Before she signed the strongest anti-abortion bill in the nation on Wednesday, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey faced down a hostile question from a CBS reporter and immediately flattened her. CBS reporter Jericka Duncan asked, “Where is the money coming from to support people who aren’t ready to be mothers or aren’t financially stable to take care of a child?” Ivey fired back, “You simply cannot defer protecting the lives of unborn children because of costs.”
Ivey served as Alabama State Treasurer from 2003 to 2011, then served as lieutenant governor from 2011 to 2017. She became Alabama’s second female governor and first female Republican governor after the resignation of Governor Robert Bentley; she won a full term in 2018.
Ivey has not flinched from holding staunchly conservative positions; in April 2017 she signed into law a bill stating that juries that imposed capital punishment could not be overruled by judges. Frank Knaack, executive director of Alabama Appleseed, asserted, “We should all agree that if we have a death penalty then the process should be fair and accurate. SB 16 will help minimize unreliable and arbitrary death sentences and move Alabama one step closer to ending its outlier status. We commend Senator Brewbaker, Senator Sanders, and Representative England for their leadership in this effort. And, we thank Governor Ivey for her quick action to finally put an end to judicial override in Alabama.”
In May 2017, Ivey signed into law a bill that prevented voters from voting for one party in a primary and another party in its runoff elections. State Sen. Tom Whatley commented, “It helps the Democrats choose Democratic candidates, it helps the Republicans choose Republican candidates. It just prevents the cross-over voting so you get a pure general election with a Democrat and a Republican.”
Also in May 2017, Ivey signed the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act of 2017, which prohibited the “relocation, removal, alteration, renaming or other disturbance of any architecturally significant building, memorial building, memorial street or monument located on public property which has been in place for 40 or more years.” Republican State Sen. Gerald Allen of Tuscaloosa commented, “Contrary to what its detractors say, the Memorial Preservation Act is intended to preserve all of Alabama’s history ― the good and the bad ― so our children and grandchildren can learn from the past to create a better future.”
In June 2018, Ivey signed a memo to implement the Alabama Sentry Program, which would “permit a school administrator, in a school without a school resource officer (SRO) who voluntarily secures the approval of his or her superintendent, school board and county sheriff to use lethal force to defend the students, faculty, staff, and visitors of his or her school from the threat of imminent bodily harm or death by an armed intruder.”