By Paul DeMarco
When it comes to Alabama politics, a number of state agencies stay in the news. Controversy has followed agencies like the Alabama Department of Corrections and the Transportation Department or in the past like Mental Health and DHR.
Yet, it is the Alabama Department of Archives and History that has made the headlines as of late. The agency’s lurch to the left with its programming has gotten the attention of lawmakers. The focus should be on Alabama history, but legislators feel the agency has become interested in promoting liberal ideology.
There is talk about legislation that would take away $5 million from the Department in an effort to curb the direction the leadership has taken. Baldwin County State Senator Chris Elliott has said he would bring a bill for consideration of his colleagues to stop millions of dollars that were approved in the past session in the education budget for supplemental money to the Alabama Archives.
With Governor Kay Ivey making it official this past week that the Alabama Legislature would be back in special session to address congressional redistricting in two weeks, will funding for the state archives also come up for debate?
To bring up the archives bill in the special session would take a two-thirds vote of both the Alabama House of Representatives and Senators to add the bill to the agenda for the special session. It is not easy to swing that many votes to go around the Governor’s designation, but there is precedent. When the Alabama Legislature met in October of 2021 to approve new U.S. Congressional, State Legislative and School Board Districts, a bill approving automatic exemptions from COVID-19 vaccines was passed and it was not part of Governor Ivey’s agenda for that special session.
While the Alabama State Archives Department is just now getting attention, this is not the first time that the Archives appears to be allowing politics to play a role in the way it operates. Thus, the time is right to bring scrutiny to the department to actually ask the tough questions that need to be directed to this state agency.
We will know in the next two weeks if Alabama Legislators are willing to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to challenging the leadership of the Alabama Department of Archives and History.
Paul DeMarco is a former member of the Alabama House of Representatives and can found on Twitter at @Paul_DeMarco