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Alabama NewsAlabama Politics
Convictions Mean it is Time for a Change
By Gary Palmer
Posted on: July 13, 2006
The conviction of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman on June 29th and the plea agreement signed by State Representative Bryant Melton, Jr. on the same day are more sad examples of the biggest problem facing Alabama-the loss of the public's trust and respect for our governing bodies.
As almost everyone in Alabama knows by now, former Governor Siegelman was convicted of bribery, conspiracy, racketeering and depriving the state of his honest services while serving as lieutenant governor and governor. Specifically, the jury found him guilty of running those offices as criminal enterprises, swapping political favors for cash, gifts and campaign contributions including $500,000 in donations to the lottery campaign. In return for contributions to the lottery campaign and to his political campaign, Siegelman doled out appointments and state contracts.
Former State Representative Melton, signed an agreement to plead guilty to federal felony charges of theft of government property and money laundering and a state felony charge of misuse of public office. As part of the plea agreement Melton will be cooperating with federal law enforcement officials in further investigations. It is noteworthy that Melton, who received campaign contributions from gambling interests and was a staunch supporter of legalizing gambling, took the money to pay off his gambling debts.
The guilty verdict against Siegelman and the plea agreement from Melton are the latest low points in the continuing decline of public confidence government at every level in Alabama. In April, former Jefferson County Commissioner Chris McNair was found guilty of corruption followed by the conviction of five businessmen on charges of conspiracy and bribery related to contracts awarded for work on the Jefferson County sewer system.
While these convictions are significant, they only represent the tip of the proverbial iceberg in terms of what is wrong with politics and public policy in Alabama, particularly in state government. These high profile trials have overshadowed other criminal and ethics investigations involving other elected officials as well as drawn attention away from allegations of misuse of office and nepotism by other state officials.
Alabama is suffering the consequences of bad or ineffectual laws. For instance, lobbyists can spend up to $250 per day on an elected official without having to file a disclosure report. While there is no evidence that it is being done, if a lobbyist spent that much every day for a year it would amount to over $91,000. That's a lot of money that would not have to be reported.
Moreover, the state campaign finance law limiting corporate campaign contributions and full disclosure of the source of the contribution is a joke. The fact that the state allows corporations to write checks for the maximum contribution to as many Political Action Committees (PACs) as they can afford, and then direct the money to the candidate of their choice not only violates the campaign contribution limit, but by passing the money through a multitude of PACs, it hides the true source of the contributions.
Passing money through a dozen PACs allows a contributor to send contributions far in excess of what state law would otherwise allow. In addition, multiple transfers through PACs make it harder for investigators to connect dots when an elected official provides payback in the form of prime state contracts, key appointments or other favors.
Every effort to end the abuse of the PAC-to-PAC transfers has failed to even get out of committee in the Alabama State Senate because too many state legislators need to keep the identity of some of their biggest contributors hidden from the voters.
The abuse of the public trust goes beyond lobbyists lavishing gifts, meals and trips on elected officials and beyond hiding the identity of big campaign contributors. Over the years the legislators have created a system that makes it extremely difficult for the average voter to keep up with what their elected officials are doing with the taxpayers' money. For example, a bill that was introduced during the last legislative session that would have required legislators to fully disclose their travel expenditures by posting them on the Internet died in the House of Representatives.
While our state legislators could not find it within themselves during the last legislative session to ban PAC-to-PAC transfers or pass a bill to requiring full disclosure of everything lobbyists spend on them, they did muster the courage to pass a bill to continue to abuse Alabama taxpayers by making it "legal" to dole out pork money in their legislative districts.
Last fall the Alabama State Supreme Court ruled that the system the legislators had created for spending the taxpayers' money by giving out "community service grants" was unconstitutional. To overcome the Court's ruling, one of the first bills passed in the House of Representatives in January made pork spending legal.
Obviously the system works, because election after election the voters of Alabama keep sending the same politicians back to Montgomery so that they can continue to abuse them. Maybe, in upcoming elections, after the Siegelman conviction, the Melton guilty plea and all the other criminal and ethics investigations, Alabama voters will decide it is time for a change.
Siegelman Aid to Cooperate With Feds, May 7, 2005.
Demos Plan to Use Ten-Commandments Judge in Alabama, February 17, 2005.
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