Guest Editorial Column
by Ron Sparks

Alabama is facing the greatest financial crisis of modern history with the potential looming on the horizon of firing thousands of teachers and denying care to thousands of nursing home residents. While other candidates for governor, both Democrat and Republican, refuse to address this crisis, I have offered a means of providing additional funding for our state without taxing working families.

Just last week, we learned that Alabama has one of the ten highest unemployment rates in the nation. This news comes on the heels of months of catastrophic financial projections that the Education Trust Fund, Medicaid, and other vital state services are at great risk.

Recently, federal stimulus money helped fill the holes in the state budget. That much-needed money has now been spent and the chickens are coming home to roost.

What’s been missing from the political debate is any effort on the part of my fellow candidates to be honest about our state’s financial condition and plain talk about what we are up against.

Basic laws of economics tell us that we can’t spend what we don’t have. Considering the crisis we are facing and the many needs we have, we have very few choices. We must cut services, raise taxes on the working people of this state, or as I have proposed, identify new revenue streams to flow into our state budgets.

I have been clear that I will never raise taxes on the hard working men and women of Alabama. Our families are already strapped with all they can handle just trying to keep a roof over their heads and food in their children’s mouths. I will not support any plan that that will put teachers out of work and takes supplies and technology out of your child’s classroom. Whether you live in Wilcox County or Mountain Brook, every child deserves the same standard of educational opportunities.

The only option left is to find new money for our state budgets.

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by Glynn Wilson

Agricultural Commissioner Ron Sparks, the Fort Payne Democrat running for governor of Alabama, came out swinging against charter schools again today on the historic steps of the State Capitol Building in Montgomery.

“Today, at the foot of the seat of power in the State of Alabama, I stand alone in opposition to one of the most disastrous public policy initiatives in recent years,”: Sparks said. “In recent days, Artur Davis and Bob Riley have told the people of Alabama that the only way for Alabama to receive money for education reform from the federal government is through the implementation of charter schools. That is simply not true.”

There are federal programs in place now in Alabama that qualify for the stimulus funds, he said..

“We have innovative schools, magnet schools, and specialized programs of excellence in Alabama that would qualify us to receive some of the $4.3 billion of stimulus funding allocated for education,” Sparks said. “Since everybody wants to talk about charter schools, I’m going to tell you the truth about charter schools. Charter schools are only marginally effective. They are not innovative and visionary and have not produced results that justify this much discussion and debate. There is no guarantee that we will get a single penny of the stimulus money by implementing charter schools.”

Studies show that 85 percent of charter schools perform at the same level or below the level of standard schools, Sparks said. “Now, tell me what all the fuss is about? Where is the record of success to back up this demand for charter schools?”

Casino gambling has a better record of success than charter schools, Sparks said. He indicated that the statistics show there is nothing special about the performance of charter schools.

“Charter schools are at best, a mediocre experimental program,” he said. “So, if it’s not about performance then what is it all about? Why is there such a rush to get on board the charter school express?”

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by Glynn Wilson

After Birmingham Congressman Artur Davis tried to make friends with the man who might be his Republican opponent if he were to win the Democratic Party primary next June, praising Bradley Byrne for his proposed ethics plan, Davis’s primary opponent Ron Sparks immediately called him a hypocrite.

“It is the height of hypocrisy for Artur Davis to bemoan what he called ‘the unlimited power of a few special interests’ to dominate Alabama politics by writing big checks, while, according to ConsumerWatchdog.org, Artur Davis received $364,000 from health-care special interest groups and then voted against President Obama’s health-care bill, despite the overwhelming support for Obama and health-care reform in his district,” Sparks said in a press release.

According to a blogger at al.com, Davis welcomed Byrne’s endorsement of several ethics proposals this week.

“While I am pleased that unlike Ron Sparks and the other Republicans in this race, Bradley Byrne has put forward an ethics proposal, I am mystified that he does not go further, to root out the real abuses that are breaking down trust in Alabama politics,” Davis reportedly said.

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by Glynn Wilson

Agricultural Commissioner Ron Sparks, the leading candidate in the Democratic Party’s race for governor of Alabama in 2010, blasted the state’s conservative Supreme Court on Saturday for playing politics with the gambling issue

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Friday to strike down a preliminary injunction that kept the Gov. Bob Riley’s Task Force on Illegal Gambling from conducting another raid of White Hall Resort and Entertainment Center.

“The Supreme Court’s ruling yesterday indicates the urgency of the platform I’ve put forward, ” Sparks said in a press release. “This ruling puts at jeopardy an industry that brings hundreds of millions of dollars to both state and local governments in Alabama.”

The people of Alabama are currently financing the services of governments in surrounding states, Sparks said.

“The Supreme Court ruling does nothing but continue to play politics with one of the most urgent issues facing our state,” he said. “As governor, I will push for statewide regulation, local referendum to determine if gaming will be allowed, and taxation of gaming to provide funding for both education and Medicaid.”

The governor’s task force raided the White Hall gambling center in March and seized 105 gambling machines. The charitable organization that operates the facility, Cornerstone Community Outreach, argued that the machines were legal electronic bingo games and got a preliminary injunction against future raids.

The Supreme Court reversed the preliminary injunction, according to news reports. The court’s majority said Cornerstone did not have a reasonable likelihood of proving that the seized games constituted the game of bingo.

Critics of the court often refer to it as the “Exxon Eight,” since out of nine justices on the court, eight of them are conservative Republicans elected with the help of disgraced former Bush political aide Karl Rove. Their most famous ruling reduced a lower court’s ruling penalizing the oil giant Exxon Mobile for bilking the taxpayers of Alabama out of millions of dollars in oil and gas royalties from wells along the state’s coast in the Gulf of Mexico and Mobile Bay.

Alabama’s Agricultural Commissioner Ron Sparks is interviewed on television in Huntsville about how to bring jobs to Alabama…

by Glynn Wilson

Agricultural Commissioner Ron Sparks, the Fort Payne Democrat who is running for governor of Alabama against Birmingham Congressman Artur Davis, came out swinging on Monday two days after Davis voted against President Barack Obama’s national public health care plan in the U.S. House.

“It has been said that evil flourishes when good men fail to act. One of the greatest evils of our lifetime is no doubt that in one of the most prosperous nations in the world, over 48 million men, women, and children do not have access to the world’s greatest health-care system,” Sparks said in a press release.

Despite countless attempts over nearly a century, no chamber of Congress has ever before passed comprehensive health reform, he said. This weekend, the United States Congress, “stood firm against lies, misrepresentations, self serving political rhetoric, and the back-scratching and scare tactics of special-interest money to pass a health-care bill that once and for all will provide equal access to health-care for all Americans.”

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by Glynn Wilson

The press in Alabama is finally reporting a story critical of Gov. Bob Riley — when he is about to leave office after a new governor is elected next year — thanks to a press conference today in Dothan by one of the governor’s key advisers for the past few years.

Glynn Wilson

Former ADECA director Bill Johnson during Bob Riley’s 2006 race for governor in the campaign office in Montgomery.

A former member of Riley’s cabinet, Bill Johnson, said Riley received campaign contributions from Native Americans who operate casinos in Mississippi, and he said that money is still influencing Riley’s fight against electronic bingo across the state.

Johnson said a senior staffer in Riley’s 2002 campaign for governor told him that an Indian tribe that operates two casinos in Mississippi promised $3 million to the campaign, although the campaign didn’t receive the entire amount, according to a report from the Alabama bureau of the Associated Press.

Johnson served as grass-roots and logistics coordinator for Riley’s campaigns for governor in 2002 and 2006, meaning he was in charge of the campaign sign operations in counties around the state, and Riley appointed him director of the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs. But he resigned to run for governor as a Republican this year because of a falling out with the governor, sources in Montgomery say today.

In a letter to the Legislature last week, Riley denied the charge in anticipation of the press conference, saying any suggestion that his efforts to prohibit electronic bingo could leave Indian casinos with a statewide monopoly on the machines is a “baldfaced lie.”

“When we have proven our determination to combat illegal gambling in our state, the federal government will have to address this issue at Indian casinos,” Riley wrote.

In reaction to the news today, Ron Sparks, the Fort Payne Democrat who is the only candidate in the governor’s race running on a pro-gambling platform, commended Johnson for revealing Bob Riley’s hypocrisy on gambling.

“Johnson’s admission that Riley took millions of dollars from Mississippi casinos to protect their market share, confirms testimony already on record from Senator John McCain’s Senate Committee,” the Sparks campaign said in a press release.

“It is time to stop playing politics with the casino issue,” Sparks said. “As governor, I will fight for statewide regulation, taxation of gaming for the benefit of schools and Medicaid, and the development of casinos to bring badly needed jobs to Alabama.”

The protection of the Mississippi casino market has cost Alabama hundreds of millions of dollars, he said. “Its time for that to end. As governor, I will stand up for the people of Alabama and not the casino owners in Mississippi.”

Davis Supports Ineffective, Unfair Experiment for Children

Democratic candidate for governor Ron Sparks again voiced his firm opposition to charter schools in Alabama today, while his primary opponent, Artur Davis, continues to be emphatic in his support for this “ineffective and unfair” initiative, according to a press release from the Sparks campaign.

In August, speaking to a candidate forum hosted by the Christian Coalition of Alabama, and again last week, at a forum hosted by the NAACP, Davis stated that he is firmly in support of a charter school initiative.

Unfortunately for the school children of Alabama, charter schools are far from being innovative or visionary. The record shows that charter schools are not working. They prevent Alabama children from having equal access to education and perhaps violate federal law regarding discrimination.

Sparks says his vision for education is all about equal access, while Congressman Davis and charter schools fail that test.

“Whether you live in Wilcox County or in Mountain Brook, I want every child in Alabama to have the same quality of education,” Sparks said. “That’s not happening today.”

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Glynn Wilson

by Glynn Wilson

KELLY INGRAM PARK, Ala. — Sending a clear message that Rep. Artur Davis will not garner all the African-American vote in Alabama’s upcoming Democratic primary next June, former Birmingham Mayor Richard Arrington endorsed the candidacy for governor of Agricultural Commissioner Ron Sparks on Wednesday on a sunny fall day in downtown Birmingham in front of the historic statue of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Both Sparks and Arrington said it was not about race, but about “leadership.”

Arrington said he was “proud” to stand in that historic spot and endorse Sparks, calling him one of the strongest leaders in the Alabama Democratic Party today.

“I feel we must support a candidate with the ability to win the election. After all, if we don’t win, how can we change anything?” Arrington said. “I honestly believe he will be the next governor of Alabama.”

Sparks also said he was proud to stand across the street from the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the historic 16th Street Baptist Church and be recommended for governor by Arrington, Birmingham’s first African-American mayor, who he called one of the most important leaders in Alabama political history.

“This man is one of Alabama’s greatest leaders and has been for over 30 years and it’s an honor for my campaign to receive his endorsement,” Sparks said.

Arrington, who made history in 1979 by becoming Birmingham’s first black mayor, said it is his belief that Ron Sparks is the only candidate in the race for governor with a plan to deal with Alabama’s economic crisis.

“Our nation, state, and communities are facing one of the most difficult economic crisis of our lifetimes,” Arrington said. “People are simply looking for help — looking for leadership. All Alabamians face these problems — not just some. We need a governor that can bring people together — urban and rural, black and white, rich and poor. Ron Sparks is the only candidate for governor that can do that.”

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