The County Line - November/December 1999

Local Legislation Was the Hot Ticket During Special Session
Because "all important politics is local politics," one should not be surprised when the most interesting legislative drama swirls around local legislation. Such was certainly the case during the special legislative session called just after Thanksgiving of 1999.

This session, you might remember, was called to fix Alabama's ailing franchise tax law. And one might have expected a heated fight between business groups and the administration -- or perhaps a fight among various types of businesses hoping to shift the "new tax" burden to their commercial brothers -- to be the highlight of the session. However, the bills to revamp and replace that tax passed with little more than a whimper.

The only real fight of the short special session was spurred by a local law aimed at forging a solution to what is fast becoming the most delicate of issues in rural Alabama -- land use regulation. Most of the fight did not play out in the public eye. However, there was one very visible sign that may signal the onset of similar fights in other counties.

Now, there were specific circumstances that made this ruckus a bit different from some that are brewing elsewhere in the state. But the root of this particular disagreement and others on the horizon is a common thread that runs from the Tennessee Valley to the Gulf of Mexico.

Alabama is the only state in the southeast that has not found a way to develop state-level guidelines for the development of land in the incorporated areas. There are many reasons, some might call them excuses, for why such a meeting of the minds has not been reached in Alabama. But this lack of agreement is causing the situation to fast reach the critical stage.

Right now in many rural areas of our state tempers are short and blood pressure is at the boiling point because of disputes over the use of land. Sometimes it involves the location of a business that some believe produces odors that are intrusive. Sometimes it involves the location of housing that some believe produces lowered property values for surrounding neighbors. And, sometimes, it involves that age-old conflict because one side wishes to have its cake and eat it, too.

Unfortunately, the people that are unhappy are often folks who were recent city dwellers. These folks have a difficult time understanding why their county governing body cannot respond to their needs in much the same way the municipal fathers did decades before. Those folks become increasingly unhappy when they realize that the county and state governing bodies are essentially powerless to influence, in even the least intrusive way, the utilization of land in the unincorporated areas.

And it was that conflict that generated this interesting local legislation for Jackson County in the special session in late 1999. The legislation, sponsored by Rep. John Robinson, empowered the Jackson County Commission to "abate" as a public nuisance any "noxious odors, dead animal decomposition or animal waste, or air or water pollution, arising from swine farming."

In other words, the county commission is authorized by this local law to close a swine farm operation if it determines that it smells bad or is causing air or water pollution. In most of our surrounding states, this is not a novel idea.

But this first step toward rural land regulation IS big news in Alabama. And it generated an interesting fight.

After the bill passed the House and was transmitted to the Senate, there was an attempt to send the legislation to a committee reserved for statewide legislation on the "excuse" that the bill was "environmental" in nature and therefore not an exclusively-local matter.

This attempt failed miserably, but did spawn some interesting give-and-take on the Senate floor. The Senate sponsor of the legislation, President Pro Tem Lowell Barron, explained to his colleagues -- in direct terms -- that the bill affected only Jackson County, which he was elected to represent. He encouraged the other members of the body to respect his wishes and, essentially, to mind their own business. They did. And the bill was treated like all other local legislation.

This public fight over local legislation was the result, one must assume, of lobbying work from one or more interest groups that strongly oppose any rural land regulation. In this case, their opposition was so strong that they were willing to violate one of the sacred of lobbying rules -- stay out of local legislation because "all important politics is local politics."

In the end, the legislation passed and will become law on Feb. 1, 2000. However, it was the public debate on a local bill that was so interesting. Such is not the norm in the legislative process.

It is also noteworthy that this new law is restricted to one specific kind of rural business while others -- like perhaps the poultry industry -- are not affected. This group was successful in being exempted from this particular legislation. But, as they say, the door is now open and shutting that door, even in Alabama, is going to be very difficult.

It is also probably important to note that most county commissioners are not out on the street conducting a grass-roots campaign to receive the authority to regulate the use of land in rural Alabama. Such authority is, one must believe, something like taking a pistol to one's big toe.

But the environment in rural Alabama is changing so dramatically that one day in the not-too-distant-future someone is going to have that pistol in their hand. Even if it is somebody that does not want to hold the pistol.

One of the most interesting aspects of this legislation is how quickly it may be spreading. Even before the special session ended you began to hear rumors of other legislators who were seriously considering such legislation for their counties. If you believe the rumor mill, we may see a flood of this kind of local legislation in the 2000 regular session.

There are some that would argue that a local approach to this statewide problem is not the most efficient avenue. It is hard to disagree with that evaluation. Because the issue is so universal, a law with statewide application would seem to be in the best interest of everyone concerned.

However, until the day arrives when all sides are able to reach that conclusion, we will likely be left with these local flair-ups. And when that happens, it will make for very interesting theater. Remember, the most important politics is, after all, local politics.