Alabama: Corrosive Effect of Gambling $$$

Advertiser Editorial: Corrosion runs deep

The more witnesses who take the stand in the ongoing federal corruption trial, the more obvious it becomes that the corrupting influence of gambling has corroded the state's political process even more than most Alabamians thought.

We are not suggesting that the accused in the trial are guilty; that's for the jury to decide and the prosecution to prove.

But if even one-tenth of what has been alleged actually occurred, the amount of money spread around the legislative process still would be staggering.

The Republican leadership of the Legislature is proud of the improvements lawmakers made in an earlier special session to the state's ethics and campaign laws, and rightly so. But they would be wrong to assume they have closed all the loopholes and have put in place enough new rules and laws that would prevent future influences such as those being disclosed almost daily in federal court here in Montgomery.

It appears from the cross examination of witnesses that one strategy of defense attorneys in the case will be to try to portray all this as just business as usual in the legislative and political processes. We don't believe that was the case, but if it had been common that would mean that it is even more important to adopt ethics and campaign laws to ensure it stops.

And that is true regardless of the outcome of this trial.

One area that needs to be addressed by the Legislature involves how elected officials can spend campaign contributions. Alabama law allows huge leeway in how campaign contributions can be used, and in the past some of the links in spending to actual campaign costs are nebulous at best.

If campaign funds can be essentially used for almost anything by elected officials, then there is little difference between a campaign contribution and an outright gift of cash.

Another area that needs to be addressed is allowing legislative employees to work directly with lobbyists without a lawmaker involved. Legislative employees should not be allowed to discuss any legislation under development with a lobbyist without the sponsor of the legislation present.

Alabamians should hope all legislators are following this trial closely, not just those under indictment or those afraid they may soon be indicted. The others also should be closely monitoring the trial to see what changes still remain to be made to ethics and campaign funding laws to ensure that the legislative process is not still open to abuse.