Senators respond to threat

MONTGOMERY -- Democratic Senate leaders Friday responded to Gov. Bob Riley's threat to kill the remainder of the legislative session.

The Democrats accuse the Republican governor of threatening to kill the session because of a rewritten school bond issue and state budget bills, saying Riley wants to control all the money and reward his friends.

"It is hypocritical for Gov. Riley to demagogue about pork in the budgets, yet demand $100 million of pork in the bond issue that he could spend wherever he chooses,'' Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma, chairman of the Senate education budget committee, said in a statement.

Sanders, Sen. Roger Bedford, D-Russellville, Sen. Lowell Barron, D-Fyffe, Senate President Pro Tem Hinton Mitchem, and Senate Majority Leader Zeb Little, D-Cullman, responded to Riley's threat to kill the session over the budgets and the proposed $1.05 billion bond issue.

The school bond issue could produce $100 million in interest that traditionally is distributed to K-12 schools and to colleges.

In previous bond issues, including the $550 million bond issue during the Gov. Don Siegelman administration, interest went into the Public School and College Authority and was distributed based on need. The PSCA consists of the governor, his finance director and the state superintendent of education.

Sanders said in an interview there's fear in the super-charged political atmosphere in Montgomery that Riley will use the potential $100 million to reward friends.

"What I do think is governors see the need of their friends quicker than they see the needs generally,'' Sanders said. "This has been the most partisan governor we've ever had, more partisan than we've ever had in my 24 years.''

Riley's communications director, Jeff Emerson, said, "not a single word of this is true, and they know it.''

"The people of Alabama are a lot smarter than these guys give them credit for,'' Emerson said. "For Roger Bedford or Lowell Barron to accuse someone else of pork spending is out-loud-laughable.''

Bedford, chairman of the Senate General Fund Budget Committee, said it would "be totally irresponsible'' and a waste of taxpayers money for Riley to kill the legislative session.

Mitchem said senators neared a compromise that would have cleared the way for passage of important legislation in the remaining five working days of the session.

"But at the last minute, Gov. Riley came in and pulled the plug by urging his coalition to kill the session,'' Mitchem said.

The bond issue that was substituted, but which hasn't passed the House, would create a fund council consisting of the PSCA members, and three Democrats. Previous reports erroneously indicated the council would consist of only three Democrats.

The six-member council would have at its disposal about $44 million of the $100 million in interest from the bond issue to dispense.

Riley wants his side to have more control over the budgets and bond issue. Sanders said it's possible the session will end without budgets for next year, necessitating a special session.

Bedford predicted the Legislature would pass the budgets in the waning days of the session.

But he wasn't sure how his side would accomplish it because the Senate is locked down in extended filibuster over inconsequential bills. "I don't know, but we have all weekend to think about it,'' Bedford said.

Dana Beyerle can be reached at (334) 264-6605 or dtb12345@aol.com.