Amendment One passes

This is week-old news, but here's the story from last Wednesday's Birmingham News:

MONTGOMERY - Alabama voters by wide margins Tuesday decided to let the state borrow an extra $400 million for industry recruitment and to ban spending from two trusts on anything but health care for retired teachers and other retired public employees.

"This is a great victory for Alabama," Gov. Bob Riley said. "The people made the right choice, and I thank them. Their vote will bring more jobs to our state."

Voters agreed to add Amendment 1, on industry incentives, and Amendment 2, on the health-care trusts, to the state constitution. State lawmakers in March unanimously proposed both changes.

Amendment 1, with 99 percent of the precincts reporting, received 188,929 yes votes, or 80 percent, and 48,395 no votes, or 20 percent, according to the Associated Press.

Amendment 2, with 99 percent of the precincts reporting, received 200,418 yes votes, or 84 percent, and 38,755 no votes, or 16 percent. ...

Voter turnout statewide was about 9.6 percent of active registered voters.

I already spelled out why I was opposed to Amendment One a couple of posts back, so I won't go into it again. Considering that the opposition to this amendment was virtually non-existent and voter turnout was so low, the lop-sided result is not surprising. We can only hope that the officials responsible for handing out the money will act in the state's best interests.