Alabama Voices: Mock convention shows state constitution possible
Montgomery Advertiser
June 25, 2009
by Jim Vickrey

Nine score and 10 years ago, our state's founders wrote the first Constitution of Alabama. They wrote it so well -- in what is now called Constitution Village in Huntsville -- that it was hailed elsewhere at the time as perhaps the most progressive in the nation. No one has similarly labeled any one of that document's five successors "progressive."

Indeed, each of the six subsequent documents seems to have been designed to make it less and less progressive, less and less democratic. That is especially so of the fifth one -- the now infamous Alabama Constitution of 1901 -- the one crafted openly to disenfranchise blacks and poor whites and to concentrate governmental power in Montgomery, away from cities and counties, where such groups might have more political power.

The latter development has resulted in our state having the nation's (and maybe the world's) longest (at 320,000 words) and most amended (800-plus times and counting) constitutional document -- a constitution barely ratified in an election some historians believe was fraudulent, with patterns of voting reminiscent of the recent ones in Iran.

Nevertheless, over the years, beginning soon after its suspicious ratification, governors, legislators, public officials, and other state leaders undertook to replace the 1901 Constitution with a new one, or at least to amend its 13 or so core articles.

Since 1950, at least two previous rewrites have been drafted, one in the late 1960s-early 1970s, the other in the early 1980s. But for a variety of reasons, neither was submitted to the people. A third rewrite has just been completed by the Statewide Mock Constitutional Convention and it has already been submitted to the citizens of Alabama for comment (see below) via the Internet. They are responding.

Reflecting upon the above, I ran across these words of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.: "The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port . . . we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it -- but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor."

For more than 100 years, the citizen-sailors of our ship of state have been trying to steer it toward the port known as Democratic State and Local Government. Not long ago, some of them retired below deck to the cabin where the Constitution of 1901 is laid out, surrounded by blank paper, on which they have been drafting the proposed new organic document; after some five months of deliberation at two face-to-face mock convention sessions, including one at the State House, and via electronic means of communication, they have emerged from that cabin with a proposed Constitution of 2009 in their hands and have sent copies ashore throughout Alabama.

Once the people of our state have submitted their responses to the draft, the 100-plus members of the mock convention will review them and make needed, final changes in the document. Thereafter, Alabamians will be invited to join the delegates and hundreds of other leaders from throughout the state in Huntsville on Aug. 27 for the official unveiling of the proposed founding document.

By its very existence, that proposed state constitution will prove that:

·  It is possible for Alabamians from every part of the state to come together at minimal expense to work in civil and civic fashion on such a document;

·  It is possible for such a convention to reach agreement on its revision and craft the draft now on the Internet;

·  It is possible for such a diverse body to avoid the pernicious effects of "special interests" that too many of our fellow citizens think will be the case when a real -- instead of a virtual -- convention convenes, the very assertion of which, as an objection to an actual Constitutional Convention, is itself undemocratic.

For decades, we Alabamians have lamented the sorry state of the Constitution of 1901. Since 1969, at least three slightly different versions of a new, more democratic founding document have been proposed, including, now, the most recent one in the final stages of crafting and submitting via the media to the people of our state on Aug. 27.

Why not take a few minutes or longer to review the present state of the Constitution of 2009 and respond with your comments to it at the link below? The opportunity is as unique as the deadline for doing so is certain: July 7. On behalf of the Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform Foundation Board, of which I am proud to say I am member, I invite you to take advantage of it.

If you think such an effort is not worth your time because you think the likelihood of drafting a real constitution any time soon is hopelessly small, think on these words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which he wrote as part of what now known as the "Letter from Birmingham City Jail": "Human progress never rolls on wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and persistent work of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the sources of social stagnation."

Dr. Jim Vickrey is a former university president, a lawyer, a professor of speech communication, and native Montgomerian.

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