The Alabama Legislature on Tuesday overrode Gov. Bob Ri ley's veto and blocked a teacher code of ethics approved by the Alabama Board of Education from being placed into the state code.
The Legislature voted last month for a resolution blocking the ethics code. The governor vetoed that resolution.
The Senate voted last week 22-10 to override the governor's veto. The House voted 53-25 Tuesday to go along with the Senate and block it.
Supporters of the ethics code argued it was backed by many teachers and had been in effect for several years without any enforcement provision. Oppo nents said the code was too vague to make teachers subject to disciplinary action under it.
The vote fell mostly on parti san lines with Democrats oppos ing the code and Republicans supporting it.
Provisions in the code de fined unethical conduct as har assing colleagues, misusing tests, using inappropriate lan guage at school, and failing to provide appropriate supervi sion of students. It also says edu cators "should refrain from the use of alcohol and/or tobacco during the course of profession al practice and should never use illegal or unauthorized drugs."
The code was opposed by the Alabama Education Associa tion, which argued it would sub ject teachers to dismissal or oth er disciplinary procedures for violating vaguely worded items in the code.
