MONTGOMERY, Ala. (ABP) — Old racial wounds in Alabama are being dredged up as election officials across the state recount votes on a Nov. 2 ballot proposal that, if passed, would remove antiquated racist language from the state Constitution.
According to initial election returns, the proposal failed by the narrowest of margins — less than 2,000 votes statewide. One of the reasons it failed, many believe, is because both the state chapter of the Christian Coalition and deposed Chief Justice Roy Moore opposed it.
Moore and Alabama Christian Coalition President John Giles oppose the amendment, they said, because additional language in it could open the state to lawsuits over public-education funding and could lead to higher taxes.
But many legal experts in the state have ridiculed that argument.
Because Amendment Two failed by less than one-half of one percent of the statewide vote, Alabama law requires the recount. However, most expect it will not change the outcome, and that the language requiring separate schools for “white and colored children” will remain in the state's charter document.
The language is moot, because federal civil-rights law requires integration in public schools. But a group of Alabamians had mounted a campaign to get the language removed to help erase a stain on the state's history, from a period when black Alabamians were severely oppressed and subjected to public education and accommodations far inferior to those provided to their white counterparts.
The problem with Amendment Two is that it contains two provisions — one that would remove the segregationist language and another that says the Alabama Constitution does not guarantee a right to a public education for its citizens. The phrase about public education, added to the charter shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court's 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision that declared segregation in public schools illegal, was an attempt to circumvent that decree.
However, Giles and Moore — along with a handful of other influential conservative activists in the state — said removing that language would leave the state open to “activist judges” who could interpret the implied right to a public education as necessitating more money for public schools. That, in turn, would lead to higher taxes, they reasoned.
Moore became a folk hero to many Alabamians in 2003, while he was the head of the Alabama Supreme Court. Then, he refused to obey a federal court's order that he remove a massive granite monument to the Ten Commandments that he had installed in the rotunda of the state's judicial headquarters. A series of federal courts said the monument violated the First Amendment's ban on government establishment of religion.
Moore was removed from office for violating judicial-ethics rules. However, opinion polls in Alabama taken in the wake of the incident showed overwhelming support for Moore and his position on the commandments.
Former Moore aides won spots on the Alabama Supreme Court last year over longtime justices. One, Tom Parker, joined Moore and Giles in opposing Amendment Two during his campaign. Parker reportedly handed out Confederate battle flags on the campaign trail.
The days may still be numbered for the charter's segregationist language, though. Giles has said he would support an amendment removing that language, as long as it did not remove the language about guaranteeing a public education. The Democratic state legislator who originally sponsored the amendment has indicated he might be willing to offer such an amendment.
The recount began Nov. 29. It is expected to take several days to complete.