Alabama Law - Constitution of Alabama (Paperback)

Chapters: Constitution of Alabama. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 48. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: 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, 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 English translation of the Constitution of India, the longest national constitution, is about 117,369 words long, a third of the length.) About 90 percent of the document's length, as of 2008, comes from its 798 amendments. 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 the 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. The extreme 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 govern...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=122123