1. Tutwiler warden copes with `ticking time bomb' [BN, p.1]

2. State cancels western bypass project [MR, p.2]

3. More stalling tactics planned in state Senate [AP, MA, p.3]

4. Bill Would Put Personnel Board Under Sunset Law [BN, p.4]

5. Bill would list clergy suspects [MA, p.6]

6. Nursing homes push lawsuit reform bills [BN, p.6]

7. Alabama could get more Boeing jobs [AP, p.7]

8. Group sponsoring Black Belt tour, conference [BN, p. 8]

9. Don't let children tie knot [MR, p.8]

10. Compromise now, so Senate can move ahead [MR, p.9]

11. Baker gives up fight for school board seat [BN, p.10]

12. Cramer's questions worth considering [MA, p.10]

13. Good Morning Governor [MA, p.11]

1. Tutwiler warden copes with `ticking time bomb'

• A copy of the U.S. Constitution hangs in one of the inmate dorms in Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women. [BN, "Tutwiler warden copes with `ticking time bomb'," Crowder, 04/08/03]
• The dorm's walls are painted a medicinal pink, thought to be soothing for the recovering addicts assigned to this particular dorm, which is funded by federal crime prevention money. Inmates are taught to be patriotic in the "crime bill" dorm. [BN]
• Yet four months after a federal judge declared conditions in the prison violated the promises in the Constitution, little has changed behind the razor wire and clanging doors of Alabama's only lockup for women. [BN]
• "I would love for every legislator to come visit this prison," said Gladys Deese, Tutwiler's warden since 2001. Over the last two years about five lawmakers have stopped in, as the strains of crowding get worse. [BN]
• "Nobody's come this session," Deese said. [BN]
• Meantime, it falls on Deese to keep prisoners and staff safe in this "ticking time bomb," as it was described in the court's Dec. 2 order. [BN]
• Last week, there were 992 women in a prison built for 342. [BN]
• Women line hallways between the dorms. Others curl up in beds, asleep amid the midday clamor of prison life. The sick clog the narrow hallway of the medical unit, lying on cots while the traffic of nurses and patients shuffles by. The inmates in the nearby HIV-positive section shout through the bars of their isolation unit. [BN]
• Prisoners cram knee-to-knee into GED classrooms, elbow-to-elbow in court-ordered drug-rehab sessions. There is a waiting list for just about anything that would help a criminal do better on the outside, but no space to add more classes. [BN]
• Last week, a Baldwin County judge handed down another order attempting to remedy deficiencies at Tutwiler. The judge wants a 12-month drug treatment program at the women's prison, similar to ones offered at some men's prisons. [BN]
• At times, judges order drug offenders to undergo rehab as part of their sentence. But when rehab is not quickly available, non-violent addicts take up precious space waiting on a program. [BN]
• "The way Alabama brags about how we house inmates lower than other states. I don't think that's something to brag about," Deese said. [BN]
• "Seventy percent of your prisoners are going to return to society. Do you want them returned with a skill or a GED, or having been warehoused, sitting around thinking about how not to get caught the next time?" Deese said. [BN]
• Smoking is banned inside, yet dorms reek of cigarettes because some rules are impossible to enforce under these conditions. In order to feed everyone, breakfast begins at 3:40 a.m. [BN]
• During the day, the inmates with jobs are at work and the inmates enrolled in classes are in school. Hundreds of idle bodies in white prison uniforms mill around the dorms and halls. [BN]
• Fans are going in early spring warm weather. There is no air conditioner. [BN]
• It is a decrepit, dismal place with holes worn through the floor tiles and bare dirt across much of the recreation yard. [BN]
• The Siegelman administration would not let reporters see this, citing security risks. Gov. Bob Riley's officials have taken a different tack. Corrections Commissioner Donal Campbell wants the public and the Legislature to view the crowded prisons in hopes the disturbing sardine-can scenes will urge them to act. [BN]
• So far, the Legislature has approved $2.7 million in emergency funding because the state has been sued over Tutwiler's unsafe conditions. It would pay for temporarily housing about 290 Tutwiler women in a Louisiana private prison. U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson, who found the prison unconstitutionally unsafe, has not yet approved the transfer plan. [BN]
• And it is a short-term solution. Long-term, Campbell has said he needs a $126 million increase above last year's $258 million corrections budget. That's for the entire department, but some would be used for a new women's prison. [BN]
• State agencies are being asked to cut budgets 5 percent this year. It's unlikely, even with federal courts closing in, that prisons will get a hefty increase. [BN]

• Citing overwhelming public and political opposition, the Alabama Department of Transportation has scuttled its designs for a highway bypass that would link Interstates 65 and 10 through northern and western Mobile County. [MR, "State cancels western bypass project," Myers, 04/08/03]
• Transportation officials had said the road was needed to deal with growth in that part of the county and to relieve congestion on I-65 and Airport Boulevard. The road also was supposed to give people another route to the airport. [MR]
• Ronnie Poiroux, division engineer for the Mobile office of DOT, said he believes the road is still needed, but he couldn't say when, or if, the project would be revived. [MR]
• Poiroux said plans also were hampered by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which he said would have required the state to analyze the environmental impact of develop ment that would be spurred by the road, not just the impact of the road itself. [MR]
• The highway would have started at Interstate 65 near Saraland or Satsuma, run west towards Semmes, then cut south to meet I-10 in Grand Bay or Irvington. It would have been about 30 miles long and was projected to cost between $200 million and $250 million. [MR]
• About 1,000 people swarmed into a public hearing in west Mobile County in the spring of 2002. Many of those people expressed unhappiness with the proposed road because it would have cut through their neighborhoods. A similar meeting in the north part of the county didn't garner as much opposition. [MR]
• Highway engineers went back to the drawing board and presented two different routes for the road at public hearings in January. The new routes placated some residents of west Mobile County, but many people still opposed it. [MR]
• Of about 1,000 responses from the public, 72 percent said they did not support the concept of the road, according to DOT documents. Again, most of the opposition was in the western part of the county. [MR]
• In February, Poiroux wrote a letter to Don Vaughn, a deputy director of the DOT in Montgomery, and recommended that the project be abandoned. In a meeting last week, Vaughn agreed, Poiroux said. [MR]
• "Basically, what they said was we have other projects in the area that need it worse than the western loop project," Poiroux said. "Right now we have more on the books than we can fund as it is." [MR]
• Those projects include the relocation of U.S. 98 near Big Creek Lake, a new I-10 interchange to Bayou La Batre and an I-10 bridge over the Mobile River. [MR]
• Jim Eubanks, head of Citizens Against the Interstate Bypass, said he was glad to hear that the project had been canceled, but he wanted to hear it from the DOT itself. He suggested that the city and the county capitalize on the project's demise to consider more innovative methods of serving the growth and transportation needs of the area. [MR]
• "We need to have smart planning, not just pave-over-everything planning," he said. [MR]
• Mobile Mayor Mike Dow and County Commission President Freeman Jockisch both initially supported the project, but said Monday they were happy that it was on hold. [MR]
• Dow said he liked the idea of a connector between I-10 in Tillman's Corner and the airport, but the road became something else. [MR]
• "By trying to put it further and further out and trying to get less criticism, we've killed the ... value it would've had if it were an airport connector from the Tillman's Corner area," he said. [MR]
• Jockisch and Commissioner Mike Dean, whose districts include some of the affected area in the western and southern parts of the county, said constituents called them to voice opposition to the road. Commissioner Sam Jones, however, said he hadn't heard from any of his constituents. [MR]
• The Mobile Area Water and Sewer System also voiced opposition to the project because the road would have come too close to Big Creek Lake, the source of the system's water. And the Prichard City Council passed a resolution opposing the road, saying it would draw people away from its city. [MR]
• Gopher tortoises, a threatened species, likely live in path of the bypass, but the DOT has created a refuge so they can be moved out of the way of future road projects. [MR]

• The 2003 session of the Alabama Legislature is moving slowly, and some state senators intend to keep it that way. [AP, "More stalling tactics planned in state Senate," Rawls, 04/07/03]
• Of the 915 bills introduced so far this session, only one has made it all the way through the Legislature -- an extra $4.55 million for the state prison system.
• The Senate hasn't passed a bill since March 11, and the slow pace is likely to be repeated Tuesday when the lawmakers return to Montgomery. [AP]
• Sixteen senators slowing down the Senate say they have been shut out of the process, and they plan to keep the pace slow "until some fairness comes out of it. We owe it to our constituents," said Sen. Wendell Mitchell, D-Luverne. [AP]
• Senate President Pro Tem Lowell Barron, who leads the Senate's 19-member majority, said the 16 senators are keeping the Legislature from addressing the important business of the state. [AP]
• "I do not believe the people of Alabama elected these senators to come to Montgomery to play petty games and ignore the urgent issues facing our state," said Barron, D-Fyffe. [AP]
• The House has not experienced stalling tactics like the Senate. The House is scheduled to consider a bill Tuesday that would require ministers to report suspected child abuse to authorities, except cases they learn about through a private confession. [AP]
• The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Allen Boothe, D-Troy, is supported by Republican Attorney General Bill Pryor. [AP]
• Tensions have been high in the Senate since January, when Barron beat Mitchell 19-16 for the president pro tem's position. Barron was supported by 19 Democrats, while Mitchell got the votes of six Democrats and all 10 Republicans. [AP]
• After Barron's victory, the Senate voted 28-7 for rules that allowed Barron's side to determine who serves on each Senate committee, who serves as committee chairmen, and which bills end up on the Senate's work agenda each day. [AP]
• Mitchell's allies wound up with one-fourth to one-third of the seats on major Senate committees, and they complain that Barron's side is keeping them from having any impact. [AP]
• "They are control freaks," said Sen. Hap Myers, R-Mobile. [AP]
• The minority wants the committees reassigned to give them 45 percent of the seats, which is proportional to their strength in the Senate. [AP]
• The also want two hours' notice of which bills will be on the Senate's work agenda each day and a proportionate number of bills on the work agenda. [AP]
• Barron says the battle over control of the Senate was decided in January, and senators who voted for the operating rules in January shouldn't be "whining" now. [AP]
• "Their games are preventing the Legislature from passing legislation that will protect our citizens, serve our citizens and keep our state working," Barron said. [AP]
• Under the state's "budget isolation" law, three-fifths of the Senate has to vote to consider any bill before the state budgets pass. If all senators are voting, 21 votes are needed to consider a bill. [AP]
• As long as Mitchell's side votes as a bloc, as it did on Thursday, Barron's side can't get enough votes to bring up any bill for debate. [AP]

• A bill to let lawmakers review and possibly abolish the state Personnel Board could give the state employees' union more influence over state workers' salaries, promotions and disciplinary rules, opponents said Monday. [BN, "Bill would put Personnel Board under sunset law," 04/08/03]

• "The fox would be guarding the hen house," said state Personnel Board member Harry McMillan of Montgomery. "That's not what the taxpayers of this state want or deserve." [BN]
• But state Rep. Oliver Robinson, D-Birmingham, said regular oversight of the board would help ensure that 35,000 state employees are treated fairly by the five-member board. [BN]
• "Any organization that deals with people as closely as the state Personnel Board does should have some oversight," said Robinson, who is sponsoring the bill. [BN]
• The Personnel Board oversees the state merit system, which lawmakers created in 1939 in a bid to find a non-political way for state agencies to test and hire people. [BN]
• The board sets pay ranges for state jobs, subject to the governor's approval. It also sets rules for promoting and firing state employees and holds hearings on the cases of state workers who appeal their dismissals. [BN]
• Robinson's bill would put the Personnel Board under the Alabama sunset law, which sets ending dates for more than 50 state boards and agencies, such as the insurance department and boards that oversee architects and contractors. [BN]
• Those boards and agencies face abolishment every four years if the Legislature doesn't renew them. A committee of 12 lawmakers reviews each board or agency and writes bills saying they should be continued, abolished or changed, such as by putting other people in charge or letting it collect higher fees. [BN]
• The Sunset Review Committee almost never recommends abolishing an agency but sometimes does suggest changes. [BN]
• The full Legislature can rewrite the committee's bills, but if no sunset review bill is passed for a board or agency, it is abolished. [BN]
• Under Robinson's bill, the Personnel Board would come up for review Oct. 1, 2004, and every four years thereafter. [BN]
• His bill adds a twist. If lawmakers abolish the board, a new personnel board or commission would have to be established within six months. The bill doesn't say who would appoint the new board or commission. [BN]
• Mac McArthur, executive director of the Alabama State Employees Association, praised the bill. He said review by the Sunset Review Committee might make the Personnel Board treat state employees better. [BN]
• "It's the feeling among state employees that they're not treated fairly, that they don't get a fair shake," McArthur said. "We feel very strongly that (the) state Personnel Board should have some point of accountability. They're not some kind of sacred cow." [BN]
• J. Ray Warren of Montgomery, a recently retired state employee who served four years on the Personnel Board, said the four board members who aren't state workers tend to side with overseers more than employees in termination hearings. [BN]
• "I think there is a bias against state employees," said Warren, who supports the bill. [BN]
• But state Personnel Director Tommy Flowers said sunset review would give the state employees' association a chance every four years to lobby lawmakers to give state workers more seats on the board. [BN]
• The association gave more than $900,000 in campaign contributions last year. [BN]
• "This is a continuation of several attempts we have seen to erode the authority of the citizens' board to give additional representation to employee interests, who in effect would be acting on their own interests when they considered such matters as salary range increases," Flowers said. [BN]
• The five Personnel Board members serve staggered six-year terms. The governor picks two members, the lieutenant governor picks one, the House speaker picks one and state employees elect one. [BN]
• McMillan blasted Robinson's bill. "It would subject the merit system to a complete takeover by political interests, and the purpose of the merit system is to keep that from happening," he said. [BN]

• A bill that would add members of the clergy to the list of those who must report known or suspected child abuse or neglect began with last year's first runner-up in the Miss Alabama contest. [MA, "Bill would list clergy suspects," Sherman, 04/08/03]
• Kelly Hawkins of Troy, daughter of Troy State University Chancellor Jack Hawkins, became interested in prevention of child abuse when she worked in a Troy day care center. [MA]
• "In the day care center, I worked with some children who were abused at home. I became interested in the area and I plan to go to law school and specialize in child protective law," said Hawkins, who will compete in the Miss Alabama pageant again this year with prevention of child abuse as a platform. [MA]
• Hawkins said the clergy-reporting bill grew out of meetings with Rep. Alan Boothe, D-Troy, Sen. Jabo Waggoner, R-Birmingham, and officials with the Childrens Trust Fund. [MA]
• Boothe expects the bill to come before the House today. [MA]
• It was approved by the House Judiciary Committee last week with an amendment that would require authorities to clear the record if an accused is not convicted. [MA]
• "I want to go into politics so I can affect child welfare legislation," Hawkins said. [MA]
• She is off to a good start. [MA]
• "She got me thinking," Boothe said. Senate companion legislation by Waggoner is out of committee also, but stalled in the upper chamber, Boothe said. [MA]
• "My bill would require a member of the clergy to report to the police or Department of Human Resources if he or she suspects child abuse," Boothe said. [MA]
• He said recent incidents of abuse by priests and ministers have built support for the legislation. The Rev. Alexander J. Sherlock resigned from the priesthood at St. Peter's Catholic Church in Montgomery in February after he admitted three incidents of child abuse to Archbishop Oscar Lipscomb of the Mobile diocese. [MA]
• Hospitals, clinics, doctors, dentists, nurses, teachers and day care workers already are required to report abuse or suspected abuse. [MA]
• "I think it will sail through," said Rep. Dick Brewbaker, R-Montgomery, who added the amendment that would clear a record of an investigation if no conviction results. [MA]
• "Everybody on the list is state licensed. Others have more contact with people than the clergy. Teachers see kids everyday and doctors are trained to know what they are looking at, but until now there had been no provision for expungement. If suspected abuse is reported, people stayed on the list for five years," Brewbaker said. [MA]

• Alabama nursing homes urged lawmakers Monday to pass lawsuit reform bills for their industry this week, including a $250,000 damage cap on wrongful death lawsuits filed by patients' families. [BN, "Nursing homes push lawsuit reform bills," Chandler, 04/08/03]
• Industry advocates during a press conference at the Alabama State House said lawsuits are causing insurance costs to spiral out of control, potentially running some homes out of business. Liability insurance costs have jumped from $400 per bed in 1995 to $3,120, today, according to the Alabama Nursing Home Association. [BN]
• "There's just not enough money to keep feeding the trial lawyers and to provide the quality of care our seniors need," said Melissa Galvin, a gerontologist and associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. [BN]
• The Alabama Nursing Home Association is pushing a three-bill package that would: cap damages in both death and non-death cases at $250,000; create a complaint review board; and designate who can make decisions for a patient. [BN]
• Another bill would create a patient's compensation fund to which all nursing homes would contribute. It, too, would cap damages at $250,000. [BN]
• The head of a consumer group called the bills "scary," saying they would protect homes that abuse and neglect. [BN]
• "They put a price tag on the worth of a life," said Barbara Evans, executive director of Alabama Watch, a consumer advocacy group. "All four bills are terrible. It's all about money and profits. I resent that they are trying to portray these bills as protection. [BN]
• "We will not deny the homes have an insurance problem. We all have an insurance problem. But you don't take rights away from old people because you have an insurance problem." [BN]
• The bills will be debated in a Senate committee Wednesday. They are setting up a legislative battle between nursing homes and trial lawyers, both major contributors to 2002 political campaigns. Both sides have begun public relations drives, preparing ads to sell their point of view. One ad that aired on behalf of the nursing home industry shows an attorney stuffing himself with the food that an elderly patient had been eating. [BN]
• The father and wife of patients living in a Wetumpka nursing home appeared at Monday's press conference on behalf of the Alabama nursing home industry. [BN]
• "My son is receiving excellent care, but I'm afraid if this crisis continues, they'll shut their doors," said Jack Ray, whose son Butch is in a nursing home because of cerebral palsy. [BN]
• However, Montgomery trial lawyer Jere Beasley argued that $250,000 is not adequate punishment if one of those patients should suffer or die from abuse and neglect. His firm has handled cases over a patient who died from blood poisoning because of infections and a woman whose ears had to be amputated because of pressure sores, he said. [BN]
• "This gives them complete license and immunity to abuse elderly citizens," Beasley said. [BN]
• Sen. Myron Penn, D-Union Springs, is pushing separate legislation, called the "Nursing Home Residents Bill of Rights," mandating increased staffing and care levels. [BN]

• As Boeing Co. considers cost-cutting options, Alabama and Florida stand to gain jobs from Boeing's California operations. [AP, "Alabama could get more Boeing jobs," 04/08/03]
• Boeing is trying to cut costs in its Delta Rocket program, which employs about 3,000 people in Huntington Beach, Calif. There, employees work on engineering and mission support for the Delta II, Delta III and Delta IV rockets. [AP]
• Boeing officials said the company is looking at three options for cutting costs on Delta programs. Two of those options include transferring some or a majority of the work from the Huntington Beach plant to Decatur and Cape Canaveral, Fla. That does not mean it would create new jobs, but instead just transfer those workers to Alabama and Florida, officials stressed.. [AP]

• An economic development group is sponsoring a tour of the Black Belt and a community economic development conference Saturday in Selma. [BN, "Group sponsoring Black Belt tour, conference," Dedrick, 04/08/03]
• Initiative 7 is the brainchild of U.S. Rep. Artur Davis, D-Birmingham, who represents the 7th Congressional District. Davis looks to Initiative 7 to boost community development activities in the Black Belt, the state's most economically depressed area. [BN]
• Initiative 7, a nonprofit group made up of elected officials, industrial developers and community and neighborhood developers, will provide the technical assistance necessary to help counties plan and develop regional projects of their own. Once those projects are identified, Initiative 7 will assist in finding the money to complete them. [BN]
• "We won't give money to community organizations but will pay for top assistants in the country to come and help them develop their ideas," said Ava Hopkins, project coordinator. [BN]
• The Community and Economic Development Strategy Conference begins Friday with a tour of Eutaw, Greensboro, Selma, Tuscaloosa and Birmingham to view community economic development efforts. Workshops begin at 10 a.m. Saturday at Wallace State Community College in Selma. [BN]
• Teams of community economic development experts will meet with county representatives during the conference and evaluate their projects. [BN]
• Private donors are paying for the conference and technical support, Hopkins said. It is free to participants. [BN]
• Ivan Holloway, executive director of Seedco in Birmingham and president of the Initiative 7 board said conference participants would find opportunities to partner with counterparts in other counties and bridge gaps that might otherwise exist. [BN]
• "Initiative 7 is an opportunity to bring together folks from the region who are involved in economic development or who want to be involved but don't know where to start," Holloway said. [BN]

• The Alabama Senate will do right if it follows the House's lead and votes to ban child marriages. Gov. Bob Riley has agreed to sign the bill once it gets to his desk. [MR, "Don't let children tie knot," 04/08/03]
• The House unanimously passed legislation last week that raises the minimum marriage age from 14 to 16, which is only sensible. A similar bill sits in the Senate.
• A Register series published recently outlined the many problems with allowing 14- and 15-year-olds to marry. Most important, young teens ڙ no matter how mature ڙ don't have the experience or the emotional and rational maturity to make such a monumental commitment.
• The law legitimizes what could, under other circumstances, be called child abuse or statutory rape.
• There are a host of other reasons why 14 is too young: The younger the bride or groom, the more likely the marriage will end in divorce. Most other states have set at least 16 as the minimum, so Ala bama has the unflattering reputation as the place to go to get married if you're under 16. An Alabama judge, for example, married a 42-year-old Louisiana woman and her 14-year-old groom recently because they couldn't get married in their home state.
• Alabama is one of just three states where 14- and 15-year-olds can get married with parental consent alone. A few other states allow marriages at such ages if the girl is pregnant, or a judge OKs the marriage ڙ neither of which is good reason enough to let children get married.
• Granted, Alabama's law might have made sense when it was written ڙ in 1852, when marrying at an early age was sometimes a means of survival. Society is more complex today, though, and the average age of brides is now 25.
• The House made the right decision last week; now it's the Senate's turn to bring common-sense to Alabama's marriage laws by raising the minimum age to 16.

• Politicians are playing a high-stakes game of chicken over who'll control the Alabama Senate. If they persist, the ultimate losers in the dispute won't be state senators, however, but ordinary Alabamians. [MR, "Compromise now, so Senate can move ahead," 04/08/03]
• The state is enduring its worst fiscal crisis in recent memory, with a multimillion-dollar budget shortfall looming that threatens to drastically curtail public services. Meanwhile, political leaders from the governor's office down to county courthouses and city halls have agreed that Alabama badly needs tax reform, constitutional reform and education reform.
• But if the stalemate in the Senate continues, important legislation will be caught in a logjam that almost certainly doom many significant bills. Already, senators haven't passed a bill since March 11.
• Senators need to abandon their irresponsible behavior, and quickly.
• The conflict could be resolved easily, if senators would abandon their posturing and behave like statesmen instead of political hacks. Regrettably, the Alabama Senate is not noted for visionary leadership.
• Instead, it suffers under the partisan and punitive leadership of President Pro Tem Lowell Barron, D-Fyffe, who is at the center of the current standoff.
• Mr. Barron refuses to make any concessions to the coalition of 10 Republicans and six Democrats who have asked for changes in the rules that govern the Senate. In response, the 16 rebels -- who don't have enough votes in the 35-member Senate to pass legislation, but who do have enough votes to keep bills from coming up for debate -- have brought things to a near standstill.
• Mr. Barron should put aside his anger over the fact that the coalition challenged his power earlier this year, and hammer out a compromise that allows the Senate to move forward. It's not as though the 16 senators are asking for more power than they're due. They merely want to have their voices heard.
• Specifically, the group is asking for 45 percent of Senate committee seats, which is proportional to their strength in the Senate. In addition, they want two hours' notice of which bills will be on the Senate's daily work agenda.
• In agreeing to compromise on the makeup of committees, the Senate would be following the example of the U.S. Congress, in which the majority party apportions the committee seats according to the size of the respective coalitions.
• And as for asking two hours' notice, how can any senator be familiar with upcoming legislation if he or she only has almost no advance notice of the day's agenda?
• The intent is obvious: to marginalize the minority coalition by limiting its ability to participate in Senate deliberations. If that were its only effect, one might conclude that that's politics. But Mr. Barron's unwillingness to share power means that the voters in coalition members' districts have a reduced amount of influence, too.
• And, of course, while Mr. Barron fiddles and the 16 rebels stall, the backlog of legislation grows. It's time for the two sides to find some common ground and end the stalemate.

• Pam Baker's resignation from the state Board of Education should come as a relief to Alabama taxpayers. Certainly not because Baker wasn't qualified for the job. [BN, "Baker gives up fight for school board seat," 04/08/03]
• Simply put, the former school teacher and former children's commissioner was appointed to the board at the wrong time. She was the choice of former Gov. Don Siegelman in the twilight of his administration. Before she could be confirmed by the state Senate, Gov. Bob Riley had assumed power and wanted someone else on the board. A fight over the appointment could have gone on for months, entangling both the Senate and the courts.
• It was high-stakes politics. If Baker stayed, Democrats controlled the school board. If Riley got to choose, the board most likely would go Republican. The Democratic Senate already had indicated a willingness to go to the mat for Baker. Republican Riley had indicated he would go to court to install his own choice on the board.
• Then Baker put an end to the battle. Her resignation last week will spare Alabama a drawn-out fight that would have drained money and energy the state doesn't have to spare.
• Baker and her lawyer, Bobby Segall, believed the law was on their side. But they acknowledged that they weren't likely to prevail before the Alabama Supreme Court, with its 8-1 Republican majority.
• Maybe that makes it more of a practical decision than a noble one. But considering Alabama leaders' historical penchant for pursuing the lost cause at great expense to our state it's refreshing to see someone who's wise enough to choose battles carefully.
• "True statesmen still do exist," said Sen. Bobby Denton, D-Muscle Shoals. "Ms. Baker should be commended by all of us for this act."
• Of course, this doesn't have to be the end of the line for Baker. She can still be an important voice in the vital effort to improve Alabama schools perhaps an even more powerful one after her resignation last week.
• In any case, Baker can leave the board with her head high. As schoolchildren have been taught for generations, it's more courageous sometimes to back down from a fight. This was one of those times. Thankfully, Baker wasn't so blinded by the battle that she lost sight of what really matters.

• When a congressman with solid conservative credentials questions the timing of a conservative president's tax cut proposal, that's a potent message that ought to be heard. [MA, "Cramer's questions worth considering," 04/08/03]
• When a congressman with solid conservative credentials questions the timing of a conservative president's tax cut proposal, that's a potent message that ought to be heard. Rep. Bud Cramer of Alabama's 5th Congressional District quite properly wonders whether enacting a tax cut now, with the nation at war, is a good idea.
• "I'm just not sure now's the time to do it," Cramer said. "I'd much rather us postpone it, see how the next few weeks go with regard to war and the economy."
• That seems a sensible approach. Cramer, among the most conservative members of the so-called Blue Dogs, the coalition of conservative Democrats in the House, is not opposed to a tax cut. He does, however, have reservations about the timing and possibly about the size of the cut.
• It's hard to imagine that a few weeks could make a significant difference in the beneficial impact of the tax cut.

• Legislators seem to be getting antsy about getting a tax plan from your administration. This is too important an issue to rush, but is there something else you could do to reassure them -- and their constituents -- that you are carefully developing a proposal? [MA]