Lady T, you don't understand the politics behind that legislation, or the reason for the vote being as it was. I've explained it several times, but people just want to bash and trash, and disregard anything I have to say about it.
I don't like 'segregation era' language in our State Constitution. I wish it were not there, I would love to have it erased forever, and if that was all the legislation entailed, it would have passed easily. That was not the case.
First, you have to realize, the State of Alabama has the longest Constitution of any nation or state on this planet... bar none! It is over 700 pages long, and full of contradicting language. A contingent of Alabamians, have been lobbying the legislature for years, to establish a Constitutional Convention, and just rewrite the whole damn thing. This is what I support, as well as many others in my state.
Now... let's examine what happened in Alabama, regarding this specific piece of legislation... Some state legislators had drafted legislation to remove the offensive language from the Constitution... it had wide bi-partisan support, because no one wanted the language in the Constitution, and it had no legal bearing at all, it was just offensive language. After the bill had been drafted, our state booted the Democrat governor, and elected a Republican. The state legislature is predominately Democrat, and mostly from the old school Wallace wing of state politics. They had also adopted legislation to raise property taxes and school taxes in the state, which the Republican governor vowed to veto. Then, they attempted to have the referendum placed on the ballot, to do an end run around the governor, the people of Alabama rejected the new tax. THEN, they decided, to attach the tax legislation to the bill for eliminating the 'segregation era language' in the Constitution, because they felt this would be an easier way to implement the tax, no one would vote it down, because support for the bill was so strong on a moral basis. It didn't work, people weren't fooled into voting for the new taxation under the guise of eliminating the language from the antiquated Constitution.
Now, that is what happened, and how it happened, and all of this blustering about Alabamians being racist, is hogwash, it had nothing to do with racist views! It had to do with a Democrat legislature trying to force tax increases down our throats, which we had already rejected soundly at the ballot box. You can believe whatever you want to, I can't control that, but you are not acknowledging the truth, or understanding the details here, you are simply reacting emotionally to something you don't really know about.
