The Marine Corps League (MCL) is opposing legislation that would make the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs (ADVA) commissioner a governor's cabinet position while restructuring the role and authority of the State Board of Veterans Affairs (SBVA).
After passing a House Committee on Wednesday, Senate Bill 67 (SB67) now only needs a full House floor vote before it goes to Gov. Kay Ivey's desk for her signature. The bill shifts the ADVA commissioner's hiring and firing responsibility to the governor. The role currently answers to the SBVA. The bill would turn the SBVA into an "oversight" board.
Senate lawmakers heavily amended the bill during debate, resulting in an eventual substitute encompassing multiple changes, many of which were requested by the state's Veterans Service Organizations (VSOs).
Under the new law, the governor would still appoint SBVA members based on suggested appointees from the following organizations: The Alabama Department of the American Legion (DAL), the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), the Disabled American Veterans (DAV), the Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), AMVETS, the Military Order of the Purple Heart (MOPH), the American Ex-Prisoners of War, the Alabama Alliance of the Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) and the Marine Corps League (MCL).
Despite the amendments, VSOs and individual veterans have objected to the perceived downgrading of the SBVA, stripping it of all real authority. Supporters of the legislation have pointed out that an executive cabinet position cannot be held accountable to an independent board while serving at the governor's pleasure.
Ivey announced on Tuesday that three of the nine SBVA appointing VSOs had endorsed it.
Thus far, MOAA, DAV and MOPH have opposed the bill. However, most of the others are rumored to follow suit in the coming days.
The MCL became the fourth name on that list after the group released a statement on Wednesday.
In the statement, the League stated emphatically that it did "not wish to see the ADVA or SBVA restructured, changed, or modified from its current construct and therefore oppose any present modifications to how these two entities have traditionally operated since 1945."
"Over the last few months, our Department has regularly monitored the proposed structure and composition modifications (SB67/HB154) to the Alabama Department of Veteran Affairs and the State Board of Veteran Affairs," the MCL statement read. "Over those same months, we as a Department Headquarters have surveyed and pulsed Marines and family members throughout the state to capture a more holistic understanding to these documents. We are hard-pressed to find one Marine or family member who favorably endorses these proposals and were left with a common question of 'What's broken that requires such drastic change(s) to the ADVA and SBVA traditional methods of operating?'
"Our Department currently enjoys 16 detachments throughout the state of Alabama where it supports Marine veterans and their families. With an agency like the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs, we are better equipped to execute our mission to better serve Marines and their families. We are able to ensure critical and needed services to them, from healthcare to housing, and from employment to interment and burial. From suicide prevention, VA claims, dependents scholarship benefits, state veterans home long-term care, and more, it is the ADVA that serves as our primary enabler to those veteran benefits and services. Our performance evaluation of how the ADVA has complemented and impacted the Alabama Marine Corps League mission is nothing short of an A grade."
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