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Let the people decide what's best for them
The Daily Home
2/14/10
The evidence was right there in the headline of a Birmingham newspaper: “City manager bill gets 31-0 Senate approval.”
A local community wanted to change its form of government to allow a city manager to run the day-to-day operation. All the Vestavia City Council wanted was a professional manager to run its multi-million dollar operation. It sounded reasonable because it was.
The part of this story that’s unreasonable is that the city council had to ask lawmakers in Montgomery for permission. That’s right. A city in Jefferson County cannot make that decision without first going through the Alabama Legislature. That means a senator from Greene County or Baldwin or any of the state’s 67 counties have the right to tell Vestavia how to run its government.
The same holds true for any of the communities in Alabama when it comes to issues like these and far too many more. Shame on Alabama’s constitution for snatching the power to govern from the people who know it best — local officials. And shame on the lawmakers of this state for continuing to allow this travesty to happen over and over.
But that’s where Alabama finds itself once again in 2010, letting lawmakers waste time deciding purely local issues that need to be back in the hands of the local community. They won’t even allow the citizens of Alabama to vote on whether they want a new constitution to replace the more than century old, most amended constitution in the country that screams of a mentality held generations ago.
It centralizes the power in Montgomery and prevents local communities from deciding what’s best for them unless, of course, they get legislators to agree first. It is an appalling practice that comes under fire every legislative session, but instead, the remedy is shot down long before it reaches a vote.
A handful of persistent lawmakers dutifully raise the issue again and again, just like they have this year, hoping to finally break through and let the people have a say.
And just as persistent are we, who continue to advocate the people’s right to decide for themselves whether they want a new constitution. It should be a simple choice — one that puts Alabama solidly in the 21st century or one that forces the state to act as if it is still 1901.
The people ought to have a say in that choice — if only the Legislature will give them permission.
Picking on the number of amendments in Alabama’s constitution is almost too easy. That the constitution has some 827 amendments already is indicative of problems with the constitution, but the real issue is more about how power is centralized in Montgomery.