By Clyde L. Stancil
Decatur Daily
DAILY Staff Writer
cstancil@decaturdaily.com · 340-2443
May 28, 2003
MOULTON — If the Alabama Constitution were
a mom and pop grocery store, it would contain a lot of aisles built
to handle overflow merchandise that the owners arranged in no order.
Behind the cash register would be a sign with the words
"whites only" painted over — still slightly visible,
but not applicable.
"Everyone keeps telling Mom and Pop that they need
to change and modernize to keep up with the times," said Joe
A. Sumners, director of the Economic Development Institute at Auburn
University.
But their failure to act is analogous to the Legislature's
failure to rewrite the constitution, Sumners said Tuesday in a speech
to members of the Lawrence County Chamber of Commerce.
He focused on how the state's outdated constitution affected
economic development and why the state needs to reform it.
There are three main reasons why the state should reform
its constitution, Sumners said: It looks backward to racism and roadblocks,
it preserves a failed tax structure and it prevents local governments
from addressing local issues.
It also hampers Alabama's image to prospective industry,
which Sumners said is not always positive outside the state.
"We've done a lot of things to change it, but we
still suffer from a negative image."
One of the main reasons is the state's Reconstruction-era
constitution that was "upgraded" in 1901 to disenfranchise
blacks and poor whites, to keep property taxes low, which benefited
wealthy landowners and industrialists, and to purposely limit the
power of government, Sumners said.
"The framers were very effective with things like
poll taxes, literacy tests and other methods of disenfranchisement,"
he said.
In the first election after the 1901 constitution, white
voter turnout declined by 19 percent, while black turnout dropped
by 96 percent.
From 1900 to 1903, black voter registration fell from
181,000 to 5,000.
"Some people might say, 'Why think about those issues?'
" Sumners said. "I believe it is important because of the
negative image we have. And we haven't done anything to (repair) our
image. All of the changes here came from outside (the federal government).
If we want to say we have changed, we can start with a new constitution."
Why reform?
When he talks about the Alabama Constitution being strangled
in specifics, Sumners points to the numbers that provide the choke
hold. Alabama's is about 40 times as long as the U.S. Constitution,
and more than 12 times longer than the typical state constitution.
"The U.S. Constitution is a general document, it
leaves details to be filled in by the legislature," he said.
"In Alabama, we say very specifically what government can't do,
such as limits on the power of the Legislature to implement public
improvements, and limits on taxes. If the government wanted to do
anything, they had to go back and amend the law."
There have been 706 amendments to the 1901 constitution;
amendments that could have been handled by county commissioners, such
as allowing a Morgan County Sheriff's posse and a tax for malaria
control in Limestone County. More than 70 percent of the amendments
pertain to county and city governments and forbid them from raising
taxes, altering their structure, increasing court fees or raising
salaries.
Longest around
Together, the constitution and its amendments are three
times the length of the constitutions in Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee
and Florida combined. It is more than four times as long as the next
longest state constitution, which belongs to Texas at 80,000 words.
1901 Constitution
During Reconstruction, Sumners said the state raised
property taxes to compensate for the loss of the top source of tax
revenue, which was the tax on slaves.
The large landowners and industrialists who ran the government
lowered property taxes in the 1875 Constitution of Alabama. Sumners
said it was fear of losing their gains to the populist movement that
caused the men in power to use the 1901 Constitution to strip blacks
and poor whites of power and to limit the power of the government
to make local decisions and raise taxes.
The result is a failed tax structure that does not provide
adequate funds for infrastructure, public health and safety or education.
He said Alabama citizens are not prepared for an economic industrial
culture where owners ask about the level of education of the people
near a potential industrial site.
Throughout the 20th Century, Sumners said Alabama's economic
development strategy was built on low taxes and unskilled, low-cost
labor.
The carrot lured economic development to Alabama, and
it worked well for a while.
"But the (jobs) began to leave, and they went to
places where labor costs were even lower, overseas," Sumners
said. "In other states, they began to prepare for that. In Alabama,
we have undermined education and we continue to pay the price today.
Education is the most important thing we can do for economic
development."
Sumners said a good tax structure would be like a three-legged
stool and depend equally on sales, property and income taxes.
"Right now it's out of balance, because we rely
so much on sales taxes and so little on property taxes," he said.
"Property taxes are not going to change from year to year. It
places too much of the burden on those who are least able to pay and
does not provide stability for adequate planning."
The cure
A system that requires three-fifths of the state legislature
and a majority of the voters in the state to pass a vote for a county
commission is an ineffective way to run government, Sumners said.
But how do you get the Legislature to relinquish the
power it's held over local governments for so long, Lawrence County
Commissioner Bradley Cross asked.
"They like the idea of being king makers back home
and many of them are loathe to give that up," Sumners said. "They
don't like the idea of home rule, which is not surprising because
they would have to hand over some of their power to local officials.
I think it's going to take some grass roots pressure from leaders
in the community."
Grassroots level
Kevin Garrison, coordinator of education and membership
for the Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform, is taking the
idea of constitutional reform to the people at the grass-roots level.
Garrison accompanied Sumners to Moulton and said the
organization is planning a series of workshops around the state to
inform people about constitutional reform benefits. There will be
a meeting Saturday in Huntsville and one June 7 in Birmingham.
Information about ACCR can be found at its Web site at
www.constitutionalreform.org.
Return to: Constitutional
Reform ~ In the News
Return to: Editorial
Index
