Pray & Pledge (Or Else) Bill Passes AL Senate Committee

The Alabama Senate Education Policy Committee has given a favorable report to a bill requiring prayer time and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance daily in Alabama’s K-12 public schools. The Wednesday, April 16 Committee meeting saw HB231 be sent to the full Senate.

HB231 is sponsored by State Representatives Ingram, Sells, Yarbrough, Stubbs, Pringle, Lee, Crawford, Easterbrook, Gidley, Bedsole, Shedd, Stadthagen, Estes and Wood (D), would propose a constitutional amendment (CA) requiring each local Board of Education in Alabama’s K-12 public school system to require the Pledge of Allegiance to be conducted at commencement every school day. As originally offered, HB231 would further require a commencement prayer “consistent with Judeo-Christian values” along with the Pledge, with a penalty of withholding 25% of State funding should the local school board intentionally refuse to comply.

A substitute for HB231 offered by Rep. Paschal removes the Judeo-Christian specification, making the bill religion-neutral. It also requires that local Boards vote to adopt a policy to allow students and employees to voluntarily participate in a daily prayer or Bible (or other religious text) reading, and to provide a consent form for participation.

The substitute also prohibits the prayer and reading from being a substitute for classroom time, or in the presence of anyone who has not consented to participate. It does maintain the penalty of 25% reduction in state funding following a “continued pattern of refusal” to comply with the provisions of the bill.

Rep. Ingram (R-Pike Road) discussed the substitute bill before the Committee, stating that he’s worked on this bill for several months, talking to principals, attorneys and other legislators to get their input.

“What we’ve done is put a couple of different layers in here,” Ingram said. “We took out the Christianity, so if anybody had a different belief, it would be any religion. I’m a Christian, I always have been and always will be. I do respect other religions as well.

“It would have to be approved by the school board. They’d have to vote on it within 90 days,” Ingram continued. “Another thing is, there’s no praying in the classroom. The prayer has to go in before school or after school time. So, they would have a room they could pray in.”

“They would have to have a parent’s consent,” Ingram said. He compared the prayer requirement to the school’s requirement to provide meals for students.

Rep. Barbara Drummond (D-Mobile) asked for clarification on the consequences of intentional refusal to comply with the requirements of the bill, and how that refusal would be defined. 

Rep. Ingram confirmed there would be a clawback of 25% if the school board did not vote on the issue promptly, and it would be up to the State Board of Education to determine if a violation had occurred. Ingram went on to clarify that the 25% funding cut in the substitute would only apply to the Pledge, but that a few missed occurrences would not be regarded as a violation.

Ingram stated that “a large percentage” of schools are not currently participating in the pledge as current law requires, and “we want them saying the Pledge. That doesn’t mean the student doesn’t have to participate, but the school has to participate, and that’s the law.”

Rep. Drummond expressed her concern that this would be penalizing kids should the local board not comply, to which Ingram responded by again comparing this to the school’s requirement to provide meals to the children.

Drummond answered this, saying “I grew up saying the Pledge, but it’s rather punitive if an individual…school staff member didn’t want to do it, you’d be taking away money from the kids.”

“I would think that everyone in this room, if they’re an American citizen, would be concerned if it’s a law for those kids to (not) have the option. The kid doesn’t have to stand up, it’s just the procedure has to be in place, and it has to be led.”

Not discussed during Wednesday’s Committee meeting but an issue that might arise during later debate is the concern some have that the Pledge is actually a socialist loyalty oath, written by Christian socialist minister turned advertiser Francis Bellamy as part of a marketing scheme. Some years after the Pledge was written, Bellamy acknowledged the Pledge was written with an eye towards the ritual of its recital, saying, “ when you analyze it, you find a mouthful of orotund words, most of them, abstract terms-a bunch of ideas rather than concrete names… This pledge would seem far better adapted to educated adults than to children.“ The Pledge can be considered “a child of the socialist Progressive movement,“ but familiarity with it and its rituals over many decades has inured us to its origins.

The substitute bill was adopted and received a favorable report by the Committee.

Should the bill pass the Senate and be sent to the Governor, it would be offered to the voters as a CA at the next appropriate election. This would almost certainly be the May 26, 2026 Alabama primary.