Eleventh hour

We have watched the Alabama Senate squander an entire legislative session with a long-running dispute over operating rules and budgets. Now, with only a handful of days remaining in the session, it appears bills that would establish a Shoals economic development incentive fund are near death.

The Senate is split 18-17, with the minority of 12 Republicans and five dissident Democrats blocking virtually every bill of significance to the state not only from debate but from passage. Some of the bills -- including the half-cent sales tax for Colbert and Lauderdale counties to sustain the incentive fund -- are of far greater importance than the political turf war being waged in Montgomery.

It is now clear that the men and women of the Senate have lost sight of what their constituents elected them to do. The name-calling and shouting have descended to the level of an unsupervised playground. (Our apologies to the good boys and girls out there.)

First, the minority must accept that it doesn't have the votes to force changes in the rules. Filibustering and stalling tactics aren't winning many sympathizers to their cause. In Western government, the minority accepts it can't force its way into power.

Second, the majority has an obligation to treat the minority fairly in committee representation and rules of procedure. To do anything less invites the sort of gridlock that now grips the Senate. The Democratic leadership -- which is where much of the problem lies -- cannot alienate minority senators from the legislative process and expect to accomplish anything. In the end, the minority's constituents are the ones who lose, and that is patently unfair.

Democrats must accept that Alabama has become a genuine two-party state; the days of one-party rule are gone. Resisting that political sea change is futile as well as myopic.

Other Alabama cities and counties have economic development legislation held hostage in the Senate standoff.

The Shoals needs its legislation passed right away; representatives of the company considering Barton Riverfront Industrial Park for the 1,500-employee plant were in town this week. What must they have made of the threat of the promised incentive package dying in the state Senate?

If Alabama's state senators can't put aside their arcane political differences long enough to pass economic development bills -- bills that would improve the quality of life for thousands of people -- they shouldn't hold elected office.

We encourage everyone to call legislators and demand that they do whatever it takes to pass these bills in this session.