MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Gov. Kay Ivey stood firm Thursday behind her effort to reform the Alabama Department of Veterans Affairs amid persistent pushback from some in the Alabama veteran community and conservative groups.
Senate Bill 67, sponsored by Sen. Andrew Jones, R-Centre, would reform the ADVA allowing the governor, not the State Board of Veterans Affairs, to appoint the ADVA commissioner and by changing the board from an administrative body to an advisory body.
Passed out of the Senate last week, the bill was introduced on the heels of an inter-agency dispute between the ADVA and the Alabama Department of Mental Health that led to Ivey removing former ADVA Commissioner Kent Davis from his position.
The bill has since passed out of a House committee, and now awaits consideration on the House floor. Some House members, however, note that considerable opposition to the bill remains among some Alabama veterans and veteran service organizations.
“There’s a lot of contention, particularly out of my district in Mobile,” said House Speaker Pro Tem Chris Pringle, R-Mobile, speaking with Alabama Daily News Thursday. “There’s a lot of people in my district that do not want that bill to pass.”
Pringle said he anticipated the House taking up the bill next week, but that he wanted to review it further before forming his own position on the proposal.
Ivey, when asked by ADN Thursday about the considerable opposition to SB67 from some Alabama veterans, pushed back, stating that “a lot of veterans are supporting this bill.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” Ivey said, speaking to ADN in Montgomery. “We have 400,000 veterans in this great state, and we want to serve all of them and give them a direct pipeline to information that will improve and prioritize service to our veterans.”
A number of veteran groups have endorsed the bill, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars, The American Legion, and the American Veterans. Some veterans groups and conservative organizations have maintained their opposition to the effort, including the Marine Corps League, the Alabama Federation of Republican Women and the Military Officers Association of America, and more.
Opposition to the bill among veterans has taken several forms, including a recent rally at the Alabama State House on Tuesday where Davis, the ousted ADVA commissioner, spoke.
Other veterans, such as Pete Riehm, president of the Navy League Mobile Council and 2020 Mobile Area veteran of the year, said he and other veterans had recently formed a political action committee called the Alabama Veterans PAC, and pledged to oppose any lawmaker that supported SB67.
“We have already created Alabama Veterans PAC and we’re going to be raising money, and everybody that votes for this, we are going to oppose them in 2026, and if we have to support Democrats, we will support Democrats,” Riehm, a self-described lifelong conservative, told ADN Thursday. “The Alabama Veterans PAC will support who supports veterans, Republican or Democrat.”
Coming out of the Senate last week, the bill saw some amendments, including to the SBVA composition and appointments, such as requirements that at least five board members be veterans who served in active duty. None of the changes, however, changed Riehm’s and his colleagues’ opposition to the bill.
“We’re all still adamantly opposed to it, and the reason is we keep peeling around the edges,” Riehm said. “The whole crux is the power, authority and independence of the State Board of Veterans Affairs, and that is totally gutted in every version of the bill we’ve seen so far.”
Lt. Gov. Will Ainsworth shared in Riehm’s position that the changes made to the bill on the Senate floor were inadequate, telling ADN Thursday that while he considered the changes “an improvement,” he believed “there still needs to be more work on the bill.”