For months Alabama lawmakers had said the plan was illogical. They were ecstatic the majority of the nine-member Base Realignment and Closure Commission listened to them.

"It's an argument that actually took," said Republican Rep. Terry Everett, who was at home in Rehobeth.

Republican Rep. Mike Rogers was driving near Opelika when he learned about the decision, and pulled his car over to call a reporter. "They have been making some sound decisions -- showing they are not the lapdog of the DOD (Department of Defense)," he said.

The BRAC panel this week is voting on Pentagon plans to close or consolidate scores of U.S. military facilities to make national defense more efficient and save taxpayers $50 billion over the next 20 years.

However, the commission voted 7-1-1 to stop the Pentagon from moving Maxwell-Gunter's Operations and Sustainment Systems Group to a new high-tech research center at Hanscom Air Force Base outside Boston. One commissioner abstained from voting.

The same vote also blocked the Pentagon from shifting high-tech jobs to Hanscom from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, and from moving a high-tech unit at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida to Edwards Air Force Base in California.

In all, more than 1,300 military and civilian jobs at these facilities would have been relocated and about 600 eliminated, the commission said.

Montgomery officials said the move would really have cost the region 3,254 jobs, including those Maxwell-Gunter planned to create over the next five years.

Kennedy reacts

Massachusetts had said it would spend $410 million on construction and other incentives to bring the high-tech military jobs to the state, Rep. Terry Everett said. Everett complained Massachusetts broke base closure process rules by offering such perks.

Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., took the commission vote in stride. He was already happy the Pentagon in May did not say it wanted to close Hanscom, which supports 30,000 state jobs.

Hanscom remains the nation's top military high-tech research and development center and could attract more jobs outside of the base closure process, Kennedy said in a statement.

"This area will only continue to grow, and Hanscom is a critical part of that growth," he said.

Illogical move

Commissioner Harold Gehman, a retired Navy admiral, said the move was illogical because the bulk of workers at Maxwell-Gunter and the other facilities had non-research jobs.

Most Maxwell-Gunter OSSG employees are computer programmers who work around the clock to keep Air Force computer software from crashing, commission officials said. The Lackland unit does cryptography, or secret coding; Wright-Patterson handles software purchases; and Eglin does systems operation testing.

Moving the Alabama, Ohio and Texas facilities to Hanscom might have jeopardized national defense readiness because the Massachusetts base had no experience with their work, BRAC staff said.

"It's kind of like apples and oranges here," commission analyst Les Farrington said.

Alabama lawmakers, including Gov. Bob Riley, and Republican Sens. Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby, had already told BRAC commissioners the move made no sense. And Everett released a June 30 letter from the Pentagon that said the agency did not intend to move "operational activities," from Maxwell-Gunter.

Even commissioners said the Pentagon's proposal befuddled them.

Commissioner James Hill, a retired Army general, said the plan was "a dumb idea done by people who were trying to do something right, and it didn't work."

"I can't disagree," said fellow commissioner Lloyd W. Newton, a retired Air Force general.

Victory for city

Shelby said the vote is a victory for Montgomery. Losing the workers would have cost the local economy $750 million.

"The commission's decision to strike this recommendation showed that our case was rock-solid." Shelby said in a statement.

The commission will send its recommendations to President Bush by Sept. 8. Bush could then send the list on to Congress for approval or back to the commission for more work.

The list of recommendations must be approved or rejected in its entirety.

In other Alabama-related BRAC action, the panel: