Segregation ballot issue

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Fifty years after the U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing school segregation, an Alabama law mandating racially separate classrooms is still on the books.

Republican Gov. Bob Riley and others concerned about the state’s image are urging voters to approve a constitutional amendment on Nov. 2 to strike the long-unenforceable language from the state constitution. They say such laws are a painful reminder of the South’s divisive past, and make Alabama look bad when it comes to attracting new businesses.

But the amendment ballot has opponents, including former Chief Justice Roy Moore, who is suspicious of a possible hidden agenda: a huge tax increase.

“This is the most deceptive piece of legislation I have ever seen, and it is simply a fraud on the people of Alabama,” said Mr. Moore, best known for his refusal to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building.

In Mr. Moore’s view, the proposed change is an attempt to get around a 2002 state Supreme Court decision that shot down a massive school spending plan that would have required an estimated $1.7 billion in new taxes.

Mr. Moore said the proposed constitutional amendment is “a classic example of bait and switch,” with the focus now on school funding rather than Jim Crow language.

Supporters of the measure say it is not about taxes — but about erasing the last vestiges of Jim Crow provisions from Alabama law.

“This is a no-brainer. For that kind of language to still be in the Constitution is disgraceful, and we certainly need for it to be removed,” said Ken Guin, the Legislature’s House majority leader.

The debate also might offer a glimpse into the 2006 race for governor. Mr. Moore, who was ousted last year over the Ten Commandments dispute, is getting encouragement to challenge Mr. Riley in the Republican primary for governor in two years. So far, he has made no decision.

When Mr. Riley took office in 2003, his first official act was to appoint a commission to suggest ways to improve Alabama’s Constitution.

The panel recommended cleaning out the now-unenforceable Jim Crow language: a requirement for separate schools “for white and colored children,” and poll taxes, designed to keep blacks from voting.

The segregated schools language became unenforceable in 1954, when the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision unanimously ruled that “separate but equal” schools were unconstitutional.

The 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlawed poll taxes in federal elections in 1964, and a U.S. Supreme Court decision two years later did the same for state and federal elections.

When the current proposal got to the Legislature, Mr. Guin and fellow Democratic Rep. James Buskey expanded it to add a third provision. They proposed taking out part of a constitutional amendment that Alabama voters added in 1956 in an attempt to get around the Brown decision.

Mr. Guin said all they did was follow up on a 1993 decision by a state judge who struck down that portion of the 1956 constitutional amendment.