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The Associated Press January 23, 2002 A leader of a group supporting Alabama’s 1901 constitution said some people seeking to change the constitution want to make it easier to remove Alabama’s Ten Commandments judge from office. Sandra Lane Smith, executive director of the Alabama Association for Judeo-Christian Values and a longtime supporter of Chief Justice Roy Moore, said some people advocating a new constitution want to change the impeachment process so they can get him out of office. She singled out Rep. Jack Venable’s proposed rewrite of the impeachment article of the constitution. “They want to get rid of him because he is a godly man, because he speaks the truth, and because he is exposing them,” Smith said at a rally staged by several groups that oppose rewriting the constitution. Venable, D-Tallassee, said his proposal leaves the impeachment of the chief justice the way it has been since Alabama voters approved a new impeachment process for judges in 1973. He said Smith’s criticism is unfounded because his proposal has nothing to do with Moore. “These folks don’t understand how the process works,” Venable said in an interview. Advocates of rewriting the state’s organic law say the 1901 constitution, which has been amended more than 660 times, created barriers to keep the state’s tax structure unfair and hinder education and economic development. Among the 40 people attending the pro-constitution rally was Kayla Moore, the chief justice’s wife. She did not speak at the event. Afterwards, she told reporters that she had not read Venable’s bill, but she said some legislators want to change the constitution because they don’t like the laws they have to operate under. “The Legislature doesn’t want to abide by the law. They want to change the law,” she said. Moore said she is also concerned about special interests using a new constitution to increase their control in Montgomery. She noted that groups in Montgomery are so intertwined that the American Civil Liberties Union attorney who sued her husband over the display of the Ten Commandments also represents the Alabama Education Association, one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Montgomery. The Legislature is looking at two different ways to change the constitution. One method is having the Legislature rewrite each article individually and then submit it to the public for approval. The other is to call a constitutional convention, which Gov. Don Siegelman favors. Smith said one of the bills calling for a constitutional convention guarantees that several special interest groups, including AEA, the Alabama AFL-CIO, and Alabama Farmers Federation will have seats at the convention. “They actually told us that ‘we the people’ are going to have nothing to do with writing the constitution,” she said. Siegelman has said Montgomery is a “nest of special interests” and that anyone who has been a lobbyist or elected official for the last five years should be barred from serving in a convention to write a new constitution. Libertarian gubernatorial candidate John Sophocleus, who attended the rally, said the constitution needs a few changes — like redesigning the way the Legislature is elected — but the document doesn’t need to be scrapped. Return to: Editorial Index |
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Citizens for Constitutional Reform Foundation, Inc. P.O. Box 34 Montgomery, Alabama 36101-0034 E-mail: accr@constitutionalreform.org |
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