerators. Refrigerators are great. They are amazing pieces of technology. I cannot do a better job of laying out the problems with the statehouse. So we're we're moving on from the Capitol building. We are now in the statehouse.
00:27:40
Speaker
Then reading directly from the same article from the Alabama... Reflector, quote, the temporary nature of this arrangement can still be seen. Legislators are hard to find outside hallways. Committee rooms fill up quickly with lobbyists.
00:27:51
Speaker
Some of those committee rooms don't have live stream video. An everyday person who just wants to see how a bill becomes a law might find it difficult. um This is Zephyr's personal addendum. They they absolutely find it difficult.
00:28:03
Speaker
Continuing with the article, the building has gradually fallen into disrepair. There's mold. It leaks. The bathroom plumbing system poured waste into the governor's suite on the second floor. And to quote House Speaker Pro Tem Chris Springle, to put money in this building is like putting lipstick on a dead pig.
00:28:18
Speaker
I think the pandemic clearly showed to everybody in the state of Alabama, this this building is a piece of garbage. And to keep trying to fix it is like putting lipstick on a dead pig. That's a Southernism if I've ever heard one. It's a great one.
00:28:32
Speaker
My pastor used to say stuff like that, along with even a barn looks better when it's painted. Moving on. That's it's actually really funny. Yeah.
00:28:42
Speaker
ah It was like they were they were they were asking him, like, is it sinful for for women to wear makeup? Oh, my God. That's even better. Yeah. I thought that might be where that's going, but that's fantastic.
00:28:55
Speaker
So, so again, to put money in this building is like putting lipstick on a dead pig. And from my personal experience, not only is all of this incredibly true, but I want to use this opportunity to complain about the eighth floor in particular. Literally, my notes at this point just say insert rant about the eighth floor because I don't need to write this baby out.
00:29:14
Speaker
So the eighth floor, the eighth floor was just added on at some point when I cannot tell you exactly because I tried to find what year it was. It was actually built. All I could find was references to, um you know, the the. Alabama State House is X number of floors and at some point legislators need more room so they constructed an eighth floor.
00:29:31
Speaker
And you can see this because the main elevators in the State House, they only go up to the seventh floor. To get to the eighth floor, you have to get um you have to get off the main elevator, you have to go up a stairwell, And then you have to walk through what I can only describe as a very odd maze um to get to one of the main committee rooms for the Senate. that The eighth floor is also where you have to go to view the Senate from the gallery.
00:29:55
Speaker
um So if you are a person of the public and you want to watch the Senate like live, you you have to navigate that. If it were still the ninety s I would say that we should make a new legislature building and turn that into a laser tag place because that sounds...
00:30:10
Speaker
and Honestly, it would work well as a laser tag place. Like it's it's very it's very odd. It's very odd. Like once you know how to navigate the state house, I think it's it's one of those things that you don't necessarily think about. But it was one of the first committee rooms that I i think it was the first committee room I ever had to navigate to in the state house, if I'm recalling correctly. because This was during the first redistricting special session. so that would have been ah late 2021. So this is like October-ish 2021.
00:30:38
Speaker
And the thing is, is the main committee room that the Senate tends to use is called finance and taxation. You will notice there's not a room number. in there? Because usually it's like you're in committee room this or da, da, da, right?
00:30:49
Speaker
No, it's just called finance and taxation. And the live stream used to say, I think they've updated it very recently, but for years, the live stream from that room just said finance and taxation.
00:31:02
Speaker
So if you didn't know that room 825 was also finance and taxation, you would not know that these are the same things. And it's called that because that's where the finance and taxation committee meets. I'm fine with it being Room 825 colon finance and taxation. However, calling it one thing and it being numbered something else and they're not...
00:31:20
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Organizational nightmare. Oh, oh, oh, there's there's so much of that. So I've actually screenshot and put in the notes here. um This is actually a ah guide that I wrote to go into public hearings in the statehouse, like for people who have never been to the statehouse, because also cell service is really bad in the statehouse. So there's a chance that like if you get there on the ground, you can't.
00:31:42
Speaker
communicate with anybody to explain that you're lost. So I'm like, i'm going to give you everything you need and also download this offline before you get there. but That is actually part of the guide that I have not, I have not screenshot, but room number 825, go through security, get on the elevators and go up to the seventh floor.
00:31:59
Speaker
Get off the elevator and on your right, you'll see a door to a stairwell. Take the stairs up one flight. Turn right coming out of the stairs and then turn right again down the hallway. Walk down the hallway for what will feel like an absurd number of twists and turns until you get to two rooms with glass walls facing
Transparency and Live Streaming Issues
00:32:13
Speaker
each other.
00:32:13
Speaker
Room 825 is on your right. We will talk more about how the legislature actually functions and in future episodes. But yeah, I just wanted to talk about like the structure and not, not even like the rules that go on in that structure. Just, just this stupid building.
00:32:27
Speaker
So your primary way of accessing the legislature would be remotely. Do not, do not scroll ahead because I want you to not see this. Okay. So tell me, Faye, when do you think Alabama started live streaming meetings?
00:32:40
Speaker
Here's the thing. you've You've told me this information before, and it's way too recent. It was like 2021 during the the pandemic? Yeah, yeah. I wish I hadn't told you because i i wanted i wanted a a raw reaction. But like also, yeah, I've yelled about this before. i I feel like something that is is sort of a Non-partisan issue is that um it should be very transparent what legislators are doing in the name of their constituents.
00:33:09
Speaker
and You would think, but again, Alabama, look, look, when when I look at national politics and things that are going on, I am not surprised by Doge or all of that other stuff because I'm used to this.
00:33:23
Speaker
I don't like it. i think it's bad, but I'm not surprised. Yeah. there's There's like a Facebook page or whatever called You Might Want to Learn About Trans People in it. Oh, no.
00:33:35
Speaker
And I'm just thinking like an an alternative title to this podcast is You Might Want to Learn About Alabama. Yeah. Because yeah because it you might never want to come to Alabama.
00:33:46
Speaker
I wouldn't blame you, but Alabama is coming to you. Yeah, literally. Alabama threat. Parentheses threat. So like you said, Faye, live streams from the state house started for the 2021 legislative session. So to repeat, there were no live streams prior to 2021.
00:34:03
Speaker
so so So to be clear, for anybody listening, like, oh live streams, blah, If you were not physically in the building and watching a specific meeting, and a lot of these meetings are happening concurrently, you know, you'll have like five committee meetings all running at 1 p.m., 1.30 p.m.
00:34:20
Speaker
The Senate, i mean, the Senate and the House will be on the floor at the same time. You can't be in two places at once. We have a dearth of reporters in Alabama. The ones we do have, there are some really, really good reporters. You'll notice I will be talking about Brian Lyman and the Alabama Reflector a lot because they do great work.
00:34:36
Speaker
You know, um um Alabama Daily News, in my opinion, I think they they lean a little right, but they they do really good reporting. They are there. They are on the ground. um You know, but you cannot be everywhere at once.
00:34:49
Speaker
The amount of time and and money you'd have to spend to have a reporter in every single room reporting on what's happening is a lot. And also, if you're one person, right, and you're there for eight hours, like every day, and things are hectic in the statehouse.
00:35:03
Speaker
You just miss a side comment, whatever. And also because your own personal experiences, you know, and reporters typically they they specialize in something, you know, they they have a particular like Brian is um is a historian um or I don't know if he would describe himself that way, but he has deep knowledge of Alabama history.
00:35:19
Speaker
So he is able to call things up as they are happening. He's also been around for years and years and years. um And so he can be like, well, he's referencing this, which is referring to this thing that happened in 2004. He knows that off the top of his dome.
00:35:31
Speaker
You know, I don't because the first time I ever walked into the state house was 2020. I just I don't have that wealth of knowledge. Trisha Powell-Kane, who is a fantastic education reporter. And yes, y'all should be following all of these people.
00:35:43
Speaker
um She specializes, again, in education. So she's going to tune into the state house or go in person when they're talking about anything to do with education. She'll be in the education policy, um you know, committee meetings, maybe. But she's not just going to like randomly be at a criminal justice meeting or committee meeting because that's not her beat, you know.
00:36:01
Speaker
Cite not to them the old article headlines, for they were there when they were written. They were the ones who wrote them. ah That is the case for Brian Lyman a lot of the time. So this man single-handedly, maybe not single-handedly, but I actually learned the state house, um ah how it worked and how it actually functioned, partly because of his live tweeting. Because before we had live streams, all we had was reporters live tweeting from the room.
00:36:26
Speaker
Because if you also think about, again, like what actually gets published in a news article, you know, like, and I can tell you like from somebody who has taken a lot of footage in the state house, we're actually going play some my footage later.
00:36:36
Speaker
These are clips, like I did not use these in reels. I haven't used them in in footage because I have... gigs and gigs and gigs and gigabytes of a footage, right, that I've taken.
00:36:47
Speaker
And sometimes things will become relevant later. Like I've looked back on a meeting and went, oh my God, there was a whole other thing happening in the corner that I didn't realize was even relevant until this other piece of reporting came out. And now I can connect it. I can watch them confer in real time. And now I know what they were talking about and that it was bad.
00:37:04
Speaker
We'll talk about what I am referring to in a future episode, but there's, you know. We'll take a look at At your at your wall of crazy with all the red strings and... and Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's it's not even a wall of crazy because that one we actually have de depositions.
00:37:17
Speaker
So Brian and and other journalists will, or used to, live tweet. And so that was essentially like a transcript because there was no transcript. There was no other record of what was said on the floor or anywhere. We don't even have like stenographers. and No.
00:37:36
Speaker
Nothing. If you didn't see it, it didn't happen. And also then, also, if you're writing it down, how do you prove that you heard it correctly? oh boy.
00:37:47
Speaker
Yeah. I want to say this is especially frustrating as somebody who was raised in Alabama and when told about how to research things was given the go ask the librarian, check the card catalog. There should be a public record of pretty much anything like this. And if it's not in the library, you should you could go to City Hall and find it there.
00:38:05
Speaker
But there's nowhere to find any of this information because the like the record just doesn't exist. Correct. No! Uh-uh!
00:38:16
Speaker
Oh, bouncing. That's going to be very fun. In 2021, the live streams start and just navigating that, right? To understand like, okay, what is happening right now? Who is speaking? Who is at the podium? What bill is this? It was a very insular building.
00:38:31
Speaker
there There was no expectation that anybody watching would not be in the know. A lot of times um when people would come up to speak, they would not, um they would say, for example, the gentle lady from Jefferson County.
00:38:44
Speaker
Well, which one? You know, if you don't recognize legislators. There's three. There's more than three. Point is, even the procedures that are in place are less than optimal for clear communication and understanding.
00:38:59
Speaker
That's putting it mildly. It's more like the public has never been in consideration at all. it's It's less it's less malicious and more negligent.
00:39:09
Speaker
Yeah. It's like, well, why would I feed this to you? You're not here anyway. You know, like, sure, you'd have fourth graders. You have people like, oh, we're on a school trip. But most of the people in the galley, right, or the gallery is going to be lobbyists or people who understand how the statehouse functioned. They know the names of all these legislators.
00:39:27
Speaker
You know, I'm at a point now where I recognize most legislators just by the sound of their voice because I've spent so many freaking hours listening to them. Yeah. In 2021, the live streams start and I'd have Brian Lyman's live feed up and his live tweets up to cross reference.
00:39:44
Speaker
And I noticed because I started live tweeting the the house too, um when there were bills that I was following in particular. And I noticed that because of my lived experiences, like as a trans person and and at the time, like, you know, with with anti-protest bills and other things that that I was really, really knowledgeable and focused on, that it's not that Brian i and I were hearing different things. We weren't. We were hearing the same thing. But what we were picking out as noteworthy or what struck us as important to write down was a little bit different.
00:40:11
Speaker
And I think that's important. The fact is that the more people you have with different lived experiences who are able to listen to the same thing, they're going to hear different things and not in the sense that like they're hearing wrongly, but in the sense that they're they're like, well, I understand that through an education lens. I understand this through my lived experience as a black woman. I understand this through my lived experiences as like an Asian man. Like there's, so you cannot be everything for everybody. Truth isn't in the middle, but with multiple perspectives, we can triangulate our way to the truth.
00:40:41
Speaker
I don't even mean the truth. I mean, like, different things are going to jump out to you as being important. There are several episodes that I want to do about things that happened before 2021. I actually have tweets from Brian where he's talking about things that these legislators are saying. And I'm like, I want the video of that.
00:40:57
Speaker
Like, that's that's weird. Like, I want to see how they were saying. I need to see and hear this for myself so that I can gain a better understanding rather than a secondhand account. well It's not even that. it's It's that there's only so fast you can tweet, right? There's lots of crosstalk. There's things like you miss.
00:41:14
Speaker
um And also it's exhausting. Like it is mentally draining to be that on and be doing basically live stenography while also sitting in place and trying to like just do your job. Like there are points where like – Brian has to go to the bathroom. People have to go to the bathroom, right? You walk out of the room, you miss stuff.
00:41:29
Speaker
It's inevitable. Like, i I would do this too. Like, I'd be in the statehouse and I'd be like, okay, if this person's coming up, like, are they going to say something important? Or like, can I go pee now? Like, you're you're always making these calculations, right?
00:41:41
Speaker
it's like ah It's like being in the movie theater and really having to pee, except you won't be able to get it on VHS. VHS, Jesus. You won't be able to stream it later. Right. But now imagine that, but you're sitting in that movie theater for eight hours, like every single day that the state house is in session.
00:41:56
Speaker
and the the And that you are trying to cover what is happening in every single movie theater in that complex at the same time. So you're constantly bumping around them to try to capture the exact points in different movies, right? To get to give your audience an understanding of what was actually shown at the theater that day. And every single day, there are new movies in every single room.
00:42:19
Speaker
It is taking all of my self-control not to head desk right now because if I were to do that, our audio would be completely fucked. I would not enjoy that. no but But yeah, actually, I really like that movie analogy because like that that's kind of what it's like. And then also because moving around, like you'll lose your seat, right? So you're like, okay, I'm in a really good spot in this theater and have really good access. I've got good hearing, you know, whatever. i'm i i am towards the front. I am centered. The exit's right there.
00:42:46
Speaker
I don't have to crane my neck. The ah the audio is perfectly balanced for right here. oh crap. I got a pee. Oh, no. Somebody else came back and now the only spot is up and to the left. Yep. So, yeah, it's – there's a lot of constraints there, right? So it's not that I don't trust the secondhand account. in fact, the secondhand account has more context and is actually more understandable than the firsthand account. It's that I'm curious, like, what led up to this? You know, what what else was going on around this? Like, there's much that's lost. My point was that you were looking for context.
00:43:17
Speaker
Yes, and also because it's sort of an opening to I bet this was very interesting. And again, like – As somebody who has a uterus, I want to hear what the discussion over IVF was.
00:43:29
Speaker
I want to hear what questions were asked of the sponsor. I want to know if there were any questions because sometimes there are controversial bills that go through and nobody pushes back or they ask the bill sponsor question. The bill sponsor basically lies and they don't have the knowledge to push back on that lie.
00:43:43
Speaker
So they just kind of have to take it as as read that like, okay, yeah, you say your bill does this. I mean, i'm that sounds good to me. We'll get, again, more into how the legislature actually functions in terms of bills and everything, because we're kind of straying into that.
00:43:56
Speaker
We will navigate that through the lens of actual bills, because I think that's the best way to hear it. There should be a rule that if you lie about what's actually in the bill that you get passed, it invalidates the bill that you get passed. What happens if the legislature doesn't or the legislator presenting the bill doesn't realize they're lying?
00:44:14
Speaker
Well, that's still it it that means that they don't know their own fucking bill, and it should have never been... What if most of them don't know their own bill? Write your own goddamn bills, you lazy fucks.
00:44:25
Speaker
Know what you're actually putting into law and is affecting the lives of tens, hundreds of thousands, millions of people. Take accountability. That's what we put you there for.
00:44:37
Speaker
yeah They don't do that. But no, they don't. But yes, that would be ideal. Let me kind of get back on track. So what I went through to try to verify the exact date of the start of live streams is kind of emblematic of what research in Alabama is like, because what I did was I had you know personal memory of, oh, these live streams started in 2021.
00:44:57
Speaker
But I wasn't 100% sure if that was true because the first time I ever walked in the state house was 2020. And I was still learning the legislature then, you know, like, how does this actually function as a body? So I i went looking for news articles and I got not a lot. um I did eventually find an article that was talking about how um legislators were were going to have live streams in 2021 and that they had doubled the bandwidth of the the internet capabilities at the state house.
00:45:27
Speaker
But it didn't really confirm that like there had never been live streams before. you know what I mean? um I called Tara Bailey, who runs Alabama Channel. ah We will talk about them a little bit later, but they are actually the only reason why we have archives of videos now.
00:45:41
Speaker
And her recollection was also 2021, but she's like, I'm not 100% sure. of The reason I called her not only because of her work with Alabama Channel, but because she is very, very ah She does a lot of work on archiving um government videos, like civic meetings and things things of that nature.
00:46:00
Speaker
And so finally, i go back to my old mainstay, which is that I started searching Brian Lyman's old tweets. ah for like when when was live streaming mentioned you know and so I i got a definitive date um it was at the beginning of 2021 so on January 8th 2021 Brian received a um and Brian is now the editor-in-chief of ah the Alabama Reflector he was at the time at the Montgomery Advertiser so um At the start of the session in February, quote, at the start of the session in February, the Alabama Senate plans to live stream its sessions and committee meetings.
00:46:35
Speaker
In-person visits to senators will be li will be limited with visiting areas established on a separate floor floor for the public. A separate email says technology in the Alabama State House, so that is the building in general, has been upgraded to allow the streaming and that the building's Wi-Fi has been enhanced to, quote, more than double what the bandwidth was.
00:46:52
Speaker
This is all we had. um This is also then referenced in an AL.com article by, I believe, Mike Kasin. So before the 2021 session starts, so the Senate has confirmed that they're going to they're going to stream their sessions and committee meetings.
00:47:07
Speaker
We don't know what's going on with the House. So the house does end up streaming, but there's lots of problems, especially early on. There's dropped feeds. ah there's There's issues with buffering. When we've done enough episodes, you'll probably be able to tell what year the the video or the audio is from based on the quality. There's ah there's a significant difference over over the years.
00:47:28
Speaker
and And that's not just in the streaming, but also in like Alabama channels refining their their capture of the streams, because again, there is no archive of this. So if if it blinks out for a second, if if the internet hiccups, as internet is wont to do, if your internet hiccups, congratulations, you have lost it forever.
00:47:45
Speaker
That is one of the things that's also very useful about the Alabama channels, that you can go back if if you miss something, as long as they're stuffed in hiccup. Again, this is what happens when we do not have... Basic freaking documentation.
00:47:58
Speaker
Everything comes to a head in 2021. So due to COVID, state houses essentially closed to visitors. Livestreams are now the only way to access the state house. So in researching this, so in my memory, because I went to the state house a lot in 2021, I did not go inside. We were protesting outside or just hanging out outside. i helped with public hearings during 2021, that
Website and Technological Improvements
00:48:19
Speaker
2021 legislative session. My memory is that like only the people who, um and it is a very strong memory that only that because you had to show the list at the at to the state trooper at the front door of the state house, that's no longer a thing. There's not, but that during COVID, a state trooper was posted like outside.
00:48:35
Speaker
And you had to show them that you got a confirmation um from the committee chair, and not the committee chair, the committee clerk, that you are on the list to speak at a public hearing to be able to enter the building. In this article, the documentation is like, oh, there's there'll be a third floor viewing area for like the public or where we want to have the public come in you know on a limited basis to public hearings. That was not my experience.
00:48:57
Speaker
It was that unless you were a speaker, you were not allowed in. So my first time ever thinking physically going to a committee meeting in person was late. So this is after the regular session in 2021. It was during the redistricting special session, which is where that story about finding the eighth floor comes from. So live streams, only way to access the legislature because the statehouse is closed. So we've we've now completely flipped. Instead of you have to physically go to the statehouse or you don't know anything that happens, now we have the exact opposite. You can't go to the statehouse. And the only way that you know what's happening is by watching the live stream.
00:49:29
Speaker
Their website in 2021, the Alabama legislature website, was the worst website I have ever experienced in my life. I have looked in internet archives to try to find, and and I have found like you know like the homepage and everything, but the the problem is is that they're they're there was two versions of the legislature website.
00:49:49
Speaker
um The one that you would get to um if if you were just like a random person Googling it, so you you had never visited the site before, so you had no reason for the the purple link to come up front. You know, back before AI ruined our search results and ads, back when they were like ranked.
00:50:03
Speaker
um Back when the first 10 results in Google were the actual things that you wanted to know. Right. So if you Googled to find the Alabama legislature website, if you had not visited it before or were not a frequent visitor, the first link that would come up was sort of like a general public page.
00:50:21
Speaker
And if you didn't hit on one of the tabs that said session info, you You would never be able to find information about when the meetings are, what what is on the agenda, where the you know what what bills are they maybe voting on on the statehouse floor. we We'll get into it.
00:50:37
Speaker
They're not like indexed? That's very weird. It was extremely weird. So when you clicked on session info, all of a sudden like it was like the whole website refreshed and the the titles of the tabs changed. and now you could like It was still very hard to navigate, but at least now you could find theoretically the thing that you were looking for.
00:50:52
Speaker
So in 2022, the website is updated to what it is now. It is much better. I know people complain about the website. Fair. I mean, I'm not saying it's great, but compared to where it was, oh my God, it's so much better. It's functional website instead of the facade of a website in front of the actual website that you're looking for it was i mean it's it i really i looked i looked for for several days you know i'm gonna do some more tooling around because it's it's that's a piece of archive history that i would really love to to document of like just how unnavigatable this website was so to continue um Alabama channel starts in March of 2022.
Legislative Practices and Public Access
00:51:30
Speaker
That's where a lot of our, you know, quote unquote, clean mic clips come from.
00:51:34
Speaker
So assuming that you are able to access the live stream, that they work, that they're accessible, there are still issues. So number one, some of the rooms don't have cameras.
00:51:45
Speaker
Just straight up don't have cameras. if If there's a House Constitution Campaigns and Elections Committee meeting, that room does not have cameras. going to physically go. And it's a very small room. So if the room packs out, too bad, so sad, you don't get to know what happens.
00:51:58
Speaker
Livestreams are not saved. This is something I've brought up already. Difficult be following along um okay cool you now have access to a live stream it is working you hear people talking there's no labels you don't know who's talking the camera's too far away to see their name plates so you better have all those people's faces and and names memorized because nothing will pop up on screen to tell you who they are what bill they're discussing nothing no chyrons this is no chyrons There now will be chyrons if there's a public hearing, but all it says is public hearing. Sometimes maybe it'll say the bill number. It's still not like there's I mean, I get it because there's no audio visual guys. Student television better program than this. Oh, yes, absolutely. Like, yeah, i'm I'm actually excited for you to see some of these clips for the first time um because, yeah, yeah.
00:52:45
Speaker
Absolutely. So, yeah, you don't know what which rep is is talking, what bill is being discussed. Every room we're talking about, every one of these live streams, these are fixed camera positions and they are focused just on the legislators. You cannot really see the the room itself.
00:52:59
Speaker
It's in the House and Senate chamber. This view is restricted to one fixed camera focused on the podiums. And these cameras, clearly somebody stole them from the 90s. Like they are, they are really low quality cameras.
00:53:10
Speaker
One way that I can explain this is that the very first time I ever saw the house floor in person, I was shocked because the carpet is blood red. And I thought that was like a, hey, at best burgundy.
00:53:24
Speaker
Everything has like kind of a gray tone to it. Like it it just sucks the color out of everything. um It's not that it's, it's black and white. It's not like you can There's color. There's color, but it's not vibrant all. It's very desaturated. It's extremely desaturated. And like, not that that entirely matters, but it's, it's, it genuinely, like I was surprised when I walked in the room that it was the same room.
00:53:47
Speaker
It is, it is symptomatic. It is a symptom of the greater problem that not enough, there's not enough digital infrastructure and recording infrastructure in place to ins ensure reliable records of of official business. Right.
00:54:03
Speaker
And so the only shot is of the podiums up front, because when legislators in Alabama, this is this is a very particularly Alabama thing. We still have the old system where if you want to speak, you have to walk up to this podium, like in the House chamber.
00:54:14
Speaker
Representatives do not speak from their seats. That is not, by the way, a southern thing. of Tennessee has a system where where representatives can speak from their seats. So does Georgia. I believe Mississippi does as well. I know Louisiana does.
00:54:26
Speaker
So this is not like a thing where like, oh, the South. is but It's Alabama specifically. 50 out of 50, 50 out of 50. We're number one alphabetically. We are dead last in so many of other things. Another emblematic thing, right?
00:54:39
Speaker
A lot of things pass on voice votes. So if you don't call the long roll, you know, I can see that that that this bill passed on yeas, right? I don't know who voted for it. I can assume.
00:54:51
Speaker
We have a super majority Republican and you know legislature, I can assume. But um that's true for committee hearings. So sometimes you'll have bills that are just recorded as like past committee. But who voted for it, though?
00:55:03
Speaker
Who was present? Who voted? No. you You do get the who was present because they'll take role at the beginning of the meeting. But that also does not include like people who left like during the committee meeting. You know, like like if a senator got up and left halfway through the meeting, a thing that happens all the time or, you know, ah there's no like record of that. So it's like, so did they not vote because they abstained?
00:55:26
Speaker
Did they not vote because they left? Did they actually vote no? Because you you can't just assume that the Republicans vote yes on everything the Democrats vote no or vice versa. Like it it doesn't work that way. It frequently works along those lines. But but the individual people voting yes or no, like that that's important. And especially in committee where things are a little bit more wiggly.
00:55:44
Speaker
Anonymity is good for the general population voting. Like I don't like we don't need a roll call of everybody. But to make sure that the people that you voted for to do the things are actually voting in the ways that you want them to. Or voting at all. Yeah. That are actually there to vote.
00:56:02
Speaker
Because you could be in the statehouse but not be on the floor. We got off track there for a minute. I know we we've we've gone on several tangents. I'm going to get this back on track. So why, you know, we were restricted to that one fixed camera view on the podiums. So why why do we want a gallery view of what the reps are doing at their desks?
00:56:18
Speaker
I've included in here photos um from the 2021 prison special session. So this is this is not the legislative regular session. This is a week where they came back specifically to to vote um about how to use 400 million dollars of covid relief funds to build prisons.
00:56:33
Speaker
This is, these are screenshots from a friend of mine's live stream. I was not in the house gallery at this point, but they were there. They had they had protested outside and they're, they're attending the gallery. So I did say that the 2021, the state house was closed. So this is in the fall of 2021. So this is after the regular session.
00:56:50
Speaker
So um I don't, I'm curious if you can tell what they're, what they're doing or or why, why my friend specifically tagged me in the live stream, had somebody text me to say, tune in right now, look at what they're doing.
00:57:03
Speaker
ice Okay, i can I can make out... There are six people technically in the shot. I can make out what five of them are doing. One guy has his phone, like, under his desk, like he's a sophomore and trying to keep the teacher from seeing and being very obvious about it.
00:57:19
Speaker
There's somebody who looks like he might be paying attention. I can't really see him that well. There's one guy who has, like, his hands folded and seems like he he is paying attention. And the other two people are on their phones.
00:57:30
Speaker
i i Okay, so I'll give you a hint. the the The answer to this is what's on their screens. lots So in the first shot, it's what's on his laptop. And then if you go down, um i again, I'm not sure that you can really tell, but I knew immediately what it was because I've spent a lot of time in this particular software.
00:57:50
Speaker
Is that... Wait a second. and Is that... Is that MS Paint? No. Okay. It's not MS Paint. um That is that is a redistricting maps.
00:58:01
Speaker
Okay. Here's the thing. I thought that that's what it was, but for but with- Trust yourself. Yeah. i should I should do that more. Yeah. So those are those are redistricting
Audio and Visual Challenges for Journalists
00:58:11
Speaker
maps. And the reason why my friend tagged me is because at this point, so the redistricting special session was supposed to be happening after this one.
00:58:18
Speaker
The date hadn't been called yet, but we knew was going to happen later this month. So this is, I believe, like early October 2021, the redistricting special session happened in late October. This is, by the way, the session and the map that they passed,
00:58:30
Speaker
is what led to the Supreme Court um ah ah case Allen v. Milligan. So this is this is like, at this point, maps were not publicly available.
00:58:41
Speaker
They were saying they did not have a map drawn. And yet somehow, all of these representatives are crowding around, comparing notes. We find out later, this is...
00:58:51
Speaker
you know I find out later through depositions, because this becomes a big court case, that actually what they have are are there what their districts would look like. So they're literally trying to put them together like little puzzle pieces to see like what the map in that area would look like.
00:59:04
Speaker
So legislators, um they all they all um in the same area sit together in the state house. That makes a degree of sense. Yeah. So like the the districts are roughly numbered um in in order. It's one to seven, right?
00:59:18
Speaker
and This is that's the congressional districts. and We're talking about state house districts. They're looking at like the map of what they will be running in in the next election.
00:59:30
Speaker
Before we're supposed to have any maps. Before the anybody has has publicly stated that a map has been drawn, period, let alone it being publicly available. During the period of time where they're supposed to still be taking public comment.
00:59:44
Speaker
What I'm not seeing is a a fire alarm going off because the liar, liar, pants on fire. What the fuck? Yeah. So again, why would you might want to see what the what they're doing from the gallery? Well, for starters, them not paying attention, twirling in the chairs, talking, we will get to that.
01:00:01
Speaker
um And working on things. First of all, it's right. Like they're supposed to be there. So a special session only takes place over a week. They vote on this bill by the end of the week you know or this bill passes into law by the end of the week.
01:00:13
Speaker
So instead of focusing on like that and $400 million dollars of appropriations, they are comparing notes on districts while this discussion is going on during, during you know, on the on the floor of the House.
01:00:29
Speaker
And so my friend who was live streaming, because again, right, the live stream, it wasn't it wasn't um consistent enough at this point, you know, or or they were worried that it might go down.
01:00:40
Speaker
And so it became common practice for activists as soon as we were allowed back into the statehouse that if you were at any meeting, you just live streamed it to Facebook. That way you had as many possible records. is is If somebody's service went down, if Alabama Channel lost it, whatever, there was somebody had it.
01:00:55
Speaker
ah That is an example of what is called subvalence rather than surveillance. It is when the general population is keeping an eye on everything as opposed to a ah hierarchical cold top-down view.
01:01:09
Speaker
The presence of subvalence necessitates the presence of downvalence. Moving on. Sorry, I got distracted. ah Okay, so now we're going to talk about ah recording in person. So something that's really hard to capture remotely is how bloody noisy the house chamber in particular is.
01:01:29
Speaker
So I've seen multiple debates on the floor remotely, like I'm watching the live stream, where a representative at the podium is asking the other rep to speak louder. And I'm saying representative because, again, I'm talking about that the house specifically.
01:01:40
Speaker
If you're watching remotely, that seems really odd. Like I'm like, are you having hearing problems? Because all you can hear on the live stream is the mic podiums. So you can see in this, in this, well, it's not a photo, it's a video. We're going to play it in a second. You see how long those mics are? And we've reached the point where it is not loaded on my device.
01:01:57
Speaker
Okay, well, you'll be able to hear the audio, which is really all that's important. Okay. So these next clips are videos that I took on my phone on my iPhone at the state house. And I'm going to contrast these are these two clips I'm going to play. They are the exact same people, the exact same time, the exact same length. Like like this is this is just the same audio, but from two different sources. Okay.
01:02:18
Speaker
So I took this audio from the gallery. um So I have a really, really good gallery view. So and I know that y'all listening can't see this video, but I have this literally like I have the the two speakers um centered, you know, um and ah yeah I have a really good view of them.
01:02:35
Speaker
But now listen to this audio. Oh, and also for for clarification, when I'm talking about the gallery, the gallery is floor to ceiling glass. So sometimes in state house, you'll see the gallery and and they can like shout. They can they can have you also can't have signs in our state house.
01:02:50
Speaker
um I'm thinking of them I think Tennessee, for example, has like a half wall or something, you know, um ours there there is nothing. It's it's almost soundproof. So the the the mics are the only thing getting piped in.
01:03:04
Speaker
um And they're being piped in through speakers like like on the ceiling. They're very good speakers, but that's that's that's the the audio that you're getting while you're sitting up there. So you have a good view, but you're only getting what they're saying on the podium.
01:03:18
Speaker
You're not – I mean you can you can kind of hear a dull roar, right, if they're really noisy on the floor, but you you can't hear anything. So this is what that sounds like. Oh, and um to set up this clip, um this is ah Representative Pringle um on the left. um So we've we've mentioned Pringle before. He is the um House Speaker pro tem. So he's in House leadership.
01:03:38
Speaker
um He ah ah is a Republican. and And the other person speaking is Representative Chris England, um who's a Democrat. They're talking about um a redistricting map, but what they're talking about doesn't really matter.
01:03:51
Speaker
The point of this is to contrast this audio, which I took on my iPhone from the house gallery, and then I'm gonna play what this sounds like from Alabama Channel, which is just getting their mics. So
01:04:07
Speaker
did they hang down from first barony senator dan mar so nobody told you that i didn't know i didn't know where i didn't know where it hit i didn't say things but it start to make a little bit more sense why i ended up on the youtube youtube as first one but secondly let's so I don't know how clearly you could hear that, but there was people talking behind me. I could hear lots of chatter, yeah.
01:04:31
Speaker
Right. And the thing is, in the house gallery, like people are allowed to talk. i mean, you're not supposed to talk loudly, but it's it's quite difficult to get up and move. That that movie theater analogy is is a really good one.
01:04:42
Speaker
There are limited seats. You must be seated. um I'll get into this a little bit more about like what press access versus non-press access is like. This is footage that I took specifically in the house gallery. It's the overhead view.
01:04:54
Speaker
um And the audio from the mics is piped in through the loudspeakers throughout the gallery. um the The audio is is pretty good in person. Like you can hear what is happening. But if there are people around you talking, there is nothing you can do about that. And the number of times I've had to to stop myself from like just doing like the snapping at them, like in church, like.
01:05:11
Speaker
So here is again, the floor ah this is the clean mic feed. So this is just their podium mics from Alabama Channel. was my mount It came in as Senator Dan Roberts' map, and then Senator Livingston decided to carry it in the chamber.
01:05:26
Speaker
So again, it came in from Chris Brown as Senator Dan Roberts. So nobody told you that. I didn't know. I didn't know who where I didn't know where he came. I didn't say. lens to dead But it starts to make a little bit more sense why it ended up on the agenda as the first one. wow But secondly, let's let's take just to to clarify, um Representative England was the last person talking there. He was the one who started to make a little more sense why this on the agenda. And Representative Pringle is the other person.
01:05:52
Speaker
I think both of them have very distinctive voices. So it also makes it like easier easier to follow. I was able to follow that conversation in a way that I was not able to follow. like i I heard things like Chris Brown. Yeah. Matt.
01:06:06
Speaker
Right. And so that's also like as somebody who's neurodivergent. Now imagine sitting in a room right with that noisy chatter and you're also trying to focus on what's going on and you're trying to stenographer at the same time. That's hard. So now imagine doing that every day and you get a little picture of what journalists in the statehouse are up against.
01:06:22
Speaker
So that's and they are publishing articles while they're there. Like they are actively typing, working and putting out articles. So, again, I have like journalists who do their job well, not talking to you, 1819, journalists who do their job well. I admire them so much. They are freaking heroes.
01:06:37
Speaker
So that doesn't mean that the gallery is always doomed to have bad audio. It's really about whether or not people are talking. So this is a different bill discussion and this is a different angle. I'm actually in a corner now.
01:06:49
Speaker
So Faye, you you kind of mentioned this earlier, um but I think right now would be a good time to describe what the Alabama house floor, what what the chamber actually looks like. So there are these two giant marble pillars. And I don't mean marble isn't like white marble, they're like gray and blocky.
01:07:04
Speaker
um that are on the floor. And so the um the house is kind of like a um ah semicircle. huh it was it was probably quarried in Sylacauga.
01:07:16
Speaker
Yeah, i I know that there's actually a lot of history with like where it was quarried and how it was built, but I don't i don't know it off the top of my head right now. um At this point, the script was already 2,000 words and I was like, if I start getting into like the actual architecture of the building, we ain't never going finish this episode. So let's let's just focus on on on the things I wanted to rant about, which question which was which was actually covering the statehouse.
01:07:36
Speaker
Covering as in like recording what happens there, as in getting information to people. um So... Because of those pillars, there are basically three general places where you could see the people at the podiums. You have that dead-on view, that center view. Now, I will say that is where most of the chatter usually is, and it's where most people want to sit, right? And you have to kind of be dead center because the two poles are – or the two columns are kind of – Those are columns. Those are some thick boys. They are very thick.
01:08:05
Speaker
So um the the viewing gallery, which is like on the floor above, the so you have this overhead view, um is wraparound and floor to glass ceiling, right?
01:08:16
Speaker
And it has... um ah seating that's like, you know, like the bolted to the floor, like auditorium seating, you know, um that that kind of wraps around it as well. And again, like you you have to sit in a seat if you are not able to find a seat in like the first row. I mean, they are staggered in height.
01:08:33
Speaker
So but you could theoretically like, you know, if there's somebody sitting in front of you, now you're you're you're exponentially increasing the number of people who might be talking around you. There might be kids, you know, all this stuff, right? It's like going to see ah a baseball game and you get a seat that's like right near one of those big old columns. That is a um great – yes.
01:08:51
Speaker
It is exactly like that. And it is that kind of column or like it's it's that kind of size. So you have basically three angles you can get. You can get dead on. um And that was that that earlier clip I played in the gallery. That was a dead on clip.
01:09:04
Speaker
Great view. Lots of chatter. This is one where I'm on like the left side. Now left side and right side, they're they're basically the same in terms of – Yeah. So I can now, now I have a view of the back of Representative England's head. And in this case, I can see Representative Kiel's face.
01:09:23
Speaker
So you're also now making a choice between who do I think is going to be making the most expressions? Yeah. You know, whose whose expressions do I want to capture during this? Because that's something that you don't really you can't really get from the overhead camera.
01:09:34
Speaker
You can see gesticulations a little bit, but the camera is not of high quality. One of the things that I really try to do when I'm physically at the statehouse is try to capture like I know, for example, that Representative England, he's a lawyer.
01:09:46
Speaker
He knows what he's talking about. Oh, yeah. He he would he was... He will clear a clearer bitch. You're saying that and you haven't even heard this next clip. Like, he will clear a bitch. So I know that he is somebody who will, like, do follow-up questions.
01:09:59
Speaker
And I know ah at this point, I know some of the reps, like, who don't handle it as well. Again, they don't get they don't get this, right, where people are looking at their faces. So they have not practiced controlling their faces very much.
01:10:13
Speaker
It's like how um federal politics were switching over from radio to television. Like Nixon was having so much. so but It was Nixon who was having issues, right? Because... I think it was Nixon. But like that is exactly the right analogy. Where these are folks who literally before 2021, there was never video of them at all. Unless somebody was physically in the room like with a big news camera. And they were going to only take like 30 second clips of that of an eight hour day. Right?
01:10:37
Speaker
So unless you were making like a big... fuss or they were trying to cover that particular bill, they're probably not going to do that. And they're likely not also going to be like kind of, I don't want to be say sneaky, but they're not going to be like petty about it where they're like, you know, I'm seeing Jamie Keel up and I'm like, well, I want to see if he starts making some weird faces when, you know, representative England calls him out.
01:10:58
Speaker
And I don't know what's going to happen, but I can, you know, guess. So I have run to this side of the gallery to hopefully get his face. Right. But you're you're kind of making those decisions. ah and a lot of times you miss things because you are in transit.
01:11:12
Speaker
You can't find a seat once you get over there or, you know, something else happens. But here is the audio with like less background noise. You can you can hear that this is this is a lot more hearable. of Boy,
01:11:27
Speaker
to be sort of day. Hey, I've been here a long time, long time. Probably too long. But I got to don don't don't don't take this personal, but this is quite possibly the worst piece of legislation i have ever seen.
01:11:47
Speaker
Let me ask you a question. So if I pay my son $10 to go get me an absentee ballot application, am a criminal?
01:12:06
Speaker
Your son can help you. Huh? have a card out here. Your son can help you. No. Actually, see, one's one of the things about the bills that y'all bring sometimes, you don't read them. That's section one.
01:12:21
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. so So in that case, right, you could hear what he was saying. There was still, right, there's that hum because it's distant sound. Right. But that's something that like that I would, for example, post is like ah an Instagram video or like, you know, a video to stories.
01:12:37
Speaker
And then I would come back and I would pull. um You know, the overhead shot to like if I was going to make like ah an actual video, you know, if I was making a video version of this podcast, right? Like or something something cleaner.
01:12:49
Speaker
So in future episodes, right, I will be referencing things that they say on the floor and I'll play the audio clip. And and nine times out of 10, it's likely going to be from Alabama channel because that's going to be the clearest audio. And because this is primarily an audio medium.
01:13:01
Speaker
That's one of the benefits of Alabama channels that I know I can go back and I can see what was on the board or I can i can focus on what I'm trying to capture in that moment rather than stenography. Which in this case is this man's face as you see him process, what do I need to say to appease this man so we can keep this going? The actual fact of the matter is irrelevant.
01:13:21
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Man murdered on the state house floor. It happens a lot. That is like one of the things that I wish people like not even a wish I would like to do more of is like, you know, we talk about, oh, the Alabama legislators are screwing us over. Oh, they that there are specific ones who are who are problematic.
01:13:38
Speaker
There are ones who say some of the most. eloquent things you've ever heard on the floor. I've heard some of the most moving speeches on the floor. i have heard, ah you know, amazing arguments against it. i There are multiple ah black Dem um legislators who are lawyers who have taken a apart arguments like on a legal legal level. There are lawyers on the Republican side as well. But, you know, there's there's important pushback and that doesn't get covered really because, you know, i and I mean, understandably, right, a lot of the oxygen gets sucked up by stupid things Republicans say.
01:14:12
Speaker
And sometimes stupid things that Dems say. Like this is, this is um we are nonpartisan in the sense that everybody can catch these hands, you know, like, but in the sense that So, um, so some additional restrictions on shooting from the gallery. i've I've kind of mentioned these, but the, the ushers there, there is security up there. They are, they are pretty strict. that They're pleasant. Please be nice to them. If you were in the state house, um, these are, these are folks who do not get paid enough for what they do. Um, and they're on their feet all day. a lot of them are older, just, you know, be kind to them.
01:14:44
Speaker
Um, there is, um, floor to ceiling glass. You know, I mentioned that already. Um, You really can only get up and move around excessively. Like if you're pressed, you're not like locked in place, but you you can't stand up and record like upfront, like against the glass or something, unless you are pressed. um I have brought a very small tripod up there once again with my press pass. If you are, you can absolutely record as a regular person.
01:15:09
Speaker
Just be aware you're going to be needing to sit in a seat and record from your seat. So pick your your seat strategically. You can get up and move. Just again, it's it's not excessively, right? And then people are allowed to talk up there, but you will be shushed by the usher if you get like, you know, excessively loud. You can't like shout or anything. Not that you should because people are trying to like listen.
01:15:27
Speaker
um So, you know, press pass access. I had a press pass in 2023 and 2024. I do not currently have one and I doubt I will have one again after this publishes. We'll see.
01:15:38
Speaker
um But covering the state house as press despite access to press only areas is still super challenging. So were we're getting a different angle on... Right. So this is an area that I can only access with a press pass. So I am in a press room.
01:15:53
Speaker
um It's got a glass window onto the the floor and actually has a door like that you can enter and exit the the the floor onto ah exit onto the floor. um that glass up there, that second floor, that's the gallery.
01:16:07
Speaker
um You can, of course, again, access that without a press pass. You cannot get down here unless you have you have to go through another security corridor to get here. So you have to have a press pass. um Actually, in addition to having a press pass, you can cover committee rooms, um being dressed more or less however you want. However, if you are pressed and you want to go through that second security corridor to cover the state house, you need to be dressed in professional wear for women. And for men, you specifically need to be wearing a tie and a suit jacket.
01:16:36
Speaker
Specifically those two articles of clothes. If you do not have a tie or a suit jacket, you will not be allowed. They will, they they they do, okay. Side rant. I i adore my my former coworker. ah He is a videographer. He's an incredibly talented videographer.
01:16:52
Speaker
It used to be like a running joke between us that he would get away with wearing much more casual clothing because he would like, he's like, do I really have to wear a suit jacket? And I'm like, I'm sorry, man. And so one time he showed up in his, i don't want to regular streetwear because like the man looks sharp, like he is dressed sharply, but it's like streetwear chic, you know? So he's wearing like, he's wearing like a vest.
01:17:10
Speaker
Love me a good vest. like a But like a puffer vest and his like long sleeved button down shirt underneath it. He's not wearing a tie. He's not wearing a suit jacket, you know, and and he got in just fine because apparently if you have heavy camera like recording equipment, they they just give you like a little bit of a little bit more wiggle room. But no, I absolutely like there have been times where I got all the way to the statehouse.
01:17:31
Speaker
I'm wearing a suit jacket and realize that I forgot my tie in the car. And I absolutely have to go back outside, go back down, go back to where I parked my car like six blocks away, get the tie, put the tie on. Committee rooms do not have this restriction. but But if you want to be on the floor, you can be in the gallery without a suit jacket or tie. But you cannot be in these press rooms on the floor without that. So that's one of the restrictions.
01:17:52
Speaker
For women, it's just professional wear because they just the patriarchy hadn't figured out how to make women wear a standard uniform. I'm very grateful for that because they deserve it. But yeah, that holdover is like and that's the rule for by the way, and this is not just for press. This is for all the representatives as well. So um in this in this you know video capture, you can see that every single person is wearing a suit jacket and tie.
01:18:13
Speaker
So this is behind the glass, but on the house floor. So, you know, sound warning starts starts here. know So I'm going to ask you this before I tell you the answer.
01:18:28
Speaker
Was somebody at the podium speaking? I know you could see that somebody was the podium. I haven't the foggiest. There were so many people talking. There was. It was like going into a middle school lunchroom.
01:18:39
Speaker
Oh, it's so much worse. This is behind the glass. We are not on the floor yet. So I will play this one more time because I know it's just five seconds, but there is somebody who's speaking. If you really concentrate, you might be able to pick out who's speaking.
01:18:52
Speaker
And I will also say that this was a bit of a trick question too, because by the way, you cannot see the speaker from this angle. It's blocked by that pillar. So the person who's speaking is behind here.
01:19:07
Speaker
rustically lilting. So this is how it sounds right outside the house doors. So I'm not fully on the on the floor. This is like the best angle that you could get for the speaker if they're gonna be on the right hand side. um And i think I think I sweep my phone a little bit so you might be able to actually see like this is one of the two places that the professional cameras will set up in the state house.
01:19:29
Speaker
So by the way, if you are shooting, and this is something that again, my former coworker would run into, right? He's got the big camera setup. If you get to the floor and there's already two videographers in the two spaces at the the best spots to have, tough luck.
01:19:43
Speaker
You're going to you go have to figure something out. What I do, in the way that I compensate is that if I'm taking phone footage like this and I want to use it like in a video, I would then grab the audio from that overhead camera and I would merge them, you know, or something like that. That sounds reasonable. Yeah. that means you're going to be doing post-editing, right? What that means is is that I couldn't do this and then um immediately upload that. You know, there's going to be, I'm going to need to come home and edit.
01:20:07
Speaker
And again, things are happening very quickly, right? Like they're talking about multiple bills, things pass. and And this is why i think it's important to talk about things over time is that it is impossible to cover everything that happens at the state house, like when it happens.
01:20:20
Speaker
um But what happens is important. So we need to be able to go back and revisit these things, which again, Why having an archive of what these folks are saying is so important. This is sound warning.
01:20:31
Speaker
Just sound warning. So this is what it sounds like just standing outside of the house doors looking dead on. um Because is a land schedule. It's sound warning.
01:20:44
Speaker
So you can hear the speaker at least a little bit better, but it is pretty, it's pretty deafening, right? It is distracting. And so again, like these are, that there are 105 representatives that are supposed to be in the space. Now, of course, not everybody's at their desk, but most of them are, right? Imagine you're at that podium.
01:21:01
Speaker
And you're trying to hear what the other person is saying. They need, they need like those, um, they need to just have like little... They need to shut up. Well, yes, that that is the the correct solution is, hey, y'all, the people up front have the talkie sticks.
01:21:16
Speaker
Yeah. um that they're speaking into right now. So maybe y'all should shut the fuck up and listen to the people who have the talkie sticks. And to be fair, um what they can do is like if they're having trouble hearing, they can ask the the house chair, like the the speaker, um could you ask the the house to to quiet down a little, please? And that does happen. And I will say they're not always at this volume, but they are at this volume more frequently than not.
01:21:38
Speaker
So um this is the biggest sound warning. This is the last nasty audio we will have, I promise, at least to this to this extent. This is what it sounds like on the house floor. So now out of everything that we've covered so far, this is the crispest video. But the audio quality, ah cannot express this enough, sound warning. and And I think it's important for you to hear this without me...
01:22:00
Speaker
playing with it or bringing the volume down too much because this is genuinely what it sounds like to stand on the house floor. And again, there are people at the podium speaking. They are in session. This is not a break.
01:22:11
Speaker
and they are racial yeah I call it racial gerrymandering. Again, there's somebody at the podium, but that sound.
01:22:25
Speaker
There's roundabout 100 people in that room. There's like... 30 different conversations happening. At least it's so hard like to to concentrate, to hear.
01:22:36
Speaker
i mean, a den, doesn't even do it quite. It's a wall of noise. Now imagine sitting in that all day. And even if you were trying to do a good job, even if you were trying, can you imagine sitting in these back row seats?
01:22:50
Speaker
And trying to pay attention? but I mean, they don't. And this is not just a Republican-Democrat thing. Like, you can see everybody. I'm going to play this video again. I'm muting it. But I just want you to look at, like, the body language, right?
01:23:03
Speaker
So you can see people rocking. Somebody's spinning, which, you know, is a spinny chair. I feel that. But no but like people are all having these other conversations. maybe e One in five is actually seems like they're yeah they're paying attention. And even if they're trying to pay attention, you couldn't you can barely hear. Yeah. you know And there are, I will say, there are reps who are very good at projecting. Like Representative Drummond, who I will play clips of in the future. you know there's There's so many different representatives.
01:23:33
Speaker
Representative Englund does a great job like being heard over this noise. But you know some of these folks, they're older. You shouldn't be overlooked just because of like the quality of your voice and your ability to go boom.
Press Access and Public Engagement
01:23:46
Speaker
So Faye, we're going to move on to the Senate. So we've talked a lot about the House. Now, this the Senate is not as bad. Now, I will preface this by saying I've actually never been in the Senate gallery. I didn't even realize that until I was putting this together. And I was like, well, why don't I have a video from the Senate? Because I've never been in the gallery.
01:24:04
Speaker
Hey there, Zephyr from the future. I have, since the recording of this episode, been to the Senate gallery, and I can confirm that it has the exact same problems as the House gallery. So everything I said about the House gallery applies to the Senate.
01:24:17
Speaker
ah You can hear folks talking around you. um the The seating is actually a little bit more limited than it is in the House gallery. So same things apply.
01:24:28
Speaker
Thanks.
01:24:30
Speaker
First of all, there's 35 people and they are just they they are just not as noisy. um There's that and they also just seem to be much better at keeping quieter conversations just you know towards the back of the room. It's it's much easier.
01:24:43
Speaker
it looks like a space that is at least better set up to accommodate the um the the function that it is currently fulfilling. Well... but We'll get to that. Partially.
01:24:54
Speaker
you know So this is the view from the overhead camera, and this is a photo from the floor. Are you noticing anything, Faye, that's different? ah the The three television screens that are that is displaying information that might be handy for a viewer at home to to see as well?
01:25:12
Speaker
I did not know those screens existed until the first time that I walked into the press room in the Senate. I was so annoyed. ah Something else that I discovered ah this this year ah that also made me mad um is that apparently there is a way on the Alabama state legislative web website. I didn't know this existed. And i have I have spent days, days cumulatively of my life on this website, right? That there is actually a way to to see what is on those screens remotely.
01:25:43
Speaker
but um Yeah, I did not know this was possible. if you go to the legislative day tab and you click on current matter another Page will pop up and it will show you what they are currently discussing on the floor of the House and the Senate. So this is a video I took just to show people like how small the Senate press room in particular is.
01:26:02
Speaker
This is the only space that you can be in um that is a press only space in the Senate. Look how small this is. So it's a long, narrow room. So that there's technically a couple of chairs back there, but if you sit there, you're blocking people into the space.
01:26:18
Speaker
So. And this is, this is very dark. You don't want to turn the lights on and there's two steps up. I have absolutely. And I have seen other people do it back a chair off of the steps. Yeah. It's a thing that happens.
01:26:29
Speaker
I would mostly be standing in this corner and you'll see that it's not, it's maybe five feet, you know, horizontal of space. And so if you have. You're in a D and D five foot square. If you have three television cameras, there's not really a lot of space for you to stand and be able to capture video like on the floor.
01:26:46
Speaker
and Why would we want to capture video on the Senate floor? Faith, could you describe what is what is happening in this view? It looks like looks like there is there is somebody speaking at the podium and literally everybody on the floor except for one person way in the back is are having like a huddle.
01:27:06
Speaker
Like at the back of the room. That is an entire Senate GOP huddle. And so remember how you said the space is better designed? And it is. But if you were in, so that ceiling right there, right, that's the bottom floor of the gallery.
01:27:19
Speaker
So like the gallery would not be able to look straight down because they're under that that recess, right? So they're literally hidden from view. You couldn't see who's in that huddle. So that's the entire Senate GOP discussing. they They've just huddled up in the corner.
01:27:34
Speaker
Another thing that I i would like people to to realize about the reps is a lot of times, especially in the Senate, the person on the other side of the podium, so whoever's trying to speak on the bill, usually like, you know, they're speaking against it, right?
01:27:46
Speaker
The person will be disinterested, will be turning their back, will be visibly playing on the phone or not paying attention. And so all of the emotion and and the the the pathos that they are that ah energy are having to do that where where most of people in the room are not paying attention. Sometimes they are.
01:28:03
Speaker
Sometimes they are shouting encouragement or things. Where the other person that they're speaking to, that they're trying to reach the sponsor of the bill, is not listening, is openly ignoring them. you know it it's It's hard, right? like That's a hard – don't know if you've ever done public speaking where the audience is is clearly ignoring you. If you can imagine trying to give a speech and everybody's like turning their back – playing in their chairs or just gets up and leaves.
01:28:30
Speaker
and now imagine like you only have a limited of time to speak so you can't get off script because from the public's view, right, all they can see is you. So if you're not on your game, you look like you're not showing up to fight. You're not showing up.
01:28:42
Speaker
When nobody else is showing up, you are literally the only one there. This is why it's so important to talk to your representatives and your senators, because one of the things that fuels them to do this is knowing that people care and are watching. Because if you don't, like, man, why would I want to stand up there and have somebody ignore me?
01:28:57
Speaker
Like, they're not going to listen anyway. They're going to vote this through. So what am I getting on the record for? And these are very long days. What record are you getting on? Right. Well, now that there's video, right, there is record, right? And journalists will show up to cover something if it's controversial, if there have been public hearings on it. So it becomes this...
01:29:13
Speaker
cyclical nature, right? Where if you have protested or if you have shown up, if they know that there are problems with this this bill, that there have been people who have been talking to the press, that there's been press conferences, whatever, then journalists will cover that bill in the statehouse because they have to pick and choose where they're going to be and when.
01:29:30
Speaker
This is how I would decide what I was covering. If I'm looking right now and I'm going to decide if I'm going to drive to Montgomery to cover this, what am I covering? I'm going to make a little agenda for myself. I'm going to go to this hearing, this hearing, this hearing, this hearing.
01:29:41
Speaker
Well, first of all, I'm likely going to go, I'm going to pick a public hearing over just a regular committee hearing. You know, almost always because the public somebody's there's there's going to be some discussion on this, because a lot of times if a bill is just on a committee agenda and they're just discussing it, they're just going to vote it through. there There might be five minutes of discussion. Right. And that now I'm stuck in a room for another like hour where I may be able to get up and leave, but may not. Depends on where I'm sitting, you know, as opposed to there's a public hearing and I know people are going to be speaking on it. Well, I want to cover that.
01:30:13
Speaker
you know And I want to cover like what was happening when people pushed back. And that rolls over, right? Because now on the floor, they can be talking about, well, this person said this in the committee meeting and you didn't take this seriously, right?
01:30:24
Speaker
So these are things, again, just to give you kind of like a, not even a bird's eye view, an insider view, I guess, on why talking to your reps is important. like Whether or not something gets covered from the get-go is largely driven by the public.
01:30:36
Speaker
And that's something that, that's a power that I think people do not understand that they have.
01:30:43
Speaker
We are finally at the epilogue and unlike a lot of big problems in Alabama, this one does actually have a resolution. We we have something to look forward to. This is being partially resolved. From a news article by Mike Kaysen for AL.com, quote, an assessment by an engineering firm in March 2020 found that eight story, 315,000 square foot building needed $51 million dollars in repairs, renovations and replacements over 10 years.
01:31:09
Speaker
And for once in Alabama, they made the better decision to look into building a whole new ass building because gestures at everything. And they they they are. They are building a new building. In May of 2023, Governor Kay Ivey signed Senate Bill SB.
01:31:24
Speaker
So SB stands for Senate Bill. SB 222 by Senator Sam Givon, R. Huntsville. Yes, Republicans can do decent things sometimes. Authorizing the legislature to build a new state house. um So right now, a new state house is currently under construction. It's slated to be completed in late 2026.
01:31:40
Speaker
And lawmakers will gavel in for the first time in their 2027 session. That's going to be year one of a four-year cycle. So they're going to start that off in the new state house. According to the Alabama Reflector, that makes it the first new state house built in the United States since Florida finished construction on its Capitol complex in 1977. Indeed.
01:32:00
Speaker
In 1977, producer-director George Lucas created the Star Wars trilogy and changed the way we look at movies. Now, 20 years later, using new digital technology, Lucas and his creative team at Lucasfilm, THX, Skywalker Sound, and Industrial Lighted Magic have completely restored, enhanced, and added to these classic movies to create the Star Wars trilogy special edition. For the trilogy's third installment, Return of the Jedi.
01:32:29
Speaker
you have this all memorized? I am also a Star Wars fan. That's insane. I was sick a lot as a child. And so I would watch my favorite movies when I was sick. That's impressive and terrifying. I'm sorry.
01:32:42
Speaker
She did that off the dome. Like that there was nothing in front of her. Like, and it just kept going. Okay. So to continue. So this is the again, the first new state house built since 1977. And that includes like, you know, big, big, well, construction, but maybe not quite like, you know, minor re renovations.
01:32:58
Speaker
So when we're talking about how other states have better cameras, have have, you know, have archives, have all of these things, right? That's not because they're operating from newer buildings. Right.
01:33:10
Speaker
That's important to understand with all of this, right? That's not the problem. can't up update the insides of a building. It is possible to do. Sometimes it's not cost-effective to do that, as is the case here.
01:33:21
Speaker
But ah it could have been done in the past. Right. So so again, right? Florida finished construction on its Capitol complex in 1977. The Alabama legislature moved to the former you know Department of Transportation Highway Department building in
New State House Developments
01:33:34
Speaker
1986. Yeah.
01:33:36
Speaker
They decided to stay in 1992 and all of the other Southern states besides us, they have mics that they can speak from, from their desks. Why is that important?
01:33:46
Speaker
Because in on the House floor, and I believe this happens on the Senate too, but there isn't like a timer that counts down. You can see a timer and it starts the minute that the chair says, um the gentle lady from da, da, da, da can come up and speak.
01:34:00
Speaker
So when you have an older legislator or just anybody, if you sit in the back, right? The time it takes you from get to get out of your chair, and you don't know what time you're going to get called up, right? you You don't have like an order like, oh, this person's next, and then I'm in the queue, and then I'm in the queue.
01:34:12
Speaker
you You have your lights on to speak, but you don't know if you're going to get called in what order, right? So there'll be times where legislators will say, I've had my light on at my desk to speak for the last three bills, right? So say somebody gets, gets you know, okay, you get called up to speak.
01:34:26
Speaker
The time it takes you to get from your desk to the podium, right? is taken off of your time, that that clock is going. That clock's going, as opposed to other states where if you are saying like, oh, the gentlelady from Jefferson County, um you know Representative Mary Moore, you know you you're you can speak next. you can just She can just turn on her mic from her desk, just like the way we do it in committee meetings. We don't make people get up to go to the podium if they're in a committee meeting unless they're presenting a bill.
01:34:52
Speaker
So big question, right? What's the deal with live streams and public access in this new building? So from the Alabama Daily News, House Speaker Pro Tem Chris Pringle, our mobile, said the committee rooms in the new state house will be larger and all will be equipped with live streaming capabilities.
01:35:07
Speaker
No more committee meetings that you can't sit anywhere in the state, anywhere in the world, and watch, said Pringle, co-chair of the Legislative Council, the body of lawmakers with authority over the new building. Currently, room 200 in the existing statehouse is the largest, but it has its limitations, Pringle said.
01:35:22
Speaker
When you're presiding, you're looking at the back of other lawmakers' chairs, he said. The new diocese are going to be U-shaped so every member can see every other member. They're going to be raised so that people in the audience can see everybody.
01:35:32
Speaker
He estimates there will be two 250-person capacity rooms, a few with room for 100 people, and others with 75-person capacity, but those numbers aren't solid yet. Everything is going to be open for the public to come watch in a building that can hold people, Pringle said.
01:35:46
Speaker
How many times have you tried to get into a committee meeting but couldn't because there just weren't enough seats? We've been squeezing into a building that was never designed for us or the public. In committee rooms, a lot of the committee rooms, the legislators are literally just in a straight line and then there's another straight line behind them.
01:36:01
Speaker
So when they want to speak to each other, they literally have to turn around in the chair. Now their mics are in front. So if they turn around to talk, they're not getting picked up on the mic. So it's it's this – yeah, he's absolutely right that like this U-shape – Which is what you would think of when you just think of a a standard city council meeting space, right?
01:36:19
Speaker
Like this should be the standard. There are some rooms that are yeah U-shaped, but most of them are that straight line. Use the right tool for the job. In this case, by tool, I mean working space. Right. I don't agree with Representative Pringle on much, but I co-sign everything there.
01:36:34
Speaker
I'm really excited that the new building is going to have live streaming in every room. I haven't seen anything on like the specs of like what the cameras are going to be. I doubt they'll put in cameras with multiple angles, although that would be really nice.
01:36:45
Speaker
When you are speaking at the podium or you're you're giving testimony at a committee meeting, it's getting the back of your head. You can't see the person testifying. It would be really nice to have a camera view. And again, like Louisiana, other other Southern states have this, where if you weren't giving testimony at the state house or something, right, there is a camera that is so pointed at the legislators and there's a camera that's pointed at the the wherever, the dais, the podium, whatever people are using to give testimony so that you can see their face when they're talking.
01:37:15
Speaker
You know, it's like if I go back and I pull footage of me talking at a committee hearing like a few weeks ago, you just see the back of my head. You can't see me at all. You can't see, um I have no idea what my face looks like when I'm talking. you know So a lot of videos, a lot of times when I go to committee meetings and I know there's a public hearing, it's so that I can actually sit as far up front and to the side as possible so that I can actually capture the faces of people speaking because they do not get that otherwise.
01:37:40
Speaker
They would not have that footage. They would not have that experience. And it for me, it's a way to empower people. We are finishing up here. I'm just showing you, Fay, like some of the images that have been shared. This is what ah an example big committee mo room would look like. And ah these images do look much more like functional working spaces. I would love to see like, I think having like built-in microphones to the desks.
01:38:04
Speaker
would be really cool. That's the biggest thing that I was like, I'm wondering it is, are they going to have built in desks? Because this render, it does have a podium up front that could still be for like announcements and things like that. And for the speaker, I am really hoping they put in desk <unk> ah microphones. so um We're wrapping this up here. So this is a problem. Literally the structure of this state house has been working against the people for decades. And we we will hopefully have something of of a resolution. We at least have an improvement, which is not something we can usually say in the state. And to to loop back to to our fourth grade comment from earlier, callback time. We have 4,000, you know, or some several thousand, you know fourth graders who come to visit the state house. every year and they have to offload on South Union Street, which is a busy thoroughfare. It's dangerous and it it also blocks traffic because like the these you know these buses have to pull over. There's no place for them to pull over. They're just literally just stopping in the middle of a two-lane street. So in the the new building, there are um there are places to safely offload. There's going to be some green space. um So that's going to be much, much safer for kids.
01:39:11
Speaker
And you know i The Alabama legislature rarely does things that are beneficial to children, despite what they say. But for once, I can end this episode by saying this was actually a good thing to do for the kids. I like that we are we are we are ah ending the episode with a couple of Ws. One is a lowercase w. Like, we're not sure how this new statehouse is going to be updated, but we got one on the way.
01:39:34
Speaker
And... ah And things that are safe for kids are good. So like... Yeah. You know, the the L here is that we also can't turn back the clock. You know, I do not have video from anything before 2021. And we are going to talk about problems that started well before 2021 and it became current day problems today.
01:39:54
Speaker
Because where this is not a history podcast. um We are talking about things that happened in the past to situate us, to give us the context to talk about the present. But we're talking about the present. So, um yeah. Yeah.
01:40:06
Speaker
Yeah. a Smaller case W. I like that. This is a small this is a lower case W. All right. Well, that said, let us stop recording and actually eat something. yeah I want dinner. I'm hungry. I'm so impressed. My computer day-to-day.
01:40:22
Speaker
I mean, it's business. You're unfortunately going to be memorialized in history. There are people. They're Alabamians. There's a whole bunch of folks in the state of Alabama that counting on us.
01:40:33
Speaker
And we don't have a plan. They deserve better than what we are offering them right now. We don't sleep at night because we already know what's going happen. The math ain't math.
01:40:43
Speaker
But you have shown us time after time after time. That's not what you all intend to do.