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Information for this page was received from
several sources including:
The Anniston Star
April 1 Article: Hey Alabama, Want to Know
How Out of Touch Your Constitution is?
The Alabama Archives
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Strange Things to Know about
the Alabama Constitution
Did you know that Amendment 520 allows Madison
County to exhume human remains?
 Did
you know that the Alabama constitution makes chicken feed tax-free
while baby food is not. Did you also know that motor oil is tax-free
while prescription drugs are not?
Did you know that Admendment
546 authorizes Limestone County to tax pool halls and bowling alleys?
Did you know that the 1901 Constitution actually
states, "The state shall not engage in works of internal improvements."
 Did
you know that Amendment 351 permits a tax that lets Mobile County
spray for mosquitoes and kill rats?
Did you know that the Legislature had to pass
and the whole state had to vote on a constitutional amendment that
repealed a bounty on beaver pelts in Fayette County?
Home
Rule and the County Governement
 The
framers of the 1901 constitution - a coven of industrialists and
land barons intent on protecting and preserving their power - deliberately
centered control in Montgomery, at the expense of Alabama's counties.
They believed, rightly, that it's easier to control one Legislature
than it is to control 67 county governments. So they designed a
constitution that forced county governments to go begging to the
Legislature for local laws. The constitution also forced amendments
for any exceptions to state law sought by counties.
Taxing Issues
On tax issues alone, the constitution contains
more than 200 amendments establishing specific local taxes, providing
tax exemptions and creating special taxing districts, among other
items.
For example, Amendment
373 requires that business property be assessed for taxes at twice
the rate of residential or agricultural property. Next, the amendment
reduced the already low tax bite on agricultural land by as much
as half or more. It did this through a unique and  arbitrary
trick known as "current use." Alabama applies current use to virtually
any property, urban or rural, where owners claim to be growing something
for sale. The tract may be a paper company's vast pine plantation
miles from the nearest town. Or it may be a few acres next to a
mall where a speculator has stuck some pine trees. Indeed, more
than half the property on Mobile County's tax rolls has current
use protection. As a result, the land in this category produces
just 1 percent of the county's property taxes. Taxed at its fair
market value, this land would yield $2.4 million in annual county
taxes; taxed under current use, it yields $1.3 million, according
to the county revenue office.
Size Matters
The U.S. Constitution will fit into your shirt pocket, having been
amended just 27 times. Alabama's constitution, 40 times longer,
has been amended more than 700 times. Amendment 489, the one dealing
with the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, is nearly as long as the U.S.
Constitution!
Retirement and the Constitution
 The
constitution prohibits local public officials from participating
in public retirement plans. In response, local governments often
let their longtime public servants retire through a ruse called
"supernumerary" pay. They pretend these retired officials are still
working and on call. A much cheaper and fairer way is to have officials
contribute to retirement plans, just as regular public employees
do. But to do this, a county first must seek a constitutional amendment.
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