Picking and choosing results in boneheaded decisions in Alabama.

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Where justice goes to die: Alabama Supreme Court follows politics, not the law
By Kyle Whitmire, March 8, 2015

The Alabama Supreme Court's decision this week defied reason and common sense.

In the grossest act of political pandering anyone has seen in some time, the justices ignored the law and appeased the mob that put them in office. It was an act of legal contortionism that bent and twisted the law like a pair of iPhone earbuds you left in your pocket before washing the laundry. It was nothing less than a perversion of justice.

And then there was that other thing they did with the gay marriage stuff.

By now everyone's heard about the latter of those two opinions handed down last week, but let's review before we move on to the other thing.

On Tuesday the court ordered probate judges throughout the state to cease issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. By doing so, the justices thumbed their noses at the federal bench, which in Alabama makes for good politics and really awful law.

The question now isn't whether the court will be overruled, only a matter of when. Nor is there any question that Alabama will again be a national laughing stock, dragged cussing and clawing into the 20th century.

(Yes, I know it's the 21[st] century, but baby steps, man, baby steps.)

Here's the thing - that's only the second most boneheaded decision the court made this week.

The first was on Monday, when it upheld the Alabama Accountability Act.

Let me get a few things out of the way.

First, I have an open mind when it comes to education reform. As a spectator and taxpayer, I'm frustrated that both sides - charter school and voucher proponents on one side, and teachers' unions on the other - are driven more by ideology than ideas. The first can't produce good data that their ideas have done any good where they have been tried in other states, and the second group doesn't seem to care that what we have now is not good enough.

What stunk about the Alabama Accountability Act was how it was passed.

Republicans knew that if they went through the regular motions, the bill would fail. Instead, they pulled a bait and switch.

First, the Alabama House passed HB84, which it called the "Local Control School Flexibility Act of 2013." Ostensibly the bill was supposed to allow local school boards and the Alabama Board of Education to loosen some of the regulations those local boards must deal with.

Next, the Alabama Senate passed an amended version of the lower chamber's bill. The House refused to concur with the Senate's changes, so the bill was sent to a conference committee, where the compromises are supposed to happen.

Instead, that's where the bait and switch happened. Rather than negotiating a new bill, the Republican members of the committee whipped out a completely new bill that did completely new things. It even had a completely new name.

The Alabama Accountability Act would allow parents with children in failing schools to move them to non-failing schools or to get tax credits to put them into private schools. It also allowed corporations and individuals to get tax breaks for donating to non-profit scholarship organizations.

Again, I'm not here to debate the bill's merits. What's clear is that the bill that came out of the conference committee was entirely different than either of the bills that went in.

And that is against the law - specifically the Alabama Constitution, Article IV, Section 61.

Unless, you're the Alabama Supreme Court which said the bills were similar enough that it didn't matter.

It would be like if you took your Honda CRV to the mechanic and he gave you back a 20-year-old Ford Taurus, you then sued that mechanic only for the judge say, "What the hell, they both have four wheels. What are you complaining about?"

Only Justice Glenn Murdock dissented, because unlike the other eight, he learned in kindergarten how to play One of These Things is Not Like the Other.

At least in its gay marriage decision, the court opted to follow state law.

But only a day before, it proved that it doesn't need to follow the law at all.  
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