MONTGOMERY — Members of the Senate passed legislation creating a removal process for local library board members on Tuesday by a 26-6 margin.
The bill by State Sen. Chris Elliott (R-Josephine) has been introduced in previous sessions. It would allow city councils and county commissions to remove members of library boards they oversee by a two-thirds vote.
Under existing law, county and municipal library boards are appointed by the respective county or municipal governing body. The bill would provide that library board members serve at the pleasure of their respective appointing authority and may be removed by a two-thirds vote of that authority.
"At the end of the day, the authority of that library board is delegated by the elected officials, so what this bill does is it maintains that underlying authority, and if there is a problem for whatever reason, then they're able to recapture that authority and do what the people of that particular area find appropriate," Elliott told reporters on Tuesday. "I think the important takeaway there is look each and every little locality is different, right? What's good in Hoover may not be good in Bessemer. What's good in Orange Beach may not be good in Fairhope. We talked a lot about that today. I just think it's important to make sure that our local elected officials, and I used to be one of them, is in control of their delegated authority at the end of the day. These library board members are great folks. They serve their communities honorably, but they're not federal judges. Most of our appointed officials throughout government: executive branch, legislative branch, judicial branch serve at the pleasure of the appointing authority, and this just makes library boards the same."
Democrats opposed the bill.
"No due process is here at all as to why we're going to remove because we're serving at the pleasure of. I would love to see this bill at least give term limits, allow the library board to be appointed without having that fear of, 'I could be taken off tomorrow just because somebody don't like the color that I wore today,'" Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton (D-Greensboro) said on the Senate floor.
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