Money fights to mark 2000 Alabama Legislature

Phillip Rawls

Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2000 | 9:20 a.m.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. - The 2000 session of the Alabama Legislature beginning today will feature two big-time bouts that could mean millions to the winners.

In one battle, public schools will face off against universities for control of education dollars that could be used for raises.

The other fight pits dog tracks against gambling opponents who don't want the tracks getting a new revenue source in video gaming.

"The big fight will be over gambling," said teacher lobbyist Paul Hubbert, a veteran of more than 30 years at the Capitol.

But others say Hubbert will be in the middle of the main event.

"The biggest fight you are going to see is who is going to eat up all the money in the education budget," said Rep. John Rogers, D-Birmingham.

Last year's legislative session was marked by two big battles: Gov. Don Siegelman passing his lottery proposal and the state's first Republican lieutenant governor in more than a century feuding with Democrats over control of the Senate.

With those fights in the past, attention is shifting to the $4.3 billion education budget, where legislators will have about $200 million in extra revenue to spend. State Superintendent of Education Ed Richardson and Hubbert's Alabama Education Association want to use $96 million of that for a 4 percent pay raise for teachers that would help the governor start keeping his promise to raise teachers' salaries to the national average.

In addition, Hubbert wants $26 million to maintain teachers' health insurance, and he wants to lock in 5 percent raises for each of the next four years.

But universities are fighting for one-third of the new money so they can give raises to their employees, too.

University officials point out that their teachers' salaries rank 43rd in the nation, while public school teachers are 29th.

"K through 12 talks about the national average. We're just trying to get to the Southeastern average," Auburn University President William Muse said.

Siegelman is supporting a pay raise for public school teachers, provided it's tied to a replacement of Alabama's tenure law. He wants to remove tenure protection for new principals and to streamline the process for removing bad teachers.

"I'm going to raise teachers' salaries to the national average, but this is the tradeoff. We're going to demand accountability," Siegelman said.

Alabama's four dog tracks are back this year, again pushing legislation to let them add video gambling as a way to compete with Mississippi casinos. They are taking a new twist this time, adding a public referendum in the areas with tracks.

Sen. George Clay, D-Tuskegee, said the tracks need a new source of revenue to survive and to provide badly needed jobs, particularly in rural counties like Macon and Greene.

But anti-gambling leader Jim Cooper said the state doesn't owe the tracks anything. "It's not the state's responsibility to guarantee them a profit," he said.

Cooper has reorganized his anti-lottery group, Citizens Against Legalized Lottery, into Citizens for a Better Alabama and is pushing a constitutional amendment to ban any gambling expansion in Alabama.

Aside from money issues, talk is growing in the Legislature about revising Alabama's tax system and rewriting Alabama's 1901 constitution, which is the longest and most-amended of any state.

At the request of House Speaker Seth Hammett, Rep. Jack Venable, R-Tallassee, is working on a revision of the first article, the Declaration of Rights.

Sen. Phil Poole, D-Moundville, said that is a safer approach than trying to revise the whole constitution through a constitutional convention. "The same special interests that control the process now would control the constitutional convention," he said.

There will be several old issues in this session, such as the Republican Party's push to require voters to show identification at the polls, and some new twists on old ideas, such as Rep. Phil Crigler's bill to let a Confederate flag fly on the Capitol dome on Confederate holidays.

There will also be some fix-it jobs, including revising Alabama's new mandatory auto insurance law so that tags can still be sold by mail and by Internet.

But one thing is certain. State law requires legislators to finish their work and head home by midnight on May 15.