PELHAM, Ala. —
Spencer Stone is a public-school teacher of 16 years and the Democratic nominee for Alabama Senate District 16. His first bill — the Let Teachers Serve Act — fixes a 2010 law that forces any teacher elected to the Legislature to give up the classroom to serve. Here is exactly what the bill does, and what it does not do.
In 2010, the Alabama Legislature passed the Legislative Double Dipping Prohibition Act, codified as Alabama Code Section 29-1-26. It was sponsored by Senator Jabo Waggoner. It was meant to stop a real abuse: legislators collecting a second taxpayer paycheck from no-show or low-show jobs at two-year colleges. That part was a good idea.
The law was written so broadly that it did not just catch the patronage jobs — it caught every public-school teacher in Alabama. Under Section 29-1-26, the day a teacher is sworn into the Legislature, that teacher must give up the teaching job. Not to run for office — to actually serve. A career classroom teacher who wins a seat is forced to choose: the students, or the statehouse.
It makes one surgical change to Section 29-1-26. A working classroom teacher may keep teaching while serving in the Legislature.
No teacher draws a teaching paycheck for any day the Legislature is in session — those are unpaid leave days from the school. One person, two jobs, paid only for the hours actually worked.
The ban on two-year and four-year college employment stays exactly as it is. The patronage jobs the 2010 law targeted remain off-limits.
The ban on other state-government employment for legislators stays in place too.
Double-dipping means being paid twice, by the public, for the same time. The Let Teachers Serve Act forbids exactly that — a teacher-legislator cannot be paid to teach on a day spent in Montgomery. What the bill allows is simply what every other working Alabamian's representative already gets to be: a person with a real job who also serves. A farmer can serve. A small-business owner can serve. A lawyer can serve. Under current law, only the teacher has to quit.
Senator Waggoner sponsored the 2010 law. But he may well feel differently today. A-VOTE — the Alabama Education Association's own political action committee — has contributed $47,500 to Senator Waggoner's campaigns since 2018, including $30,000 in the current election cycle, according to state campaign-finance filings. The teachers' organization is one of his largest donors. If the AEA's own PAC is willing to invest in Senator Waggoner, surely Senator Waggoner can support a bill that simply lets a teacher serve.
Alabama has a teacher shortage and a Legislature with almost no working educators in it. A law that forces teachers to choose between their students and their state guarantees that the people writing education policy have never recently lived it. The Let Teachers Serve Act fixes the part of the 2010 law that punishes teachers — and keeps the part that stops the abuse. The bill is drafted and ready to file.
Spencer Stone is a teacher, coach, and father of three running for Alabama State Senate District 16. He has spent his career in Shelby County classrooms and on athletic fields. He is running on a platform centered on education funding, energy costs, and accessible government. Learn more at stone4senate.com.