Another Political Prosecution in Alabama?
February 1st, 2008Special to the Locust Fork Journal
No Comment
by Scott Horton
Edited by Glynn Wilson
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| Teacher, legislator Sue Schmitz |
Editor’s Note: If you know Sue Schmitz, we would love to hear your stories about her and learn how people who know her feel about this story. Please feel free to make comments in the end, anonymous or otherwise.
February 1 – The morning calm in the small Alabama town of Toney, near Huntsville, was broken at 6:15 Thursday morning when a team of five FBI agents, accompanied by a prison matron, pounded on the door. When the man of the house answered, he was forced into the yard, shirtless in the early morning cold.
They came for his wife, Sue Schmitz, a diminutive, 63-year-old retired social studies and civics teacher who has lived in the town for 38 years. She was dragged out of her bathroom, where she was taking a shower, and handcuffed – breaking her flesh and scraping her wrists as she was hustled off to prison.
Who was this threat to society? Sue Schmitz is a well-respected state legislator who is loved in her community and by her students and is truly legendary for her passion for civics and outreach to the disadvantaged. The dream of her life was to let the fire of civic spirit catch on in communities and among families on the margin of society, where the danger of drug abuse and criminality are the highest. She dedicated her life to it.
She launched a program called “We the People,” designed to build civic spirit and interest in participatory democracy among school children. And Ms. Schmitz’s advocacy of civic engagement led directly to her conflict with U.S. Attorney Alice Martin, who considers it to be a criminal act.
You see, an idea has taken hold in Alabama since George Bush took over the White House and Bob Riley took over the statehouse, that there is something wrong with being an educator and a legislator too. In fact the Riley administration, led to some extent by the Newhouse monopoly press in the state, declared war on having community college employees serve in the legislature and even passed a law banning the practice, never mind the constitutionality of the question.
The Alabama Republican Party is busy revving up its plans for the fall elections, and this incident provides a unique opportunity to see its various limbs moving in perfect concert.
The party’s objective is to take control of the legislature. The party’s leader, Governor Riley, announced that if he can raise $7 million, the party can take control of all three branches of government – by 2010. They already control the state judiciary, including the Supreme Court.
Riley is busy mustering every tool at his disposal to accomplish that goal. That, of course, is all politics as usual – the sort of thing that goes on in states in every corner of the country. But there’s something exceedingly rotten in Alabama. And it’s revealed when we take careful stock of how Governor Riley and his party go about implementing their plans.
First, where do we read about this? On the editorial page of one of the three Newhouse newspapers that have a lock on the state’s print media market, and which operate as the press service of the Republican Party. The Mobile Press-Register, which otherwise publishes fawning pieces about Governor Riley’s cowboy boots and describes Karl Rove as a persecuted genius, now tells us that the G.O.P.’s plan to “take control of the legislature” (their words) is a wonderful idea.
Indeed, it gets the official seal of approval of the paper. You can read this on line at the Press-Register’s website, but why not read it at the website of the Alabama G.O.P.? After all, they are all part of the same operation. Why bother maintaining the pretense of independence?
Here’s the core of their story:
Most Republicans are advocates of reform, perhaps because they’ve been on the outside looking in at a deeply entrenched system. The Democratic Party has controlled the Legislature for more than a century. That kind of political dominance breeds complacency, cynicism and corruption.
Got that? Republicans = reform. Democrats = corrupt. No need to deal with individuals and their record of service. No need in fact to actually explore any political issues, like education or taxation. That would just confuse your poor, tired mind. The labels are all you need to know.
Let’s keep in mind that the state government is in the hands of the G.O.P., and the legislature in theory provides oversight. What happens to the process of oversight when the executive and legislature are in the hands of the same party? I think we all know the answer to that: corruption.
Voters often exercise just the kind of wisdom that the Founding Fathers envisioned by providing for opposing parties to live in an uncomfortable cohabitation. Uncomfortable for the politicians, that is. For those concerned about the hoggishness at the public trough that inevitably accompanies one-party crony rule, it can be the best solution. So when the Press-Register writes about “corruption” and “reform,” just remember that they mean those terms in the Orwellian sense.
The last several years have seen an explosion of no-bid state contracts in Alabama in which cronies of Governor Bob Riley are involved. What happens when newspaper reporters in Montgomery submit stories about these scandals to the three Newhouse newspapers? Alas, I’ve tracked that process, too. The stories don’t run and the reporters get chided.
The Press-Register is absolutely right. There is a culture of “deeply entrenched” corruption in Alabama, and they’re a significant part of it. But for the Press-Register the seat of corruption lies not there, but in the Alabama Education Association, the organization that represents school teachers.
Why? Because the AEA has crusaded for improvements to the state’s secondary education system, and has backed the Democrats, who generally support spending more money on education. You’d think a newspaper would favor reducing the state’s illiteracy rate, but you’d be wrong. After all, this is Alabama.
So the G.O.P.-loyal newspapers lead the charge into the campaign, calling for voter contributions to G.O.P. coffers to fund taking over the legislature. And they also crank out political propaganda for the G.O.P. in the form of stories that pass for news coverage.
At the core of this is the work of the Riley Administration’s court chronicler, Brett Blackledge at the Birmingham News. Blackledge has earned his stripes with a crusade looking into Alabama’s two-year college system, where he is fearlessly rooting out corruption. Funny how everything he writes is perfectly choreographed with Governor Riley’s themes of the week and seems seamlessly joined with criminal investigations conducted by the United States Attorney, about which Blackledge is impeccably well informed. And strange that his investigation of the two-year college system neglects to mention that Governor Riley ran it.
Still all of this pales in comparison with the single most wondrous fact about the Blackledge reportage – only Democrats ever figure in the crosshairs.
Mind you, there’s probably no shortage of corruption in this college system, feather bedding and the like. No shortage of allegations have come to me, Blackledge and the U.S. Attorney’s office concerning corruption. A great many of them involve figures connected to Governor Riley and the G.O.P. But, alas, there doesn’t seem to be enough ink or newsprint to allow Blackledge to write about those cases. Or perhaps there’s another reason. It would be what my politico friends call “off message.”
And today we see the typical pincer movement involving the Alabama Republican Party’s election campaign’s third arm, the U.S. Attorney’s office. Specifically, Alice Martin, the sometime U.S. Attorney, sometime G.O.P. candidate for elective office.
Martin fully understands the benefit to the party and its election efforts of criminal prosecutions being commenced that target elected Democrats, are geared carefully to the election cycle, and are hyped extensively to the party media apparatus. And yesterday, as Sue Schmitz was dramatically dragged from her home in Toney, Alice Martin went before the press with an announcement which will feature prominently in Republican campaign literature for the coming years. She announced an indictment that Blackledge signaled, with his usual perfect clairvoyance in all things prosecutorial, was in the works months back.
Sue Schmitz’s day was dramatically interrupted by her arrest. She had never before had a conflict with the law in any way. And yesterday morning, she had just been preparing to take a group of school kids from underprivileged backgrounds on a tour of the state capital, Montgomery. Here’s how the AP reports the story:
“We charge that Representative Schmitz’s only substantial ‘work’ was to work her official position in the Legislature to land a job through the postsecondary system,” U.S. Attorney Alice Martin said in a statement.
Schmitz was employed from January 2006 until October 2006 by the CITY Skills Training Consortium, an arm of Alabama’s troubled two-year college system. The federally funded program operated at 10 sites statewide to help at-risk youth referred by juvenile courts develop academic, behavioral and social skills. The indictment claims Schmitz made as much as $53,403 annually as a program coordinator despite rarely showing up and doing virtually nothing for the money.
Let’s just pause and look at what’s going on here. A massive federal case has been launched, at a likely taxpayer cost in excess of $2 million, against a social studies teacher, who it is alleged (on the basis of sharply disputed evidence) was not putting in as many hours as she should have in teaching her classes. This has to count as one of the more absurd (if not malicious) cases I’ve seen in recent years.
And remember, this is a Justice Department that can’t spare an FBI agent to look into, or a prosecutor to handle, a gang rape case involving Jamie Leigh Jones, or any of the dozens of other cases involving rape, assault and homicide in Iraq. They’re not “priorities.” On the other hand, bringing charges against Democratic office holders has been a very high priority from the day Bush took office, and it continues to be so today.
More than this, note how party connections flavor the U.S. Attorney’s interest in cases of feather bedding.
Recall that a Missouri criminal attorney conducted a detailed investigation into the service of Mark Everett Fuller as District Attorney in Coffee and Pike Counties. His study, presented in a sworn affidavit and backed up with documentation, showed that Fuller was an absentee district attorney. He drew his salary for the job, but he spent his time out of state, largely in Colorado, attending to the business that he owns and operated and which continues to provide most of his income–Doss Aviation. The affidavit was submitted to the U.S. Attorney and the Justice Department. No investigation of its allegations occurred.
The allegations of “feather bedding” in the case involving this Republican official were many times greater than the one charged against Schmitz. But what happened? Nothing. The U.S. attorney was not interested. As a prosecutor told Time’s Adam Zagorin, different rules apply with respect to the “home team.” Fuller went on to be the judge designated to handle the highest profile political prosecution in the country, involving former Governor Siegelman. Now we’re seeing more evidence of the two distinct flavors of justice dispensed by Republican prosecutors in Alabama: one marked with a “D” and the other with a “R.”
U.S. Attorney Martin seems to have a problem with the truth. She’s currently under investigation for giving perjured testimony in connection with an employment litigation. I lay out the details of the accusations against her, which are quite compelling, here. However, Martin serves at the pleasure of the president, and, as comedian Jon Stewart would say, it clearly pleasures him for her to continue to serve. And it pleasures Karl Rove and the G.O.P. state organizers even more.
“My client is a wonderful, dedicated educator. It’s been her life’s work. These charges are garbage,” said her attorney Buck Watson.
He also noted that he had advised the U.S. Attorney that if they decided to indict his client, she would come in on her own, and he would handle it–an offer spurned in favor of the heavy-handed arrest squad.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” he said. “It’s bizarre.”
I spoke with several of Schmitz’s colleagues, who were shocked by the charges. And it’s spreading a message of cold fear in the community. Others with whom I communicated were afraid to have their names appear in print.
“This is a political vendetta. Anyone who objects to what they’re doing will become a target,” one teacher told me.
So why would a federal prosecutor put such tremendous resources into arresting and prosecuting a retired social studies teacher? Schmitz is an irresistible target. She’s a Democratic member of the state legislature. Note how Alice Martin’s loudly trumpeted indictment works in a perfect trifecta:
* The battle plan rolled out to retake the legislature, announcing “corrupt Democrats” as the target.
* The Newhouse papers run the call to arms and funds, and print a sequence of stories designed to make it all credible.
* The U.S. attorney’s office in Birmingham announces the indictment of a “corrupt Democrat” retired school teacher..
And today, as expected we see stories in the Newhouse papers announcing the indictment, with predictably tendentious commentary. All of this is geared at helping smooth the way for a successful prosecution, and more to the point, a successful Republican takeover of the state legislature. It is a pattern that Alabama has witnessed over and again in the past six years.
The charges against Schmitz will of course have to be proved in a court. And whether they are meritorious or not, Schmitz will be put to hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal expense and is having her reputation tarnished, all courtesy of the taxpayers. Whether the charges stand or fall, all of this activity has one clear-cut beneficiary: the Alabama G.O.P. and its plans “to take control of” the state legislature.
Funny, but the ballot box doesn’t figure very prominently in that effort.
Scott Horton is a New York lawyer who writes a blog column at Harpers.org. A slightly different version of this article ran first today on that Website. It is printed here with permission.
Editor’s Note: If you know Sue Schmitz, we would love to hear your stories about her and learn how people who know her feel about this story. Please feel free to make comments below, anonymous or otherwise…
Tags: Alabama Legislature
February 2nd, 2008 at 7:58 am
Please supply name and address of the lawyer who will be defending this teacher. I intend to make a contribution to her legal defense fund. The best teachers I had in school were teaching world history and civics – they brought into my life the need for personal responsibility in creating the culture where my own offspring would live. A contribution is the least I can do to honor them.
All the way from Texas, Ex-patriot Alabama-raised, Cenda Price
February 2nd, 2008 at 11:05 am
Easy to find with a Google search from the Locust Fork News page.
Herman “Buck” Watson Jr.
Huntsville, Alabama
(256) 536-7423
Website
February 2nd, 2008 at 1:28 pm
If all students could have a teacher like Representative Sue Schmitz in their lives the world would be a better place. She is devoted to her students and her country. Her only “crime” is being a Democrat.
February 2nd, 2008 at 1:28 pm
If the arrest of Sue Schmitz on these contrived charges weren’t so sad, it would be ludicrous. Sue only gave up her teaching position because Republican officials said she couldn’t be in the legislature and the teacher’s retirement system at the same time. In other words, they said her retirement would be hurt if she stayed in the legislature. So she took other state retirement jobs. Now they indict her for taking other state jobs. They want her seat in the legislature and they’ll go any which way to get it.
February 2nd, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Another Democrat in trouble Wit Da Law
(dead link removed from al.com)
February 2nd, 2008 at 4:59 pm
The Alabama Republican leaders are fixated on corruption because they are corrupt. They need to point to a greater villian in order to look good by comparision. So they create the greater villian by combining their own guilt from cheating with the facts of their victim’s public record. The alledged motivation of the fresh villian reflects the motivation that the Republicans remember from their own experience with corruption and guilt.
February 5th, 2008 at 6:23 am
Sue Schmitz did not lose her job because of Republicans. Her contract with the CITY program was not renewed because there was no evidence that she was doing any work for the program. In other words, her direct supervisors fired her after demanding repetedly that she prodide the reports of her work called for in her contract. She had a reputation for not doing the work she was contracted to do.
She only got the position because she asked Roy Johnson to find her the job after she was elected to the legislature. When she did finally file some reports she reported working 8 hour days on the days she was in Montgomery serving in the legislature.
Receiving pay and not doing the work and lying about the work you do for a federally funded program is fraud.
Don’t let the facts stand in the way of a good story.
February 6th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
And of course, GOP girls know everything, even if they hide their identity and always back the corrupt Republicans.
February 6th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
Has the arrest of state Rep. Sue Schmitz, D-Toney, on federal charges involving her being on the two-year college system payroll, like many other state legislators, inspired revulsion among any Alabama Republican leaders?
Are there any Republican leaders anywhere in Alabama who are willing to stand up and say the use of the federal judicial system to damage or destroy Democrats is going too far?
The record of these abuses is miles long.
A New Mexico Republican U.S. senator has announced his retirement, obviously to avoid a Senate ethics inquiry into his call to a Republican-appointed U.S. attorney to try to get the official to speed up indictment of a Democratic candidate. That’s just one case, of many.
Karl Rove perfected the system of abusing Justice Department power to damage Democrats.
An even more glaring case is the prosecution of Don Siegelman. The former Alabama governor was tried before a federal judge who was his longtime political enemy – and railroaded into federal prison.
Now we have Schmitz, a dedicated educator, called a thief of public money by a U.S. attorney who herself has been investigated on perjury charges.
Gov. Bob Riley is raising millions of dollars to try to defeat Democratic legislators. The pieces start to fit together.
Republicans, ask yourselves: Is using the federal judicial system this way just part of the game, or is it going too far?
Ivan Swift
Toney
February 6th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
The editorial “Real payback for a fake job” (The B’ham. News, Tuesday) discussed the arrest of state Rep. Sue Schmitz. Before The News throws the baby out with the bath water, talk to the many students Schmitz taught through the years.
Look into Schmitz’s life. She worked in the community of her constituents not as someone who came around only during election time, but as someone who was there anytime there was a need.
This is a woman who leads a simple life. Nothing is pretentious about her or her lifestyle.
When one thinks of this story, one believes Schmitz must be rolling in money like some of the others charged in connection with the two-year college system scandal. But Schmitz is a simple woman who had her house stormed by five FBI agents last week like she was someone bounty hunters had been after for years.
Let’s not be selective after all of these years in enforcement of these rules.
Richard H. Reynolds
Huntsville
February 6th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
I have known Sue for almost 40 years, and I believe that the accusations are false. If you look at her record, it is one of a dedicated educator who has given her life and her personal resources to her students and her community. She is not a person who steals anything. I do not think that she is capable of lying under oath or stealing from the people. It now appears that through selective prosecution of Democrats, the U.S. attorney, who is under investigation herself, is trying to take away Sue’s seat in the legislature, her right to vote, her personal finances and her good name – in short, her very life.
If you have not already done so, read the articles posted this month by Scott Horton of HARPER’S MAGAZINE (and The Locust Fork Journal). He is a distinguished international lawyer and concerned about justice – everywhere.
A recent editorial from the BIRMINGHAM NEWS, opens the door for counter charges of libel and slander.
THE NEWS, which I now believe to be an arm of the Republican Party in Alabama, has convicted Sue prior to her trial. We need about 200 people – solid citizens Democrats or Republicans – to respond to this vicious attack by writing letters to the editor, supporting Sue.
(Yes, I have talked with Republicans who cannot believe this is happening. They will probably twist and edit everything that we send, but we must try.
You may quote me if you wish in an e-mail, and you may use my letter, but each concerned person should write his/her own letter to the editor or write to the local news media. I welcome comments about this case.
Sue has more friends than detractors, but now her enemies have the power to destroy her if we do not
take action.
I have also written a petition of support for Sue which I would be willing to bring to Democratic headquarters, AAUW, or any other place where it
could be used. My idea was to turn the signed petitions over to her lawyer to use any way that he saw fit.
The members of her chapter of the educational honorary Delta Kappa Gamma International and also of two other chapters, did not hesitate to sign the document.
Anyone who knows Sue can see through these charges.
The conservative press in Alabama is trying to create a mindset of guilt prior to her trial. I believe she is a victim of political vendetta and an attempt to use the courts to control our state legislature – especially to get rid of teachers who are serving there. I am sick of this abuse of our courts. We must defend my esteemed colleague, Sue Schmitz. If we do not stand up for her, these abuses will continue.
Silence is perceived as consent.
Here are some questions for you:
How does Alice Martin know that Sue did “no work?”
Did she hear that from the head of the program who cut a deal to save himself? Obviously if he is guilty, he did no work. How could he make a
statement about Sue if he was not working himself? One of her bosses is dead. How convenient for the prosecution! He cannot come back to defend Sue.
When Sue entered this job with her high ideals, I am sure she tried her best to function within a program that seems to have been flawed from the top. One cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. (You can quote me on that.:)
Below are my comments about the editorial in the BIRMINGHAM NEWS:
Birmingham News, Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Read it for yourself. I will not reprint it here, but the essence is this:
The editor assumes that the charges brought against Sue are based on facts as reported by the U.S. attorney, and they state that she obtained this job when she found out that her pay as a teacher would be docked when she served in the State Legislature. What they fail to mention is that she was already being forced to pay her own substitutes so instead of “double dipping,” she was a victim of “double docking,” which also seemed to be politically motivated. She was not costing the system any extra money, and she was doing lesson plans for her substitute when she had to be out of class, but she was expected to forfeit her classroom pay and pay her own substitute. The article goes on to state that Sue did nothing in her three terms as a legislator except to “nail down” another job. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sue is a person who has served her state well, and now is in her third term and is on three committees in the legislature. The local school board of Madison County should have been proud to have a teacher on the Education Committee of the state and chair of the K-12, subcommittee, but, instead, her accomplishments were met with further salary deductions. The people of District 6 were obviously pleased with her work. They have elected her three times.
It was logical for a person of Sue’s background to seek to associate herself with a program helping troubled youth because that is what she has done most of her life. For the last two years, Sue has volunteered her services teaching an AP government class at Sparkman High School. They did NOT deny
her the right to teach without pay. On the very day that Sue was arrested, in a brutal and degrading manner, she was taking students – without pay – to Montgomery to learn about the Constitution. Instead of trying Sue in the papers and the media, the US Attorney should be shaking in her boots. Sue
knows the law, she knows the Constitution, and she will use it to prove her innocence.
Please encourage all of your contacts to write to THE BIRMINGHAM NEWS and THE HUNTSVILLE TIMES on behalf of Sue. After all, the U.S. Attorney had the arrest stories about Sue plastered in every major paper in the state and on television. Those of us who stand for the truth in this case – which is that Sue is innocent – must demonstrate our outrage by all legal means available in what is supposed to be a democracy, not a dynasty.
Marcia Keller
Huntsville, Ala
retired high school teacher
theclassychic(at)yahoo(dot)com
February 11th, 2008 at 11:18 am
It doesn’t matter how many students or parents think Sue Schmitz is wonderful. That has NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING to do with breaking the law. I want my children to have full access to the educational benefits they are entitled to. Lawmakers who do not do jobs that they are paid to do steal from my children.
February 11th, 2008 at 11:45 am
I think the testimony of those who know her and the information about the Bush Justice Department and the Riley political machine should give you pause about this entire investigation. Maybe you should withhold judgment. After all, under the Constitution, she is entitled to a presumption of innocence.
February 12th, 2008 at 7:51 pm
I agree that public opinion of this woman has little to do with whether she broke the law or not. I do not agree with how she was taken into custody; I would think that if given the opportunity she would have turned herself in. I do think she broke the law. She was being paid thousands, using taxpayers’ money, for which she did no work. That is STEALING.
Also, you are the pot calling the kettle black. This is nothing but one-sided propaganda B.S.
February 12th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
I don’t think we know that, what you are saying that she was paid and did no work. That is what the Bush Justice Department press release says and what is reported in their propaganda arms at the Newhouse press. I would like to wait and see the facts on that in a court of law. Those who actually know her and the work she has done say it is not true. There are two sides to the story.
As for me, I am the other side of the argument here in Alabamaland. You only get one side all day long in the newspapers and silly TV news. Thanks for considering the other side for a change. This state is a black hole for information. I like to think of this as a new bright light bringing you the truth for a change. Some people can’t handle the truth, they say.
February 29th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
It isn’t just Democrats they are going after, though they are the primary target. They (and by “they” I mean the Bush GOP loyalists)are turning on their “own” as well – going after more independent minded members of the state GOP. Take for example, the current case of Alabama Rep. Todd Greeson (R), who has committed the horrible crime of voting in line with state Democrats on more than one occasion because he felt it better represented the needs of his constituency. The state GOP, by the way, earlier threatened to censure him for having such audacity. Read more, here:
Agents raid Greeson’s office
March 7th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
First of all, let me begin by saying that this entire incident is the biggest political hit job I have ever seen. Republican, Democrat who cares? This is about the crooked politicians needing to justify their screwed up “2-year college” plan and they needed a scape goat to take the pressure off them. I personally know Sue and her family and have for many years. In fact my family helped to build the house she was so viciously and maliciously ripped out of that horrible morning. Sue was my teacher in high school and more than that she was my mentor and my friend. Sue is the most honest, dependable, humble, kind, senstive, trustworthy people I know. There is not a crooked bone in her body and it is such a tragedy that she and her family have to be subjected to such a miscarriage of justice. But she is a strong woman and I know that the truth will come out and she will be seen for what she truly is: a beautifully spirited woman who loves teaching, changing and sharing. She loves her students and co-workers and with such passionate conviction about what she believes in, has made amazing changes and progress in her goals. She personally taught me so much and for all I am eternally grateful. How ironic that without the light, the shadow of doubt cannot be cast. And when it is darkest the shadows go away and the truth will finally be seen. SUE SCHIMTZ IS ABSOLUTLEY 100% INNOCENT AND SHAME ON ANYONE WHO KNOWS HER FOR THINKING OTHERWISE!!!!!!!!!!
February 3rd, 2009 at 9:23 pm
Informative article. You have a new subscriber:) All the best, Trevon