Why Does the Alabama Legislature Spend Time on County Business?
Of the 654 bills filed in the 2026 Regular Session, 82 are local legislation—bills that affect a single county or municipality. That’s nearly one out of every eight bills consuming legislative time, committee resources, and floor debate on matters that should be decided at the local level.
This isn’t a failure of the Legislature. It’s an unfortunate byproduct of the Alabama Constitution of 1901—the longest operative constitution in the world at over 388,000 words. By comparison, the U.S. Constitution contains roughly 7,500 words.
The Core Problem: Alabama’s Constitution strips counties and municipalities of the power to govern their own local affairs. Unlike most states, where cities and counties can pass ordinances to handle local matters—adjusting property tax exemptions, modifying court jurisdictions, changing municipal boundaries—Alabama localities must ask the Legislature for permission through a constitutional amendment or a local bill. Every time.
Look at the list below and you’ll see the pattern: senior property tax exemptions in Colbert County, probate judge jurisdiction in Blount County, municipal boundaries in Baldwin County, sewer systems in Madison County. These are matters that every other state handles at the county commission or city council level without ever involving their state legislature.
The result is a Legislature that spends a significant portion of its limited 30-day session on local housekeeping instead of focusing entirely on statewide policy—the issues that affect all 5 million Alabamians. Bills addressing education, public safety, economic development, and election integrity must compete for floor time with a county’s request to let its probate judge handle equity cases.
Constitutional reform isn’t a liberal or conservative issue. It’s a good government issue. Giving counties and municipalities home rule authority—the power to manage their own local affairs without a trip to Montgomery—would free the Legislature to focus on the statewide priorities that matter most. It would also bring Alabama in line with the governing structure of virtually every other state in the Union.
Until that reform happens, the list below will keep growing every session. And our citizen legislators will keep spending their limited time in Montgomery passing bills that rename a county road or adjust one county’s property tax threshold—one local bill at a time.
Why Does the Alabama Legislature Spend Time on County Business?
Of the 654 bills filed in the 2026 Regular Session, 82 are local legislation—bills that affect a single county or municipality. That’s nearly one out of every eight bills consuming legislative time, committee resources, and floor debate on matters that should be decided at the local level.
This isn’t a failure of the Legislature. It’s an unfortunate byproduct of the Alabama Constitution of 1901—the longest operative constitution in the world at over 388,000 words. By comparison, the U.S. Constitution contains roughly 7,500 words.
Look at the list below and you’ll see the pattern: senior property tax exemptions in Colbert County, probate judge jurisdiction in Blount County, municipal boundaries in Baldwin County, sewer systems in Madison County. These are matters that every other state handles at the county commission or city council level without ever involving their state legislature.
The result is a Legislature that spends a significant portion of its limited 30-day session on local housekeeping instead of focusing entirely on statewide policy—the issues that affect all 5 million Alabamians. Bills addressing education, public safety, economic development, and election integrity must compete for floor time with a county’s request to let its probate judge handle equity cases.
Constitutional reform isn’t a liberal or conservative issue. It’s a good government issue. Giving counties and municipalities home rule authority—the power to manage their own local affairs without a trip to Montgomery—would free the Legislature to focus on the statewide priorities that matter most. It would also bring Alabama in line with the governing structure of virtually every other state in the Union.
Until that reform happens, the list below will keep growing every session. And our citizen legislators will keep spending their limited time in Montgomery passing bills that rename a county road or adjust one county’s property tax threshold—one local bill at a time.