Long-time Alabama Lobbyist Massey Admits "I Am A Criminal"

Tweet from BingoTrial coverage Kyle Whitmire/Second Front

Lobbyists call their profession "honorable and responsible" despite what the public overwhelmingly thinks about the industry. Alabama lobbying is a cottage industry of huge monetary proportions and undue influence on an epic scale. No one trusts these paid mouthpieces and suspect they play fast and loose with the law as a rule, not the exception.

Jarrod Massey admits what he is and what he has been doing as a lobbyist.

Massey's revelation on the stand in the gambling trial may only apply to his actions involving bingo corruption, but since he has other clients and he admits acting "corruptly" on behalf of one client, was he doing the same with all the others? It's a fair question.

Whether or not the indicted Jarrod Massey can be considered a credible witness is open for debate, but what he admits to confirms the impression of Alabama lobbyists by most of the general public--they're probably closer to being paid crooks and liars than they are honorable representatives who operate above board in their endeavors.

Many of them have been paid with state dollars i.e. taxpayer funds, which is all the more reason they deserve much harsher scrutiny than the legislature is willing to implement on their activities. 

The same old brand new goats on the hill had a chance to rein in the monetary persuading by passing a reporting requirement on lobbyists funds and expenditures when they enacted the "toughest ethics laws in the nation" last December. Predictably, and likely at the urging of the lobbyists, that requirement was removed from the final version of the ethics laws.

This sounds like a perfect opportunity to take a closer look at Jarrod Massey and his clients for at least the last decade. In fact, let's go one step further and examine the entire system of Alabama lobbyists while we're at it and see how just deep the criminality runs.

Our guess is any honest examination of the system would overload the courts with cases in subsequent indictments. It would be money and time well spent considering the potential benefit on our political process. Isn't "rooting out corruption" one of the grand promises our lawmakers told us they went to Montgomery for?

If they cannot or will not do this, then as far as we are concerned the "Handshake with Alabama" is not "a promise kept" it's a promise denied.

So Say We The Opinion Board of The Vincent Alabama Confidential

 Subscribe in a reader