The Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform Seeks a Dubious Rewrite of the Alabama Constitution
	What is the Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform up to? Do they seek to rewrite the Alabama Constitution single-handedly? No one ask for a Constitutional Convention. Yet ACCR holds its own convention and hand picks its delegates, apparently to eliminate all competition. Some Alabama citizens are worried the non-profit group is clandestinely rewriting the Alabama Constitution behind the scenes and without public approval or input. ACCR wants to slide this farce in on the unsuspecting public while their backs are turned. ACCR publishes their wish list in The Birmingham News, Sunday, June 21, 2009, pg. 18A. Caution - Don't be fooled by ACCR’s smooth words and deceptions. Don't worry about voting on another new law. Your right to vote will be eliminated or severely curtailed under ACCR's new constitution. Read the cautions inserted after each constitution highlight that ACCR proposes. Some of the changes ACCR seeks in a new Constitution are: 1. Counties and municipalities would be authorized to draw up home rule charters four years after adoption of the new constitution. Caution - No right to vote on new taxes here. Larry Langford and Jefferson County should scare anyone into voting against such a measure. Giving government rouge agents like Langford the unlimited and unbridled power to raise taxes - not in my lifetime!! 2. Property tax caps built into the current document would be removed. Voters would have to approve any property tax increases before they take effect. Caution - voters already have to approve any property tax increase. What audacity to suggest any new constitution would allow voters to vote on any property tax increase. IN reality, property owners would never vote on a property tax increase again. The government will be completely free to raise property taxes anytime they choose and the sky is the limit. Don't forget, higher property taxes raise rents too. 3. Governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general would be the only elected executive offices. State auditor, state treasurer, commissioner of agriculture and industries and secretary of state would be appointed by governor. Caution - ACCR does not hide on this one and boldly proclaims the right to vote will be eliminated in proposal #3. What an absurd idea. The Civil Rights Voting Act will be dead in the water. If not immediately, eventually high on the list for appointments will be judges. Lawyers & judges love this one. If judges don't want citizens to vote and thinks it cost too much to run - let them stay home on election day. 4. A five-person Compensation Commission would determine salaries for legislators. Legislative leaders would make two appointments; the governor, attorney general and Supreme Court chief justice would each appoint one member. Caution - Legislator lawyers, attorney general-lawyers, governor-lawyers and Supreme Court-lawyers will sit on all the compensation commissions and self-servingly control their own pay scale. Citizens will loose all rights to complain about legislator's salaries and the resulting salaries will hit the sky with no limitations. The Separation of Powers prevents judges & lawyers from setting legislator's salaries. Does ACCR propose to eliminate the Separation of Powers too? 5. If the Legislature has not approved the state's budgets five days before the end of the regular session, it would be forbidden from passing any other legislation until general appropriation bills are approved. Caution - Gimme my tax increases or else. 6. The Legislature must consider a call for a constitutional convention every 20 years. Caution - If I can't get you with one shot, give me another and another and another. Sooner or later I will score a direct hit. 7. The Supreme Court would be authorized to give advisory opinions to the governor and Legislature on bills. Caution - legislating from the bench is in vogue now. Another violation of the Separation of Powers? 8. The state Declaration of Rights would be expanded to include hunting and fishing rights. Caution - Okay sounds good. What you gonna do with the other 49 sections that don't need rewriting? Will ACCR use this opportunity to destroy freedom of religion or gun rights? How about a little special interest (a.k.a. ACCR rights) thrown in for good measure? The prospects are too frighten to contemplate. Alabamians cannot afford a new constitution. Just say NO to any constitution rewrite!!! The following is an example of how home rule (proposal #1) will work under a new constitution. Under ACCR's new constitution portions of schemes like the following would be legal Security Exchange Commission claim says Larry Langford sold Jefferson County for a song - The Birmingham News, Thursday, May 01, 2008 France sold us a fourth of our country's real estate for $13 a square mile, if you recall your history. Ha. The Delaware Indians, legend says, sold Manhattan for little more than a pile of beads and trinkets. Suckers. The French and Indians, as it turns out, had nothing on us. The Securities and Exchange Commission now says Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford, while president of the Jefferson County Commission, sold his people into decades of uncertainty and unfathomable debt, all for a lousy $156,000. Ooh, shiny. Clothes? Jewelry? Electronics? It's all beads and baubles. The SEC's claim against Langford, filed Wednesday, is 43 meticulous pages long, filled with so much juicy detail a truckload of sackcloth couldn't cover it up. It took but one sentence, the first in the introduction, to put it all in perspective: This case involves a public official accepting undisclosed payments from a broker-dealer in connection with the offer, purchase and sale of almost $2.9 billion of Jefferson County, Ala., municipal bonds and $3.5 billion of Jefferson County security-based swap agreements. If it doesn't make your skin crawl, I've got beads for your bungalow. Look at us now. Thanks in part to the deals outlined by the SEC, Jefferson County is $4.6 billion in debt, not counting crippling interest. It's hard to grasp. But as a smart guy told me, the best way to visualize the difference between a million and a billion is to think of money as time. A million seconds add up to 11½ days. A billion seconds, on the other hand, add up to almost 32 years. Wow. Thanks Larry. At a buck a second, it would take Jefferson County 146 years to pay the principal on its debt. Manhattan for bling. The SEC claims Langford took cash and benefits from his old pal Bill Blount in exchange for lucrative bond and swap business. They concealed the scheme by using their other pal, Al LaPierre, "as a conduit."...
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