By Bailey Thomson
February 2, 2003
Alabama’s new governor,
Bob Riley, has called upon the state’s government to be as good
as its people.
He knows, as do many other Alabamians, that the state’s
public life falls short in many critical areas. It neither satisfies
citizens’ needs nor motivates them to higher achievement. As
a result, Alabama often fares poorly in comparisons even with neighboring
states, some of which have moved far ahead in both civic and economic
development.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports, for example, that Alabama
lost 12,200 people during the last two years. Yet the state is the
geographical heart of a booming region. Why are people going elsewhere?
Gov. Riley often points to progressive states such as
North Carolina to explain how Alabama might change under enlightened
government. By contrast, I know of no politician outside of our state
who holds up Alabama as an inspiration.
This disparity between the basic goodness of Alabama’s
people and the poor quality of its public sector invites a fundamental
question: What can we do in this generation to bring our beloved state
into line with at least the South’s best performers?
Three years ago, the Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama
asked a planning committee to think along these lines. What single
thing might the chamber, based in Tuscaloosa, advocate to make a great
difference for Alabama?
The committee’s response was to call for a modern
constitution to replace Alabama’s 1901 version. Why this remedy?
Quite simply, this antiquated and mean-spirited document
is the major impediment to good government and a strong democracy.
Unlike many of its more successful neighbors, Alabama has largely
failed to modernize its basic charter. Instead, our state had resorted
endlessly to patching a constitution that was obsolete from the beginning.
Many of its worst features, such as its distrust of local democracy,
remain firmly embedded.
The chamber committee followed the good work of others
over the decades who called for a new constitution. For example, Judge
Conrad Fowler, who is now retired in Tuscaloosa, headed a commission
in the early 1970s that proposed a model docment. Unfortunately, the
Legislature failed to seize that opportunity, with the exception of
adopting a new Judicial Article in 1973, which voters ratified.
Modern reformers could count on something new: Support
was growing among business leaders for fundamental improvements in
how Alabama governs itself. To a large degree, their support helped
germinate the seed that our chamber committee planted.
Thus constitutional reform has grown in less than three
years from an idea into a grassroots movement. Public opinion surveys,
for example, show that a majority of Alabamians say they favor reform.
They acted on that belief in November when they approved by an extraordinary
81 percent an amendment that guarantees their right to ratify any
new constitution.
None of us on the chamber’s committee had any illusions
that public awareness alone would achieve this mission. But we knew
we had to build a strong case for better government, as well as create
an organization that would carry that message to the people.
Today that group is Alabama Citizens for Constitutional
Reform. With the help of some outstanding leaders such as Dr. Thomas
Corts of Samford University and former Congressman Jack Edwards of
Mobile, ACCR has won hearts and minds across the state, as evidenced
by the support it enjoys from its nearly 2,000 dues-paying members.
Having laid the groundwork, ACCR is now ready to assist Gov. Riley
and the new Legislature in the next stage of this essential work.
Many of us within ACCR had hoped the Legislature would
call a constitutional convention tp achieve comprehensive reform.
Philosophically speaking, I favor having citizens elect delegates
to organize their government and protect their rights. The Legislature,
however, has resisted asking voters to delegate power to another elected
body, even as most lawmakers concede that Alabama is overdue for major
reforms.
Gov. Riley, meanwhile, campaigned for his new office
with a promise that he would appoint a blue-ribbon group to propose
revisions to the 1901 constitution and submit them to the Legislature.
He kept his word. With the first executive order of his new administration,
he appointed the Alabama Citizens’ Constitution Commission and
asked its members to propose changes in five areas.
This limited mission does not mean that reformers should
abandon their vision of a constitution that will enable Alabama’s
progress rather than impede it. Gov. Riley’s approach, however,
does reflect the reality that reform is more likely to occur on a
step-by-step basis than through a single act.
I believe reformers must work within the realm of what
is possible, rather than miss the best opportunity in at least a generation
to modernize our state. For that reason, I have agreed to serve on
Gov. Riley’s new commission, which on Friday met for the first
time. Yet ACCR will not rest until the Legislature has addressed all
the constitutional areas that cry for reform. They include education,
government efficiency, economic development and taxation and indebtedness.
ACCR already has created an invaluable model for Gov.
Riley’s commission to emulate. At the suggestion of former Gov.
Albert Brewer, ACCR last year asked 22 people, under the leadership
of Sec. of State Jim Bennett, to meet four times around the state,
deliberate upon the issues and listen to other citizens. Though diverse
in backgrounds and philosophies, this group’s members shared
a deep commitment to developing the best ideas for improving our state’s
civic sphere.
As part of that work, ACCR asked leading scholars on
the constitution to study the salient issues, ranging from home rule
to tax reform and economic development. Their work marks a new milestone
in scholarship.
The group that ACCR convened presented its recommendations
just before Gov. Riley’s inauguration. In turn, he honored their
good work by asking many of these citizen servants to serve on his
new constitutional commission. Once again, Jim Bennett will preside.
Lenora Pate, a Birmingham attorney and reform advocate, will be the
vice-chairman.
While ACCR has been busy laying a foundation for a new
constitution, other groups have pushed to modernize our tax system.
These efforts are intertwined because much of our unfair and inefficient
tax code is embedded in the state’s constitution. People who
benefit from this regressive system have tried to defend their privileged
status by frightening citizens into opposing all constitutional reforms.
As the Public Affairs Council likes to point out, Alabama’s
state and local governments collect the lowest tax revenues in the
nation, when population differences are factored into the comparisons.
Thus if Alabama collected taxes at just the rates Mississippi imposes,
our state would have $800 million more each year for schools and other
services.
Indeed, a reckoning is at hand, as our state government
projects that its budget will fall $250 million in the red this year.
Even higher deficits are expected in 2004. All the more reason, then,
to push ahead for a tax system that is both fair and effective.
Gov. Riley says he will ask another blue-ribbon group
to recommend reforms of the tax system. He is wise to separate that
issue from the immediate and less volatile tasks he has given his
new constitutional commission By far, the new commission’s first
priority must be to decentralize state government so that counties
may finally govern themselves if they so choose. The 1901 constitution
put power in the hands of a relatively few in Montgomery, so distrustful
were its framers of democratic government. Today, we see the absurd
outcome in the form of dozens of amendments that regularly seek to
patch the old constitution.
Our counties, for example, lack the power to pass ordinances.
Without the Legislature’s permission, they cannot perform even
some basic tasks of government, such as pest control. Worse, they
do not have planning powers that would help assure orderly and cost-effective
growth. In fact, Alabama is the only Southeastern state that denies
its counties this critical tool.
Gov. Riley already has called for more local authority.
In advocating home rule, he will be up against some legislators, particularly
in rural areas, who do not want to surrender their virtually dictatorial
powers over their counties. He may also face opposition from the Alabama
Farmers Federation, which heretofore has resisted both home rule and
a more equitable tax system.
Gov. Riley was on target recently when he advised Alfa
to get ready for new ideas. It may take a conservative Republican
to break the impasse that Alfa and others have imposed and finally
push Alabama into a modern frame of mind.
So I am hopeful, as we enter this new quadrennium, that
we are going to see some major constitutional reforms. As is usually
the case in public affairs, we may have to go about this work in unexpected
ways. And there will always be new challenges.
But for the first time, at least that I can remember,
we are having a productive conversation in our state about the future.
We are learning to deliberate as citizens about our needs and choices,
as opposed to recoiling in fear and postponing the inevitable.
Bob Riley is taking office amid a financial crisis unlike
any our state has seen since the Great Depression. But what an opportunity
this challenge offers him to capitalize on the rising expectations
of our citizens for better government. What an opportunity he has
to be the kind of bold and imaginative leader that so many people
yearn to have for Alabama.
I want us citizens to help Gov. Riley achieve these expectations.
And I want Alabama to take its place in our region as not only a state
where good people live but also as a good place in which to live.
Bailey Thomson is associate professor of journalism at
the University of Alabama. He serves on the executive committee for
Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform.
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