By Brian Lyman | Editor
“This is not a partisan issue. It is a human issue, a moral issue. Everybody has to eat to survive, and that makes the grocery tax a tax on survival.” - Chris Sanders, spokesman, Alabama Arise, on state’s grocery tax
A WIC child participant takes a WIC-approved product off the shelf in a grocery store in Seattle in September 2024. (U.S. Department of Agriculture)
ELECTIONS 2026
By Ralph Chapoco
For years, repealing Alabama’s grocery tax remained an elusive dream of a few activists. But the issue has now become bipartisan, with Republican gubernatorial nominee Tommy Tuberville last week calling for its elimination in a campaign ad. Tuberville joins Democratic gubernatorial nominee Doug Jones and both candidates for lieutenant governor in calling for fully eliminating the state portion of the unpopular levy.
Jeffrey Lee, seen in an Alabama Department of Corrections photo, was executed Thursday evening for the murders of Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson during a pawn shop robbery in 1998. (Alabama Department of Corrections)
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
By Ralph Chapoco
The state of Alabama Thursday executed Jeffery Lee, 49, for the murders of Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson during a pawn shop robbery in Orrville in 1998. The execution came after attempts by Lee’s lawyers to have a jury’s initial sentence of life without parole upheld; a judge later overrode the sentence in a practice known as judicial override, abolished in 2017. In June, Lee successfully challenged Alabama’s nitrogen gas execution protocol.
Alabama Educational Television Foundation Authority Chairman William Green (left) and authority member Dick Brewbaker, a former Republican state senator, listen during an AETFA meeting on September 16, 2026. (Andrea Tinker/Alabama Reflector)
EDUCATION
By Andrea Tinker
An authority overseeing Alabama Public Television Wednesday voted to fund a $40,000 survey on state attitudes toward APT and the Public Broadcasting Service. The survey will be conducted by Cygnal, a Republican pollster, and some members of the authority criticized the move as an attempt to discredit the broadcaster amid a push by right-wing members of boards overseeing APT to have it disaffiliate from PBS.
ICYMI
Commentary: Alabama Democrats have had a few good weeks. But political gravity is tough. | Brian Lyman, Alabama Reflector
Doug Jones, Phillip Ensler propose overhaul of lieutenant governor’s role | Anna Barrett, Alabama Reflector
Alabama withdraws objections to federal marijuana rescheduling | Anna Barrett, Alabama Reflector
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