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Alabama NewsAlabama Politics
Connecting the Dots on Amendment Two
By Hugh McInnish
Posted on: October 26, 2004
Let's see if we can connect a few dots. There are not very many, just three in fact, so it should not be too hard. Ok, here we go.
Dot 1 is Governor Bob Riley. A short time ago he proposed Amendment 1, a proposition that would have resulted in a $1.2 billion tax increase, the largest in Alabama history. The explanation for the new tax was that our schools were in dire straits and would be grievously hurt without it. Amendment 1 was defeated by a two-to-one margin. In the election to be held November 2 there is an Amendment 2 to be voted on. It changes the wording in the Constitution regarding certain aspects of the operation of our schools.
Governor Riley is supporting Amendment 2.
Dot 2 is Dr. Ed Richardson. He is presently acting President of Auburn University, but at the time Amendment 1 was up for a vote he was our State Superintendent of Education. He strongly supported the proposed tax increase, even going so far as to threaten curtailment of athletic programs and other awful consequences if voters did not do as he said.
Dr. Richardson is supporting Amendment 2.
Dot 3 is AEA Czar Paul Hubbert. Although Dr. Hubbert feigns an interest in education his actual interest is purely in increasing his power and wealth through strengthening the liberal teachers union which he heads.
During the referendum on Amendment 1 he urged the members of his union to do all they could to get this tax measure passed. And now that there has suddenly appeared a surplus in the education fund, he urges the Legislature to use it imprudently for teacher raises rather than putting it into a rainy-day fund for insurance against future shortfalls.
Dr. Hubbert is supporting Amendment 2.
There are the three dots, and I fear that I may have insulted the intelligence of some in asking that they exert themselves to connect them. Riley, Richardson, and Hubbert? Why, the dots connect themselves. The picture that they form is that of three tax-and-spend phantoms lurking in the political mist almost beyond the visible.
Amendment 2 would remove the following three passages from the present Constitution:
REMOVE: Separate schools shall be provided for white and colored children, and no child of either race shall be permitted to attend a school of the other race.
REMOVE: To avoid confusion and disorder and to promote effective and economical planning for education, the legislature may authorize the parents or guardians of minors, who desire that such minors shall attend schools provided for their own race, to make election to that end, and such election to be effective for such period and to such extent as the legislature may provide.
REMOVE: ... 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.
There is no problem in the removal of the first two passages. It is only when we get to the third that we must pause and think. The present Constitution says that no one has a "right" to an education at public expense, and Amendment 2 would delete that statement. Although the amendment does not explicitly grant a right to education, it certainly might be plausibly argued, that by deleting the disavowal of the right, that the intent was to create the right itself.
And that would be an imminently undesirable consequence. Everyone has the right to vote, and if he doesn't get it he can go to court and demand it. So it would be if he had a right to an education.
And if Johnny isn't doing well in school, if his right to an education is not being given him, what might some court order? Special tutors three times a week? His own computer and elaborate software? Special scheduling of his classes, and individual transportation for him to and from school? New taxes so that more money can flow to his school as directed by a court? Transfer of tax money from a "rich" school district to a "poor" one? Who knows where this mischief might lead?
Yes, I may be pushing the argument a little here, but I hope that this illustrates the point.
Michael Ciamarra is the author of the original Amendment 2. After the language he wrote was mutilated by other hands to include the third deletion to the Constitution given above, he is urging us to vote "no." He is right. We should all vote no.
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