Archive for: January 2007

Here’s the entire quote from the Tuscaloosa News story:

“There is no perfect system for the selection of judges,” [former Chief Justice Drayton] Nabers told the Tuscaloosa Rotary Club at a lunch meeting. “The rule of law is critical, and elections don’t help the public respect of the judges who keep the rule of law.”

That allows some room for interpretation, but at least he isn’t taking the Twinkle Cavanaugh approach of saying we don’t respect the troops if we want a merit selection system (and somehow it also means we want to allow PAC-to-PAC transfers).

I have added the latest Troy King mini-scandal to the list of Troy’s Greatest Hits. It’s about the sixth bullet down. I also added this tidbit to respond to a couple of emails I received this week.

Just to clarify for some who may not see the ethical problems with King asking Roy Johnson for favors: using your criminal investigations to network with the targets of those investigations is extremely unprofessional on many levels. Even if King continued to be an objective prosecutor after asking two favors from an accussed criminal, it has the appearance of impropriety. Regardless of the outcome, some will have good reason to assume the result was unfair.

Yep. It’s like Nancy Worley. Actually, his list is longer than Worley’s ever was.

On Sunday, Matthew Cloyd’s parents visited the congregation of the church he helped to burn down. Cloyd was one of the three church arsonists from last year.

“My son wants you to know how sorry he is,” Mike Cloyd told members of Galilee Baptist Church in the Sumter County community of Panola on Sunday.

Kim Cloyd said she hopes her son can visit the church in the future. I don’t know, though. I’m wondering if those kids will ever get out of prison. They pled guilty to federal charges last February and are still awaiting sentencing. Then they get to be prosecuted by the local district attornies for state arson charges.

Again, it’s not that they shouldn’t go to prison, but these kids shouldn’t be sent to prison for too long. I mean… they’re white, and their parents seem like good people.

Footnote this as coming from the rumor mill, but I hear that a new brewpub is coming to the Birmingham area very soon. It’s about time. Alabama currently has 1 brewery and 4 brewpubs. The brewery is Olde Towne in Huntsville. The brewpubs are located in Auburn, Montgomery, Dothan, and Mobile. The Alabama city curiously missing from that list is its largest — Birmingham. As far as I know, there hasn’t been a brewpub in the Ham since The Mill stopped making its own beer — and I can’t believe we’re being bested by Dothan.

Alabama law makes a clear distinction between a brewpub and a brewery. In Alabama, a brewpub is a bar that makes its own beer. Law restricts it from commercially distributing that beer in any way except to serve the patrons in the bar. A brewery, on the other hand, makes beer to distribute to stores and other bars. In Alabama, a brewery can’t serve food or beverages at its location. In both cases, there are additional regulations. A brewpub, for instance, must serve food and offer “restraunt-style” seating.

Another reason Alabama has so few brewpubs and breweries is our Prohibition-styled laws against high alcohol content. Beer must not exceed 5.9% ABV. The holy rollers tell us this is to prevent excessive drunkeness and drunk diving, but cheap beer that people consume to get drunk has no problem with this. Miller Lite and Bud Lite are well below 5.9% while craft beer made in microbreweries and sold to beer affecionados may have a hard time keeping it below 5.9% ABV. And if I’m about to get drunk so I can do something dangerous, I’m either going to spend the $6 on cheap beer or $10 on cheap liquor. I’m not going to spend $12 or more for 4 bottles of craft beer just so I can have a 6.4% ABV.

Free the Hops!

This is a committee that is looking for ways to make highways more safe. Here are some of their recommendations:

I think I heard on APR that the current penalty for driving without a license is to have your driving license revoke, which seems pretty funny. I can live with most of those recommendations. I could care less who patrols the highways. Distractions like cell phone use while driving are a leading cause of accidents. I would be more for the “super drunk” idea if they would lower penalties on those who blow a 0.08; there’s a big difference between slightly misjudging the affect that 2 or 3 beers will have on you and getting smashed before getting into a car.

I do not, however, agree with laws that require seat belt use. I wear a seat belt at all times, but if I feel like taking a risk, that’s my problem, not yours. If I’m engaged in behavior that will endanger someone else, then government regulations are justifiable and often necessary. Just quit trying protect me from myself.

In an editorial regarding King’s latest ethical lapse (which will be added to the list shortly):

There’s nothing wrong with trying to help a group like VOCAL, which has seen its grants cut. The way King tried to do it, however, shows a disappointing lack of judgment.

How many more of these incidents are waiting to be disclosed?

Yeah, I’m starting to be convinced that the Birmingham News is trying to bleed this out for all it’s worth. It seems like there’s a scandal every other week. I’m starting to wonder if they don’t just have a filing cabinet full of scandals. Is a bi-weekly corruption headline designed to maximize newspaper sales? Or is King just so incompetent that they keep finding more stuff? Maybe both.

Public pressure may actually accomplish something in Alabama? Who would have known.

“I do not know of a candidate who ran this time - Republican or Democrat - that did not support a ban on PAC-to-PAC transfers,” [Governor Riley] said. “For the last three, four years, I mention it in every State of the State … everyone says they want to do away with it, then let’s do it. The House will pass it unanimously right out of the box. If it gets to the Senate floor, then everyone is going to have to stand up and take a position. And I think it will pass.”

In 2006, a ban on PAC-to-PAC was passed in the House almost unanimously at 97-2. Then the senate stalled it until the session was over so it never came to a vote. The governor has kept things going past the election and vowed that a ban will be his priority for ethics reform. This is no surprise. Riley will probably not run for state office again, so he has nothing to lose. Senate pro tem Hinton Mitchem has also continued to voice support, however, which should ensure it doesn’t get stalled in the senate this time.

I’ll be watching this closely. The legislature has ways of inserting amendments and exceptions to the point that a bill that calls for “a ban on PAC-to-PAC transfers” is actually more of the same, except that someone has to fill out an extra form. That’s how progress is generally measured in Alabama ethics reform.

• FrontBurner links to this post with Campaign Reform? Really?

Just in case you have not noticed The Birmingham News hates Troy King more then any other candidate in the State (or country for that matter). Yesterday they released another story at AG King that is not going to help his already beaten character.

Alabama Attorney General Troy King asked Roy Johnson last year to provide money to a victims’ advocacy group while his office was investigating the state’s two-year college system, headed by Johnson as chancellor.

Miriam Shehane, executive director of Victims of Crime and Leniency, said King accompanied her to a meeting with Johnson to ask the two-year college system to provide grant money for VOCAL.

The meeting, in March 2006, came months after the attorney general’s office and federal prosecutors began investigating the two-year college system. A spokesman for King said the request was not improper because King was not asking for anything for himself.

It was not the first time he’d gone to Johnson with a request. King stepped aside from the investigation of the two-year college system in November after it was reported that he asked Johnson in late 2005 to consider hiring the mother of an employee in King’s office.

He also has been criticized recently because he, his family and friends used Alabama Power Co.’s luxury box at Turner Field free of charge for an Atlanta Braves baseball game. King, as attorney general, represents Alabama Power’s customers before the state Public Service Commission, which decides such things as how much the power company is allowed to charge for electricity.

King spokesman Chris Bence said Shehane and King had talked about VOCAL’s losing some funding and the possibility that law enforcement grants could be available from the two-year college system.

“The attorney general and Ms. Shehane decided that it was worth seeing if some of that funding would qualify to help VOCAL,” Bence said.

“She asked him - because of his knowledge about law enforcement, government and victims - would he accompany her and help her explain their needs to see if they perhaps would qualify and receive some of the grants. … He agreed to do that,” Bence said.

I have stayed out of the “mishaps” of Troy King but in the words of some old guy, “where there is smoke, there is fire.”

If you do not believe me, take a look at this (massive) list of his issues reported by Dan over at Between The Links. I would paste it here, but the list is incredibly to long.

Please read over the list and make your mind up for yourself. The facts are presented in a way that will require at the minimum a full blown ethical investigation into his office and the actions of Troy King.

Cross posted at Politics in Alabama

I’m taking the day off. Sorry.

This one is very current.

Do you not think that if all of us come to believe in and abide by these principles, that is, monotheism, worship of God, justice, respect for the dignity of man, belief in the Last Day, we can overcome the present problems of the world?

No cheating. Guess in the comments.

I’m not completely convinced that ethanol is a sustainable alternative fuel for cars, but Alabama is changing its vehicles to ethanol-based. Both Governor Riley (R) and Ron Sparks (D) are emphasizing the alternative fuel. On top of this Riley decision to convert the state’s automobiles, Sparks has been trying to do his part as Agriculture Commissioner.

After being re-elected in November, Sparks created the Center for Alternative Fuels at the state agriculture department and described it as a one-shop stop for people interested in producing biofuels in Alabama.

The state has several of its own pumping stations that will soon be carrying the product, but they also have fuel cards for when they are on the road. This is good because it will increase the availability of the product. If thousands of state-owned cars are going to be purchasing ethanol, then some private gas stations will probably try to sell it. If a large, state-wide company like Alabama Power (who also has its own pumping stations) does the same, then it will just increase the number of private gas stations who are willing to carry ethanol. Once the availability is there, consumers will see sense in converting to the fuel.

Markets and governments working together? Must be Communism. I’ll be interested to see if the Cato Institute sees this as government manipulation of markets.

After just barely forcing a runoff, one Democratic contender for House District 22 has pulled out of the race. Don Webster polled only 25.7%, but it was enough for the frontrunner, Butch Taylor, to get less than a majority. It was close, but at 49.7% it wasn’t close enough.

With Webster out of the race, both parties have their nominees (and third parties are safely excluded). The special general election is now scheduled for March 6. Butch Taylor (D) and Wayne Johnson (R) will face off for the district that has been historically Democrat but increasingly conservative over the years. It should be a pretty fun race.

I thought we elected Beth Chapman as secretary of state, but apparently Nancy Worley is still doing the job whenever she feels like it. A day after leaving office, she returned to Montgomery to pick up a federal check for Montgomery County to reimburse them for expenses required to bring the county into HAVA standards.

Worley maintained that she left Chapman and her chief of staff a note on Jan. 16, the day she picked up the check.

Well, at least she left a note. She already had two checks for Montgomery in her possession. The third check had just arrived, and the total amount was $1.7 million. And that’s not the only thing.

“It has been brought to my attention that Ms. Worley has visited our office and called since the inauguration and given directives to a couple of employees,” Chapman wrote in a Jan. 19 memorandum to employees about several issues.

Look, if Worley is calling the office trying to be boss, that’s not really important. There’s always going to be a transition, and maybe she had to tell on of them where some form was left or to remind them to call some official about something. But picking up a federal check should be understood as going just a bit too far.

Both of these things, in the end, reflect badly on Beth Chapman, the current secretary of state. Who really controls that office, anyway?

The big news coming out of the special election for Houst District 22 is that the ratio of Democratic voters to Republican voters was 3.7 to 1. It’s all about getting the voters out in a special election, and it seems that the  Democrats have a head start. Was anything else on the ballot up there besides HD22? I’m surprised that over 4,000 people showed up for it.

Democrats Butch Taylor and Don Webster will face each other in a runoff on March 6. Taylor just barely missed the majority mark with 49.7% of the vote. Webster came in second with 25.7% of the vote. The Republicans nominated Wayne Johnson with a clear majority of 60% of the vote.

I’ll try to figure out some information on these guys eventually. I apparently have a lot of readers from up north. By the way, why are all the Larry Darby supporters who leave comments here from Huntsville?

So the AEA gave Phil Poole’s campaign $10,000 the day before he switched sides. The obvious conclusion to these two chain of events is that Phil Poole’s vote for pro tem was bought for $10,000.

That seems reasonable, but I’m not ready to say it’s definite. It’s not like the AEA wouldn’t give Phil Poole money for the hell of it. He does, after all, represent the district that includes the University of Alabama and Shelton State Community College. According to Poole’s campaign finance reports, he got a $25,000 check from A-Vote in May. Yeah, it was probably a bought vote, but there’s room for doubt.

Sen. Pruett, who was not elected pro tem after Poole switched sides, sums it up nicely.

“Pretty much nothing surprises me about Poole any more. I’m sorry Poole’s word is not worth more,” Preuitt said in an interview.

Poole did the same thing in 1999, switching sides at the last moment right before a major road project in his district was announced by the victors. Of course, that had nothing to do with his vote either.

So says Kathy at Birmingham Blues. I’m pro choice, I guess. I don’t really care about it a whole lot, but I do consider myself pro-choice. That doesn’t mean pro-abortion, despite anyone’s “You’re either for us or against us” crowd. In response to that, I could just as easily say you’re either for government regulation of God-given bodily functions or your against it. You’re either for freedom or you’re against it.

That’s essentially why I casually ally myself with the pro-choice crowd. I [generally] favor any policy which gives the people more freedom to decide their own affairs and those of their family. To me, government’s main purpose is to prevent others from interfering with that freedom, so to participate in that taking of choice does not seem justifiable to me. I may not like the choices others make, but for me to forcibly interfere is rude and for government to forcibly interfere is tyranny.

Having said all that, I do respect people’s convictions in being pro-life. In the end, I’m just happy that I don’t care enough to worry about it very often.

Clarification: Blog For Choice Day was actually yesterday, January 22, but I wrote this at 12:05AM this morning, so it still felt like yesterday at the time, even though it technically showed up as a post for January 23 and even though most people probably read it on January 23.

So instead of talking about current events, I would like to recommend a book about Alabama’s past. Inside Alabama: A Personal History of My State by Harvey H. Jackson is so far a wonderful read. I read the first half last night and I’ll finish it tonight and tommorrow. It is a subjective account of Alabama politics from a university professor, so if you can’t take another person’s perspective on history, you might not enjoy it. I certainly don’t always agree with the conclusions he seems to imply, but there’s an irreverant truth throughout. It’s also just brief enough and light enough to be a popular read while also informative.  I got it at Books a Million in the Regional section here in Tuscaloosa.

I’d also like to apologize to the other bloggers for not frequenting their websites and to the commenters for not being active in the discussion lately. I would say that I’ve been busy, but that’s not always true. I do have a new batch of beer I’ve been working on, but mostly I’m just getting used to my new work schedule — that 8-5 gets me every time.

Meet the new vice chairman of the Democratic party, Nancy Worley. Endorsed by Joe Reed and Paul Hubbert, she defeated the long-time incumbent chairman, Amy Burks, 131-106 at a state Democratic Executive Committee meeting in Montgomery.

Both Reed and Worley continue to contend that Burk’s support of Patricia Todd had nothing to do with the effort to oust her after 16 years of holding the post.

In related news, I was researching the District 22 special election on the Secretary of State’s website and noticed that Beth Chapman’s picture and message are now on the front page. Chapman may yet embarass me, but for now, she’s not Nancy Worley.

Remember all of the hoopla about Worley not sending out HAVA checks to certain counties to reimburse expenses paid to comply with federal election requirements? The Press-Reigister is reporting that Chapman delivered $2 million to Mobile County last week. She officially took over Monday. Many counties accussed Worley of delaying payment until she could deliver them in person at times that would invite the most publicity.

Oh well. I’m done worrying about Nancy Worley. Did you know who the vice chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party was before reading this post? That’s right, because no one cares except Democratic party officials. Let them deal with her.