A Senate committee shows everything wrong with Alabama government

I want to seal the Feb. 7 meeting of the Alabama Senate’s State Governmental Affairs Committee in amber.

I want to mail copies of it to every house in the state. I want to paint it in bright colors and sell it next to prints of Van Tiffin and Chris Davis.

Because I have never seen anything that so embodied everything wrong with governance in Alabama.

It had legislation built on conspiracy theories, vengeance and silencing marginalized people. It had politicians treating the public as a nuisance. Best of all, it had the committee chair break a commitment without explanation or acknowledgment.

Most of the gathering focused on a bill sponsored by Sen. Garlan Gudger, R-Cullman, that would make it a felony to help a person fill out an absentee ballot or accept money to do so.

Republican legislators introduced a similar bill last year. Advocates for people with disabilities said that it could make it very difficult for people who are blind to cast votes. Gudger’s bill, as filed, does appear to provide an exception for that.

But as members of the public who attended the meeting noted, it may criminalize other forms of assistance. Kylie Kerr, a special education teacher from Shelby County, said that the legislation could leave her subject to prosecution for helping her students fill out an absentee ballot.

Gudger and other supporters insist that this is a form of ballot security, as did Becky Gerritson, the president of the conservative Eagle Forum (the only member of the public to speak for it, vs. 11 people who spoke against it). They said they were targeting something called “ballot harvesting.”

To be clear: voting fraud is not a problem in Alabama. Absentee voting in the state is very limited and very difficult. Per the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, there have been 25 voter fraud convictions in Alabama in the last 24 years, one of which involved former Rep. David Cole, R-Did Not Live In The District He Was Elected From. If all of those incidents occurred in the 2022 state elections, it would represent 0.0018% of all ballots cast (and I rounded that percentage up).

Opponents of the bill Wednesday noted that older Black rural voters, who often lack access to transportation, need help casting their ballots. (It’s worth noting many of those voters lean Democratic and live in the redrawn 2nd Congressional District, which Republicans could lose in November.)

None of this mattered. Legislators had already decided what would happen.

Sen. Tom Butler, R-Madison, the chair of the committee, first told members of the public that he would not have a vote on the bill Wednesday. After the hearing, and over the objections of Democrats on the committee (and members of the audience), Butler called for the vote, carried by the majority Republicans.

And then there were the bills that the committee didn’t get to.

Attacking LGBTQ+ Alabamians

One, sponsored by Sen. Chris Elliott, R-Josephine, would fire every member of the Alabama Department of Archives and History’s Board of Trustees on June 1 and replace them with people appointed by the governor, lieutenant governor and Senate president pro tem.

See, Archives committed the grave sin of acknowledging the existence of LGBTQ+ people in Alabama. Last June, the department hosted a presentation on LGBTQ+ history in the state. The presence of LGBTQ+ folks apparently gives some people hypertension. And in the absence of Medicaid expansion, destroying the independence of Archives is the only way to treat it.

Then there was the bill from Sen. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale, that would limit the flags one could “place, hoist, raise or display” on public property.

Allen’s bill pre-clears some banners, like the American flag, the POW/MIA flag and the flags of the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts.

Guess which flags aren’t included.

The Rainbow pride flag. The transgender flag. Any Black Lives Matter flag. Really, any banner that might be flown by someone traditionally targeted or neglected by our state government.

To be sure, Allen’s bill allows a “governing entity” to authorize the display of certain flags, so cities could take time from pressing matters to make it clear that an LGBTQ+ flag is not a threat to public safety.

But I doubt the far-right Republicans who control our government would allow that on the grounds of the Alabama State Capitol.

If the law had been in place last May when Alabamians carried LGBTQ+ flags to the State Capitol steps to peacefully protest attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, they could have been sent to jail for three months and subjected to a $500 fine.

The committee didn’t pass those two bills Wednesday. But Allen’s bill will return. Elliott, meanwhile, filed a second, nearly-identical version of his Archives bill; it’s scheduled to be in the Senate County and Municipal Government Committee Tuesday.

Why is a bill targeting a state agency in a local government committee? Maybe because Elliott chairs it.

The whims of our leaders win out over the concerns of the public. But then, our state government wasn’t designed to represent Alabamians.

You know how the U.S. Constitution requires the federal government to “promote the general welfare?” To actually solve the problems that face the country?

That’s not in the opening to Alabama’s constitution. It charges the government to “establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, and secure the blessings of liberty.”

As applied, that’s meant securing liberty for the powerful and keeping the rest of the state in line.

Which means we’re going to prosecute voters navigating a difficult system. We’re going to punish scholars who take an honest look at history. We’re going to make people afraid to publicly acknowledge who they are.

We’re not going to address gun violence or our appalling maternal mortality rates.

So share that Feb. 7 meeting with everyone you know. It’s how our government works the other 364 days of the year.

Brian Lyman is the editor of Alabama Reflector. He has covered Alabama politics since 2006, and worked at the Montgomery Advertiser, the Press-Register and The Anniston Star. His work has won awards from the Associated Press Managing Editors, the Alabama Press Association and Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights. He lives in Auburn with his wife, Julie, and their three children.

Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, an independent nonprofit website covering politics and policy in state capitals around the nation

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: A Senate committee shows everything wrong with Alabama government