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Bob Blalock: Tuesday brought the good, bad and ugly for constitution reformers
Bob Blalock--The Birmingham News
June 6, 2010
For those who dream of a new Alabama constituiton, Tuesday's party primaries played like a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western: There was the good, the bad and the ugly.
U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, the only candidate for governor in either party in favor of a citizens convention that would draft a new constitution, got spanked. Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks smashed Davis in the Democratic primary, winning 62 percent of the vote.
U.S. Rep. Artur Davis was the lone candidate for governor who supported a constitutional convention.On the bright side, no one is blaming Davis' loss on his support for a citizens convention.
"I don't think it was the issue of constitution reform," said Lenora Pate, chairwoman of the Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform, a group trying to grow grass-roots support for a citizens convention. "The health care vote caused him to lose the base of the Democratic Party. I really think that vote was a signal event for his campaign."
And what it signaled, although polls didn't show it, was a devastating defeat. Regardless of the reasons Davis lost, it is a blow to constitution reformers who had hoped Gov. Davis would use the office's bully pulpit to preach the need for a new fundamental charter for Alabama.
Davis' loss wasn't the only reason for dismay Tuesday. The world's longest constitution got even longer. We'll call this the "bad": Voters around the state by comfortable margins approved seven local amendments to the constitution, bringing the total number to 835.
Voters in Colbert, Franklin and Lawrence counties approved a ban on using treated human waste as fertilizer, and Fayette and Lamar County voters OK'd fees on drug cases funding drug task forces. Lawrence County can now use part of the money its landfill generates for other county expenses, and the Legislature gets to set court fees in Marengo County.
This isn't to belittle any of these amendments. They are important to those counties. But a decent, working constitution, instead of the grievously flawed one we've got, would allow those governments to pass their own laws to handle these sorts of problems.
Instead, those county commissions had to get one of their area's lawmakers to sponsor a local amendment in the Legislature, which sometimes takes years to pass, and sometimes results in the amendment winding up on a statewide ballot.
It's not exactly efficient state and local government. Nor are these kinds of amendments what you want in a document that's supposed to be a fundamental charter outlining the rights of citizens and the powers and limits of government.
But our constitution is filled with them. We have dozens of amendments dealing with counties' court costs, as well as other county-specific amendments allowing them to dispose of dead mules, cut weeds, excavate graves and the like.
There are also amendments that let a slew of industries, including catfish, poultry, cattle, sheep and goat, and shrimp and seafood, set fees on themselves and use the money to promote their industries.
That brings us to Tuesday's "good": Voters across the state defeated a similar amendment for the propane industry by a whopping 60-40 margin. Before Tuesday, the two most recent votes -- on shrimp and seafood in 2004 and sheep and goats in 2002 -- passed 63-37 and 66-34. What's going on?
"I think the constitutional convention issue resonated," Pate said. "I can't imagine 60 percent wanted to hurt the (propane) industry."
Instead, she said, the no vote sends a message they'd like lawmaker to allow a vote on a constitutional convention. Although that doesn't seem to jibe with many of those same voters approving local amendments, Pate said people are much more willing to vote yes on local amendments because they "see a need and have a hard time hurting themselves."
This November, voters will have lots of chances to "see a need." They must decide 43 proposed amendments, according to the secretary of state's office. Thankfully, just three need a statewide vote.
We'll get a better idea then whether there is a concerted effort to vote no on statewide amendments. And we'll see whether what little constitutional reform "good" we had in the June primary turns "bad" or even "ugly" in November.
Bob Blalock is editorial page editor of The News. E-mail: bblalock@bhamnews.com. Blog: blog.al.com/bblalock