By Mike Cason
Along with choosing candidates for U.S. senator, governor, attorney general, legislative seats, judgeships, and other offices, Alabama voters will decide the fate of 10 statewide amendments on November 8.
The amendments are proposed changes to the Alabama Constitution that will appear on the ballot because the Legislature passed bills to put them there. It takes a majority of yes votes for any amendment to be added to the constitution.
In addition to the amendments, Alabama voters will decide whether to ratify the Alabama Constitution of 2022, a recompiled version of the Constitution of 1901, which has been amended almost 1,000 times.
The recompilation removes repealed sections and amendments and folds viable amendments into the applicable sections. It organizes local amendments by county and topic and removes racist language from several sections. Voters authorized the recompilation in 2020.
You can read the recompiled constitution and documents about how it was developed on the Legislature’s website.
Amendment 1
Amendment 1 would change Section 16 of the constitution, which concerns the right to bail.
Section 16 says people charged with a crime other than a capital offense are eligible for bail. It says bail amounts cannot be excessive.
Amendment 1 would add a dozen charges that could make a person ineligible for bail: Murder (other than capital murder), kidnapping, rape, sodomy, domestic violence, human trafficking, burglary, arson, and robbery, all in the 1st degree, as well as aggravated child abuse, sexual torture, and terrorism.
Amendment 1 is named Aniah’s Law in recognition of Aniah Blanchard, a college student from Homewood who was abducted and murdered in 2019. The man charged in her death was out on bond after being charged with several violent crimes. Blanchard’s parents and stepparents spoke at the State House in support of the legislation.
A companion bill passed by the Legislature will take effect if voters approve Amendment 1. The companion bill outlines the process for a pretrial detention hearing that will be required if a prosecutor asks a court to deny bail for a person charged with one of the listed crimes. The defendant could testify, call witnesses, cross-examine witnesses, and present evidence to show they should be granted bail. The judge would rule on the prosecutor’s no-bail request within 48 hours of the hearing and would have to state the reasons if bail is denied.
Rep. Chip Brown, a Republican from Mobile County, sponsored the bill for Amendment 1 and the companion bill on the pretrial detention hearings. Both bills passed the House and Senate without an opposing vote.
Amendment 2
Amendment 2 would authorize county and city governments to grant public funds to private companies to expand access to high-speed internet service, or broadband. County commissions and city councils would have to approve the funding at public meetings.
Alabama has received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds that can be used for broadband expansion and could receive much more. That includes money that has gone to the state and funds that have gone to counties and municipalities.
Government grants are important for broadband expansion because they can make it feasible for companies to extend fiber networks into areas that otherwise would not have enough customers to justify the investment.
The amendment is needed because the Alabama Constitution prohibits cities and counties from providing public funds to private companies. Voters have approved previous amendments to allow exceptions to that prohibition for economic development under the justification that the funding supports a public purpose.
Amendment 2 would establish that expansion of broadband is a project that qualifies as such an exception.
“Amendment 2 basically is the citizens of Alabama declaring that expansion of broadband serves a public purpose such that public money, municipal and county public money, can be spent to match those federal dollars to go ahead and expand it,” Lori Lein, general counsel for the Alabama League of Municipalities, said.
The Association of County Commissions of Alabama and the Alabama League of Municipalities support Amendment 2.
Rep. Randall Shedd, a Republican from Cullman County, sponsored the bill to put Amendment 2 on the ballot. It passed both houses without a dissenting vote.
Amendment 3
Amendment 3 concerns the power of the Alabama governor to commute a death sentence to life in prison.
The amendment says the governor must notify the victim’s family and the attorney general before commuting or granting a reprieve in a death sentence. Failure to do so would void the reprieve or commutation.
Gov. Fob James was the last Alabama governor to commute a death sentence in January 1999. James gave no explanation when he commuted the death sentence of Judith Ann Neeley to life in prison in the final days of his second term as governor.
Neeley was sentenced to death for the murder in 1982 of Lisa Ann Millican, 13. Neeley and her husband, Alvin Neeley, abducted Millican from a Rome, Ga., shopping mall and brutalized her over several days. Judith Ann Neelley handcuffed Millican to a tree at Little River Canyon in DeKalb County, injected her with drain cleaner, shot her, and threw her body into the canyon.
Sen. Steve Livingston, a Republican from Scottsboro, said he sponsored the bill proposing Amendment 3 at the request of Millican’s family, who received no notification about Neeley’s commutation. Livingston said he worked with the governor’s office to develop the proposal. No senators or representatives voted against Livingston’s bill.
James’ commutation made Neeley eligible for parole, although James later said his intention was that she not be eligible. Millican’s family came to Montgomery for Neeley’s parole hearing in 2018 to oppose her parole, which was denied.
Amendment 4
Amendment 4 would prohibit the Legislature from changing election laws near the date of a general election.
The amendment says that any change in election law passed during a year with a general election must take effect at least six months before the election.
The bill was one of a number of election laws proposed by Republican lawmakers in the wake of the 2020 presidential election and complaints that changes in election procedures in some states stemming from the pandemic contributed to President Donald Trump’s defeat. For example, the Legislature approved bills banning curbside voting and setting an earlier deadline to mail an absentee ballot application.
Rep. Jim Carns, R-Vestavia Hills, sponsored the bill proposing Amendment 4. It passed mostly along party lines with most Republicans for it and most Democrats opposed.
Amendment 5
Amendment 5 would delete from the constitution a provision that says probate judges have general jurisdiction over “orphans’ business.”
Sen. Will Barfoot, R-Montgomery, sponsored the bill proposing the amendment. There was no opposition to the bill in the Senate or the House. Barfoot said he sponsored the bill at the request of the Alabama Law Institute, which recommends legislation to update and clarify Alabama laws.
David Kimberley, deputy director of the institute, said the listing of “orphans’ business” as a constitutional duty of probate judges is obsolete language. He said the removal would have no practical impact. Kimberley said the amendment was one of the recommendations of a committee that proposed changes to Article VI, the judicial article of the constitution.
Amendment 6
Amendment 6 would allow cities and towns that collect a special property tax to pay bonds or other debt service on public capital improvements to also use those tax dollars to directly pay for public capital improvements on a “pay as you go” basis instead of going into debt.
Rep. Mike Ball, R-Madison, sponsored the bill proposing Amendment 6. It passed both houses without an opposing vote.
Amendment 7
Amendment 7 would clarify the authority of counties, cities, and towns to use public funds for economic development purposes.
Section 94 of the constitution prohibits counties, cities, and towns from lending its credit or giving public money or a thing of value to private companies. That hindered the ability of local governments to use public funds for roads, utilities, and other infrastructure improvements needed to recruit industry and business.
Over time, voters approved amendments providing exceptions to the prohibition for individual counties. In 2004, voters approved Amendment 772, a statewide provision allowing all counties to spend public money to support economic development projects.
Sonny Brasfield, executive director of the Association of County Commissions of Alabama, said there has been some legal dispute over whether Amendment 772 can be used in counties that have passed their own economic development amendments. Brasfield said Amendment 772 is a more comprehensive tool for counties to fund economic development than the local amendments, many of which were passed with one specific project in mind.
“(Amendment 7 will) say clearly that the powers in 772, which is used on a monthly basis around the state, that those powers apply to all counties and cities, even those that have separate amendments,” Brasfield said. The association and the League of Municipalities support Amendment 7.
Rep. Jeff Sorrells, a Republican from Geneva County, sponsored the bill proposing Amendment 7. It passed both houses without an opposing vote.
Amendment 8
Amendment 8 applies only to Shelby County. It would put privately-owned sewage systems under regulation by the Alabama Public Service Commission. The PSC would regulate the rates billed to customers. The amendment applies to privately-owned systems that use public road rights-of-way.
Municipalities in the county could opt out of the PSC regulation and regulate the sewer systems.
Sen. Jabo Waggoner, a Republican from Vestavia Hills, sponsored the bill. It passed the Senate without an opposing vote. Four Democrats voted against it in the House.
Amendment 9
Amendment 9 is similar to Amendment 8. It would put privately owned sewage systems in the town of Lake View in Tuscaloosa and Jefferson counties under the regulation of the Alabama Public Service Commission.
Rep. Rich Wingo, a Republican from Tuscaloosa, sponsored the bill proposing Amendment 9. It passed the House with no opposition but two Republican senators voted against it.
Amendment 10
Amendment 10 is a companion to the proposed recompiled Alabama Constitution of 2022.
If voters ratify the Constitution of 2022, Amendment 10 provides that any new amendments will be properly organized in the recompiled document.
Rep. Merika Coleman, a Democrat from Pleasant Grove, sponsored the bill proposing Amendment 10. It passed both chambers without a dissenting vote. Coleman also sponsored the legislation that voters approved in 2020 to authorize the recompilation project.
Want to read more about the amendments? The Legislature created the Fair Ballot Commission in 2014 to write plain-language statements summarizing the sometimes confusing proposals approved by lawmakers.
Read the Fair Ballot Commission’s summaries of the 10 amendments and the proposed Constitution of 2022.
