Georgia lawmakers leave library bill on the shelf

ATLANTA — The first meeting of the last day of the 2024 Georgia General Assembly brought some measure of relief for librarians.

Lawmakers were scheduled to consider a bill that sought to ban their affiliations with the American Library Association. But the topic never came up at the 8 a.m. meeting of the legislative panel controlling the bill, and the chairman said that would be the last of their meetings for this year.

Senate Bill 390 had already passed the Senate. It needed to clear the House Higher Education Committee to make it to the House floor before the midnight ending of this year’s legislative session.

It would have banned certification by and financial gifts from the ALA, in an attempt to purge the influence of the national organization. Republicans expressed concerns about the political leanings of its leader and the librarians who elected her president. Their bill used the word Marxist.

In its earliest form, SB 390 might have jeopardized the graduate librarian program at Valdosta State University by prohibiting ALA accreditation. The dean of the school had testified that would undermine the $3.5 million a year program’s ability to attract students, since an ALA-accredited degree is essential for employment in American libraries.

In numerous hearings, lawmakers removed such elements of the bill that were drawing the most criticism. They met Wednesday evening to sand off a few more rough edges, including one that would have prohibited college libraries from joining ALA-affiliated associations. But they left a provision that would have prohibited gifts from the national group, such as the $400,000 over the last couple years that helped public libraries around the state pay for literacy programs and disability upgrades, noted Cobb County Library Board Trustee Abby Shiffman at a hearing last week.

On Wednesday, the chief sponsor of the bill, Sen. Larry Walker III, R-Perry, agreed to the latest amendments. “I hope we can get it out of committee soon,” he added.

But on Thursday morning, Rep. Chuck Martin, chairman of the House Higher Education Committee, brought a sports gambling bill and a companion resolution up for a vote. And after both passed, Martin, R-Alpharetta, adjourned the meeting, with no mention of SB 390.

It could still get sewn to some other bill before the day is out. On Sine Die, the Senate and House volley legislation back and forth, and seemingly dead bills can return from the grave by being attached to a “Frankenbill.”

But librarians were hopeful that this one was buried for good.

“We are watching closely,” Stacy Brown, chair of the Georgia Council of Public Libraries told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution after the meeting ended. “We still feel the bill harms Georgia’s awesome libraries, and we remain hopeful that our legislators have heard our voices and will not pass this legislation.”

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