Ivey Campaign Ad Praises Confederate Monument Law (AL)

[struggle4progress]

Posted: Apr 18, 2018 10:40 AM CDT
by Alabama News Network Staff

Gov. Kay Ivey is airing a campaign ad praising a law she signed that prohibits taking down Confederate monuments.

In the 30-second ad, the camera pans around a Confederate memorial outside the state capitol building. Ivey says that when “special interests” wanted to tear down monuments, she signed a law to protect them because “we can’t change or erase our history.”

The 2017 law prohibits altering or removing memorials more than 40 years old. It doesn’t specifically say Confederate monuments, but was enacted when Southern states were taking down similar memorials ...

http://www.alabamanews.net/2018/04/18/ivey-campaign-ad-praises-confederate-monument-law/

[struggle4progress]

1. Editorial: Monument to bad lawmaking

By the editorial board of The Anniston Star
1 hr ago

How the state Legislature passed and Gov. Kay Ivey signed the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act of 2017 is an instruction manual in dysfunctional lawmaking. In their frenzy to protect monuments and memorials to the Confederacy, Montgomery’s rulers created a law that prevents or strictly limits local governments from caring for aging streets, statues or buildings named for people ...

The act was created in a panic. The 2015 mass killing at an African-American church in South Carolina by a white supremacist shooter who was enthralled by Confederate imagery inspired Southern politicians to reconsider the placement of Confederate memorials and symbols on public property. A few days after the shooting, then-Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley quietly removed the Confederate flags from the state Capitol grounds ...

... So, they wrote the law to cover all monuments on public property, architecturally significant buildings and streets or buildings named for people, as The Star’s Ben Cunningham reported last week. These protected landmarks are not to be “relocated, removed, altered, renamed, or otherwise disturbed.”

If a building is 40 years old or older, the law says it cannot be altered in any way. If a structure was built between 20 years and 40 years ago, any changes must be OK’d by a state commission. Break any part of this law, and be prepared to pay a $25,000 fine ...

https://www.annistonstar.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-monument-to-bad-lawmaking/article_647794a8-430a-11e8-ae4b-bbf4e4c8945c.html

[struggle4progress]

2. Alabama city waits for ruling on Confederate monument

The city of Birmingham and the state of Alabama are awaiting a decision on whether a box-like structure around a 52-foot-tall Confederate monument violates state law.

Lawyers argued in court hearing last week over the whether it violates a new state law prohibiting the removal and alteration of monuments more than 40 years old. The judge asked the city and state to provide additional information.

The city’s mayor erected the screen last year. The Alabama attorney general’s office sued the city, saying the actions violate the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act ...

https://yellowhammernews.com/alabama-city-waits-for-ruling-on-confederate-monument/