Alabama: Smith offered contributions for gambling vote

Senator says Smith offered contributions for gambling vote
Written by Sebastian Kitchen

Former state Sen. Steve French said Friday that fellow Sen. Harri Anne Smith told him more than once that she would contribute to his campaign if he voted for gambling legislation.

French, a Republican from Mountain Brook, is on the witness stand in a federal corruption trial. Smith, an independent from Slocomb, is one of nine defendants in a federal corruption trial that alleges that casino interests bribed state lawmakers to vote for gambling legislation.

French said Smith mentioned during a March 9, 2010, dinner with other Republicans, hosted by wholesale beer distributors, that other Republicans were coming to her for contributions.

French said the comment got their attention because senators typically ask for contributions and are not asked for contributions.

Smith said that some Republicans, when they heard she had endorsed Democrat Bobby Bright for Congress in 2008, were leery of accepting the contribution. French said he joked that he would take a contribution regardless of whether she endorsed Bright, the former mayor of Montgomery who was elected to Congress in 2008.

Two days later, while the Senate was in session, French said Smith called him over to her desk.

He said that Smith, at least twice, told him there was campaign money available if he voted for the gambling bill.

French, who served three terms in the Senate, said he told her “we’re not going to talk about any kind of official action … If you want to give me a contribution, I would be glad to accept it.”

When asked about the interaction in court, French said “her linking the two was very uncomfortable to me and I thought she had stepped over the line.”

When asked about why he walked away during the conversation, he said “I was very uncomfortable with where the conversation was headed and I did not want the conversation to continue.”

The prosecutor asked French if anyone had ever offered him a contribution in exchange for his vote before.

“No one and no one had even come close,” French said.

The senator, who lost in the 2010 Republican primary, said he talked to authorities about the offer.