A few of the books in the young adult section of the Ozark - Dale County Library Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023 in Ozark, Ala. (Stew Milne for Alabama Reflector)
A bill that would give local governments the power to fire library board members will go before Alabama lawmakers again in 2025.
SB 6 , sponsored by Sen. Chris Elliot, R-Josephine, gives either county commissioners or city council members the authority to appoint members to the library board for four year terms and to terminate current library board members by a two-thirds vote.
“It was a priority for the Republican Caucus last year,” Elliott said during an interview Tuesday. “It is listed on the priority sheet in the Senate, and I think it is primed to get passed this year.”
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The bill also requires that each library board submit the names of their membership and provide a report describing the library materials that board members reviewed or removed from the collection to the Governor’s Office, the Speaker of the House, and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate.
Elliot filed the bill last year as SB 10 . It passed the Senate and was approved by the County and Municipal Government Committee in the Alabama House but failed to make it through the full House of Representatives.
Free speech groups have criticized the bill.
“This is just another extension of the bad-faith attacks on Alabama residents who do not conform to Chris Elliott, (Rep.) Susan DuBose, Clean Up Alabama and Moms for Liberty’s way of thinking,” said Krysti Shallenberger, a member of Read Freely Alabama, a group who opposes the legislation. “Our public libraries are institutions that promote intellectual freedom and librarians are trained to curate content from a neutral viewpoint.”
County commissions or city council members without a library may contract with another jurisdiction to establish and maintain a joint library and determine the size and make up of the board and assign an authority to oversee the board members. However, they currently cannot terminate board members voluntarily with a two-thirds vote.
Elliott’s is the second piece of legislation that was prefiled dealing with libraries. Rep. Arnold Mooney, R-Indian Springs, has refiled a 2024 bill that expands the definition of sexual conduct to include presentations at schools and public libraries .
Both legislators are requesting their colleagues consider their proposals once again, but this time much earlier than in the past. Elliott first filed his bill roughly a month before the start of the 2024 session while Mooney introduced his bill after the session had already started.
Library boards have become a central point of dispute over conservative attacks on content in public libraries and access to books. In Alabama, a battle over the composition of the Autauga-Prattville Public Library began in March 2023 after a parent objected to a book in the library’s collection that had inclusive pronouns.
Two organizations formed amid the controversy. One group, Clean Up Alabama, has urged both local and state officials to place additional restrictions to prevent minors from borrowing materials that members believe are inappropriate. They lobbied the Autauga County Commission to appoint board members largely sympathetic to their cause. The new board members implemented the new policies in the spring .
Clean Up Alabama has also managed to convince state leaders, particularly Gov. Kay Ivey, to recommend changes to the administrative code of the Alabama Public Library Service, the agency responsible for distributing state funding to libraries.
The APLS has since disassociated from the American Library Association and adopted language within its administrative code requiring local libraries to implement policies that restrict library access to minors for materials with content pertaining to sexual orientation, gender identity and sexual conduct.
Another group, Read Freely Alabama, formed in opposition to the new restrictions and filed a lawsuit in May to challenge the constitutionality of the changes at the Prattville library . Members have spoken out against the code changes to APLS and have requested that lawmakers intervene on their behalf to return the APLS rules to status quo.
Supporting them is the Alabama Library Association (ALLA), whose leaders have also opposed the challenges to the materials in the collection.
“There is no trust anymore,” said ALLA President Craig Scott during an interview Tuesday. “Sen. Elliott doesn’t trust libraries to run as they have run for decades and eons.”
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