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By Bob Johnson
The Associated Press
March 22, 2002

   Alabama voters will apparently have to wait at least another year before they will get a chance to decide whether to call a convention to rewrite the 1901 constitution.

   The Alabama House debated the pros and cons of rewriting the old constitution for more than four hours Thursday and then, on an unrecorded voice vote, delayed taking any action on a resolution to let voters decide if a convention should be called.

   The sponsor of the resolution, Rep. Marcel Black, D-Tuscumbia, said the delay apparently kills the constitutional reform movement for this year, but not for good.

   “I think it’s an issue we’ll have to deal with. Obviously it won’t be today. The people will demand we deal with it at another time,” Black said.

   Earlier, Black told lawmakers that the people of Alabama had shown in numerous polls that they wanted a new constitution.

   “The question is, Do you trust the people to determine this issue?” Black asked. “The decision needs to be made here today. It’s an issue that’s not going to go away.”

   But after hearing opponents argue that a convention would not represent average Alabama citizens and that it would be used as an opportunity to raise taxes, Black said there were not enough votes to pass the resolution and agreed to delay it on a voice vote.

   “The fight for a new constitution is not over. In fact, it’s just beginning,” Gov. Don Siegelman said. “More Alabamians are aware that the constitution enshrines a tax structure where the people who make the least pay the most and the big corporations who make the most pay the least.”

   Rep. James Buskey, D-Mobile, and other black legislators have said said they fear blacks would not be adequately represented at a convention.

   Rep. Mac Gipson, R-Prattville, a longtime advocate of constitutional reform, said it makes no sense to try to run the state using a plan drawn up two years before the first airplane flight at a time when only white men could vote in Alabama.

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