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The County Line
- Fall Issue 2004
Local Constitutional Amendments Puzzle Voters
Those political experts who are constantly promoting the "will of the people" must be shaking their heads over our state's process for approving constitutional amendments. We continue to out-smart ourselves.
Alabama's constitution, the one that's more than a hundred years old and is the subject of constant "reform" discussions, has a rather complicated procedure for approving constitutional amendments. On the one hand, that should not surprise anyone because just about everything about Alabama government is complicated. But, since there are more than 700 amendments to the constitution, one might assume that adopting an amendment is just about as easy as finding a high school football game on a Friday night in the fall.
Alabama's constitution allows for the adoption of "local" amendments - those amendments that pertain to only one county, or even only to one city, for that matter. It is the treatment of these "local" constitutional amendments that should be the source of worry on the part of those who believe that "the people" should be able to decide how their own affairs are conducted.
For decades, "local" constitutional amendments were treated like "statewide" amendments. All proposed constitutional amendments - whether they applied to one county or to the state at-large - were on the ballot in every county in the state. This sometimes resulted in voters in the northern part of the state voting on constitutional amendments that impacted only folks down south, for example. Sometimes this requirement actually resulted in the state paying for the cost associated with allowing these unaffected voters to go to the ballot box and other times those folks who were unaffected actually out-voted those who would be required to follow the provisions of the proposed amendment.
After hearing years of complaining, the Alabama Legislature proposed a new procedure for voting on "local" constitutional amendments. However, those groups that wished to continue to exert their control over local affairs weren't willing to allow the process to be simple. So, once again, we devised a complicated solution to a simple problem.
Determining whether or not a constitutional amendment is "local" is a rather easy process. You ask one question: "Does the amendment apply to the entire state?" If you answer "yes", then the amendment appears on all ballots. That would be simple. Alabama government is not simple, as mentioned earlier.
Alabama's constitution now requires all proposed amendments to be voted on statewide UNLESS they apply only to one county or city AND are passed in BOTH the House and Senate without a single dissenting vote. Any amendment that clears the legislative process without a dissenting vote, can still be forced on the statewide ballot if three of the following office holders votes to require the statewide consideration -- the Governor, Presiding Officer of the Senate, Attorney General, Secretary of State, and Speaker of the House of Representatives.
This process has worked fairly well. However, during the early years of this process, at least one legislator used his ability to vote "no" on all constitutional amendments as leverage to obtain concessions on other legislative matters. Unless he was given his way on other things, this legislator vowed to force all local constitutional amendments to a statewide vote. In some cases he carried through with his threat and the state was forced to pick up the tab on several local amendments that he turned into statewide ballot questions.
He's no longer in the Legislature. But the problem persists.
This November, at least two of the "statewide" ballot questions were actually "local" amendments that were forced to a statewide vote. One of the amendments would have allowed for the levying of tobacco and alcohol taxes in Macon County and the other would have REDUCED the salary of the probate judge in Crenshaw County.
Both amendments were pushed onto the statewide ballot because a single Senator voted against the amendment. In the case of the Macon County issue, the Senator who cast the "nay" vote lives more than 150 miles from Macon County and his district is no where near the Macon County line. The Crenshaw County situation might be considered even worse - the amendment for this south Alabama county was forced on the statewide ballot because of the vote of a Senator who lives only a few minutes from the Tennessee line.
Both of the "local" amendments were defeated by statewide vote in November and, therefore, are not effective. In Macon County, more than 65 percent of the voters approved the amendment allowing for the taxation of tobacco and alcohol. And in Crenshaw County, almost 75 percent of the voters endorsed the amendment lowering the salary of the probate judge.
So, in Macon County, the schools and local governments must continue to struggle without enough funds to provide needed services, even though the voters overwhelmingly approved a new tax source to fund government activities. And in Crenshaw County, an elected official will continue to be paid a salary substantially more than 74 percent of the local voters believe is proper.
It would be safe to assume that this is not what the founding fathers had in mind when they put together the concept of a "representative democracy".
Now, those who bang the drum for constitutional reform can point at this vote as more evidence that Alabama's constitution should be rewritten. But the truth of the matter is that a problem this glaring really doesn't require a statewide reform movement. We don't need to sift through 700 or so amendments. We don't need a statewide commission to travel all over Alabama seeking input from dozens of groups. This one isn't that complicated.
Nope, if we are going to allow "local" constitutional amendments in the first place, then we only need to be able to answer that one simple question - "Does the amendment apply to the entire state?" If not, then the amendment is "local" and the wishes of the local voters should not be overridden because of some lone vote cast by someone who isn't really affected in the first place. |
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