The Pledge of Allegiance’s traditional morning presence in Alabama schools is the latest state lawmaker bill focus.

Alabama House Majority Leader Nathaniel Ledbetter of Rainsville filed House Bill 339, which would make it a requirement that every school day start with the Pledge. Currently, the Alabama Board of Education does have a requirement for schools to have every school day start with the pledge, but the Board has a lack of capability to actually enforce this legally. This has allowed some schools and classrooms in the state to drop the Pledge as part of their daily routine, such as the school of Ledbetter’s five-year-old granddaughter, which prompted him to introduce the bill

The bill would shift authority of the rule from a requirement by the Alabama BOE to a law mandated by the state, thus creating a legal precedent. Ledbetter did make it clear that this shift to making the Pledge’s daily school presence law would not require students to stand for or recite the words devised by Francis Bellamy in 1892. This is due to such a requirement to stand for or recite the Pledge being ruled unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court in the 1943 West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette decision.

Ledbetter’s bill will be taken up by the Alabama House Education Policy Committee on Wednesday. For more information on this story, you can visit AL.com for their original news piece.