After years of talking about modernizing Alabama’s 111-year-old Constitution, the Legislature is going to let voters decide in the November election if they want to revise the portions regulating corporations and banks.
Republican Rep. Paul DeMarco, of Homewood, worked for six years to get the two articles approved by the entire Legislature. He got the House to approve them in 2007, 2008 and 2011, only to see them die in the Senate. He finally succeeded in winning Senate approval Tuesday. The next step is a statewide referendum.
“The public will finally have an opportunity in November to give final approval, hopefully, to these two articles,” he said.
Alabama’s 1901 Constitution was written by white men. It disenfranchised blacks and poor whites and vested lots of power in Montgomery instead of in county courthouses. Over the last 111 years, it has been amended more than 800 times, making it the longest state constitution in the nation.
Court decisions and changing times have left that document with some outdated or unenforceable provisions. Over the last few decades, some groups have advocated a constitutional convention where citizens would get to rewrite the entire document, while others have opposed that for fear it could lead to new taxes or expand gambling.
Gov. Fob James sought a rewritten Constitution in his first term. So did Bill Baxley when he was lieutenant governor. Neither succeeded.
The late Democratic Rep. Jack Venable of Tallassee pursued a middle ground, trying to get the Legislature to address one article at a time and present it to voters. He succeeded in getting the Legislature and voters to update the suffrage and elections article in 1996.
After Venable’s death, DeMarco became the leader of those trying to revise the Constitution article by article.
“This is the most effective way to get constitutional reform, and it’s the best because instead of the public having to digest an entire constitution at once, they can do it article by article,” he said.