004/13/03

Education by far is most representedof interest groups

MONTGOMERY - Senate Bill 126 sailed through the Alabama Senate, passing 32-0.

The proposed Alabama Clean Indoor Air Act would require businesses to designate nonsmoking areas.

Then Rep. Ronald Grantland, D-Hartselle, an administrator with the state Department of Public Health, introduced the bill in the House. During debate there, Montgomery-area lawmakers Mac Gipson and Dick Brewbaker - both small-business owners - introduced a pair of amendments that reduced the fines and exempted companies with fewer than 35 employees.

After the second amendment was proposed, Grantland removed the watered-down bill from consideration. Its fate is now uncertain.

That's just one example of a Montgomery truth: The 140 members of the Alabama Legislature bring their own interests to the legislative floor. Even before the dinners, trips and campaign contributions that lobbyists add to the mix, lawmakers arrive in Montgomery already part of specific interest groups. Because they work for them.

In the case of SB-126, both Gipson and Brewbaker said they had business owners in mind when they offered their amendments. Gipson, who owns a tire shop in Prattville, said his 20 employees are allowed to smoke inside the shop. If they went outside to smoke, he said, their production would drop and he'd lose money.

"Bureaucracies can probably afford" that, Gipson said, but small businesses can't. Most government workers, he added, "don't have an inkling of how mom and pop businesses operate."

Brewbaker's amendment would not have affected his company, which has 136 employees. But the first-term lawmaker, who owns several car dealerships in Montgomery, said he "absolutely" represents business interests because he knows and understands business.

In previous years, the Legislature was dominated by low-tax, low-wage interests, traditionally called the "Big Mules," said Dr. Bill Stewart, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Alabama.

The rise of groups such as the Alabama Education Association, the Business Council of Alabama and others has created a different body, he said, but lawmakers' professional interests do influence legislation. The fact educators and others have joined the ranks of the Statehouse simply means "no one of them is able to call the shots."

Profile of a legislator

So where do lawmakers' interests lie?

The Times researched the demographic, employer and property ownership makeup of the Alabama Legislature using a variety of sources, including lawmakers' 2002 filings with the state Ethics Commission, their resumes, legislative Web sites and information on file with the secretary of state and clerk of the House.

The results show lawmakers, generally, are white, male and better-educated than the average Alabamian. And once they get to Montgomery, they tend to stay there. Fifty-seven of the 140 legislators have been in office more than 10 years; 38 have been there 20 years or longer:

- Lawmakers are also landowners. In the 35-member Senate, at least 19 senators owned land for development or rental purposes in 2001. In the House, at least 53 of the 105 representatives owned property for the same purposes.

- Attorneys remain a dominant force in the Senate - 11 members are lawyers - but not in the House, where only seven members practice law.

- There are 23 business owners in the House, another seven in the Senate.

But by far the biggest interest group is tied to education.

Thirty-eight legislators have direct ties to public K-12 schools, community colleges and universities, all of which receive money from the state's $4.2 billion education trust fund. Of those 38, 15 are or were employed by the two-year college system; that includes a current junior college president and a former junior college president.

When spouses' employers are included, education becomes an even more powerful bloc: The household earnings of 45 representatives and 10 senators include a paycheck or a pension from public schools. Factor in the lawmakers who sit on the boards of public schools, and the number of legislators with ties to education climbs to 62.

That means 44 percent of the Legislature has some stake in public education.

Some have multiple ties to education. For example, Sen. Gerald Dial, D-Lineville, sits on the Troy State University board of trustees, and his wife is a part-time teacher at Southern Union Community College. First-term Rep. Randy Davis, R-Daphne, is a spokesman for the Baldwin County Board of Education, and his wife is an elementary school teacher in the Mobile County school district.

Paul Hubbert, head of the Alabama Education Association, widely considered Montgomery's most powerful lobby, said he believes voters have more power than he does. Politicians think about their constituencies back home, he said. AEA doesn't assume the numerous educators in the Legislature will automatically vote its way.

"I take nothing for granted," he said.

But a look at the AEA endorsements before last fall's general election shows Hubbert is often able to count on them. During the 2002 elections, much of AEA's more than $5 million in campaign contributions went to incumbents. Only 20 of the current lawmakers with education ties had opposition in the general election; AEA endorsed 15 of them, often citing their voting record as the primary factor in that support.

For example, look at AEA's comments about Rep. Terry Spicer, an Enterprise Democrat who is director of work-force development and continuing education at MacArthur State Technical College. In its 2002 voting guide, AEA said, "As an education employee, Spicer is well aware of the many needs of public schools and colleges. His voting record warrants and AEA recommends his re-election."

Rep. Gerald Allen, R-Cottondale, whose wife is a secretary at the University of Alabama, also won AEA's 2002 endorsement, based largely on one vote.

"When the chips were down, Allen voted in favor of this year's 3-percent pay raise" for teachers, AEA said in the voting guide. Allen was challenged by a public school employee, and AEA labeled part of Allen's voting record "cause for concern." But in the end, "AEA believes that, either way, this race is a win for public education."

Both Allen and Spicer won re-election.

'Tainted by AEA'

Jim Haney, a former state representative from Huntsville, said educator-lawmakers aren't automatically self-serving when they support education.

"(Those) legislators are very interested in proper education," said Haney, a Republican who retired last year. Based on his 12 years in the Statehouse, Haney said, lawmakers vote their conscience more than their own interests. But their motives are sometimes "tainted by the AEA and their drive for higher salaries and benefits."

As an example, Haney cited the same pay-raise bill, which passed last year despite looming state budget shortfalls. But educator-lawmakers weren't the only group feeling the pressure. Rep. Howard Sanderford, a Huntsville Republican who owns a computer leasing business, admitted at the time he voted for the raise to avoid the education lobby's wrath.

Haney, who was retiring, was one of only six lawmakers to vote against the pay raise.

Haney, a former general manager at PPG Industries, also said he thought there are "too many people on the education committees that are educators."

In the House, nine of the 15 members of the education budget committee have a financial tie to public education. Ten of the 15 members of the House education committee, which handles nonbudget issues, have financial ties to public schools.

The state's two most powerful legislators also have education ties: Senate President Pro Tem Lowell Barron, D-Fyffe, sits on the Auburn University board of trustees, and his wife works for Northeast Alabama Community College. House Speaker Seth Hammett, D-Andalusia, is the former president of Lurleen B. Wallace Community College, and his wife is a retired teacher.

"Those who have ties to education sometimes have the tendency to legislate what should be a local (school-board) decision," said Sandra Sims-deGraffenried, executive director of the Alabama Association of School Boards.

Lawmakers aren't the only ones who approach the Montgomery political process with education ties. Kimble Forrister, who heads Alabama Arise, a coalition of religious and civic groups that lobbies for the poor, is married to a K-12 counselor.

Forrister said a Legislature filled with educators is "not inherently a bad thing," but he does know that on some issues Arise supports - such as passing a "tenant bill of rights" or eliminating the sales tax on food - legislators "are likely to approach things with a concern for (their) self-interest."

"I don't begrudge them that perspective," Forrister said. "It just means I have to work a little harder."

Educators, although numerically the dominant force, aren't the only game in the Statehouse. In fact, the variety of lawmaker interests was cited by several political experts as the reason the Legislature doesn't tackle tough issues.

"The makeup of the Legislature is anti-reform both in terms of the dominance of business interests ... plus the reactionary religious interests, plus agriculture and agribusiness," said Dr. Carl Grafton, a political science professor at Auburn University Montgomery.

"All of that spells paralysis for the state."