My friend Eugene Oregon reminds us that that voters in Alabama, perhaps the reddest of all red states, had a chance to remove disgusting and racist language from its state constitution this week — but chose not to.
An effort to rid Alabama’s Constitution of segregation-era language appears to be losing by a slim margin after critics raised concerns that it could lead to a court-ordered tax increase for public schools.
With 99% of precincts reporting as the unofficial count neared completion today, Amendment Two was losing by about 3,400 votes out of 1.37million cast.
There were nearly 689,000 votes against it, and 685,508 votes for it.
Alabama legally mandated segregated public schools long before the Supreme Court struck down “separate but equal.” Of course, after Brown, Alabama didn’t have a choice about the law, which the state could no longer enforce, but it remained on the books. Its presence was a moot point, but was an ugly reminder of the state’s racist policies. This was a chance to set the state constitution right, but groups like the Christian Coalition and lunatics like Roy Moore fought to defeat it. Unless absentee ballots and/or a recount tip the scales, their support for Jim Crow laws have won.
I suppose the saving grace here is that the narrowly defeated provision is being reworded to alleviate the fears of the radical fringe.
Still, for a state that couldn’t appear much worse, Alabama didn’t have a good week.