Alabama House passed controversial – but bipartisan – grass bill

This is an opinion column.

Lost in the insanity, the inanity, the inhumanity of the 2024 Alabama Legislative Session was HB 229. About Alabama’s favorite grass.

Allegedly.

No, no, no. Don’t confuse this grass with marijuana legalization, or with anything by the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission, which is still more messed up than Uncle Jim was at that Widespread Panic Concert in 2002. Which is saying something.

This bill, sponsored by Northport Republican Rep. Rob Bolton, would designate Alabama’s official state grass.

Not Southern Sativa or Krimson Kush. Not that kind of grass at all. It would name Little Bluestem – schizachyrium scoparium – as the “official state native grass of Alabama.”

This, I suppose, is not as controversial as in 2016, when the Legislature declared the little-known Lane Cake as the official state cake, simply because it appeared in the text of To Kill a Mockingbird. The grass bill did make it out of the House, even if it didn’t win in a landslide.

Which is fitting, for a grass known to prevent soil erosion.

It was touch and go in the House, despite the bill’s assertion that “Little Bluestem’s distinctive blue-green foliage and reddish-brown seed heads offer unique aesthetic benefits for the residents and visitors of Alabama by adding to the inherent beauty of Alabama’s landscapes and natural areas.”

Who knew?

The bill passed with 63 yeas, 11 abstentions and 22 nays. Thirteen Democrats and nine Republicans voted against.

What was the controversy? That the grass is not exactly a household name? That it is native to 48 states and parts of Canada, and is only special to Alabama in the sense that it appears here, as everywhere else? Like oxygen and … institutional racism?

Maybe none of the above. One Democrat admitted sheepishly that there was a good bit of confusion when the grass bill came up for a vote last week, and when he saw other Democrats voting against it he simply followed suit.

“I saw it was about state symbols and just hit no,” he said. “I was worried it was some Confederate thing.”

Which on another day might have been reasonable. But on this day it was just grass. And confusion. Which again seems to be a theme.

So the bill goes on to the Alabama Senate for consideration, along with the claim that “Little Bluestem fosters healthier Alabama ecosystems by maintaining ecological balance and creating and enhancing habitats that support environmental heterogeneity.”

It has a good chance, based on previous bills, as Alabama is all about the hetero.

But I jest. In other sessions bills declaring new state symbols – naming the black bear as the state mammal instead of, say, the Alabamian – may have generated more controversy. Some people even yammered about the sweet potato’s ordination as the official state vegetable in 2021.

But thank heavens for the grass. If only because it gives us cover.

This session will be remembered for efforts to ban diversity programs and control who can read what. It will be recalled as the year of the frozen embryo, a war against wokeness, a cultural food fight that makes history a “divisive concept” and made hay on bathroom bills and don’t-say-gay-anywhere-any-way (especially in a library).

I mean, the governor has already signed laws to keep people from helping others register to vote, and to give public money for students to attend private schools. Multiple bills target gay and transgendered people. From that vantage point, this grass looks a good bit greener.

So it’s a good day when all one has to complain about is which is the best plant that holds our ground together.

Perhaps Alabama lawmakers really should spend more time on grass, and less on the things that drive people apart.

John Archibald is a two-time Pulitzer winner for AL.com.