Opponents urge changes to bill changing Archives governance

Opponents of a bill that would change the make-up of the Alabama Department of Archives and History’s Board of Trustees urged a House committee Wednesday to make changes to the legislation.

SB 77, sponsored by Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Josephine, would end the self-perpetuating appointments of the board and give the governor and legislative leaders the power to appoint trustees. 

“What Senate Bill 77 does is move those appointments and the appointing authority from the board itself, to appoint and reappoint itself, to elected officials. And that is spread across the Pro Tem of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, the lieutenant governor and the governor,” Elliott said.

The public hearing came amid a months-long controversy over the representation of LGBTQ+ people in public Alabama spaces. Last summer, the department hosted a grant-funded talk by Maigen Sullivan, co-founder of the Invisible Histories Project, on LGBTQ+ history in Alabama.

Elliott criticized the department for hosting the program and filed a bill during last summer’s redistricting session that attempted to slash $5 million out of the department’s budget.

13 people spoke in opposition, and no one spoke in favor of the bill at a public hearing at the House Boards, Agencies and Commissions Committee. Committee Chair Margie Wilcox, R-Mobile, said the committee will take a vote next week.

Steve Murray, director of the Alabama Department of Archives and History, said during the public hearing that he understands the Legislature’s intent to provide for more accountability in the agency, and recommended changes to the bill.

Among his recommendations were having the Speaker of the House and the Senate President Pro Tempore sit on the board. He also said the governor’s appointments should be subject to Senate confirmation, which he said is “more like other historical and cultural agencies in the executive branch of the government where the governor makes those appointments.”

“We think all those provisions add the accountability that we hear the legislature saying that you’re looking for,” Murray said.

Senate approves bills allowing dismissals of Archives trustees, library board members

Carrie Banks, vice president of the Friend of the Archives, which provides support to the Alabama Department of Archives and History, said that SB 77 would make the board “an outlier” among other executive or historical agencies. She said that consistency is “a sound, common sense government solution.”

“I’m asking you today to apply that same idea of consistency to the amended version that we’re offering to SB 77,” Banks said.

Alyx Kim-Yohn, another opponent, said that they are not convinced the appointing authorities proposed in the bill would not have the best interests of the Alabama archives.

“It has been made clear to me that Senate Bill 77, as it is written, is Sen. Elliot’s retaliatory response to a lunch-and-learn program about LGBTQ history of the Alabama Department of Archives and History,” Kim-Yohn said.

Susan Stewart, a resident of House District 10, noted that Monday was the 25th anniversary of the murder of Billy Jack Gaither, a Sylacauga man who was killed for being gay. She said she doesn’t know how she would talk about his murder without mention of his sexual orientation.

“History doesn’t happen in a vacuum,” she said.

Rep. Kelvin Lawrence, D- Hayneville, said it was the first time he’s sat in a public hearing where no one spoke in favor of a bill and said that stood out to him. As legislators, he said, they come to the Legislature because they want to do what’s best for their constituents.

“Well, looking out in the audience today, there’s not one single person in the audience that spoke in favor of this bill, and that should say a lot to us as committee members,” Lawrence said.

This story was updated at 12:53 p.m. on Feb. 22 to correct Alyx Kim-Yohn’s pronouns.