Bill giving governor power over Archives board passes Alabama Senate

A bill to restructure the Alabama Department of Archives & History Board of Trustees passed the Senate 26-5..

SB 5, sponsored by Sen. Chris Elliot, R-Josephine, would remove the board’s appointing authority and increase its membership by one, from 16 to 17 members. The governor would be the appointing authority for most seats, including members from each congressional district, with eight at-large appointments coming from the speaker, president pro tempore, and the minority leaders of the House and Senate.

“What this bill does is make those appointments not self-appointments, where they may continue to appoint themselves or their friends, but rather appointments from other elected officials that are accountable to the people of the state of Alabama,” Elliot said on the floor.

The Department of Archives & History did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Currently, the Alabama Department of Archives and History has two trustees from each congressional district and two additional at-large members, plus the governor or their designees. The Senate must approve each appointment, which Elliot kept in the proposed bill.

Elliot said when introducing the bill that while the governor gets a majority of appointments, he tried to ensure geographical diversity and kept “standard diversity language … to assure that the membership of the board is inclusive and reflects the racial, gender, geographic, urban and rural and economic diversity of the state.”

Senate Republicans killed debate on every bill Thursday, and Democrats did not have a chance to speak on the board legislation. After the Senate adjourned, Sen. Bobby Singleton, D-Greensboro, said that “this is all about DEI” and that the board has not done anything wrong to warrant the restructuring.

“This is a board that allowed someone, a third party, to come in to be able to utilize their facilities to be able to do history about gay and lesbians in this state. That’s what this is all about,” Singleton said.

Elliot was one of several Republicans who attacked the Archives Department for hosting a presentation on LGBTQ+ history in Alabama in June 2023, claiming the board is not accountable to elected officials, calling it a “unicorn.”

Elliott then introduced a bill in the redistricting special session in mid-2023 to strip Archives of $5 million, which did not pass.

He also introduced a similar bill for the 2024 legislative session that would have given state officials and legislative leaders the power to appoint board members, while keeping the board size the same. The bill passed the Senate and a House committee but did not reach the House floor.