by Glynn Wilson

The Bush Justice Department and the administration of Alabama Governor Bob Riley continue to play offense in the great ongoing political war against the rule of law in America. The war is being played out on Alabama soil like some of the great battles of the Civil War, only this time, the federal government is on the wrong side of history.

In a move that can only be described as political theater, as opposed to honest, objective law enforcement, United States Attorney Alice Martin sent henchmen from the U.S. Marshals Service all the way from Birmingham to Montgomery this week to make a show of serving subpoenas on members of the Alabama Legislature.

If not for long-standing Legislative rules, they would have stormed into the Legislative chamber, with TV cameras from Birmingham in tow, to put on a real show.

But in the end, the show did not have the ratings power of the recent CBS News “60 Minutes” segment on the political prosecution of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, so Karl Rove must be sorely disappointed down there in his Rosemary Beach bungalow not far from the Alabama line.

According to the official Bush and Riley administration mouthpiece, the Birmingham News, two Alabama Board of Education members and a former acting chancellor of postsecondary education, which oversees Alabama’s two-year colleges, are among those who have been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury investigating alleged corruption in the state’s two-year college system.

Vice chancellor Don Edwards told the News Friday that his department had received subpoenas for state school board members former vice chairman Ethel Hall of Fairfield and current vide chairman David Byers of Birmingham. Edwards said former acting Chancellor Renee Culverhouse, president of Gadsden State Community College, has also been subpoenaed.

And according to the Associated Press, at least nine present and former legislators, including two of the Senate’s most powerful leaders, have been subpoenaed in the Bush Justice Department’s probe of alleged corruption in the two-year college system.

According to their attorney Michel Nicrosi, four state senators were issued subpoenas to testify, including President Pro Tem Hinton Mitchem, D-Union Grove, Rules Chairman Lowell Barron, D-Fyffe, Judiciary Committee Chairman Rodger Smitherman of Birmingham and Dean of the Senate Bobby Denton, D-Muscle Shoals.

Other sources say Rep. Blaine Galliher, R-Gadsden, has been issued a subpoena, along with Rep. Jack Page, D-Gadsden and Rep. Neal Morrison of Cullman.

Morrison resigned from the Legislature last year when he was named president of Bevill State Community College in Sumiton.

Other legislators who have confirmed personally or through attorneys that they have received subpoenas include House Majority Leader Rep. Ken Guin, D-Carbon Hill, Rep. Merika Coleman, D-Birmingham and Rep. Craig Ford, D-Gadsden, bringing the total harassed so far to 14 Democrats and one Republican.

Alabama Democratic Party Executive Director Jim Spearman called into question the method by which U.S. Marshals attempted to serve legislators subpoenas to appear to testify in a grand jury proceeding. Reporters were apparently tipped off by calls stating U.S. Marshals were coming to the Alabama Statehouse to serve some legislators, he said in a press release.

“The drama surrounding these actions and the U.S. Department of Justice’s disruption of a legislative session for the routine serving of a summons to appear in court sends a poor signal to Alabama citizens who are already complaining about partisan political interference into the federal prosecution of former Democratic Governor Don Siegelman,” Spearman said. “These ladies and gentlemen have not been charged with a crime and could have been served by other means in their local communities, not in Montgomery during a legislative session in front of TV cameras and reporters.”

State law actually prohibits serving members of the legislature while they are in session. Section 29-1-7 of the Alabama Code protects members from this kind of action by U.S. Marshals yesterday. In fact, the Marshals could have violated this law by their disruption of the session and have been charged with a misdemeanor.

“Thursday’s action only strengthens our resolve to insist that the U.S. House and Senate as well as the U.S. Attorney General immediately launch an inquiry into Alabama’s federal justice system to assure Alabama citizens that politics and partisanship have not been used in prosecutions or in the serving of subpoenas,” Spearman said. “If Republican operatives had any advance knowledge of yesterday’s serving of subpoenas at the Statehouse, they should have to testify before Congress under oath.”

According to sources in Montgomery and Birmingham, the subpoenas call officials to testify before a grand jury being convened on March 13 and 14 in Birmingham, when Bush appointed prosecutors apparently want to talk to lawmakers who have worked in the two-year system about what kind of work they did to earn their salaries.

Hall, who has been on the state school board for 21 years, said she has no idea what federal investigators want.

“I haven’t done anything wrong and I will answer what questions I can,” she said.

Walter Braswell, an attorney who represents Rep. Randy Hinshaw, D-Meridianville, who works for the Central Alabama Skills Training Consortium, said he has spoken with the U.S. attorney’s office about this apparent fishing expedition.

“I’ve been told this is sort of a survey of all legislators who also have some employment or contract with public education,” Braswell said. “They want to hear how they came to have their jobs, exactly what they did and how they were evaluated.”

Some of the subpoenas were issued in the Statehouse, some in the parking lot and some at people’s homes, sources say.

Postsecondary Chancellor Bradley Byrne has said his department had an agreement with federal prosecutors for subpoenas to be sent to the him when employees of the system are to be served. Why that agreement was violated is anybody’s guess at this point, although it is known that Byrne, a former state senator from Baldwin County who was Riley’s hand-picked choice for chancellor, has been touted as Riley’s potential heir apparent as governor in 2010.

“What they did was illegal,” said a key legislative aide who spoke only on condition of anonymity. “The key question is going to be, why did they have to use these tactics? It’s completely out of control.”

The timing is also at issue, coming in the wake of a key legislative victory for the Democrats in Cullman and the national attention over the Siegelman case.

“It’s not coincidence,” the aide said. “This is tit for tat. They feel the need to remind people that Democrats are bad.”

There’s the active campaign by Governor Riley to take over the Legislature by 2010. And then there’s that active perjury complaint pending against U.S. Attorney Alice Martin, which now might get a closer look by Democrats who control key committees in Congress.

As we often like to say: “It’s a war and no one is safe.”

Pam Miles, a member of the Democratic Party’s executive committee and a long-time supporter of Siegelman, compared the tactics to the Gestapo in Nazi Germany and said some of the people now coming under fire may wish they had done more early on to stand up against the Bush Justice Department’s treatment of Siegelman.

“And when they came for me, who will stand up for me?” she asked. “If people had stood up for Don Siegelman, maybe we could have avoided some of this.”

The law:

Section 29-1-7
Privilege of members from arrest and civil process.
(a) Members of the Legislature of Alabama shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest and shall not be subject to service of any summons, citation or other civil process during their attendance at the session of their respective houses and in going to and returning from the same.
(b) Whoever knowingly and willfully denies to any member of the Legislature the privilege and immunity granted herein is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $1,000.00 or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or by both.
(Acts 1959, 1st Ex. Sess., No. 88, p. 148.)

Tags: Alabama Legislature

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 8th, 2008 at 5:54 pm and is filed under Alabama Politics, Don Siegelman On Trial, HealthSouth's Richard Scrushy On Trial, Jill Simpson, Political Justice in America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.