A Baldwin County senator’s bill to make it easier to remove library board members passed the Senate Wednesday with three amendments, including mandating local library boards provide information about challenged books to government officials.

Sen. Chris Elliott’s (R-District 32) SB10 updates how city or county officials appoint library board members “and may be removed at any time.” The vote passed 25 to 7.

After discussion, the Senate adopted three amendments. One amendment, sponsored by Sen. Bobby Singleton (D-District 24), requires every library board to annually provide “a report detailing the membership of the board and any actions the board has taken regarding the review or removal of items in their collection.” The library board must send the report to the governor, the speaker of the House of Representatives, and the president pro tempore of the Senate.

Singleton told AL.com he’s concerned library boards will use this updated bill to place people who are “biased” against minorities like Black and LGBTQ communities. He said statewide book challenges primarily target these groups. He said Elliott’s reasoning for giving library boards more “local control” is disingenuous, and he believes his amendment will provide accountability.

“This is censorship at its best,” Singleton said. “If they could censor this, then they could probably talk about censoring AL.com next week.”

Singleton said if he sees censorship patterns in annual reports of book removals, further legislation may be needed to “rein in” libraries.

He said it isn’t fair that the legislature is offering school choice for parents, referring to a pending education savings account bill, but “then you don’t want to have those same parents on the other hand to give their children the right to read what it is that they want.”

A second adopted amendment by Sen. Rodger Smitherman (D-District 18) states, “the appointing authorities shall coordinate their appointments to assure the library board membership is inclusive and reflects the racial, gender, geographic, urban, rural and economic diversity of the state.” This amendment passed unanimously without discussion.

A third adopted amendment by Sen. Clyde Chambliss (R-District 30) specified that a two-thirds majority is required to remove a library board member.

“Anytime you’re removing somebody from a position, it needs to be a little bit higher bar, in my opinion, than just a simple majority,” Chambliss told the Senate.

Sens. Elliott, Chambliss and Smitherman were unavailable for comment at the time of publication.