Back to the Beginning: Jill Simpson’s Legal and Political History
June 20th, 2007Jill Simpson grew up in the Rainsville area of Northeast Alabama as the daughter of two parents who were both politically active - on opposite sides of the political fence.
She was raised by a Republican mother, whose family was mostly made up of potato farmers, and a Democrat father, who knew George C. Wallace so well that the four-term governor was able to help her gain admittance to the University of Alabama Law School even though she was initially turned down.
She had been accepted at Cumberland Law School in Birmingham and Vanderbilt Law School in Nashville, Tennessee - a far more prestigious school. But she really wanted to go to Alabama, where as an undergraduate student in the 1980s she met and became close friends with Rob Riley, the politically ambitious son of Bob Riley.
That’s the same Bob Riley who was a three-term Congressman from Alabama who would be elected governor in a razor-close race in 2002 - in part thanks to her.
While an undergrad at Alabama, Ms. Simpson was an active pro-life advocate who joined the university’s Young Republicans, a group that actively supported the reelection of Ronald Reagan in 1984. She remembers going to see Ronald Reagan speak there in 1985, and still admires the former president.
When I met her on the Southside of Birmingham in 1989, she was just out of law school and beginning to set up a practice “in the big city.” But after a year and a half in Birmingham, she discovered she could get more work as a lawyer handling divorces, bankruptcies and Social Security cases in the region she called home. So she moved back to Dekalb County and set up a lucrative law practice in the place her daddy had practiced accounting all his life.
Over the years of working out of Rainsville, she also developed an interesting legal specialty representing “storm gypsies,” a shorthand term for rednecks with trucks and tools who go in and clean up the landscape in the aftermath of ice-storms, tornadoes and hurricanes.
And it is that legal work that gave her the expertise to do what Siegelman’s and Scrushy’s teams of lawyers and $30 million could not do in Montgomery: Oust a federal judge for an ethical and legal conflict that may get him removed from the case by the appeals court - if he does not recuse himself before the June 26 sentencing date.
But again, that is getting ahead of the story.
Back in 2001, while doing federal contract work for her storm gypsy clients in Washington, D.C. and hounding the Federal Emergency Management agency, Ms. Simpson would often run into her old friend Rob Riley at the classy watering holes of D.C.
When Rob Riley told her his dad had decided to run for governor, she agreed to help.
At that time, she says, the Rileys had virtually no money to run a campaign for governor. So she put together a volunteer operation in North Alabama that could “knock up signs” and such for virtually nothing.
Lt. Gov. Steve Windom of Mobile was the clear Republican favorite, with all the support of the Bushes, Karl Rove, Bill Canary and the rest of the machinery of the Republican National Committee and the Alabama Republican Party. But Windom was already in a major mudslinging dogfight with then-governor Siegelman.
So according to Ms. Simpson, the Riley campaign was able to take the high road in the primary campaign “and float above all that muck.”
She figured out that Riley only needed to take 13 North Alabama counties to win the primary. And the strategy worked. Riley won.
“We beat Karl Rove and Bill Canary in the primary, with almost no money,” she says with a touch of glee in her voice.
Along the way, in their effort to raise money, Ms. Simpson tried to get the Rileys to help her collect on a contract with the Federal Emergency Management Agency for one of her storm gypsy clients. It was a $4 million deal for cleaning up after an ice storm in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, a contract that was tied up in the federal bureaucracy in Washington. What’s a Congressman for but to help a citizen collect legally earned money being held up in Washington? She promised to split the money with the Rileys if they would help free it up in the bureaucracy.
But the contract was never paid. Why? Because once President George W. Bush heard about Riley’s situation, she says, he agreed to make a fund raising visit to Alabama. That visit raised roughly $4 million for the Riley for governor campaign and gave Rob Riley the budget he needed to run a real campaign for his dad.
Once the primary was over and the Rileys had the money raised by Bush and the RNC, they didn’t have as much of a need for Ms. Simpson’s volunteer network. So she didn’t hear back from them much during the general election campaign - until about a week before the election, and significantly during the recount that ensued.
Part 1:An Introduction to North Alabama Law and Politics
Part 2: Back to the Beginning: Jill Simpson’s Legal and Political History
Part 3: How the 2002 Election Was Stolen in Bay Minette
Part 4: How Ms. Simpson Discovered A Corrupt Judge
Part 5: How and Why Ms. Simpson Wrote and Signed the Affidavit
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:43 am
Jill Simpson’s Affidavit May Help Justice Prevail in the Siegelman, Scrushy Case
It also lifts the veil on how politics subverts justice and dirty tricks sully politics… Editor’s Note: This story is divided into five sections. It starts with An Introduction to North Alabama Law and Alabama Politics, which sets the scene…
June 22nd, 2007 at 1:55 am
How Ms. Simpson Discovered A Corrupt Judge
After the 2002 election, Ms. Simpson continued to stay in touch with Rob Riley and others in the Republican Party as Bob Riley moved into the governor’s mansion in Montgomery and took over the reins of government. Her law practice…
June 24th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
11 Responses to “Going Silently Into That Lame Duck Good Night?”
ivan swift Says:
March 9th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
It may be that the blatenness of the GOP onslought is so overwhelming, ordinary Alabamians just can’t react to how the Rove-Riley-Canarys-et al machine is crapping on the constitution and constitutional rights. And, it may be that the GOP combine senses that the day is coming when they are going to be exposed - when Riley et al are in the dock, pleading for mercy, not justice, so they’re fighting like cornered rats.
Glynn Wilson Says:
March 9th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
How are ordinary Alabamians to even find out there’s something wrong with what’s going on, when the local press and broadcast media won’t report it?
I stopped by a local party of ordinary Alabamians last night for a short while. The Siegelman case came up. But few there have read the accounts here or at Harpers.org, so they are in the dark. They don’t understand how it is even possible that justice could be so political. It is hard to fathom, I guess - until someone you know is at the other end of the injustice stick.
fred Says:
March 9th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
I too am struck by how many of my friends and co-workers are essentially clueless about what our government has been doing to subvert both the rule of law and the political process. I am also amazed that these same people will not call or e-mail their elected representatives to express their opinions on whatever subject is at hand. Outrage is useless without expression!
I often sent e-mails to Bud Cramer, Shelby and Sessions. Bud always responds even though I often disagree with him. Shelby and Sessions, more often than not, how their arrogance by ignoring me.
Which leads me to the dead campaign by Vivian Davis Figures. Why can’t we find someone to mount a credible campaign against Sessions?
Glynn Wilson Says:
March 9th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
There’s a brain drain going on…
I guess the talent pool is small. And who would want to run if you face indictment?
Henry B. Rosenbush Says:
March 9th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Another testimony to Adams was his 54-year marriage to Abigail (hell, he was married as long as I’ve been alive) and her reminding him to “remember the ladies” while working on the Declaration of Independency. Sadly, he was not as pleased about his two terms as VP telling Abigail: “My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.”
As president he had to deal with the war between the French and British and his refusal to accept bribes from French Foreign Minister Talleyrand is legendary. Imagine today our Supreme Ruler confiding in Congress that he had been offered a bribe? Better, yet, admitting to accepting one.
As much as it will be fun to see the HBO Miniseries it will sadden me to be reminded of the sacrifices these brave men made to build America. I suspect they would collectively be rolling in their graves if they weren’t mere dust now.
However, we should never give in to the tyranny we will face if all our liberties are stripped away and right now people, we are on the verge of losing them all.
Glynn Wilson Says:
March 10th, 2008 at 7:18 am
See the Telescope section on the news page. Atlantic Monthly has an interesting survey on the state of democracy around the world.
jackson Says:
March 10th, 2008 at 8:59 am
You can thank Greenspan for the timidity of the flock. He was right when he declared that “a certain amount of economic uncertainty is a good thing” to paraphrase badly. How can someone who’s barely making their mortgage and barely holding onto their jobs dare to rock the boat? If one bad decision can cause you to lose everything, how can you risk standing up to power?
A comfortable middle class led to the unrest of the 60’s, when young adults fought vocally for equal rights etc., against conservative entrenched power. Conservatives HATE what happenned in the 60’s. A comfortable middle class that gets TOO comfortable leads to unrest, when people question authority and react en masse to injustice rather than tentatively clinging to their shrinking portion of the american dream….
To keep americans docile and servile you must convince them to spend as much as they can (our priority, according to GWB)so they stay on the edge and are effectively OWNED by their corporate debt holders. So much for liberty.
Glynn Wilson Says:
March 10th, 2008 at 9:36 am
It’s a sad commentary, but if they don’t wake up and fight, it’s going to get much worse before its has a chance to get any better.
Those safe little jobs at corporate newspapers aren’t going to last much longer either, so if there are liberal reporters working for those news chains, perhaps they should consider rising up about now and fighting a little harder to tell the truth…
Yana Davis Says:
March 10th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Ask around among your friends and see who’s actually read the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Even among Baby Boomers, putatively better educated than generations since, it’s only a minority. Some years back, a poll was done to discover what Americans thought of the liberties protected by the Bill of Rights.
When given verbatim reading of one or another of the first ten amendments — minus identification of where it came from — a surprising number either thought the protected right shouldn’t be protected or, worse still, thought it was somehow communist.
Is this because most people are inherently stupid?
No, the answer lies in our culture. Americans are exceptionally poorly educated, thanks to our government monopoly elementary and secondary school system. Results include a culture that places more importance on American Idol and the personal life of Britney Spears than on American government and the daily abuse of power by the executive and Congress.
In fact, with the general ignorance of the Bill of Rights, most Americans would likely not notice most of their rights being taken away.
If it were not for a small minority of libertarians and civil libertarians, both major parties, and their special interest group allies, would have long ago scrapped the Bill of Rights. They’ve been chipping away at it furiously over the years, especially during the last eight, but consistently for several decades.
Ultimately, it will require a change in culture, a rejuvenation of widespread interest in how the government works and how much power it has, to change this state of affairs. The “progressive” solution of giving government even more power will result, eventually, in autocracy just as the ancient Roman Republic ended, as several democratic Greek city states ended, and as the French Revolution ended.
Our culture - with amnesia about what happen last year, much less last century or a couple of millenia ago - has to change if we want to stop a headlong rush into a new age of imperial autocracy followed by a new Dark Ages.
But for the moment, we seem quite unconcerned about it all.
Cissy Says:
March 12th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
I’m here and I will stand with you and John Adams!
Barbara Back Says:
March 22nd, 2008 at 7:42 pm
I must say you have really hit the nail on the head on the Alabama problems and what is happing to the citizens of the united states in Alabama. I was a victim of the disgusting officials, federal and local state goverment the amount of pain they had inflicted on me and my family was a discrace adding to my diabilty , I was vitim of politics, I have written many many emails to Alice Martin pledding and begging for help and to no avail were never answered, I first thought that it was that I was a Yankee in the south, I never seen it comming, I could not go to any federal or state official for help even though I tryed. my rights were stomped on and my name smeared though the mud to say the very least, now I guess George Bush thinks that I should just suck it up , I feel gang raped by the same united states that my entire family served and fought for my freedom and liberty. yes I do agree that they would be rolling in there graves to see what they were fighting and died for.what happened? why does Bush think he has the right to do this to me and my family, How am I to live with what was done to me.? I am still under there thumb I can’t get the social security that I deserve still fighting 3 years now. I have two chronic pain diseases that they made worse.no one cares that this was done to me.I went to the FBI , they said that they are there for bank robbers, went to the united states attorneys office spoke with a few assistants they said that they were there for the President not me. I wrote a few republican [my big mistake] I went to the federal court to press criminal charges and they said that I couldn’t press criminal charges on the officals that violated me the united states attornys office does that, so I filed for civil to seek some sort of justice and that was threw back since the court clerk said that 1983 was a criminal and not a civil code, I am not a lawyer nor even finished high school, I am a disaled white american in need of justice. believe me I AM STANDING WITH YOU.. WILLING TO FIGHT TO THE END TO GET OUR RIGHTS AND UNION BACK THAT WE SO NEED.thats in a nut shell theres way too much to write. I am sure that I am not the only one out there that has been perscuted by our own justice system. Barbara Back
June 24th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
jill is my attourney also