Different Day, Same Shit.

Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!

James 3:5, King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)

Right about now, Alabama State Rep. Joe Mitchell of Mobile probably wishes he had exercised a bit of decorum, now that a comment of his has turned into kindling for opportunistic GOPers and the idiot masses. So what happened? I'll leave that to Redeye:

Let's recap. Retired coal miner and Jefferson County resident Eddie Maxwell sent a mass email to all Alabama Legislators "warning them that even attempting to introduce a gun control bill was, in his opinion, a violation of state law." Oh really?

Instead of ignoring Maxwell's email, or, sending out the standard thank your for contacting my office blah, blah, blab, blab auto reply, Rep. Mitchell chose to respond in the following manner;

"Your folk never used all this sheit (sic) to protect my folk from your slave-holding, murdering, adulterous, baby-raping, incestuous, snaggle-toothed, backward-a**ed, inbreed (sic), imported criminal-minded kin folk."

He's speaking truth to power, no matter how many people would admit otherwise. Lots of people would dismiss the above as a wild, crazy outburst from a race card-waving black guy who needs to sit hisself down somewheres. But Rep. Mitchell's entitled to be as pissed as he wants - as far as I'm concerned, given the history of the Great State of Alabama and elsewhere in the Deep South and its collective track record for racial discrimination and wanton violence, he's earned that right and then some.

However, in an age where saying the wrong things could have a team of Breitbart's best ratfuckers gnaw through your image and reputation like field mice through Australian farmland, something like the above could cost you dearly. I imagine Rep. Mitchell's from the old school, where he's never had to deal with that kind of crap. Until now. He's already being cast as "eccentric," which is about a step and a half away from "crazy" and two from "insane."

Already is his outburst being equated with that of State Senator Scott Beason's "aborigine" remarks. Just part and parcel of the ongoing drive to prove that blacks can be just as racist as white folk. For a brief moment, whites can take refuge from the burning spotlight and show those blacks how it feels to be under scrutiny for racism, for once.

Saying the wrong things at the wrong time has its consequences, as an unnamed commissioner and then-manager Thomas Andrews of the Fulton County Department of Human Services shortly realized during a discrimination lawsuit launched by a former employee. Having fellow colleagues say that there were "too many white boys" on the staff was one of the things that cinched a settlement for the white ex-employee.

I doubt Rep. Mitchell will step down from his position, although state GOPers wouldn't mind one bit if he does. Just another slot for the Grand Old Party to slide a conservative candidate into. I also doubt his constituents would throw him under the bus like his own party is doing. It seems the Alabama Democratic Party is doing more than its fair share to ensure that Alabama remains a defacto one-party state under GOP dominance for decades to come.

H/T to Redeye for his continuing reports on the shenanigans going down back in my home state.

Just about anyone who followed the Electronic Bingo Boogaloo series or read Legal Schnauzer's numerous posts on bingo and corruption already know one thing: that the pols in Alabama have been bought, paid for and giftwrapped by the Poarch Creek Indians and out-of-state gambling interests. So it didn't surprise me to read about state attorney general Luther Strange bringing the pain to Southern Star Entertainment in White Hall two years after receiving $100,000 in campaign contributions from the Poarch Creek Indian Tribe. Just as the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians expected Bob Riley to deliver on their $13 million investment, the Poarch Creek tribe wants Strange to deliver, as well.

I thought we were done with this, especially after current Governor Robert Bentley declared the era of the Electronic Bingo Boogaloo to be over and done with and certainly after Bob Riley rode off into the sunset on his Harley Davidson for parts unknown. But in the Great State of Alabama, nothing's ever really "done." This is the place where the same "quid pro quo" can land Democrat politicians in the poke until they grow too old (Don Siegelman) or too dead (Larry Langford) to be politically effective.

So the beat goes on. And it will go on until the financial and political costs of buying and selling key politicians to maintain virtual business monopolies becomes too painful to bear. I don't see that happening any time soon, sadly.

A few days ago, former Alabama governor Don Siegelman was re-sentenced on bribery charges and sent back to prison. Siegelman has to serve 78 months in addition to the time he's already served, plus spend the preceding 36 months on probation and pay restitution of approximately $50,000.

Siegelman's re-sentencing caps off the systemic destruction of the Alabama Democrat party, namely by removing many of the most powerful progressive politicians from the picture. The epic Electronic Bingo Boogaloo saga brushed away many of these figures, with the side benefit of securing the interests of Mississippi gambling concerns and those of the casinos located on Native American lands throughout the state. Today, the state of Alabama is, for all intents and purposes, a one-party state led solely by the Republicans.

This is also a hard-hitting lesson on why it's important for new administrations to clean house. Without Bush-era holdovers like Leura Canary and hubby Bill Canary, this entire investigation would have fallen apart before it grew legs. Mentioning Karl Rove's name in this mess will surely draw cries of conspiratorial thinking from conservatives, but his involvement in positioning former GOP governor Bob Riley's ascension is recorded, noted and undeniable:

According to the Alabama RNC source, Rove met regularly with operatives for the Riley campaign. The source’s allegations are confirmed in part by campaign disclosure forms, which show that Windom paid Canary as a consultant between 1999 and early 2001 and later received large contributions from Canary’s business partner, a pattern that is duplicated with Riley and Canary.

According to public records, Windom paid Canary’s firm $38,022 for consulting and polling between 1999 and 2001. At the same time, PACs associated with Canary’s business partner, Patrick McWhorter, donated heavily to Windom’s campaign, contributing $149,000 in 2001 and another $75,000 in 2002.

After Windom lost the primary, PACs associated with McWhorter and Canary switched their donations to Bob Riley, giving him $85,000 in the days immediately preceding the November election. After the election victory, Windom emerged immediately as a close confidant of Riley’s, advising him on the appointment of a new Insurance Commissioner, Walter A. Bell, and other matters. Canary also emerged as a key Riley advisor.

Public records also show that at the same time Canary was consulting for Bob Riley’s campaign, his lobbying group, the Business Council for Alabama, donated $678,000 to the campaign of his client. This was the third largest donation the campaign received, exceeded only by those from the Republican National State Elections Committee, for $2,475,000, and from Bob Riley himself, who contributed $1,070,000 to his own campaign.

Fellow blogger Legal Schnauzer has been on this case for quite a while, with a volume of detailed and in-depth blog posts to boot. You can follow the "Don Siegelman" tag and read to your heart's content, but here are a few posts that stand out IMHO:

Judge In Siegelman Case Displays Monumental Arrogance and a Seriously Faulty Memory

Siegelman Resentencing Serves as a Grim Reminder That His Prosecution Was Bogus from the Outset

Justice Department Lawyer Has Conflict of Interest In SCOTUS Review of Siegelman Convictions

Ever since Jefferson County, AL's half-cent occupational tax, authorized in 1967 but not collected until 1988, was struck down as "unconstitutional" back in 2011, the county's been out of an estimated $66 million in desperately-needed revenue. It was the proverbial straw that broke the county's back and drove it into one of the largest bankruptcies in recent history.

Now the county wants to resurrect that tax in an effort to get its fiscal house back in order. Except there's plenty of vocal opposition that would rather have the county eat its cold bowl of court-imposed and "taxpayer"-supported austerity. Instead, Jefferson County is being forced to trim back on indigent care, most notably the services provided by Jefferson County's Cooper Green Mercy hospital. Most of the AL.com crowd wouldn't mind seeing the hospital close its doors, despite it serving a significant portion of JeffCo's poorest and uninsured.

Cooper Green is currently some $8.9 million bucks in the hole. The hospital's seen its obstetrics and oncology services put to an end in an effort to cut back on spending. People who can't afford decent care from the other surrounding hospitals may have no other choice but to hit the emergency rooms of UAB and others. Meanwhile, the county is doing its best to shed enough of its budget to meet a $40 million dollar shortfall. It doesn't matter how much that ground glass hurts going down, you have to finish all of your austerity before eating dessert.

The whole point of the occupational tax? There are thousands of suburbanites outside of Jefferson County who commute into the county for work but leave promptly afterwards, with their paychecks not far behind. Most of these people choose not to spend any money inside the county beyond the occasional lunch and a tank fill-up. They don't pay property taxes because they don't live in Jefferson County, but they still utilize the road networks and rely on law enforcement, fire and rescue and other resources.

These folks live in Shelby, St. Clair, Bibb, Tuscaloosa and Blount Counties*, places with much lower taxes and far more conservative social and political mores. As you can imagine, they'll extract wealth from JeffCo, but that's about it. A half-cent occupational tax would go a ways to recoup some of those expenses spent on those commuting into JeffCo.

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The most recent bill drafted by lawmakers, the "Alabama Financially Distressed Counties Act," will give other counties the power to levy their own occupational taxes when they fall between a rock and a fiscally hard place. Unfortunately, those suburban folks are the kind of folks who reflexively twist their faces in disgust over paying yet another (half) penny in taxes, despite effectively having their cake and eating it. But it's not just the virulently anti-tax people who are up in arms over the prospect of an occupation tax.

Part of the problem lies in Alabama's fucked up legislative methods when it comes to county-wide affairs. You see, while most other states give their counties home rule, Alabama...doesn't. In most cases, if you want to get get things done in your county, it has to go through the state legislature as either a local bill, seen and approved by the county's legislators or a general bill, seen and approved by all of the state's lawmakers. It only takes four county representatives in the House or one senator to take a local bill, beat the living shit out of it and toss it into a corner, broken and battered until the next legislative session. This is what the illustrious State Senator Scott Beason did to a prior attempt at resurrecting the occupational tax.

The other part of the problem is the bill authors being their own worst enemies. Sen. Jabo Waggoner and Rep. Jack Williams each pushed their own versions of the "Alabama Financially Distressed Counties Act" as a general bill. Williams managed to get his bill through committee. And then a Birmingham News reporter asked a simple question: whether the bill included exemptions for lawyers, doctors and other professionals.

Keep in mind this was an understandable question to ask. The previous occupation tax had this exemption in place to prevent professionals who were already paying professional license fees from essentially being double-taxed. Rep. Williams answered in the affirmative. And that's where the sugar turned to shit.

You see, Rep. Williams didn't actually read the whole bill, despite being credited as the author. As it turns out, no one actually writes their own bills. Or reads them. Worse, lobbyists and other people with vested interests in legislation are the ones penning the bills:

For Williams, the incident exposed an embarrassing fact about how legislation becomes law. Most lawmakers don’t write the bills they sponsor. This is probably for the best, since many are not lawyers and could do more harm than good if they did pen the bills themselves. What’s more, many lawmakers don’t read the bills, either. Instead, they trust the lobbyists and interested parties who shop legislation to them. This becomes a frustrating and embarrassing problem when pesky reporters ask them about the legislation or when the bills become law and have all sorts of unintended and irritating effects, as Alabama’s immigration law, HB56, had last year.

It might seems silly from the outside looking in, but in a system run by lobbyists and politicians, trust is essential.

That sums up Alabama's entire legislative problem in a nutshell. The legislators are merely figureheads and decoration for the real powers: lobbyists and corporate interests.

JeffCo Commissioner David Carrington neglected to make clear to Williams how the exemptions weren't gonna be in the bill. Whoops. Fortunately, Waggoner's bill had these exemptions, in the form of a deduction from professional license fees as long as the fees were less than the tax. Waggoner's bill made it past the Senate, but it didn't make it past the House County and Municipal Government Committee intact.

...the County and Municipal Government Committee of the House of Representatives today voted 7-4 to rewrite the plan to exempt people who live outside the county from paying the occupational tax.

Jefferson County Commission President David Carrington said that change would reduce revenue from the allowed occupational tax to about $45 million a year.

Opponents of the amendment excluding Jefferson County workers who live outside the county said it would be unconstitutional, since it would create two separate classes of workers.

That defeats the purpose of the bill, which is perhaps the intended effect. The last bill got killed because an "unconstitutional" amendment. Leaving this poison pill in the pie could get the whole thing thrown out at some point.

Wednesday is the last day of the current state legislative session. Unless the governor feels like opening a special session, this may be the last chance for the county to see a solution to the fiscal problems ailing it.


*There's an urban myth out there that Walker County residents actually commute into JeffCo. I doubt the veracity of this myth, as most Walker Co. residents have traded their wheels for cinder blocks.