Republican Caucus Keeps Scott Beason Atop Rules Committee?

by Glynn Wilson

The leading tea party Republican in Alabama’s legislature will keep his job as head of the rules committee in spite of racially charged remarks recorded by the FBI and played during the infamous “bingo trial,” in which federal prosecutors left over from the Bush administration tried to jail a bunch of Democrats for allegedly taking bribes to promote legal gambling laws.

The prosecutions failed since most of the defendants were freed by the jury, but Gardendale Republican Scott Beason got famous during the trial for his racially charged remarks.

In one tape played during the trial, Beason and two other Republican legislators were talking about economic development in Greene County and the customers at one of its largest employers, Greenetrack casino in Eutaw, according to AP, when one Republican said: “That’s y’all’s Indians.”

“They’re aborigines, but they’re not Indians,” Beason said in reply.

Despite repeatedly dragging Alabama into the national spotlight for his embarrassing and racially inflammatory remarks, Beason should not have been allowed to retain his position as Chairman of the powerful Senate Rules Committee by his fellow Republicans in the Senate caucus, according to former judge Mark Kennedy, now head of the Alabama Democratic Party, an unpaid position. Kennedy is the son-in-law of former four-term governor and presidential candidate George Wallace.

“Scott Beason only cares about himself,” Kennedy said in an e-mail press release. “He will do whatever it takes to claw his way to the top, even if it means dragging his fellow Republicans into a federal trial by wearing a wire or trying to bankrupt Jefferson County. If the Republican caucus doesn’t have the fortitude to take him to task over this, I can only wonder what else that wire recorded them saying. I wonder if we’ll ever get to hear those tapes.”

Beason also made national news earlier this year for calling on Alabamians to “empty the clip” on immigrants.

The immigration legislation he sponsored in the Senate has been widely panned as an unfunded mandate, with even Republican Agriculture Commissioner John McMillan questioning the unintended consequences of Beason’s irresponsible bill on farmers and the rebuilding efforts in Tuscaloosa and Birmingham. McMillan told the Huntsville Times he had seen farmers with produce rotting in the fields due to a lack of laborers.

“The Republicans have a supermajority,” Kennedy said. “And this is the man they choose to lead one of the most powerful committees in the legislature? Maybe he’ll be too busy embarrassing himself on the stand again during the next trial to do any more damage to our state, but I sure wish he’d been recording whatever happened last week.”

Beason’s immigration law, which has been called one of the toughest in the country, has also been questioned by the head of the Alabama Baptist Convention, since the law makes it a crime to even feed or give a ride to someone in the U.S. without a green card.

The Republicans are not backing down from the law, even though the Obama Justice Department has vowed not to enforce it, and a number of non-profit organizations have filed lawsuits to stop it from going into effect.

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Tags: Alabama's Leading Tea Party Republican Finally Apologizes for Calling Blacks 'Aborigines', Illegal Immigration, Scott Beason

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 at 8:27 am and is filed under Alabama Democratic Party, Alabama Politics, Political News, Politics and Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.