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District 89 Rep. Marcus Paramore spoke to the Troy Rotary Club about some of the highlights of the 2024 legislative session as well as what may be some hot-button issues in the upcoming 2025 session.

Paramare said in 2024, the legislature passed record budgets for both the General Fund Budget – at $3.4 billion – and the Education Trust Fund Budget at $9.5 billion. He also said the Education Savings Act gave parents the option of moving children from failing school districts into another public school, private school or home school.

Paramaore also said the legislature came up with a short-term solution for In Vitro Fertilization after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled frozen IVF embryos must be treated as children. Paramore said the ruling created a problem, but the legislature only came up with a short-term solution. He said the legislature would need to address that problem so people could continue to use IVF treatments to have children in Alabama.

Paramore said the legislature also passed a ballot harvesting law that prevented someone from paying to have ballots collected, filled out and turned in as absentee ballots.

In the upcoming session, which begins Feb. 4, 2025, Paramore said gaming would continue to be a topic of discussion. He said the Senate is planning to put forward a statewide gaming bill, but Paramore said he had been hearing the bill was dead on arrival. He said he also expected a lottery bill to be brought up again.

Paramore said since the gambling issue would be a little cooler this year, he expected ALFA to bring forward a bill that would provide insurance options for young farmers who were only able to get insurance in the open market. Paramore said it was good legislation, but didn’t get any traction last session because ALFA was heavily opposed to 2024 gambling legislation.

Paramore said he expected the legislature to also try and close the gap in healthcare costs as well as working to make sure rural hospitals had adequate funding.