On Friday, the Alabama Republican Party will meet to hear remarks from former President Donald Trump. On Saturday, the Alabama Republican Executive Committee will meet for its annual 2023 Summer Meeting. The Executive Committee will consider a controversial rule change that would ban NEA and AEA campaign donations for GOP candidates running for school superintendents or to serve on a school board.
The executive committee members will consider a ban on campaign contributions from state and national teacher’s unions for those candidates. Currently, the Alabama Republican Party’s bylaws only strongly admonish candidates who accept donations from the National Education Associates (NEA) and its state affiliates, such as the Alabama Education Association (AEA). The proposed standing rule change – introduced by ALGOP Chairman John Wahl – would significantly strengthen party rules by prohibiting Republican candidates for state school board, county school board, and county superintendent from accepting those contributions.
“The Alabama Republican Party is strongly committed to protecting our children from indoctrination in the classroom by left-wing groups like the NEA and its affiliated organizations,” Wahl said in a statement. “Parents should decide what their children learn about divisive concepts, not education unions that have lost touch with the values of the American people. Transgender ideology and other woke policies have no place in our schools, period. So many of our parents and local teachers want to see change in our education system, but how can we expect our superintendents and school board members to stand up against teaching these woke concepts if they are afraid of the money and financial power coming from liberal unions responsible for pushing this type of curriculum? It’s a blatant conflict of interest, and something that needs to be addressed. Our elected school representatives must be responsible to Alabama parents, not special interest groups. My proposal would stop this conflict of interest, and is no different than the state’s prohibition on members of the Alabama Public Service Commission accepting donations from the utilities they regulate. The bottom line is it’s time to get woke agendas out of our curriculum and out of our classrooms.”
AEA Executive Director Amy Marlowe responded to Wahl’s attack.
“The ‘A’ in AEA stands for Alabama – and we take pride in Alabama’s values,” Marlowe said in a statement. “Our voluntary membership comprises almost 90,000 Alabamians, with 72% identifying as conservative Republican voters. AEA prioritizes all education employees working to teach children in Alabama’s local schools. Our focus is on education with no partisan perspective or fringe ideologies.
“We do not feed into the narrative of the baseless culture wars expressed in Wahl’s press release – and we ask that he or other party leaders bring forth any person who has said they have been lobbied by AEA advocating for the concepts referenced in his release.”
Those comments led to Wahl firing back on Tuesday.
“It’s ironic that the AEA would take offense to my comments regarding woke policies, considering they are affiliates of the NEA, who make no secret of their promoting transgender and woke policies,” Wahl said. “If they are serious about supporting Alabama values, they are free to disassociate from the NEA at any time. It’s also important to remember that just a few weeks ago, they sent an update to their members promoting that a divisive concepts bill was defeated, and bragging about how they killed school choice and opposed the Republican-led effort by the state legislature to cut the state grocery tax.”
While the proposed rule would apply to candidates for the State Board of Education, county school superintendents, and elected school boards, it does not apply to the state Legislature and statewide constitutional officers. It was the State Legislature that failed to pass comprehensive school choice legislation, the Legislature that failed for the second year in a row to pass the divisive concepts bill, and the Legislature which has repeatedly failed to pass legislation replacing the controversial Alabama course of study in place – including the controversial new math – even though the state has failed to show significant gains in reading and math scores since the new curriculum was adopted. The AEA spent over $440,000 in 2021 on 40 Republican legislators and legislative candidates.
The Alabama Republican Executive Committee consists of approximately 475 members and is the largest Republican Executive Committee in the country. All 67 counties in the state are represented on the State Executive Committee, which is the governing body of the Alabama Republican Party.
The meeting will gavel in at 10 a.m. at the Montgomery Renaissance Hotel on Saturday, August 5.
Another item that the Alabama State Republican Executive Committee will consider at Saturday’s meeting includes the 2024 Presidential Primary Resolution, which will outline how Alabama’s presidential delegates will be apportioned in the Super Tuesday Primary on March 5, 2024.
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