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By Evelyn S. Pelfrey
Eagle Correspondent
April 12, 2003

EUFAULA – “This is no way to run a modern state.”

   Well-known Alabama historian Dr. Wayne Flynt said it again and again at a constitutional reform forum in Eufaula Friday.

   It was the same message Wiregrass voters delivered in 1901, when adoption of the state constitution was soundly defeated in Southeast Alabama.

   Nevertheless, the blackbelt counties carried the vote to adopt the constitution. Over 700 amendments later, the 1901 Alabama Constitution is “a constant embarrassment,” Flynt said.

   Sponsored by the Eufaula/Barbour County Chamber of Commerce, The Eufaula Tribune and Alabama Citizens of Constitutional Reform (ACCR), the forum was attended by a number of community leaders and chamber members.

   The ACCR brochure blames the old constitution for “schools in crisis, ineffective government, citizens’ voices ignored and an unfair tax system.”

   Flynt, who is originally from Calhoun County but was a Dothan Eagle “paper boy” in his early teens, is a colorful speaker and distinguished professor of history at Auburn University.

   He expresses his pitch for constitutional change in historical context.

   After the Civil War, when property was about the only thing left to tax, property taxes went up almost 300 percent, Flynt said. “There was a howl in the 1870’s.”

   In 1875, a new constitution was written limiting property taxes to seven and one-half mills. That constitution also took away home rule powers from local officials.

   “Most of the 1901 constitution was lifted from the 1875 constitution,” Flynt said.

   The intent was to transfer power to the Legislature to make sure the populists of the Wiregrass and North Alabama were not in control, according to Flynt.

   Returning some kind of limited home rule to the counties is among the issues being studied by a Constitution Reform Commission appointed by Gov. Bob Riley in January.

   Other issues the commission is studying are excessive earmarking of tax dollars, increased line-item veto power, a higher vote threshold for tax increases and a recompilation of the constitution document itself.

   Opposition to constitutional reform has been voiced by the Christian Coalition and the Legislative Black Caucus.

   “So far as I know, there’s nothing in the Bible about the Alabama Constitution,” Flynt responded to a question about the Christian Coalition opposition.

   As far as the black caucus opposition, Flynt said “black legislators are just like white legislators – having been given power for a hundred years, they want to keep it.”

   Flynt said one of the worst parts of the constitution is the racist language,” which is a constant embarrassment to us in the (business) recruiting industry.”

   There are three ways to change the constitution – article by article by the Legislature, constitutional convention or constitutional commission.

   Gov. Riley has voiced preference for allowing the Legislature to be in charge of constitutional reform, according to Flynt.

   “If he thinks Paul Hubbard is going to sit back and let him unearmark funds, he’s living in a fantasy world,” Flynt said.

   Hubbard is executive secretary of the Alabama Education Association.

   Flynt said a constitutional convention would be the ACCR preference, but he thinks a constitutional commission has the best chance of success.

   “If we don’t change the way we do things in this state, we’ve got hard time ahead of us,” he said.

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