Gov. Robert Bentley said April 21 he would sign a resolution establishing the Constitutional Revision Commission.
The resolution, sponsored by Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh, R-Anniston, will allow the 16-person commission to propose revisions to parts of the 1901 state constitution.
The revisionary plan will take place over three years, and all proposed changes will have to be passed by the legislature, governor and state voters.
The resolution states the commission will include Bentley and three people he appoints; Marsh and three people he appoints; House Speaker Mike Hubbard and three people he appoints; and the chairs of the Judiciary Committee and Constitution and Election Committee.
With more than 800 amendments, the Alabama Constitution is 12 times longer than the average state constitution and 40 times longer than the U.S. Constitution, Marsh said.
"It's just time to get the thing cleaned up and condensed," Marsh said. "It's been talked about for years, but it's never been undertaken."
The commission will not be allowed to revise Article 11 on taxes. Marsh said the article has been the "stumbling block" for past rewrite attempts.
"By taking that off the table, it allows us to do all the other work that needs to be done on the constitution," Marsh said.
Joe Sumners, director of Auburn's Economic and Community Development Institute, said one of the main problems in the constitution is the concentration of power in Montgomery instead of local communities.
"There's a lot of antiquated language in the constitution, a lot of provisions that have been superseded by federal law," Sumners said.
Sumners is the former chair of the East Alabama chapter of Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform.
"It's not like the U.S. Constitution, which is an enabling document which sort of gives the basic framework for government and lets the elected officials fill in the details," Sumners said.
"What the Alabama Constitution does is it very specifically and restrictively says what the government can and cannot do."
Every time the government wants to do something different from what is outlined in the constitution, another amendment gets added, Sumners said.
"That's why we have amendments relating to things like cemeteries and animal control--things that should be left to local communities to decide," Sumners said.
According to the resolution, the Alabama Law Institute will give guidance to the commission by analyzing each article of the constitution.
The Institute will then recommend revisions on items that are "antiquated, unnecessary or duplicative of other provisions."
Marsh said within the commission's first year, it will remove racist language still remaining in the document.
In 2012, the commission will look at articles 3, 4 and 9; 1, 5 and 14 in 2013; and 7, 10 and 17 in 2014.
"There are a lot of changes that are needed," Sumners said. "It's hard to do much damage to the constitution we have."
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