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By Tommy Stevenson October 10, 2001 Tuscaloosa — Kevin Garrison, the president of Alabama Students for Constitutional Reform, said the University of Alabama-based organization has its genesis in a simple question he was asked more than a year ago. "It was at the first rally the Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform had in Tuscaloosa at Capitol Park," he said of the event on April 7, 2000, that kicked off the current drive for a new constitution. "I and a couple of my friends attended and the reporter for the [student newspaper] Crimson White asked me why I thought there were so few students there," the 20-year-old student from Decatur said. "I said I really didn’t know, because I think a new constitution is important and that people our age have a lot at stake in getting one," he said. "I told him I thought there should be a student organization to educate people and to promote a new constitution." Garrison said the more he thought about it, the more he thought he should practice what he was preaching. "So I just sort of took the bull by the horns" and formed the ASCR, Garrison said. Formed earlier this fall, the ASCR has about 15 active members and has been busy lining up speakers and even offering its own members as speakers for other campus organizations. "We’re meeting with the African-American Association [tonight] and have several other speakers coming in the next few months," Garrison said. UA journalism professor Bailey Thomson, who helped form the ACCR, is the ASCR faculty adviser and says he thinks the organization is doing "a great job. "I’m their adviser, but they pretty much are running it on their own," he said. "It sort of renews your faith in democracy to see them take the ball and run with it on their own like this." The ASCR’s next priority is Tuesday’s statewide conference in Birmingham organized by the ACCR. "There is going to be a student forum at the conference that I am going to participate in along with the head of a similar group at Samford University," the only other organized student constitutional reform group in the state, Garrison said. At last Wednesday’s meeting of his group at the Ferguson Center at UA, Garrison said he planned to have buses to take interested Alabama students to the conference at the Richard M. Scrushy Center. "We’re going to leave about 7:15 in the morning, which is pretty early for college students," he said. "But we’ve already got commitments from about 20 students and there will be plenty of room on the bus for more." Like many commentators on the existing constitution, which was drafted in 1901 with the main goals of disenfranchising blacks and poor whites and concentrating power in Montgomery, Garrison said many of the state’s current woes can be traced to that document, which is the longest constitution in the world. "You look at the problems we have in providing adequate funding and home rule, and you can trace it right back to the 1901 constitution," he says. The Birmingham conference, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Scrushy Center on U.S. 280 just east of Interstate 459, will feature a welcome by Gov. Don Siegelman, forums and speakers. The speakers include former Gov. Albert Brewer, University of Alabama System Chancellor Thomas Merredith, Energen Corp. Chairman Mike Warren, and Samford University President Thomas Corts, who is also the ACCR chariman and the incoming president of the Business Council of Alabama. The stated goal of the ACCR is to build a groundswell for a constitutional convention. Garrison said he hopes his student organization can host a conference of its own within the next year. Reach Tommy Stevenson at tommy.stevenson@tuscaloosanews.com or 345-0505, Ext. 245. Return to: Editorials Index |
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| Alabama Citizens for
Constitutional Reform Foundation, Inc. P.O. Box 34 Montgomery, Alabama 36101-0034 E-mail: accr@constitutionalreform.org |
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