State Sen. Chris Elliott continues his mission to hold library boards accountable to local governments.

Elliott (R-Josephine) has pre-filed a bill that would put city and county leaders in charge of appointing local library commissioners, but also the right to fire them if they deem it necessary.

“[A]■ I do what many people do: I ask, “How did we get here?” How do our governments, whether in libraries, municipalities, or schools, promote this kind of ideology? how did we get here? “These types of message boards are populated by people who do not represent the values ​​of the people of Alabama,'' Elliott argued.

Sen. Elliott discussed the issue Wednesday on WVNN's “Yaffee Program.”

“And if you dig a little deeper into that and say, 'Okay, they're appointed by the people we elect, right?' Our mayors, city council members, county commissioners, and those people are the voters “We should have the power to remove members of the board who promote this agenda that is inconsistent with what we want. Unfortunately, the code section was not very clear on that point,” he added. Ta.

Elliott believes his bill would eliminate confusion over local leaders' ability to remove library commissioners.

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“So if you find yourself in a situation where you have a board that doesn't represent a particular community very well for whatever reason, local elected officials simply say, 'We need to make a change.' “I might say,” he explained. Here we are.’ And they have the authority to do that. ”

While the state's bill focuses specifically on library boards, the state lawmaker also believes most government agencies should approach it this way.

“Boards appointed by elected officials should be the way they are across the state,” he said. “Because we get our authority from the people. And if the people don't like what we're doing, they won't get elected again. And these boards of directors… The same should be true for appointments. If the appointing authority, county commission, city council, or mayor doesn't like what an appointee is doing, they should be able to kick them off the board.”

RELATED: Orr predicts public libraries will lose state funding if changes aren't made

Elliott addressed some of the backlash he has received regarding the issue.

“Well, they say politics is brought into the library board,” he said. “My answer to that is simple. We have a representative form of government. All the people you vote for are responsible to the people who elected them, and by extension those who appoint them.” We should be responsible to our people.”

Yaffee is a contributor to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee