Mike Gillespie burst onto the local political scene in 1980, a whirlwind of good intentions in a dark suit.

   At 33, he had change-the-world ambition and more energy than a Duracell. Voters loved his eagerness. Gillespie won a seat on the Madison County Commission - the top of the heap when it comes to county governments in Alabama.

   But he quickly found out being a county commissioner in the Heart of Dixie is a lot like being a kid in an art museum: Someone’s always telling you not to touch anything.

   Don’t tell rural folks what to do on their land.

   Don’t crack down on eyesore businesses like strip clubs and junkyards.

   Don’t even think about passing new taxes.

   Most states give county governments broad authority to handle local issues, a concept called “home rule.”

   Not Alabama.

   Our century-old constitution requires the Legislature approve any tax on county residents. State lawmakers also have the final say in run-of-the-mill county matters - setting up a leash law, creating a new building inspection department, raising court fees to build a parking deck in downtown Huntsville.

   Gillespie, now commission chairman in his fifth term, said it doesn’t make sense for lawmakers 200 miles away in Montgomery to decide what’s best for Madison County.

   “It is widely recognized and accepted that the closer people are to their elected officials, the more responsive government can be to the needs of the people,” he said. “County commissioners live in their districts. They raise their children there, go to church there.

   “I don’t think most people understand that we are as hamstrung as we are,” Gillespie said.

Back in time

   The problem dates to 1901, when a group of white landowners and industrial tycoons met to draft a new Alabama constitution. Historians say the authors were so intent on protecting their wealth that they disenfranchised blacks and poor whites and bottled up power in Montgomery.

   The end result: County commissions can’t do much of anything without the Legislature’s blessing.

   Gillespie felt the state’s vice-like grip on county politics shortly after being elected.

   He’d heard complaints about the lack of cable TV in rural Madison County. It seemed cruel, he thought, for people to have to spend a Saturday without Tide or Tigers football on the tube.

   So Gillespie came up with a simple plan: Award a cable company a franchise to serve the outlying areas.

   But after doing some research, he found out county commissions in Alabama don’t have authority to issue cable TV franchises. The Legislature has to do it for them.

   Madison County officials had to beg legislators to adopt a cable TV bill, then they had to hire a consultant to write the franchise agreement. It took two years and several thousand dollars, Gillespie said.

   On Tuesday, Gillespie and others who say the constitution is at the root of Alabama’s problems will gather for a grass-roots rally at Huntsville’s EarlyWorks Children’s Museum. They want a more modern state charter that moves many taxing, regulatory and other powers to elected leaders in their communities.

   In short, they want home rule.

   With home rule, the Madison County Commission could create a planning and zoning board to make sure fast-growing rural communities like Monrovia and Hazel Green develop in an orderly way.

   They could pass ordinances to regulate illegal dumps, noisy car stereos and other nuisances.

   They could consider raising taxes to pay for wider roads, better schools and a new county jail.

Councils Can

   City councils in Alabama can already do those things. That makes the tiniest town in Alabama - Gantt’s Quarry, population 7 - more powerful than the Madison County Commission, which represents some 275,000 people.

   Commissioner Mo Brooks said leaving important decisions to state lawmakers is risky because the Legislature normally meets only four months each year.

   If a federal judge ordered Madison County to build a new jail today, Brooks said, commissioners
would have two choices: Wait eight months for the Legislature to go back into session, or lay off 150-plus employees to get the money.

   Still, commissioners have been unable to convince Madison County’s legislative delegation to grant them additional powers. “Giving a home rule bill to our delegation is about like spitting into the wind,” said Brooks, a former state representative.

   “Nothing’s going to come out of it - at least nothing good.”

   “They think the commission should be more attuned to the things they’re already responsible for,” Jones said. “Look at their response time on the jail. It’s been years.”

   If constitutional reformers get their way, Jones fears, it will turn the state’s tax structure upside-down. Sales taxes could be eliminated. Low property taxes - Alabama’s trump card for luring new industry - could go sky-high.

   Gillespie and other commissioners said getting the power to levy taxes isn’t as immediate a need as planning and zoning authority in rural Madison County.

   If you live outside Huntsville or Madison, your neighbor can open a smelly hog farm or all-night dance club beside your $150,000 house because there’s no zoning to keep residential and commercial development separate.

   County Attorney Julian Butler said undesirable businesses pop up all the time in rural areas, hurting the value of surrounding homes.

   Last year, Colonial Pipeline wanted to build a massive gasoline tank farm across from Madison County High School in Gurley.

   Panicked parents begged Commissioner Jerry Craig for help. But without home rule, commissioners were powerless to stop it. Colonial, sensing a public-relations nightmare, eventually decided not to build across from the school.

   “I would say we were very fortunate those folks backed down,” Craig said. “But we need to be able to handle our problems here locally. Home rule would have taken care of this thing in one meeting.”

   Buddy Sharpless, executive director of the Alabama Association of County Commissions, said large counties like Madison need planning and zoning to put the brakes on urban sprawl.

   He said the association is drawing up a proposal to divide the 67 Alabama counties into three categories.

   The idea is to give the largest counties - Madison, Jefferson, Mobile and Montgomery - city-like powers to raise taxes, pass ordinances and regulate development.

   Sharpless said he might introduce the bill next year.

Times Change

   The current set-up was fine 50 years ago when Alabama was primarily a rural farm state, he said.

  But Madison County, in particular, has gone high-tech. People are flocking here from big cities - Seattle, St. Louis, Houston - and they expect a more responsive county government.

   County commissioners, however, are in a “funding vacuum and an authority vacuum” because of the constitution, Sharpless said. Jones, the state representative from Huntsville, said he’s willing to consider planning and zoning for rural areas. But he said commissioners have more pressing needs, including a new jail and sprucing up the 35-year-old courthouse.

   Commissioners also face an uphill battle convincing rural residents like Cory Brown that planning and zoning is in their best interest.

   Brown, who owns three acres in Brownsboro, said people should be able to do what they want on their land as long as it doesn’t cause a public health problem.

   If you don’t like what your next-door neighbor is doing, he said, put up a fence or plant a hedge.

   “Out here, you’re free and you look after yourself,” Brown said. “I don’t believe I should enslave my neighbor to live as I want him to.”

   While commissioners here say they would welcome home rule, officials elsewhere seem happy with the status quo.

   State Rep. Johnny Curry, R-Hueytown, said commissioners sometimes “claim they’re for (home rule) publicly but privately ask their legislator not to give it to them.”

   Curry said he’s seen the same “disingenuousness” in Montgomery, with legislators “who publicly say they’re in favor of home rule but would not dare relinquish that control to their county commission.” “There’s such a great amount of mixed feelings that the easiest thing for the Legislature to do is nothing,” Curry said.

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Reprinted with Permission from TheHuntsville Times.