Birmingham Blues

Nancy Worley must be as dumb as a rock.  She was indicted today for violations of the state election laws — laws that she, when she served as Secretary of State, should have known like the back of her hand.

Montgomery attorney James Anderson said he received a call from the attorney general’s staff informing him that Worley had been indicted on five felony counts and five misdemeanor counts accusing her of soliciting campaign funds from employees in the secretary of state’s office.

…During Worley’s re-election campaign last year, one of her employees, Ed Packard, ran against her in the Democratic primary and filed a complaint with the attorney general’s office. The complaint involved Worley sending an envelope to her employees that had a place on the outside for them to mark whether they would like to volunteer in her campaign, post a bumper sticker on their vehicles, or make a contribution.

…State law prohibits state officials from soliciting their employees for help in a campaign. Violations can be either a felony or a misdemeanor, with the felony punishable by up to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine and a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a $2,000 fine.

It doesn’t get much more straightforward than that.  If it’s illegal to ask employees for help with your campaign, then you don’t hand out envelopes asking them to choose from a list of ways they can help.  Of course, Ms. Worley is claiming that this whole kerfuffle is a political prosecution (and given AG Troy King’s record, she could be forgiven for thinking so), but it sounds a lot like arrogant stupidity on her part.  Or would that be stupid arrogance?

Hat tip to Blues reader Don, who points out the article’s money quote from Worley’s attorney: “As far as she knows, nobody who worked for her gave to her.”  I bet he didn’t mean that quite the way it sounds.

UPDATE:  I can’t believe I didn’t include a link to Dan’s list of Troy King’s greatest hits.  Alabama’s political embarrassments truly transcend party affiliation. 

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 14th, 2007 at 4:46 pm and is filed under Alabama Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.