Detour
Regular Member
imported post
Most of you may know this but if notits food for thought and I found it interesting and posted it. Ihope thats OK.I found it onWikipedia
The Constitution of the State of Alabama is the basic governing document of the U.S. state of Alabama. It was adopted in 1901 and is the sixth constitution that the state has had.
At 357,157 words (using Microsoft Word's word count feature), the document is 12 times longer than the average state constitution, 40 times longer than the U.S. Constitution, and is the longest still-operative constitution anywhere in the world (the Constitution of India, the longest national constitution, comes in at approximately 117,369 words).
About 90 percent of the document's length, as of 2008, comes from its 798 amendments. Thus there is in fact one amendment less than the number of the final amendment, 799, as amendment 693 does not exist. About 70 percent of those amendments cover only a single county or city, and some deal with salaries of specific officials (e.g. Amendment 480 and the Greene County probate judge). This gives Alabama a large number of constitutional officers.
The Preamble runs:
We the people of the State of Alabama, invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish the following Constitution.
Notable features:
The inordinate length is both because of and the cause of heavy centralization of government power in the state capital, Montgomery, leaving very little authority to local units. Counties cannot even legislate on local issues, requiring the state legislature, and ipso facto uninvolved parts of the state, to pass local laws.
The constitution addresses many issues that are dealt with by statute in most other states. The most notable issue is taxation. Unlike most other states, a large portion of Alabama's tax code is written into the constitution. Besides prohibiting local governments from passing any ordinances on tax issues, this necessitates its amendment over minor taxation issues. This, along with the requirement that an amendment must be unanimously approved by the legislature or face a statewide vote, has resulted in local county or municipality related amendments being overwhelmingly approved, but ultimately rejected statewide
Most of you may know this but if notits food for thought and I found it interesting and posted it. Ihope thats OK.I found it onWikipedia
The Constitution of the State of Alabama is the basic governing document of the U.S. state of Alabama. It was adopted in 1901 and is the sixth constitution that the state has had.
At 357,157 words (using Microsoft Word's word count feature), the document is 12 times longer than the average state constitution, 40 times longer than the U.S. Constitution, and is the longest still-operative constitution anywhere in the world (the Constitution of India, the longest national constitution, comes in at approximately 117,369 words).
About 90 percent of the document's length, as of 2008, comes from its 798 amendments. Thus there is in fact one amendment less than the number of the final amendment, 799, as amendment 693 does not exist. About 70 percent of those amendments cover only a single county or city, and some deal with salaries of specific officials (e.g. Amendment 480 and the Greene County probate judge). This gives Alabama a large number of constitutional officers.
The Preamble runs:
We the people of the State of Alabama, invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God, do ordain and establish the following Constitution.
Notable features:
The inordinate length is both because of and the cause of heavy centralization of government power in the state capital, Montgomery, leaving very little authority to local units. Counties cannot even legislate on local issues, requiring the state legislature, and ipso facto uninvolved parts of the state, to pass local laws.
The constitution addresses many issues that are dealt with by statute in most other states. The most notable issue is taxation. Unlike most other states, a large portion of Alabama's tax code is written into the constitution. Besides prohibiting local governments from passing any ordinances on tax issues, this necessitates its amendment over minor taxation issues. This, along with the requirement that an amendment must be unanimously approved by the legislature or face a statewide vote, has resulted in local county or municipality related amendments being overwhelmingly approved, but ultimately rejected statewide