Sen. Josh Carnley, R-Ino, spoke to the Pike County Republican Women about some of the important issues the Alabama Legislature addressed during the 2025 session.

“The last few years we’ve had a lot of what I felt like were national issues,” Carnley said. “Things that we were seeing at the national level that we felt like were beginning to come down and possibly penetrated in Alabama. It seems like a lot of [issues] really centered on our children and trying to do things to protect them. Making sure that we were not allowing people to sell products or provide products that would harm them.”

Carnley said the biggest issue the legislature faced was in dealing with vape products. Carnley said a lot of the products weren’t approved by the Federal Drug Administration and found their way into teens’ hands. He said most of the products could be found in convenience stores and vape stores.

Carnley said the legislature passed a bill that would require vape products to be FDA approved. He said some of the products contained more nicotine or THC than cigarettes or marijuana. He said those products now have to be FDA approved and the products must be sold from behind the counter and only to persons over the age of 21.

Another bill that became law was the Rural Hospital Investment Act, Carnley said. This bill would allow people or businesses to make a tax deductible donation to rural hospitals. Each rural hospital in the state could receive up to $750,000 per year. Carnley said the cap was in place for a couple of years in order to allow the program to develop and to establish an oversight agency that would be responsible for the distribution of the money.

Carnley said this was a critical bill for the state because many rural hospitals were facing the possibility of closure from lack of funding. The legislature also passed a bill that banned cellphone use in schools. Carnley said studies had shown it took about 26 minutes for a person to completely refocus after using a cellphone.

Carnley said from talking to local school system superintendents, nearly all schools had a cellphone policy in place. So, he said the bill most likely wouldn’t affect existing policies, but it would ensure that all school systems in the state had a cellphone policy in place.

According to Carnley, there were certain exemptions, like medical needs or emergencies, in which children would be allowed to use cellphones.

Carnley said the legislature also amended a law that set the Alabama primary election for the fourth Tuesday in May. He said once every seven years, the election would follow the Memorial Day holiday. He said that caused issues with a state law that required the polling places to be set up the Monday before the election. The new law changed the primary from the fourth Tuesday to the third Tuesday in May to avoid that issue, which would have occurred in 2026.

Other bills Carnley mentioned included:

• Reducing the grocery tax by 1-cent. This was the second decrease in the grocery tax approved by the legislature. The state grocery tax was 4 percent and has been lowered to 2 percent. He said the legislature plans to gradually phase out the state grocery tax altogether. He said the bill also included provisions for municipalities to reduce or eliminate its grocery tax. However, Carnley said the bill does not allow municipalities to increase the grocery tax.
• Providing a certain degree of protection for police officers involved in shootings in the line of duty.
• Prevented Pharmacy Benefit Managers from using spread pricing. Carnley said this bill would help local pharmacies remain solvent.