Alabama House of Representatives

The Alabama House of Representatives is the lower house of the Alabama Legislature, with the upper house being the Alabama Senate. Both bodies are constitutionally required to convene annually at the Alabama State House.[2] In quadrennial election years (e.g. 2018), they convene on the second Tuesday in January.[2] In the first year after quadrennial election years (e.g. 2019), they convene on the first Tuesday in March.[2] In the second and third years of quadrennium (e.g. 2020 and 2021), the Legislature convenes on the first Tuesday in February.[2] From that date of convention, the House of Representatives must meet for 30 legislative days over the course of 105 calendar days.[2]

The legislature is not permitted to call for special sessions, though they may determine the subject of those sessions by a two-thirds vote in the event that they do take place.[2] Special sessions in the Alabama Legislature span 30 calendar days and meet for 12 of them.[2]

Throughout most of the state's history, the Democratic Party has held the majority in the Alabama House of Representatives except for a few brief exceptions. The Whig Party controlled the lower house in 1819 and again from 1821 to 1823, and for the last time from 1837 to 1838.

After the Civil War and emancipation, granting of citizenship and the franchise to freedmen, most joined the Republican Party. Politics became competitive for several years. Republicans, made up of both races, held the majority of seats during the Reconstruction period from 1868 to 1870, and again from 1872 to 1874.

Among the House's historical firsts was the election of its first African-American members in 1868, when 27 black Republicans were elected.[9] Among those African Americans elected to the lower house in 1872 was Rev. Mentor Dotson, a teacher. His granddaughter Helen Elsie Austin in 1930 was the first African-American woman to graduate from University of Cincinnati Law School, and in 1937 the first black and first woman to be appointed as state assistant attorney general of Ohio. She had a career as counsel to several federal agencies, was active in civil rights, and served a decade as a US Foreign Service Officer in Africa.

Beginning in 1876, white Democrats regained control of the state house, through a combination of fraud, intimidation, and armed attacks on Republicans. At the turn of the 20th century, they passed laws that essentially disenfranchised both blacks and poor whites, causing a dramatic drop in voter rolls. Alabama white Democrats helped form the Solid South in Congress. For decades a failure to redistrict according to census returns resulted in the state legislature being dominated by rural counties and conservative Democrats.

In 1922 the first female member was elected to the State House: Hattie Hooker Wilkins of Dallas County, who served a single four-year term.[10]

There was a realignment of party affiliations during the later 20th century. In the 1970s the ruling of one man, one vote by the US Supreme Court enabled urban jurisdictions to acquire political power in the State House that expressed the size of their populations. Through the late 20th century, after the civil rights movement, white conservatives began to realign, supporting Republican presidential candidates. Most blacks in the state supported the national Democratic Party, which had supported constitutional rights. At the local and state level, numerous Democrats were elected.

Some 136 years of Democratic control of the State House ended in November 2010. Beginning with the 2010 general election, Republicans swept to a large majority in the state house. They increased this margin in the elections in 2014 and 2018.

• Government of Alabama
• Alabama Senate
• Impeachment in Alabama
• Alabama Republican Party
• Alabama Democratic Party

• Alabama House of Representatives Official Site

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