Editorials

Alabama's constitutionally mandated property tax and its impact on the financing of public schools is in federal court. Again.

A recently filed suit contends that school funding is insufficient in poorer, predominately black counties because Alabama's 1901 Constitution was written to keep property taxes low in order to keep black (and poor white) children undereducated.

The result has been that the schools must rely on the Education Trust Fund, which does not have the resources. As a result, education in Alabama — from kindergarten through college — is underfunded.

Therefore, the portion of the Constitution, and subsequent amendments and laws, that keeps property taxes low is racially discriminatory and unconstitutional.

Few will deny that the authors of the 1901 Constitution had little interest in the education of poorer children. As one of them put it, give a child, black or white, more than a primary education, and "he declines ever to work another day in the sun."

It is also clear that our property-owning founding fathers were determined to keep property taxes low, which they did and their political descendents continue to do.

The argument starts when the different sides consider the purpose of the property tax restrictions. Were these specifically designed to underfund African-American schools? Or were underfunded schools just one of the many consequences of a revenue-starved state? History is fuzzy on that.

The issue becomes clearer with the 1973 passage of the Lid Bill, an amendment that further limited tax collecting on particular types of property. Once again, the two sides differ on why this was necessary. Those supporting the limitation argue that inflation was driving up the value of property faster than property owners could pay, and that homes and farms were threatened.

Opponents argue that by 1973, the impact of the Voting Rights Act was finally being felt in Black Belt counties. Local governments in those low-property tax counties were coming under the control of blacks, and to keep the newly elected from raising property taxes the Lid Bill was pushed through.

Circumstantial evidence suggests that this might indeed be the case, but like the racially discriminatory aspects of the Constitution of 1901, neither side has proven its case.

As a result, Alabama's problems must be resolved in federal court, as has often happened in the past. And once again, Alabama's future will depend on what the courts determine about Alabama's past.