Alabama: a bumper crop of embar­rassments

Both Democrats, Republicans want to move on from bingo trial
Written by Brian Lyman

With a bumper crop of embar­rassments, both Democrats and Republicans may want to leave the bingo trial behind them.

"I think they would be trying to run away from it and get it out of people's minds," said Bill Stew­art, a political science professor emeritus at the University of Ala­bama. "They've both had to apolo­gize for things that came up or ex­plain it away."

For the most part, the parties' chairmen didn't disagree.

"I don't see that we would make this a campaign issue unless there's some guilty verdict," said Bill Armistead, chairman of the Alabama Republican Party. "Ju­ries will make that decision if they continue on. We will always be in favor of transparency in govern­ment."

Mark Kennedy, chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party, also said it was time to move on.

"We'll accept the verdict of court, and we're glad we can put this behind us," Kennedy said.

The two-month trial, which ended Thursday with the acquittal of two defen­dants and mistrials declared for seven others on charges of corruption related to gam­bling legislation, opened a rare window into the legisla­tive process, showing lobby­ists offering huge sums of money to politicians for their votes.

Former lobbyist Jarrod Massey, who pleaded guilty to corruption charges and testified for the prosecution, said he gave thousands of dollars a month to former Rep. Terry Spicer, D-Elba. On one tape, former Senate Rules Committee chairman Lowell Barron, D-Fyffe, dis­cusses a "scheme" with Vic­toryLand owner Milton McGregor to make former state Sen. Jim Preuitt vote for the bill by pretending he's in opposition to it.

Two Republican legisla­tors who testified as witness­es for the prosecution may have also been damaged by the trial. Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale, referred to black patrons of Greene­track in Greene County as "aborigines" while wearing a wire as part of an FBI inves­tigation. Rep. Barry Mask, R-Wetumpka, acknowledged receiving payments of at least $10,000 a year from lobbyist Steve Windom while serving in the Legislature.

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"The people who elected Scott Beason need to know what people are running business up there," Kennedy said. "And when he's saying that when he has a tape re­corder in his pocket, what will say when he does not?"

On Beason, Armistead said "we all make comments from time to time we wish we could take back," and re­jected any future sanctions for him.

"I think we should be talk­ing about stripping the posi­tions of those who had real wrongdoing," he said.

Both Armistead and Ken­nedy said the Spicer and Mask revelations showed the need for greater transparen­cy in the political process.

"No one is above the law," Kennedy said. "The Demo­cratic Party stands for the system and making the sys­tem better."

Armistead called the ethics package passed by the Legislature last December a "good first step" in addres­sing questionable practices, but said legislation should not be required.

"We have our own ethics convictions," Armistead said. "It should not require a law to do what essentially is the morally right thing to do."

Stewart said Democrats had more to lose if guilty de­cisions had come down Thursday.

"They were in control of the Legislature at the time," Stewart said. "But since they didn't come down, to a cer­tain extent the Democrats feel vindicated."

Kennedy, however, ac­cused federal prosecutors of using the indictments, which came out three weeks before last November's general election, to advance a politi­cal agenda. The develop­ments, he said, hurt Demo­cratic gubernatorial nominee Ron Sparks, who cam­paigned for a lottery to fund education and supported taxing and regulating gam­bling in the state.

"Could he have won if the indictments came out after? Probably not," Kennedy said. "But they had an intended or unintended outcome that hurt the Democratic slate."

Even with no convictions, casinos don't win