Winners in Alabama: Racism and Seafood

Once again, I am embarrassed of my home state. In addition to the Presidential election yesterday, Alabama voters were offered EIGHT more opportunities to amend what is already the longest and most-amended constitution in the world. (Alabama’s constitution has 315,000 words and over 700 amendments.)

The proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot covered such minor topics as

“promotion of economic and industrial development in Baldwin County (PA 1, which passed with 56% of the vote)”

and

“the repeal of amendment No. 496, which provides for the judge of probate to receive the same salary as the district judge in Crenshaw County. (PA 6, which failed with 55% voting no)”

How many of the 1+ million voters understood what “repeal” means? And is it not absurd that the state constitution will now be amended to promote economic and industrial development in a single county? All of Alabama needs economic and industrial development! Why do we deal with these issues in the context of the state constitution?!

There were other examples of legislative idiocy, but as the efforts toward wholesale contitutional reform in Alabama have not yet prevailed, there was one shining example of the efforts to draw Alabama, kicking and screaming, into the present reality: proposed amendment two endeavored…

to repeal portions of Section 256 and Amendment 111 relating to separation of schools by race and repeal portions of Amendment 111 concerning constitutional construction against the right to education, and to repeal Section 259, Amendment 90, and Amendment 109 relating to the poll tax.

This proposed amendment is still up in the air, split nearly 50/50 across our backwards state. Early numbers (with 99% of precincts reporting) have 685,508 voters (49.88%) in favor, 688,927 voters (50.12%) against. In other words, Alabama voters are evenly split on whether to remove from its state constitution unenforceable language that implements segregation and poll taxes.

Oh, but proposed amendment four, which provides for the promotion of shrimp and seafood, passed with 63% of the vote.

8 Responses to Winners in Alabama: Racism and Seafood

  1. Your mother says:

    Baldwin county is in the “black belt” in Alabama. Therefore it is a politically advantageous move to back an amendment to throw money at that area. I didn’t know about the amendment to repeal separation of the schools by race. I certainly would’ve voted!!!!

  2. Jeremie says:

    “???????promotion of economic and industrial development in Baldwin County (PA 1, which passed with 56% of the vote)???????”

    Actually, as it has been explained to me, the reasons for that ammendent was due to the way our outdated constitution is written.
    Once, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away there was a statewide governing body that dealt with those “promotion” issues. To keep from duplicating funds and to be sure that the efforts of that office was spread statewide (remember this is early 1900’s) there was language in the orig document that precluded any county from having their own agency that dealt with the same issues as the state one did.
    I just moved from Lamar county a few months ago and it was on the ballot for Lamar during the last statewide election.

  3. Stu says:

    Okay, the racist thing — this can’t be allowed to stand. The proposed amendment didn’t JUST strike racist language from the constitution. It also struck language that would have allowed activist judges to raise taxes by fiat to pay for “education”. At the same time, it didn’t strike language defining the age of students as being between 7 and 21, so it could logically follow that someone could sue to demand that the state pay for the first 3 years of college.

    Governor Riley has already said that if the amendment didn’t pass, he would re-release it without any possible backdoor tax loopholes.

    So for the record, Alabamians are evenly split on whether to remove for its state constitution language that could lead to tax increases without giving the people the right to vote on them. Of course, as poorly as the ballot was worded, most people that voted FOR the amendment did so without really understanding the full impact…

  4. roderickm says:

    Wow, Stu. I don’t know what lines of the proposed amendment you’re reading between, but I just don’t see all that great backstory. I mean, I just didn’t realize that activist judges are the ones that set tax rates. Seems like a great smokescreen for another helping of state-sactioned racism, though.

    Every time Alabama tries to put forth something decent, the voters shoot it down for some seemingly-unrelated reason. Let’s fund education with a moderate tax increase… NO, taxes are worse than illiteracy! Let’s bring constitutional reform and rewrite our obscenely outdated consitution… NO, you might remove any mention of God and soybeans! Okay, then let’s at least remove outdated, racist language from the constitution and some of the amendments… NO, that might, in unimaginably impossible circumstances, lead to higher taxes!

    Geez, forget a poll tax — Alabama needs an IQ test at the beginning of each ballot.

  5. Stu says:

    Ohh… I get it… You didn’t actually READ the full text of the amendment (and why should you, if you don’t live here?). It’s much easier to listen to the rhetoric that supports your opinion…

    “Section 256. It is the policy of the state of Alabama to foster and promote the education of its citizens in a manner and extent consistent with its available resources, and the willingness and ability of the individual student, ”

    Amendment 2 would remove the following language from the end of the sentence above:

    “but nothing in this Constitution shall be construed as creating or recognizing any right to education or training at public expense, nor as limiting the authority and duty of the legislature, in furthering or providing for education, to require or impose conditions or procedures deemed necessary to the preservation of peace and order.”

    Before: We promote education for all who seek it, but not necessarily at public expense.

    After: We promote education for all who seek it, and if the taxpayers don’t want to pony up for it, we can get the courts to force the issue.

    Now tell me what about the stricken portion addresses racism and/or poll taxes?

    Bottom line: You don’t live here. When it comes down to unenforceable racist language versus higher taxes, we’re going to take the unenforceable racist language until we’re given a better option to change it. (Better options, again I state, are in the works. But if you don’t live here, that might have escaped your notice…)

  6. roderickm says:

    Even the parts you quoted say nothing about taxes or granting taxation abilities to your fearsome activist judges. You haven’t chosen racist language over higher taxes, you’ve just chosen racist language.

    Without conceding that your “higher taxes” story had ANYTHING to do do with Amendment 2 (other than providing a moral smokescreen for ignorant racist hee-haw rejects with a ballot), would it be so awful for Alabama to find a better way to fund education without taking it to a popular vote? By definition, an election makes the popular choice, not the best choice. Why not do the right thing for a change and fund education, even if through some amendment loophole? Oh right, education could eventually mean an end to your precious ignorance…

    Oh, and Stu — you don’t know me. Don’t pretend that you know me. Aside from a few years in Nashville and a summer detour through Washington, DC, I’ve lived in Huntsville, Alabama for the past twenty years. I was at the ballots on Tuesday, and I will continue to be at the ballots at every opportunity I get. One day, when you’re not paying attention, we’ll pull Alabama up by her bootstraps.

  7. Daniel says:

    3 poll tax strikes are the following

    Article XIV Section 259
    Use of poll taxes for support of public schools.

    Amendment 90
    Veteran’s Poll Tax Exemption Amendment.
    http://www.legislature.state.al.us/CodeOfAlabama/Constitution/1901/CA-245933.htm

    Amendment 109
    Exempting Blind and Deaf Persons from Payment of Poll Tax.
    http://www.legislature.state.al.us/CodeOfAlabama/Constitution/1901/CA-245952.htm

    Now, gathering from that, I don’t see where repealing a law that specifically grants poll taxes to schools and then also removes exemptions from veterans and disabled people somehow constitutes an open season on taxing everyone to death without voting on it.

    Or did I miss the point of your argument.

  8. Stu says:

    Wait a second ???????? let????????s back up here. You????????re complaining over racist language that I doubt very many people were aware of before this whole ???????Amendment 2??????? issue came around. I issued a simple challenge: Tell me what was so racist about the extraneous stricken part. By dodging the issue, I can only assume that you concede the point that there was nothing racist about that. Therefore the entire premise of your argument is flawed ???????? the Amendment did not deal solely with racist language and poll taxes. Saying it did is being intellectually dishonest.

    Come up with an alternate reason to strike that language in addition to the racist language. Show me how that could be applied. One could take your statements to mean that you see how an ???????amendment loophole??????? could conceivably be used to raise taxes, and even imply that doing so wouldn????????t be such a bad idea. I have shown how it could be possible under the stricken language. It would open the State of Alabama to lawsuits from anyone between the ages of 7 and 21 that isn????????t happy with the quality or quantity of their education.

    Maybe another example is in order: Mr. and Mrs. Jones don????????t want to pay for their son????????s college education in a post-Amendment 2 Alabama. Young Slacker Jones doesn????????t have the grades or the athletic ability to get a scholarship. What do the Joneses do? Well, under a strict reading of the Alabama Constitution, they would have the right to sue the state to pay for their son????????s tuition. See, Amendment 2 would have gotten rid of the whole ???????at public expense??????? thing???????

    ???????That would never happen,??????? you say. Eh, maybe you????????re right. I don????????t know of any black kids denied the right to go to school with any white kids due to a strict interpretation of the State Constitution, but I????????m sure that might have something to do with a federal law or two???????

    Let????????s focus on what we can agree on: Unenforceable racist language in the State Constitution is Bad. Even though it doesn????????t directly affect anyone and most people probably didn????????t know it was there until this issue came up, it makes our state look bad to the rest of the US and should therefore be stricken from our Constitution. We can also agree that the Constitution should be rewritten, if that is a safe assumption of your beliefs on my part. Where we differ, however, appears to be in the extraneous language that doesn????????t deal with racism or poll taxes. For me, it????????s a deal breaker. Before voting even started, Governor Riley said that he would reintroduce Amendment 2 without the possibility of tax loopholes if it didn????????t pass (though he claimed that he didn????????t see the potential for tax loopholes to begin with).