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The Birmingham News November 10, 2000 Voters on Tuesday approved Gov. Don Siegelman's Amendment 1. Now the state can begin to divert royalties from offshore gas well trust funds to fund much needed improvements to the state docks, crumbling bridges and other capital projects, as well as pay for incentives to lure new industry. Voters also got rid of Alabama's embarrassing, but unenforceable, ban on interracial marriages. Jefferson County voters even managed to make prostitution illegal in areas of the county outside cities. In fact, of 50 amendments on Tuesday's state and local ballots, all 50 passed. Alabama's constitution now has 715 amendments - or as David Azbell, a spokesman for the Secretary of State's office, pointed out - the same number as Hank Aaron's home run that broke Babe Ruth's record. Enough, already. Alabama's 1901 constitution, already believed to be the longest in the world, is now thousands of new words longer. But length, although it's unbelievably cumbersome and often in conflict with itself, isn't even the constitution's biggest problem. There are other, more onerous ones that hold the state back exactly like the 19th-century land barons and in dustrialists, bent on dominating state and local government, planned. The constitution straightjackets local governments, keeping them from running their own affairs. That's why, for example, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department had to ask local lawmakers to get the Legislature to pass a proposed constitutional amendment banning prostitution and then hold a vote of the people. How much simpler it would have been for the Jefferson County Commission to pass a law. The constitution keeps taxes that benefit the land barons and industrialists of today artificially low, forcing local governments to raise sales taxes that hammer the poor. It also lets special interests more easily control state government by consolidating power in the Legislature. Now that Gov. Siegelman has his coveted Amendment 1, wouldn't it be great if he said to voters, no more amendments on the ballot? Wouldn't it be wonderful if he decided he's ready to lead a growing movement to rewrite Alabama's constitution? The time is right. The cause is just. The goal is necessary. Siegelman could hit a home run for Alabama that would rival Aaron's record breaker. Return to: Editorials Index |
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Alabama Citizens for Constitutional
Reform Foundation, Inc.
P.O. Box 34 Montgomery, Alabama 36101-0034 E-mail: accr@constitutionalreform.org |
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