Today I not only had the opportunity to vote to re-elect Barack Obama and Joe Biden, I also got to cast a vote to repeal segregation in Alabama.
What, you say??????
Yes, if you were to look up the Alabama Constitution -- longest and most cumbersome in the world BTW -- you would find segregationist language still in there, an open sore still on the books from a time when hatred ruled the day.
Of course, none of it remains in effect. It was all invalidated years ago by court decisions. Federal law trumps state law in this regard.
But the language is still on the books, embarrassing the state by its very presence.
The constitution still provides that “separate schools shall be provided for white and colored children.” And it also still provides for a poll tax.
There was an attempt to get rid of the separate school language in 2004 but voters narrowly rejected it.
Of course, the reason that amendment failed wasn't because of a surge of segregationist fever. It was because of a campaign that convinced people that one of its provisions would allow judges to order poorly performing school districts to spend more money and raise taxes.
This time, a Republican state senator sponsored a new amendment and the uber-conservative Business Council of Alabama is backing it because -- naturally -- it's bad for business.
“The last time, the national news reported that Alabama had failed to reject segregation,” Orr said. “It played into all the negative stereotypes of our state.”
Ya think?
But just to show that nothing is ever as it seems in Alabama, the amendment is being opposed by the state teachers union, the Alabama Education Association.
Why is that, you ask?
It goes back to the 2004 election and what this amendment doesn't strike out -- the segregationist-era language that says no one in Alabama is entitled to a state-provided education. That ridiculous provision will remain in an attempt to avoid the 2004 election fiasco.
The racist language being voted on today was adopted back in the 1950s when the state of Alabama was hell-bent on doing whatever it took to thwart federally ordered school desegregaton and the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision.
Ironically -- right next to the ballot measure on removing the racist language is a new amendment designed to thwart a federal mandate upheld by the Supreme Court.
Alabamians today also are voting on an amendment designed to nullify provisions of Obamacare in the state.
It will have no greater force in law than the segregationist language, but that doesn't stop folks from trying.
It'll probably pass. And one of these days we'll be voting to remove that embarrassment from the constitution as well.