This is the link and text of the best concise, neutral explanation I could find of the amendments on Tuesday's ballot.
It comes from The Montgomery Advertiser.
The candidates are crucial, but these measures are important, too. Make no mistake, the legislature didn't propose this stuff out of a sense of symbolism. Each one of these amendments is about where millions or billions of dollars are going to stay, go, stop going, or start going.
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012311030036
Below are summaries of the 11 statewide amendments on the ballot Tuesday.
Written by Brian Lyman
AMENDMENT 1
Amendment 1 would reauthorize Forever Wild, a program that purchases land with an eye toward recreation and environmental preservation.Approved by voters in 1992, the program said it has acquired over 227,000 acres of land in 22 counties. The program takes up to 10 percent of interest generated by the Alabama Trust Fund, a repository for income from oil and gas leases, and purchases land that has been used to protect important habitats, expand additional state parks and provide public hunting opportunities.
The amendment would allow the program to continue acquiring land. If the amendment is rejected, the land already acquired by Forever Wild will remain under the management of the Alabama Department of Conservation, but no new lands would be acquired.
The amendment was approved by the Legislature in 2011 over the objections of some groups working for agricultural entities, who said the land acquired by Forever Wild came off the tax rolls. Proponents said the program not only protects environmentally critical areas, but also generates revenue from tourism.
AMENDMENT 2
Amendment 2 would allow the state to refinance bonds issued through the Capital Improvement Trust Fund.The Capital Improvement Trust Fund, created in 2000, provides funding to support economic development projects around the state. Bonds issued from the CITF were part of the major incentive package used to lure German steelmaker ThyssenKrupp AG to Mobile County in 2007. The CITF’s bonding authority was expanded that year from $350 million to $750 million to assist the ThyssenKrupp project but has bonded out $720 million. The refinancing would allow the state to issue approximately $126.7 million more in bonds to support economic development projects.
The CITF gets its funding from 28 percent of oil and gas payments received by the state.
AMENDMENT 3
Amendment 3 is a local amendment for Baldwin County that would make the community of Stockton a landmark district that could not be annexed by other municipalities.AMENDMENT 4
Amendment 4 would remove segregation language from the state Constitution, but maintain other language added in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling.The amendment would delete language requiring separate schools for black and white children that was included in the 1901 Constitution. The measure would also remove a section of the constitution and two subsequent amendments related to poll taxes. Poll taxes were made unconstitutional for federal elections by the 24th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, passed in 1964 and finally abolished at the state level in a 1966 U.S. Supreme Court case.
However, the amendment also would leave in place language from a 1956 amendment asserting there is “no right to education or training at public expense.”
Proponents of the amendment, including the Business Council of Alabama, said it will help Alabama move on from its ugly racial past and improve the state’s image and competitiveness with industry.
Opponents, including the Alabama Education Association, said they are concerned the changes still would retain the civil rights era-language denying a right to an education and potentially undermine education funding.
AMENDMENT 5
Amendment 5 would authorize the merger of the Water and Sewer Board of the city of Prichard to the Mobile Area Water and Sewer System. The amendment will not go into effect unless a majority of residents served by each system approve the amendment.AMENDMENT 6
Amendment 6, targeting the Affordable Care Act, would forbid “any person, employer or health care provider” from being compelled to participate in a health care system.The measure targets the mandate portion of the law, which is scheduled to go into effect in 2014 and would require individuals to carry health insurance, either by themselves or through their employers. For households that cannot afford insurance, a sliding scale of subsidies would be available; a family of four making about $88,000 a year would qualify for the subsidies. Individuals that do not carry insurance and do not qualify for any existing exemption would pay a tax penalty. By 2016, that would amount to $695 a year per household or 2.5 percent of a household’s income, whichever is greater. The Urban Institute, a liberal-leaning Washington think tank, estimates about 7.3 million people — two percent of the population — would face the tax penalty.
It is unclear what effect the amendment would have if it were passed; state laws are generally pre-empted by federal ones.
AMENDMENT 7
Amendment 7 would require all union elections to take place via secret ballot.Under current federal law, workers interested in creating a union must get at least 30 percent of their fellow employees indicating that they want to be organized. If the petition is validated by the National Labor Relations Board, it will call a secret election to determine whether or not to form a union. The employer has the option of waiving the secret election and allowing the union to form if a majority of workers indicate their preference.
The amendment is a response to federal legislation proposed in 2009 that would allow unions to form automatically if at least 50 percent of workers indicated their willingness to do so, effectively removing the secret election portion. The legislation did not pass and is unlikely to come up in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
Supporters of the measure argue it will keep union balloting secret and allow workers to make up their own minds on the measures.
Opponents said the measure will allow employers to pressure employees to reject unions and make it harder to organize workforces.
AMENDMENT 8
Amendment 8 would tie lawmakers’ compensation to the median household income in the state and take future decisions about legislators’ pay out of legislators’ hands.If the amendment passes, lawmakers’ pay next year would be set at $41,413, the most recent estimate of median household income according to the U.S. Census. Lawmakers also would be reimbursed for mileage outside their districts and would have expense allowances removed. Supporters estimate the average legislator would make $46,921 per year, down from the current minimum of about $55,000 a year.
Due to mileage limits, lawmakers in the River Region would likely make less than the average legislator, while lawmakers from northern and southern Alabama would likely make more.
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