Archive for: October 9, 2006

The Press-Register released yet another poll about state-wide races Sunday. I’m not going to in-depth analyze these things every two days, so here’s all you need to know:

• Governor Riley will be re-elected. (Riley +25%)
• Lieutenant Governor is neck-to-neck. (Folsom/Strange 0%)
• Attorney General is too close to call (King +2%)
• Secretary of State is too close to call (Worley +1%)
• Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks will be re-elected (Sparks +21%)
• Treasurer Kay Ivey will probably be re-elected (Ivey +11%)
• The Register apparently cares about Auditor as much as I do (no polling)
• Samantha Shaw will probably be elected Auditor (Shaw +7%)

It looks like Baxley’s few supporters are leaving her. That’s too bad for people like me who watch elections like a sports fan, but it’s nice to see that there are races other than governor that are exciting. Maybe the press will start covering a few of the down-ballot races a little more.

On Thursday, I wrote a post about Henry White, the Democratic candidate for House District 5. In it, I pointed out that the Secretary of State’s online database did not have White’s 45-day financial report, which was due on September 25. The Alabama GOP also issued a press release about White’s lack of a finance report. Literally the next day, Friday, October 6, the report mysteriously appeared on the Secretary of State’s database. I took a screen capture of the online summary of the report, shown below. You can click on the image to enlarge. Notice that I highlighted where it shows the report was received on October 6, more than a week and a half after the due date for filing.

From what I have seen before, filing late only garners a small fine, but I thought it was odd that the report was only filed post-haste after the Alabama GOP and I pointed out the error. I then looked at the report and noticed some peculiar errors.

• On White’s FCPA report, he lists an $11,000 contribution from SECURE PAC. But if you cross-reference this with SECURE PACs FCPA report, they say they only gave White a much smaller $500 donation.

• The FCPA report for ALFA’s PAC [large download], a traditionally Republican special interest group, shows they gave Henry White an $11,000 contribution. White’s FCPA report mentions no contribution from ALFA or ALFA’s PAC.

So what do you think? An honest mistake, or did Henry White purposely misrepresent his ALFA contribution as a SECURE PAC contribution and just forget about his real $500 SECURE PAC contribution?

According to ALFA, an interest usually assocated with Republican candidates, they funded almost half of Democratic candidate Henry White’s campaign. White’s FCPA report says that money came from SECURE PAC, a PAC representing senior citizens. If you were a candidate, and half of your money came from a single source, would you forget that it came from a farmer’s PAC and mistakingly think it came from a PAC representing elder care issues? Or would you just prefer people thought that?

It sounds like White doesn’t want people knowing where his money comes from. I wonder how many other candidates have similar discrepancies in their reports. Don’t take my word for it. All of this information was found on the Secretary of State’s online database. The only thing that makes me thing this might actually be a simple mistake is that Henry White would have to be pretty dumb to think somone wouldn’t figure this out. The reports are publicly available online, after all.

• Doc’s Political Parlor links to this post with White Noise 

The leader of the Alabama NAACP, Edward Vaughn, said two things about the state’s justice system at the state organization’s 54th annual meeting in Montgomery.

First, he wants Alabama to put a moratorium on the death penalty. Vaghn’s reasons are well-documented. The death penalty is slanted against black criminals. Sijnce 1976, 47% of those executed in Alabama were black despite the fact that blacks make up only 26.4% of the population. Of all the executions nationwide since 1976, there have been 14 white defendents executed for killing a black victim. There have been 213 black defendents executed for killing a white victim.

Second, he wants Alabama to restore the voting rights to former felons. He says the system of permanently disenfranchising felons is geared against black voters. Under the current system, for example, a felon who was sent to jail for selling marijuana will lose his voting rights. A felon who was sent to jail for selling cocaine will not lose his voting rights. Guess which skin-color that insane set-up is meant to favor? Here’s a hint — there’s no stereotype of rich, white lawyers smoking a doobie with a hundred dollar bill.

The Montgomery Advertiser released two articles on the Democracy Defense League Sunday. The DDL is a Hale County-based organization dedicated to preventing voter fraud throughout Alabama.

The first article highlights some of the instances of voter fraud in the Black Belt and points out that Representative Bobby Singleton received 42% of his votes by absentee ballot in a special election last year.

LaKiesha M. Williams got a surprise last year when she went to vote in this west Alabama city of fewer than 3,000. Somebody else had already cast her vote –by absentee ballot.

Williams, 30, remembers applying for an absentee ballot by mail. But Williams is sure she never received it.

The second article starts out by suggesting a black vs. white dynamic to the entire thing. It says the DDL is a predominately white Republican organization, and there is some truth in that. I think you’d be premature to dismiss this organization for being partisan or racist, though.

They are an informative couple of articles, but I also suggest you visit The Democracy Defense League’s website. The site has a lot of information lacking in the two articles.

Birmingham city police officers and firefighters won’t be getting a raise unless the city council overrides the mayor’s veto. Mayor Kincaid vetoed the Sept. 26 proposal to raise officer’s pay 5% a year for three years beginning in 2008.

The council is worried that the city will continue losing their most qualified officers to the surrounding, suburban municipalities that pay more and have safer streets. The mayor’s plan to deal with this is to offer a $2,000 bonus for new recruits payable after two years of service.

The mayor first said the city couldn’t afford the pay raises, but then he wrote in his veto message that it wouldn’t be fair to raise the police and firefighter’s pay but not other city employees. So he either wants to spend less money or spend more. In case you were wondering, the 15% raise will cost the city $6.5 million a year when fully implemented. You can check out the Mayor’s proposed 2007 city budget and decide if the money can be found.