Gov. Bob Riley has sent another contract to the Legislative Contract Review Committee to fund his Anti-Gambling Task Force but the committee returned it to him last Thursday, saying no one was at the meeting to represent the governor.

The committee can delay the contract for 45 days, but cannot revoke it.

Riley gave the task force $650,000 in tax dollars several months ago over the committee’s objections. This new bequeath to the task force increases state funding for Riley’s anti-gambling raids to $1,250,000 since January. To date no accounting has been provided for the expenditure of task force funds.

The contract Riley signed comes at a time when the very existence of the task force hinges on an upcoming decision of the State Supreme Court. Atty. Gen. Troy King has taken over control of the task force and ordered Riley’s hand-picked commander, Mobile DA John Tyson, to return to his jurisdiction in Mobile. The governor, however, is challenging King’s action in the state’s highest court.

King says Alabama law and decisions by the state’s high court have confirmed that the attorney general controls all litigation by the state. The high court has upheld that position as late as 2007.

Bradley Arant lawyers Mark Lembke and Michael Pennington are handling task force legal matters for Riley. The contract extends Bradley Arant’s service to March 8, 2011, well into the term of the governor who will succeed Riley. The lawyers will be paid $195 per hour.

Riley also sent the committee another contract for the Bradley Arant firm in the amount of $1,750,000. This contract will pay Lembke a rate of $225 per hour to act on behalf of the state in the tri-state water war with Georgia and Florida.

In the four years prior to Riley becoming governor in January 2003, Bradley Arant was paid a total of $41,829 for state legal work. A year ago we reported that in the first six years and two months of the Riley administration Bradley Arant was paid $4,339,376.14 in state funds for legal work. That total is now approaching $8 million.

The Riley family

connection

According Judy Davis, Human Resources Director for Bradley Arant, the firm hired Robert J. Campbell in September 2003 following Bob Riley’s becoming governor in January of that year. Campbell is married to the governor’s daughter, Minda Riley Campbell.

Rob Campbell, as he is generally known, the law firm and the governor’s legal adviser insisted to The Montgomery Independent last year that there is nothing improper or illegal about the firm doing business with the state while at the same time employing one of the governor’s family members. However, a member of the Alabama Ethics Commission staff told us the arrangement “is still somewhat problematic.

In non-litigation matters, Finance Department Legal Counsel Richard Cater told The Independent that the governor has complete control, in consultation with the agency head whom he appointed, in the naming of outside counsel. Therein lies what Ethics Commission General Counsel Hugh Evans says “is still somewhat problematic.”

The largest portion of Bradley Arant’s state billing under the Riley administration is the more than $4 million it has received from ADECA for state’s Water Wars litigation with Georgia and Florida.

Although former ADECA Director Bill Johnson says the decision to hire Bradley Arant was made under the previous director, John Harrison, “that decision was made over in the governor’s office.” Harrison, who is now Alabama Banking Superintendent, has confirmed the decision to hire Bradley Arant came from the governor’s office.

Questions have circulated on Goat Hill for years about the relationship between the Riley administration and the firm that employs his son-in-law. Because the Ethics Commission has never received a complaint against the arrangement, the matter has never been investigated.

Bob Martin is editor and publisher of The Montgomery Independent. Email him at: bob@montgomeryindependent.com.