Times Editorial
July
14, 2002
Are you tired of the lack of good-paying jobs in
Alabama, except for a few prosperous areas of the state?
Have you grown weary of having to appeal to someone in
the capital to fix a local problem? Wouldn't you rather be able to
go to someone in this city or county to resolve it?
Do you want to put Alabama's racist past behind us, deleting
demeaning and bigoted language that still graces the state's prime
governance document?
Does the predicted prospect of another round of proration
- and the almost certain deterioration of public education it will
bring - frighten you about the prospects of your children's futures?
Are you sick and tired of a higher education system with
continuing controversy and inadequate controls, of legislators lining
their pockets by doing business with agencies whose purse strings
they influence, of lobbyists with more clout than elected leaders,
of inadequate environmental safeguards to protect natural resources
for future generations, of a tax system that robs the poor to protect
the rich, of a systemic deafness in Montgomery to the wants and needs
of the average citizen?
If these issues concern you - and who can rationally
consider them and not be concerned? - then you have heard the altar
call of constitutional reform. Now, walk down the aisle here on Monday
and make your conversion known.
That's when the Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform
kicks off its new battle to put people back in politics. At a Huntsville
meeting, studies of other reform efforts will be discussed, and suggestions
for Alabama's continuing fight for change will be solicited.
The meeting will begin at 8:30 a.m. in Constitution Village,
where the first state constitution was drawn. Supporters hope it will
be the birthplace of a successful modern effort to rewrite the egregiously
inadequate document of 1901. That constitution, by now grown to perhaps
the longest in the world, is so archaic, so unwieldy and so inadequate
that opponents of change have had to raise the false issue of religious
freedom to try to protect it.
How to find out more
In fact, the would-be reformers offer little in the way
of dogma in their crusade to convert citizens to a new document. That's
why meetings like Monday's are being scheduled across the state -
to hear from the public about the changes it will support and for
the public to hear from constitutional experts about what improvements
changes can help produce.
If you think you don't have enough information on the
subject, this is the best place to get it.
If you are appalled that the Legislature wouldn't even
allow you the right to vote on whether a constitutional convention
should be called to propose changes, your mere presence will get the
politicians' attention.
But, most importantly, if you want to help Alabama build
on its strengths and remove the impediments that power brokers have
imposed to protect their own interests, you need to do all you can
to attend Monday's session. Learn how to spark a much-needed transfusion
of public control into the Heart of Dixie.
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