FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEWS RELEASE
April 8, 2019
For media inquiries only, contact:
Mike Lewis (334) 353-2199
Steve Marshall
Joy Patterson (334) 242-7491
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Alabama Attorney General
Attorney General Steve Marshall Files Brief Responding to Former Speaker Mike
Hubbard’s Appeal of His 11 Felony Ethics Convictions
(MONTGOMERY) – Attorney General Steve Marshall filed a brief with the Alabama
Supreme Court Monday, responding to former House Speaker Mike Hubbard’s appeal
of his 11 felony ethics convictions. Attorney General Marshall argued the legal
questions in this case are straightforward, and the evidence is plainly sufficient to
support each of Mike Hubbard’s 11 convictions.
“Alabama’s Ethics Law helps prohibit conflicts of interest and promote Alabamians’
confidence in the integrity of their government,” said Attorney General Marshall. “As
we explained in our brief, Mike Hubbard repeatedly violated those laws, and his
convictions should be affirmed.”
The State’s brief takes no issue with Hubbard’s contention that, in 2010, he helped enact
“aggressive but sorely needed” ethics reforms. And the State agrees with Hubbard that
the result was an ethics law that was “among the toughest in the nation.” The State also
agrees with Hubbard’s statement that the Alabama Supreme Court “must apply” that
law “as the Legislature wrote it,” not as Hubbard now wishes he had.
But the State’s brief disagrees with Hubbard’s “unnatural” reading of the ethics law,
which asks the Supreme Court to write broad new exceptions into the law that the
Legislature never put there. The brief also disputes Hubbard’s contention that
Alabama’s “strongest-in-the-nation” ethics law allows legislators to receive hundreds of
thousands of dollars for part-time “work” from people and businesses who are paying
the legislators precisely because of their public office.
The State’s brief also takes on Hubbard’s assertion that there was “no evidence” he was
using his public office for private gain. The brief recounts how, shortly after receiving
his 10th $10,000 check from a “client,” Hubbard told his chief of staff that “he had
100,000 reasons” to use his time and office for that client. The brief also notes how, after
Hubbard delivered a legislative victory for another client, the client proclaimed him its
greatest legislative “champion.” And the State quotes extensively from Hubbard’s
emails, including one in which he stated that the business community owed him for all
the “sacrifices [he] made personally and professionally to finally get Alabama a pro-
business legislature,” and found it “amazing, and quite disappointing,” that despite his
“sacrifices,” he was not capitalizing as handsomely on his office as he had hoped.
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Finally, the State’s brief sums up the case, “Hubbard asserts that he was just trying to
‘make a living as other citizens do.’ But private citizens cannot earn a living through
jobs that involve minimal work and training over scotch. They cannot collect hundreds
of thousands of dollars for occasionally calling a legislator. They cannot email lobbyists
and expect riches. In short, private citizens cannot use a ‘public office Ö for private
gain.’ Ala. Code ß36-25-2(a)(3). And under the Ethics Law, Hubbard could not either.
Hubbard broke the law and betrayed the public trust. His convictions should be
affirmed.”
Hubbard will now be given 14 days to file a reply brief, and the Alabama Supreme
Court will determine whether to schedule oral argument or decide the case based solely
on the briefs.
A copy of the State’s brief is linked here
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