Turnham’s big news

By Jennifer J. Foster

In one of yesterday’s posts, I linked you to the commentary offered by Alabama Democratic Party Chairman Joe Turnham on HB 787 as he provided it to the Opelika-Auburn News for its “Both Sides” feature.

This sentence caught my eye:

One Republican constitutional officer simultaneously serves in office, while secretly being paid in a ‘full time’, non-profit position partially funded by taxpayers.

Interesting.

I contacted Turnham for more information. Who is it, and what is the non-profit? When will we know?

Turnham’s cryptic response: “Cannot reveal source, but it is coming and will talk soon.“

SIDEBAR: Political junkie plus journalist = Ooh! I can’t wait to hear this story!

We don’t have much to go on, but we know who Alabama’s Republican constitutional officers are. They include:

Gov. Bob Riley;
Attorney General Troy King;
State Auditor Samantha Shaw;
Secretary of State Beth Chapman;
State Treasurer Kay Ivey and
13 county sheriffsacross the state.

It’s unclear whether Turnham’s comments will involves one of the big fish above or one of the sheriffs. But with all the public scorn the double-dipping drama has drawn, I’d be surprised it is isn’t one of the former.

What are you hearing out there? Any leads? Respond in comments or e-mail me: . Anonymity guaranteed.

David Grimes is on

By Jennifer J. Foster

In his opening remarks about his congressional campaign, State Rep. David Grimes said he is “doing the people’s business” during legislative session in Montgomery.

I sure hope he is asked about why he ducked the double-dipping vote on HB 787.

State Rep. David Grimes on radio Tuesday AM

By Jennifer J. Foster

Keen-eyed reader Don S., a resident of Wetumpka, passed along some great information earlier this evening via a tip in the double-dipping post. I reproduce it here so that it won’t get buried.

If you can, listen to the “Don Markwell’s Viewpoint” talk show from 9:06 until 11:40 am tomorrow because David Grimes is scheduled to be on it. He may address why he Passed on the HB787 vote last week. If you want to, you can phone in to the show and ask him yourself, or any other thing you want to say. If your radio won’t pick the show at up at 1170am you can listen on the internet by going to http://www.1170wacv.com/cms/ and clicking on the “Listen Live” button on the left side of the page.

If you need some background, here’s a refresher:

David Grimes is a Republican state representative from Montgomery. On HB 787, the bill to overturn the double-dipping ban, Grimes was one of 12 legislators—six Republicans, six Democrats—who opted to vote “present” rather than yes or no. (Full list

here.) Of course, Rep. Grimes is welcome to provide his explanation here; If he provides it, I will publish it in its entirety here.

Grimes is also a congressional candidate in Alabama’s 2nd District. Check out some of the intel on the race here and here.

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, Grimes has to say about this vote. It’s likely that his campaign managers have forbidden comment on this topic so that they don’t inherit the double-dipping mess—any more, that is, than it is already going to be as an election issue—which is HUGE!!

Thanks, Don, for the heads up ... tune in here tomorrow morning for another big tip!

Hubbard vs. Turnham

By Jennifer J. Foster

At the risk of the double-dipping vote completely taking over my blog, I want to give you one last post (well, for today, anyway) on the issue.

Opelika-Auburn News Editorial Page Editor Joe McAdory runs a monthly feature called “Both Sides.“ In it, Alabama Democratic Party Chairman Joe Turnham and Alabama Republican Party Chairman Mike Hubbard (both of whom, incidentally, live in Auburn) face off on the hot issues of the day.

This month, the issue is the double-dipping ban and last week’s passage of HB 787 that would overturn it. Here are excerpts from their columns and links to each:

Turnham:

“Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck out of your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye. Hypocrite…” Matthew7:3-5

The quest for transparency, ethics, and good professional conduct should be the foremost priority of both parties and all public servants: not an attempt to remove certain persons from office.

Officials in either political party, who commit crime, steal or use their office for personal gain should have to give an accounting. Recent attempts to ‘partisanize’ ethics and corruption by Gov. Bob Riley and Republican Party Leadership; however, reek of hypocrisy.

Democrats who have stolen or violated the public trust get no safe harbor with me or the Alabama Democratic Party. All persons are entitled to justice, fairness; but must be held accountable.

The recent ‘double-dipping’ campaign by some Republican operatives serves not a noble goal of full ethics in government; but rather a hypocritical attempt to broad-brush many outstanding Democrats, all while deflecting attention away from incredibly serious questions of ethical malfeasance within their own party ranks ...

After Riley vetoed legislation last year that would have subjected lobbyists of the executive branch to register and disclose; he targets Democratic educator-legislators. Most educator-legislators are career public servants who were educators many years prior to their election.

Voters knew full well if a person was a principal or student counselor during a campaign. Yet Republicans have no problem allowing legislators receiving no-bid state contracts to serve. They have no problem with revolving door lobbyists like the governor’s former chief of staff to immediately begin representing clients before his former boss without having to register ...

If we summarily start prohibiting educators, attorneys, or small business owners with potential conflicts from elective office, we may deny ourselves the benefit of some of Alabama’s most talented servants.

Use HB 787 as a start. Train, fully disclose and demand accountability; then punish those who abuse the system. But don’t allow partisans to get by with selecting for you, those who will serve you in Montgomery. Voters are fully capable of removing the speck or the plank of an unethical official from office.

Full column here.

Hubbard:

Almost since its inception, employees within the two-year college system have served in the Alabama Legislature and created a culture that breeds corruption and begs for reform.

Having two-year college employees, or anyone with a full-time taxpayer funded job, serving in the legislature is a direct conflict of interest and provides these individuals with far-reaching power that distorts their sense of right and wrong.

Consider for a moment that one-third of the members of the House Education Appropriations Committee, which writes the $6 billion budget Education Trust Fund, are current employees of the two-year college system or just recently stepped down from their jobs as a result of pressure against “double-dipping.”

Some of the individuals employed in the two-year system, it was recently revealed, actually have apparent “phantom” jobs that do not require them to show up for work or have any real duties, and at least one of these legislators is currently under indictment for that reason.

Employing legislators gives some two-year colleges an unfair advantage over other schools competing for money within the ETF budget, especially if the legislators they employ serve on the budget committee. But it is a double-edged sword.

How does a college administrator or a two-year chancellor discipline an employ who holds more political power than they do? How do you demand results and work product from an employee when they have the power to take away money from the institution you run? You don’t – and therein lies the rub ...

Predictably, Democrats* are now doing everything they can to undermine the state school boards’ recent decision to do away with double-dipping and keep this corrupt system in place. In fact, one of the bills introduced would remove oversight of the two-year system from the elected state school board and give that responsibility to the Legislature.

Legislators who serve while holding another taxpayer-funded job do harm to the political and governmental institutions they swore an oath to protect.

And, as long as double-dippers continue to inhabit the corridors of the capitol and the halls of the Alabama State House, taxpayers will never truly be given the government they deserve – one free of corruption and fully accountable to the taxpayers it serves.

Full column here.

*Editor’s note: Four Democrats joined Republicans in voting against HB 787, while five Republicans crossed party lines in supporting it. Twelve members of the House—six of each party—voted “present.“ Details here.

Slam, slam, slam

By Jennifer J. Foster

Three state newspapers offer editorials today on the vote in the Alabama House of Representatives to overturn the ban on double-dipping in public positions—and they are unanimous in their disgust for the action.

The Birmingham News, whose own Brett Blackledge won a Pulitzer Prize for uncovering the scandal and relentlessly peeling back its layers upon layers of corruption, calls the legislation an “awful bill,“ a “stinker,“ a “shameless attempt” by legislators to “preserve their two-year college job factory.“ And even though the bill is unlikely to become law because of Gov. Bob Riley’s opposition—a circumstance for which the News says “taxpayers should be very, very glad”—the News says the House still deserves “a slap” for the 57-36 vote that sent it to the Senate.

Blackledge’s investigation revealed plenty of corruption. But, the News says, “one affront is particularly pertinent: At one point, The News discovered that a third of state legislators were tied to the system either through their own jobs and businesses or through their spouses. Alabamians were justifiably furious, and the state’s elected school board responded with sensible new policies ...

“The Senate should say no to this travesty,“ the editorial opines—and even if it doesn’t, it concludes, Riley almost certainly will.

Read the Birmingham News editorial here.

The Tuscaloosa News also weighed in, calling it “improper” that legislators “should pass laws to supersede elected officials on the state school board.

“If we are to hold the state school board accountable for the two-year college system — and we do hold it accountable — then it should be allowed to set the policies necessary to clean up the mess,“ the News says.

The News also considers the role of uberlobbyist Paul Hubbert and his Alabama Education Association in the mess, saying the AEA’s involvement in campaigns and on Goat Hill creates “a closed loop: the AEA helps elect officials, who provide more tax dollars to schools and colleges, who hire people, who run for public office with AEA backing.“

Read the complete Tuscaloosa News editorial, “Nobody likes a double-dipper, especially in politics,“ here.

The Huntsville Times’s David Prather chimed in with a warning: “Ever on the lookout for their own benefit, legislators are moving toward kicking an important governmental reform in the teeth,“ he said, adding that Alabamians can’t count on the Senate’s usual dysfunction to keep the bill from passing.

“This is the kind of thing that could sneak through unless public outrage prevents it.“

Prather writes that the double-dipping ban does not discount that good work can be done by those who hold jobs in the Legislature and elsewhere in the public sector. Good work just can’t be done in both places at the same time, he says.

“Indeed, that’s all the state school board and (Chancellor Bradley) Byrne are asking: Make a choice of which you want to be, a legislator or a community college employee. Combining those roles, as myriad problems and prosecutions attest, is an invitation to legislators to line their pockets with public money while performing little if any work—and constantly being faced with the dilemma of voting for their own interest or the state’s best interest,“ Prather says.

He concludes that, since the bill will die without action from the Senate, “at this point, it’s in Alabamians best interest for the Senate to do what it increasingly seems to do best: nothing.“

Read the full Huntsville Times editorial here.