From: Nancy Ekberg [mailto:nanekberg@aol] Sent: Friday, March 14, 2014 Subject: Legislation 2014 ACCR Inc. Dear Constitutional Reform Supporters, The limited governance for counties bill, SB367, which should have been debated in the Senate this week, stalled because of filibustering. We hope for next week, but time is getting short. In the case of the other Constitutional Revision Commission bills, they were carried over in a Senate Constitution, Campaign Finance, Ethics and Elections committee this week, because members of the committee have reservations about Chief Justice Moores statements concerning the constitutionality of the Commission and subsequent constitutional amendments. Here re stories describing the action. Nancy Ekberg Communications Chair, Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform, Inc. Alabama Legislatures effort to revise state Constitution fizzles By The Associated Press The Associated Press on March 12, 2014 at 7:01 PM, updated March 12, 2014 at 7:02 PM MONTGOMERY, Alabama — The Legislatures effort to rewrite the lengthy Alabama Constitution article by article has stalled A Senate committee delayed action Wednesday on four proposed constitutional amendments that would rewrite four articles of the constitution. Committee members said the issue is over for now, with only seven meeting days remaining in the 2014 legislative session. The chairman of the Senate Constitution and Elections Committee, Republican Sen. Bryan Taylor of Prattville, said the process of rewriting the constitution lost momentum after state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore and Justice Tom Parker issued advisory opinions earlier this month saying the article-by-article approach was unconstitutional. Nancy Ekberg of Birmingham, communications chairman for Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform, agreed that the advisory opinions took the energy out of constitutional revision, but she said the group can try again next year … No one should give up hope, she said. The Alabama Constitution was written in 1901 and is the longest of any state, with more than 800 amendments. It can be changed in two ways. The Legislature can approve a change to one part and submit it to the voters for approval in a statewide referendum, or the whole document can be rewritten in a constitutional convention if the Legislature and Alabama voters approve that process. When Republicans won control of the Legislature in 2010, the new GOP leadership made revision of the Constitution a priority. They wanted to delete portions that were outdated or negated by court rulings. They created a commission that includes public officials and others to recommend revisions to a few articles each year, with the goal of addressing 11 of the 18 articles in the constitution. So far, the Legislature has rewritten the articles on banking and corporations, and voters have approved those changes. In the 2014 session, the Republican leadership was trying to address a few more articles before the advisory opinion caused some legislators to have doubts. Moore said putting out a few new provisions each year for voters to approve does not change the reality that the Legislature has undertaken a near total revision of the constitution through an in-house constitutional convention. By wresting the convention process from the people, the Legislature has unconstitutionally made itself the paramount mechanism of constitutional revisions, the chief justice wrote. None of the other seven justices on the Supreme Court joined in Moores or Parkers advisory opinions. Instead, they chose to remain silent. Republican Sen. Paul Bussman of Cullman was among the committee members voting to delay consideration Wednesday. He said too many questions remained. Weve heard a lot about constitution reform and whether its constitutional, he said. The proposed constitutional amendments delayed by the committee would have affected the constitutions articles on impeachment of public officials, the legislative branch, the executive branch and homestead exemptions for property taxes. Some had minor technical revisions, but others, like the proposal for the legislative branch, would have made major changes from current practices. Senators take a pass on Constitutional revision in 2014; opinion from Chief Justice Moore gave lawmakers cold feet by Tim Lockette tlockette@annistonstar Anniston Star Mar 12, 2014 | The Alabama Supreme Court is divided over whether the state Legislature is acting legally by rewriting the state Constitution a few portions at a time. Moore and Justice Tom Parker have issued advisory opinions saying the article-by-article approach is not allowed by the Constitution. MONTGOMERY — A committee in the Alabama Senate put four Constitutional reform amendments on hold Wednesday, a move that will likely kill efforts to reform the Constitution of 1901 this year. This is disappointing to a lot of people who worked their tails off on it, said Sen. Bryan Taylor, R-Prattville. Taylor was a member of the Constitutional Revision Commission, a panel formed in 2011 to do an article-by-article rewrite of the Alabama Constitution. With nearly 900 amendments, Alabamas constitution is the longest state constitution in the nation, and one of the longest governing documents in the world. The documents framers stated outright, in their constitutional convention, that they intended to preserve white supremacy, and Constitution still contains now-unenforceable provisions for a poll tax and segregated schools. Several efforts to rewrite the document, beginning in the early 20th Century, have failed — though lawmakers in the 1970s succeeded in overhauling the judicial article and the states then-antiquated justice system. The Constitutional Revision Commission worked for two years to replicate that success by reviewing the document a piece at a time. Commission members dodged what some reform advocates consider the Constitutions core problem — a lack of county home rule that has led to a flood of locally focused amendments — but they made minor changes to all of the Constitutions articles Five of those articles — on impeachments, the executive branch, the legislative branch, the distribution of powers, and tax exemptions — were introduced as amendments in the Legislature this year. If approved by lawmakers, theyd go to voters statewide for approval. Lawmakers were already squeamish about adding the amendments to the ballot in an election year. Then the Alabama Supreme Court, at the request of the Senate, weighed in on the matter. Constitutional revision should not be initiated by a body that is itself a creation of the very constitution it seeks to revise and that thus may seek to mold the document to serve its own parochial institutional interests, Chief Justice Roy Moore wrote in a Feb. 27 opinion. Like Moore, Justice Tom Parker wrote that the article-by-article revision wasnt constitutional. The courts other seven judges declined to offer an opinion, but the opposition of two of the judges was enough to stall four of the amendments in committee Wednesday. With little discussion, the Senate Constitution and Elections Committee voted to carry over three of the amendments to a future meeting. A fourth failed for lack of a second, just before the meeting ended abruptly for lack of a quorum. Thursday is the 24th day of the 30-day legislative session, and committee members said theres little chance the bills will return this year. I think until we have some clarity, we need to stand in place, said Sen. Dick Brewbaker, R-Montgomery, who voted to put the bills on hold.If we pass these, and theres no legal resolution and we put them on the ballot and people vote for them and then they rule this process unconstitutional, where are we then? Voters have already approved two of the commissions amendments — changes to articles on banking and corporations. Both essentially scrubbed antiquated wording about railroads and telegraphs from the document, but made no major alterations. So far, only one other amendment has even made it out of committee. Earlier this year, Taylors committee approved a rewrite of the article on distribution of powers. Basically, it changed the word departments to branches, Taylor said. That amendment has yet to come to the full Senate for a vote. The hold on the bills could turn into a year-long setback for Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform. The group has supported the Constitutional Revision Commission’s work even though some of its members felt the article-by-article approach didnt go far enough. There are many people in the organization who would love to see a constitutional convention, and I think this will encourage them to try, said Nancy Ekberg, the groups vice chairwoman. Capitol & statewide correspondent Tim Lockette: 256-294-4193. On Twitter @TLockette_Star. Editorial: Rewriting document in hands of people Alabama constitution revisions are for voters to accept or reject Mar. 13, 2014 7:08 PM | From the Montgomery Advertiser Alabamians are familiar with amending the state constitution. Are they ever familiar with it — they’ve done it more than 800 times. That’s a tribute to the fundamental flaws of the 1901 document, notably the centralizing of authority at the state level and sharp limits on the power of local governments. In an effort to improve the document, the longest constitution in the United States and very likely the world, the Legislature began considering revisions of portions of it. The proposed revisions then go before the voters for their decision to ratify or reject. It’s not a wholesale rewrite of the constitution, the sort of undertaking that would occur in a constitutional convention. The idea of such a convention makes many Alabamians nervous, although we have noted that a newly drafted constitution could hardly be worse than the current one. At least a new constitution would not start with the premise of disenfranchising blacks and poor whites, as the 1901 constitution’s dismal history shows, and presumably some lessons on how to improve the other aspects of the document have been learned in 113 years. With scant support in the Legislature for a convention, the article-by-article revision approach has prevailed. Now that has been called into question by two members of the state Supreme Court, Chief Justice Roy Moore and Associate Justice Tom Parker. Moore and Parker, generally joined at the hip judicially, contend that the article-by-article revisions amount to a constitutional convention within the Legislature. “By wresting the convention process from the people, the Legislature has unconstitutionally made itself the paramount mechanism of constitutional revisions,” Moore wrote in an advisory opinion. The other seven members of the court, tellingly, have not taken a similar stand. In fact, in a 2013 case, all seven — plus Parker — voted to dismiss a challenge to the process. Moore was the lone vote in support of that challenge by Sandra Bell, executive director of the Association for Judeo-Christian Values. It’s also worth noting that Article VI of the constitution, the article under which the Judicial Department operates, was revised in just this way 40 years ago. Would the justices deem the branch of government Moore leads and in which Parker serves to have been unlawfully altered back then? Alabamians should not forget that no change in the constitution can be implemented without their vote. The Legislature is not empowered to amend the constitution on its own. A case can be made for a constitutional convention as the better option for real broad-based reform, but it’s hard to see a persuasive argument against the legality of lesser measures that are debated in the Legislature and always — always — presented to the people for the final decision. For more information on the Constitution and ACCR, go to constitutionalreform.org . Unsubscribe | Privacy Policy
Posted on: Thu, 20 Mar 2014 14:28:33 +0000