Commentary
By Bailey Thomson
November 17, 2002
Public life seldom follows a predictable script.
Thus, 12 days after the election, our two candidates for governor
continue to fight over who won.
This anticlimax follows one of the most bitter campaigns
in recent history. One would have to go back to the defeat of populism
in the 1890s to find a more controversial general election for governor.
Indeed, Don Siegelman, who is the apparent loser, resembles Reuben
F. Kolb in refusing to concede.
Kolb believed and historians agree that he won the governor's
election in 1894 only to see his victory stolen by conservative Democrats
who manipulated the voting. Kolb and his armed supporters even marched
on Montgomery to protest the inauguration of William C. Oates. State
militia turned the populists back, whereupon they staged their own
ceremony atop a wagon parked on a side street.
We are fortunate that the two modern camps have resorted
to legal battles, rather than threat of physical violence. Yet the
bitterness is so palpable that neither candidate has shown the slightest
courtesy toward the other. Don Siegelman and Bob Riley spent $22 million
between them, mostly attacking one another in vicious and sometimes
less than truthful advertising.
Thus, the state may languish in electoral limbo for weeks
ahead. What will not wait on either candidate's ambition, however,
is the urgency for Alabama to reform many of its basic institutions
and practices. Many careful observers, among them some top business
leaders, conclude that dramatic action is necessary to bring Alabama's
performance into line with its potential.
A combination of factors has frustrated reformers for
more than a century. Among the worst has been an obsession with race,
fanned by demagogues such as George Wallace, and the tight control
exercised by certain economic interests.
Quite often, Alabama has corrected its worst abuses of
human rights only at the insistence of federal courts or Congress.
Meanwhile, the state continues to tolerate many unspeakable practices,
such as imposing high tax rates on its poorest citizens and allowing
an imperial Legislature to rule at the expense of local democracy.
Left behind:
Other Southern states suffered from similar problems
that were a legacy of white supremacy and reactionary interests. Yet
they have managed to move ahead faster than Alabama a phenomenon I
observed firsthand when I visited many of our neighbors on a fact-finding
trip in 1998.
Newspapers and other voices in Alabama pine for the kind
of "New South" governors who often have inspired our neighbors'
progress. My friends at The Birmingham News go so far as to call for
a "hero governor" one who will unsheathe his sword against
what the late Sen. Lister Hill called the "ancient enemy,"
meaning the foes of progress. The News endorsed Riley, as did most
of the other dailies, in the hope that the Republican challenger might
find in his heart and in his gut the courage necessary to wage such
an epic battle.
In truth, reform finally may come not on the wings of
a disputed election, but on the heels of necessity. Regardless which
man claims the office, he will have little choice if he wishes to
survive politically and leave an honorable legacy but to embrace fundamental
changes that are long overdue.
First, he will inherit the state's worsening financial
condition a crisis that many knowledgeable insiders predict will explode
within the next budget cycle.
Siegelman and the Legislature dodged severe cuts in education
and other essential programs through a combination of one-time remedies
and Band-Aids. For example, the state delayed making tax refunds to
businesses, and the Legislature imposed new taxes on cellular telephones.
The state also increased its debt to $3.4 billion to provide roads,
schools, parks and other needs.
But a reckoning is at hand. The next governor must either
attack the source of the financial problem which is the tax system
itself or attempt to buy time through another stopgap.
Once past the money crisis, the next governor must devote
his energies to making Alabama's economy more competitive, as the
state continues to hemorrhage old-fashioned jobs in textiles and heavy
industry. The automobile industry, as attractive as it may be for
governors to court with incentives, will not save Alabama from international
competition. Only a well-educated and productive work force can keep
us in the running.
Finally, the next governor will need to champion more
effective government at all levels if he is to raise Alabama to modern
standards. What sense does it make, for example, for our Legislature
to spend up to half of its time working on local matters instead of
leaving them to elected officials back home?
Why not follow our neighboring states in adopting what's
known as "home rule," a practice which operates on the principle
that government is usually best when it works closest to the people?
As formidable as some of these challenges may be, there
is some good news for the next governor and for the rest of us as
well: For several years, discontent at the grass roots has begun to
support what we have rarely enjoyed in Alabama groups that will work
for the public good rather than their private gain. We now have growing
public interest in constitution reform and the related issues of tax
reform, educational improvement, children's welfare, alleviation of
poverty and environmental protection.
Each of these causes addresses severe problems in Alabama.
With the help of an energized press, these public interest groups
have elevated reform to the top of the state's agenda.
Meanwhile, leaders of some of the largest companies in
Alabama have quietly begun to organize an assault against the state's
notorious tax system. These CEOs have amassed a war chest of some
$3 million to push the kinds of reforms that two separate blue-ribbon
panels advocated a decade ago.
They can count on support from the state's mainstream
religious denominations. These committed people of faith have raised
virtually a unanimous voice against the unfair nature of the tax system.
There is good news, as well, with the next Legislature.
While retaining many familiar faces, that body has gained some important
new voices.
The Senate will have Bradley Byrne and Gary Tanner, both
from Mobile, and Myron Penn from Bullock County. All three are committed
to reform. Presiding over that body will be Lucy Baxley, the next
lieutenant governor. She supports good government and wants to bring
voters more into the process.
The House will have 24 new members 12 of whom are on
record as supporting constitution reform, while 10 have taken no position.
Only two new House members publicly oppose reform, while two incumbents
who had been among the most vocal opponents, Perry Hooper and Bob
McKee, lost their elections.
On the education front, Alabama's public schools, under
the able management of Superintendent Ed Richardson, have developed
a plan that will consolidate recent improvements while stretching
for greater achievement, particularly in the preparation of students
for high-tech jobs. The State Board of Education, with the help of
public interest groups such as A-Plus, has made Alabama's schools
more accountable and efficient.
Good judgment:
Finally, Alabama's voters showed good judgment in
considering statewide constitutional amendments. They approved by
an extraordinary 81 percent an amendment that guarantees their right
to ratify any new constitution. Although shrill opponents tried to
mount a last-minute scare campaign, voters correctly saw this amendment
as a safeguard for constitution reform. At the same time, they turned
down an amendment that would have postponed a financial reckoning
by allowing the Legislature to raid the Alabama Trust Fund, with no
guarantee of repayment.
These and other positive developments suggest that hope
for Alabama now rests in the next governor's ability to energize the
middle of the political spectrum, from which arise these demands for
reform.
The candidates' polling confirmed where the votes lie.
When not attacking each other with vile political messages, both candidates
positioned themselves as reformers intent on transforming Alabama
into a New South state.
Unfortunately, Siegelman chose to demonize big businesses
as a bunch of tax cheats while offering a seemingly painless form
of voluntary taxation for the rest of us in the form of a state lottery.
On the positive side, he called for a constitutional convention to
provide home rule and more efficient government.
Siegelman's Achilles heel was his weak record. Many battle-hardened
reformers simply did not trust him to go the distance if he could
find a more politically palatable alternative. Moreover, some notorious
lapses of judgment within his administration, which Riley gleefully
publicized, tarnished his claim to ethical leadership.
Riley all but wrapped himself in the mantle of New South
governance, pointing to North Carolina and other neighboring states
as models for Alabama. He called for major revision of the Constitution
of 1901 the source of most of Alabama's worst problems while also
promising to address what he agrees is an immoral tax system. He promoted
home rule, more flexibility in how Alabama spends its tax dollars
and more power in the governor's hands to veto wasteful spending.
Such proposals whet the appetites of reform groups, and
many of them stand ready to work with Riley if he is inaugurated.
But the Republican has a major weakness, too. Among his major supporters
is the Alabama Farmers Federation, which in the past has fought tax
fairness and home rule.
Riley also counts in his camp some extremely conservative
religious groups that display an irrational fear of reform. If upon
taking office Riley continues to curry favor with these reactionary
sorts, then his tenure probably will be as short as that of the last
Republican governor, Fob James, whom Siegelman trounced in 1998.
Despite the potential weaknesses of the next governor,
our state does have a chance to move forward. Alabama is not the same
state that it was a generation ago when Wallace squandered our future
on his quixotic presidential hopes. Both of our present candidates
are miles ahead of the race-baiting and demagoguery of former times.
That they offered two competing visions for reform suggests
that the political middle finally is demanding more substance. Thus,
an opportunity presents itself on the burned-over campaign ground
of 2002.
Perhaps, one day we will look back upon this time and
remember not the disputed election but the beginning of a new Alabama.
Bailey Thomson is associate professor of journalism at the University
of Alabama and a board member of Alabama Citizens for Constitutional
Reform. This article is adapted from an essay he wrote for the Mobile
Register. His e-mail address is thomson@jn.ua.edu.
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