Letter to Tim James from Don Seibold

Mr. James,

 

I called today when your were a guest on the Morris/Montiel Viewpoint talk radio program in Montgomery to discuss Initiative and Referendum (I&R) with you.

 

I was disappointed when I was cut off by the hosts of the program before we had an opportunity to discuss the issue, but that's nothing new about the way they treat some of their callers whom they don't favor.

 

I was also disappointed with your response which I listened to after I was disconnected, and which I had no chance to reply to. While I agree in a general way with your response, surely you are aware that there have been many times when Alabama's representative form of government hasn't served Alabamians as it should.

 

The following are the words of Representative Mike Ball, the author of the I&R bill he has introduced in the legislature for several years, as published in the Birmingham News on December 26, 2004:

The initiative process is not a cure-all for Alabama’s problems, nor should it utilized to replace the legislative process. In his address to the 1912 Ohio constitutional convention Theodore Roosevelt told delegates, “the initiative and referendum should be used, not as substitutes for representative government, but as methods of making such government really representative. Action by the initiative or referendum ought not to be the normal way of legislation; but the power to take it should be provided in the constitution, so that if the representatives fail truly to represent the people on some matter of sufficient importance to rouse popular interest, then the people shall have in their hands the facilities to make good the failure.”

 

That complete article can be read on my website @ http://www.doctoriq.com/mikeball.htm.

 

The text of  Ball's constitutional amendment I&R bill, HB201 in the current legislative session, can be read and studied on my website @ http://www.doctoriq.com/bama's%20I&R%20bill.htm.

 

I think your father, our former twice-elected Governor Fob James, may think the same way as Representative Ball does and Theodore Roosevelt did. You might ask him if he does.

 

I should inform you, as a candidate to become our next governor, that there are at least two political grassroots organizations in Alabama that want Alabama to become the 25th state to have a constitutional I&R process for its citizens, one of which has members in over 40 counties. There are also numerous individual voters who hold the same view. I am sending copies of this email to many of them and I will send any reply from you to them as well. If I receive no reply, I will pass that information on to them also because they deserve to know where you stand on an issue that's important to them.

 

I've been disappointed in the past when I attempted to question you on this issue through emails and your campaign website and I didn't receive any reply. I hope you will see fit to reconsider your position on I&R and reply this time.

 

Respectfully,

 

Don Seibold (aka "Red" on talk radio)

Wetumpka, AL