In our opinion
January 25, 2003
On Jan. 17, the much anticipated (and in some quarters,
much feared) report from the Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform
(ACCR) was finally released. A committee, headed by former Secretary
of State Jim Bennett, spent some six months of study and deliberation
before finally writing it up and turning it in. The result was a careful
reasoned, balanced blueprint for changing the way Alabama is governed.
A little less than a week later, true to his word, Gov.
Bob Riley created the Alabama Citizens’ Constitutional Commission
to recommend changes in the antiquated document. To chair his commission
the governor named Jim Bennett. As vice chairman he tapped Birmingham
lawyer and 1998 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Lenora Pate.
We could not be more pleased with these selections. Bennett
brings to the commission the experience gained from his active involvement
in ACCR and his years of working in Montgomery. Pate, who is highly
regarded for her intelligence and integrity, will also bring much
to the commission.
Gov. Riley’s charge to his group is more limited
than the suggestions outlined in the ACCR report. ACCR envisioned
a state where local governments would be granted broad powers to handle
local matters without going through the Legislature. But where the
Legislature would lose power in that regard, it would significantly
gain by being given responsibility for tax policies and economic development,
unhampered by constitutional restrictions that were written to benefit
special interests.
However, this increased legislative authority would not
come unchecked, for under the ACCR plan more votes will be needed
to override the governor’s veto.
Popular democracy will be assured with a provision that
taxes at the local level will have to be approved by those affected
by them. Political infighting and legislative log-jams will be minimized
by requiring the governor and lieutenant governor to run as a team.
All-in-all, it is a thorough and ambitious plan that deserves our
careful consideration.
Gov. Riley’s proposal is much more modest, but no
less significant. As he promised during his campaign, he has limited
his commission to “targeted revisions” that include limited
home rule, an end to earmarking funds “while ensuring that our
children’s educations are fully funded," giving the governor
a line-item veto in budgetary matters and requiring a “super-majority”
vote of the Legislature to enact new taxes. The commission will also
be asked to recommend “the best method to accomplish a recompilation
of our current constitution.”
As we have noted before, we feel that by not adding tax
reform to his “targeted revisions” the governor is missing
an opportunity to address what we and others feel is the most pressing
problem facing state government.
It is our hope that after the 120 days of hearings, deliberations
and draftings are done and the report the governor has requested is
turned in, a commission, under this same leadership (and we hope using
ideas supplied by the tax reform movement — the Campaign for
Alabama), will be charged to study and suggest changes in a tax system
that the governor himself has branded “immoral.”
But on a more positive note, what Gov. Riley has proposed
is something that can be realistically accomplished in the time he
requires. Two of the major obstructionists to constitutional reform
— the Alabama Farmers Federation and the Alabama Education Association
— will find little to oppose in the Riley revisions.
The governor’s action sets reform in motion. Once
our citizens see that some change is possible, more change will be
demanded, and maybe, at last, we will have what Gov. Riley, in his
inaugural address, said he wanted — “a state worthy of the
people who call it home.”
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