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State lawmakers, reacting to a newly edited version of the state constitution, plan to rewrite an Amendment 2 look-alike bill that would erase segregation-era language from the constitution. "It's kind of like making sausage right now," said state Rep. Ken Guin, D-Carbon Hill. "We're looking at about three different drafts and trying to determine the best language to use." The bill, by state Sen. Wendell Mitchell, D-Luverne, as now written is almost identical to last year's Amendment 2, which would have erased from the constitution a requirement for segregated schools and references to poll taxes. Federal courts decades ago struck down segregated schools and poll taxes as illegal, but Amendment 2 supporters wanted the old language erased from the supreme state law of Alabama. Voters narrowly rejected the amendment in November after some critics claimed it could have given judges an opening to order tax increases for schools. Mitchell's bill would resubmit the proposal to the voters, but it also would say that nothing in the amendment or in the constitution could be interpreted as requiring a tax increase The Senate voted 32-0 on Feb. 22 for Mitchell's bill, which now faces review by the Constitution and Elections Committee of the House of Representatives. Guin, who chairs that committee, said he has delayed debate on the bill until about March 16. [more]