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The Legislature needs to make amends for the 1901 Constitution by allowing voters to decide whether then want a citizens convention to draft a new one
Birmingham News Op-Ed
11/11/09
Today, we pay tribute to veterans for their service to our country and for fighting to protect our freedoms. Today is also the day 108 years ago that Alabama voters ratified a state constitution which stripped away one of the most essential of our freedoms -- the right to vote -- from blacks and poor whites.
Nov. 11 is a day to honor veterans, but it is also a day to dishonor a constitution that prevented hundreds of thousands of blacks and poor whites from voting for decades. To top it off, the 1901 Constitution was approved only with the help of massive voter fraud.
The story is well-documented by historians.
On Nov. 11, 1901, Alabama voters approved a new constitution 108,613 to 81,734, a comfortable margin of almost 27,000 votes. In the months leading to the referendum, supporters of the new constitution campaigned on a platform of white supremacy and honest voting, because they were tired of stealing elections. So they stole the election.
They did it by "voting the Negro," to use the terminology of the time, in the Black Belt. A dozen Black Belt counties, in which blacks made up more than two-thirds of the population, voted 36,224 to 5,471 for the new constitution, and those counties reported their vote totals late, according to Malcolm McMillan's definitive "Constitutional Development in Alabama." Across the rest of the state, voters turned down a new constitution 76,263 to 72,389.
An astonishing number of blacks would have had to vote in favor of the new constitution for it to win statewide approval. Yet there was no secret about what the new constitution would do. Most black leaders, including Booker T. Washington, fought against ratification. As one black journalist put it: "It is goodbye with poor white folks and (blacks), now, for the train of disfranchisement is on the rail and will come upon us like an avalanche."
That train wasn't derailed until decades later by federal court decisions and laws that restored voting rights. But the 1901 Constitution still has grievous problems that keep it from fulfilling its role as the state's fundamental charter. It still concentrates power in Montgomery, making it easier for a coven of special interests to control the Legislature. Those special interests have used the constitution to embed lucrative tax exemptions and earmarks for themselves at the same time they pull tight on the state's purse for schools, prisons, Medicaid and other government services. Also, the Legislature controls affairs best left to local governments. That's why the constitution contains more than 800 amendments, and local government efficiency and innovation are so hard to come by.
That's a whole lot to make up for. But the Legislature in its session next year can start making amends for the 1901 Constitution by letting voters decide whether they want a new constitution drafted by a citizens convention. The 1901 Constitution's supporters couldn't trust voters to do the "right" thing without employing massive voter fraud to ensure the desired result. Today's Legislature, in another bit of irony, trusts Alabama voters to elect lawmakers, but hasn't yet trusted them to choose whether they want a new, proper fundamental charter. When and if it does, that Election Day will be a day of honor.