Arkansas senator continues mission to eliminate State Library Board, cites unfulfilled bargain

by Tess Vrbin, Arkansas Advocate
March 17, 2025

A legislative proposal to dissolve the Arkansas State Library Board “will remain on the table” after the board did not take action that bill sponsor Sen. Dan Sullivan requested, he told the Advocate Friday.

The library board narrowly rejected two motions put forth by member Jason Rapert of Conway, Sullivan’s former Senate colleague, during a special meeting Thursday. Later, the board passed a motion proposed by Lupe Peña de Martinez of Mabelvale, who said she “trusted” that the Jonesboro Republican would respond by withdrawing Senate Bill 184 from consideration.

As first written SB 184 would eliminate both the State Library Board and the Arkansas Educational Television Commission, which oversees Arkansas PBS, and transfer the boards’ powers and authorities to the Arkansas Department of Education.

Thursday’s library board meeting came a week after Arkansas Educational Television Commission Chairman West Doss said a discussion he had with Sullivan “saved the commission” from dissolution. 

Arkansas State Library Board approves proposal aimed at keeping it alive

Sullivan has since said he is amending SB 184, which passed the Senate Feb. 17, to remove the Arkansas Educational Television Commission. An amendment hadn’t been posted on the Legislature’s bill monitoring website as of Friday evening. A House committee has yet to hear the bill.

Library board member Peña de Martinez also spoke to Sullivan before last week’s meeting. He told her he would “pull” the bill if the board developed “non-binding policies to protect children,” she said Thursday. The board voted 4-3 to pass the motion she introduced to create such policies.

In an interview with the Advocate Friday, Sullivan said he told Peña de Martinez and other board members that his “preference would be to see two things: that the library board have policies that protect children and that it disaffiliate itself from the American Library Association.” He was referring to the national nonprofit trade association that advocates for public libraries and helps them secure grant funding. It also accredits master’s of library science degree programs.

Peña de Martinez said Thursday that Sullivan’s “exact words” to her were “‘Develop non-binding policies to protect children and I will pull Senate Bill 184’… at least two or three times.”

On Friday, Peña de Martinez corrected herself and confirmed that Sullivan expressed both of his wishes in their conversation. She reiterated a concern she expressed at February’s regularly scheduled board meeting: that she is not aware of any “high-caliber” body that could replace the ALA in accrediting higher education programs for librarians in training.

She also said she made Thursday’s motion “in good faith” and was “disappointed” in Sullivan’s response.

“I’m a lifelong educator,” she said. “I want nothing more than to protect children, and I think I’ve been clear on that.”

‘Non-binding’

Rapert made both of the motions that the board rejected Thursday by the same 4-3 vote. One would have eliminated all references to the ALA from the board’s documents; the other would have created an ad hoc committee of board members that would make recommendations to “protect children from sexually explicit materials” in public libraries.

The second motion would also have sought assistance from the Department of Education and the state attorney general to compile rules for the board to adopt in order to withhold state funds from libraries where “sexually explicit” content is within children’s reach.

All three of Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ appointees to the library board — Rapert, Shari Bales of Hot Springs and Sydney McKenzie of Rogers — voted against Peña de Martinez’s motion and voted for Rapert’s motions. McKenzie is the newest member and the wife of Rep. Brit McKenzie, R-Rogers.

Pam Meridith of Cherokee Village and Jo Ann Campbell of Fort Smith joined Peña de Martinez and board chairwoman Deborah Knox of Mountain Home in voting for the motion that passed while opposing the two from Rapert.

“I could simply not support Mr. Rapert’s motions yesterday, even though that probably does spell the end of our board,” Knox said in an interview Friday.

Knox also said she was not sure what the State Library Board could do to satisfy Sullivan besides its passage of Peña de Martinez’s motion. Sullivan acknowledged Friday that “non-binding policy” is “all they can do.”

Peña de Martinez’s motion specified that the policies to be developed will honor “the constitutional and legislative principles of intellectual freedom, including First Amendment protections.” It also emphasized that libraries are required to “exercise due care in [the] selection, classification and access for materials.”

Knox said the First Amendment language “was a very important part of the motion” since Rapert’s attempts to regulate where “sexually explicit” books are located “really interferes with the First Amendment right people have to go to the public library and choose the books of their choice.”

She also said local libraries do “very well” at protecting children from inappropriate content “because I think they know how to classify their books and house them appropriately.”

Meredith made a similar comment Thursday, but Rapert disputed this point and decried Peña de Martinez’s motion as “senseless.”

“You all would love to do something non-binding because it has no effect. It does nothing,” Rapert said. “You have no intention of protecting Arkansas children.”

Campbell mentioned that Rapert’s motion to create a committee focused on governing libraries’ management of explicit materials included the phrase “non-binding guidance.”

“I’m sorry, this is a library board: can’t we read?” Rapert replied. “It is an agenda item. That’s not a motion.”

Knox said Friday she agreed with Peña de Martinez that the motion the board approved should have fulfilled Sullivan’s wishes.

Sullivan, however, told the Advocate the board made a “conscious choice” that was “just the opposite” of the Arkansas Educational Television Commission’s actions.

“When the state says our policy is the safety and protection of children … that’s what the library board should do,” the Jonesboro Republican said. If librarians already do well at protecting children, as one board member put it, “how hard is it to develop guidelines to make sure you’re doing what you say you’re doing?”

“My goal is to eliminate the state library board,” he said.

ALA debate

Rapert has repeatedly pushed for defunding libraries where minors can access inappropriate content, and he has said the State Library Board should be abolished for not supporting these efforts.

At February’s regular meeting, Rapert proposed that the State Library remove the ALA from its policies detailing its power to fund public libraries and scholarships for aspiring librarians. The board rejected the proposal.

Rapert and Sullivan have both criticized the statement within the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights that access to libraries should not be restricted based on a person’s age. Far-right conservatives nationwide who object to the public availability of certain content have claimed this is proof that the ALA believes in forcing content about sexual activity and LGBTQ+ topics onto children.

Emily Drabinski, ALA’s president in 2023, called herself a Marxist in a 2022 tweet after being elected into the role. Rapert and Sullivan have said this means the ALA supports a political agenda and expects libraries to do the same.

Sullivan mentioned Drabinski’s tweet in a February committee hearing over a bill he sponsored that is now Act 242 of 2025. The law removes the state’s requirement for public library directors in Arkansas to hold a master’s degree “from an accredited American Library Association program,” and allows someone with “work experience in the field of library operations” but without a master’s degree to run a library with approval from its local governing board.

Bill to loosen education requirement for public library directors heads to Arkansas House

Knox said Friday that “one outspoken president” of ALA does not represent the organization as a whole and she could not “in good conscience” support cutting Arkansas’ ties to a group that helps local libraries.

Peña de Martinez agreed, saying “the last thing we want is to dilute education.”

“We say we’re an education state,” she said, referring to a comment Sanders has made several times, “yet we want to reduce the qualifications for librarians. It’s nonsensical to me that the political leanings of one former head of an organization would be enough for us in Arkansas to completely disregard the accreditation standards.”

State libraries in some Republican-led states, including Missouri and Texas, cut ties with the ALA in 2023, and other states have made similar efforts since then.

Late Wednesday night, Sullivan submitted an amendment to House Bill 1127, the bill to give the Arkansas State Library its spending authority for fiscal year 2026.

If the bill becomes law with the amendment included, the State Library would not be allowed to “budget, allocate, or expend any funding to any library” that is affiliated with the ALA, including as a member; refers to the ALA in any of its official documents; or “makes payments or grants of any kind” to the organization.”

A bill with a similar mandate for Iowa libraries has been advancing in that state’s legislature , according to the Iowa Capital Dispatch. The bill includes a ban on funding libraries affiliated with the state’s chapter of ALA, the Iowa Library Association.

Sullivan once said the Arkansas Legislature should defund the Arkansas Library Association, which does not receive state funding.

The Joint Budget Committee adopted Sullivan’s amendment to HB 1127 Thursday morning. Rapert informed the Arkansas State Library Board of the amendment at Thursday’s meeting and said it should have motivated the board to detach the State Library from the ALA.

Joint Budget’s Special Language subcommittee will be responsible for approving the amendment before the committee votes on the entirety of HB 1127. The subcommittee’s next meeting will be at 9 a.m. Tuesday.

PBS negotiations

After his ALA-related motion failed Thursday, Rapert said the board had “sunk” itself and would “walk the plank.” He also said Arkansas PBS “at least was smart enough in their commission to make some changes.”

Doss, the commission chairman, explained those changes in an interview Friday, saying he hopes Sullivan can be “an asset” to Arkansas PBS. Sullivan’s “hot buttons” include “corporate governance” and services for homeschooled children, and Arkansas PBS will focus on how best to handle both of those things, Doss said.

Sanders appointed Sullivan’s wife, Maria Sullivan, to the Arkansas Educational Television Commission last year. Doss said Maria Sullivan is set to lead an Arkansas PBS task force aimed at better serving homeschoolers.

“We hope we’re well on the way to healing all around, and we’ll continue to build PBS,” Doss said.

He said at the commission’s March 6 meeting that the agency would be “a propaganda arm for whoever is in power,” regardless of the dominant political party, if it were no longer governed independently of the Department of Education.

Sullivan told his colleagues the same day that he had drafted an amendment to remove Arkansas PBS from SB 184. As of Friday afternoon, the amendment was not available on the Legislature’s website, and Sullivan has not filed any new legislation pertaining to the State Library.

“We’ve come up with a resolution I think we can work together on,” Sullivan said just before the Senate unanimously approved Senate Bill 64, Arkansas PBS’ fiscal 2026 spending authority.

Discussion with bill sponsor ‘saved’ Arkansas PBS governing board from dissolution, chairman says

SB 64 failed on the House floor Wednesday but can be taken up as many times as needed before the end of the legislative session next month. Appropriation bills need three-fourths of each chamber’s approval, and the House voted three times each to pass the agency’s fiscal 2023 and 2025 appropriations.

Sullivan unsuccessfully tried to reduce Arkansas PBS’ spending authority in the 2022 and 2024 fiscal sessions. He has been a vocal critic of Arkansas PBS, particularly since its regularly scheduled 2022 audit indicated that administrators might have sidestepped state laws related to contract bidding. A specially requested audit that concluded last year led auditors to forward the findings to a prosecuting attorney.

Arkansas PBS CEO Courtney Pledger told lawmakers in September that the agency had learned from its “mistakes and errors.”

Editor Sonny Albarado contributed to this story.

Arkansas Advocate is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arkansas Advocate maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sonny Albarado for questions: info@arkansasadvocate.com.

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