With the Alabama legislature due to open it’s legislative session the first week in March, it is time to consider whether Alabama is at long last ready to tackle some of the significant and enduring problems facing the state. 

We have schools that are chronically underfunded and underperforming, prisons that are dangerously overcrowded, the most regressive tax structure in the nation, and a state constitution that was designed to concentrate power into the hands of a few in Montgomery (which it does very well), by disenfranchising African Americans and poor whites and making it impossible for local governments to exercise control over their jurisdictions.  While the U.S. Supreme Court declared the poll taxes and literacy tests designed to disenfranchise voters unconstitutional and therefor illegal, most counties in the state still have to ask their legislative delegations to pass a constitutional amendment (that then has to be voted on by the entire state) just to provide the most basic services to their constituents.

Thus, our state constitution now has some 706 amendments–most of which deal with issues such as the polling places in Marshall County (# 696), the operation of bingo games in Limestone county (# 692), or the regulation of Real Estate License taxes in Etowah county (#684).  Our problems are so many and so severe it is difficult to decide what needs to be addressed first.

Enter our new governor.  After a long, expensive, and extremely close election, former Congressman Bob Riley was elected Governor when he defeated incumbent Don Siegelman.  The race was so close that after an election night glitch that overstated the number of votes Siegelman received in Baldwin county, he refused to concede the election for two weeks. Riley won the election with a margin of a little over 3,000 votes.  Inaugurated on January 20^th, his term really begins on March 4^th when he delivers his first state of the state address on the opening day of the 2003 legislative session.

Governor Riley campaigned and thus far has governed on a message of change.  Alabama has some rather peculiar ways of doing things (see problems, above) and our new Governor is intent on making changes in some of the most peculiar.

Enter the Alabama Legislature.  While Governor Riley represents a “new day” for Alabama, the legislature represents the status quo.  While the voters narrowly decided to replace their Democratic governor with a Republican one, no such change occurred in the legislature.  In fact, many of the same interests that contributed heavily to Riley during the campaign, were also donating hefty wads of cash to make sure most, if not all, the incumbent legislators were re-elected as well. 

The stage is now set for a showdown during the legislative session between a brand new Republican governor that was elected (even if narrowly) on a message of change and a overwhelmingly Democratic legislature that was returned to Montgomery precisely because they represent the status quo.

Governor Riley lost his first legislative showdown when he tried to form a coalition of conservative senators to replace the powerful President Pro-tem of the senate.  The Alabama Senate, already known as “the place where change goes to die,” will again be controlled almost totally by one man with his own agenda.  While he has promised to give the Governor’s agenda a fair hearing, most betting folks (and we don’t much like gambling in Alabama) would not take that bet.

Enter one more player into our drama: former Governor, Don Siegelman.  Siegelman is reportedly running hard to take back the Governor’s mansion in 2006.  He has set up an office across the street from the Capitol and is working hard to keep Democratic supporters in his camp.   His last week in office he issued a wide variety of prohibitively expensive, ethically suspect, and subsequently overturned (by Governor Riley) executive orders that were designed to do nothing more than pander to powerful voter blocs he needs in 2006.  Democrats in the Legislature know that Siegelman is watching them and he badly needs them to make sure that Riley’s agenda never sees the light of day.

The stage is set; the curtain is rising.  You can almost hear the pause as political observers hold their breath in anticipation of the opening act.  The tension is palpable.

Is this the time?  Will the governor and the legislature finally, and at long last begin to make the fundamental and systemic changes needed to create permanent solutions to the state’s many problems?  Or will we exhale in disappointment after realizing that nothing is really going to change?  Failure this time will be harder to take.  We appear to finally have the new south governor that for so long eluded Alabama.  The question is, do we have a new south legislature with the courage to put aside partisan interests for the sake of this state and its people?  We will soon know.

Past Columns:  1, 2

Dr. Susan Fillippeli owns Phronesis Consulting and is a contributing writer for PurePolitics.com and be reached at fillise@earthlink.net .