Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford was arraigned Monday morning at the Hugo Black Federal Courthouse in downtown Birmingham, after being arrested at Birmingham Budweiser, where he has served in a public relations capacity. Langford, 60, along with friend and lobbyist Al LaPierre, 58, and Montgomery

investment banker Bill Blount, 55, faces a 101-count federal indictment that includes charges of bribery, conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, money laundering, and filing false tax returns. The charges stem from bond deals made from 2002-2005, when Langford served as President of the Jefferson County Commission.

Read the indictment and a run-down of the charges against Langford and friends here.

“As an elected official of this county, Langford owed a duty of loyalty to this county and its citizens to refrain from using his public position or office to obtain personal benefit to himself,” US Attorney Alice Martin stated at a press conference on Monday morning (video from CBS 42 here). “He was to have this county’s best interest superior to all of his personal interests. Instead, our investigation revealed and the indictment alleges that Langford sold his public office to his friends and political supporters.”

The Justice Department’s indictment, which was unsealed this morning, alleges that while Langford was Commission President, he accepted $235,000 in gifts and cash in exchange for giving county sewer bond business to Blount’s firm, Blount, Parrish, & Co. According the indictment, LaPierre served as a conduit for Blount’s bribes, which netted Blount’s firm more than $7 million in fees.

LaPierre, accompanied by attorney Tommy Spina, surrendered at the federal courthouse early Monday morning after hearing of Langford’s arrest. LaPierre, 58, and Langford were arraigned together at about 10 a.m. The two appeared in the third floor courtroom in leg chains and their street clothes. After entering a plea of not guilty, Langford and LaPierre were released on $50,000 bonds.

Blount, who lives in Montgomery, surrendered and was arraigned on Monday afternoon. He also plead not guilty, and was released on a $100,000 bond. Blount is represented by attorney David McKnight.

LaPierre and Langford were nearly silent throughout Monday’s proceedings, which were presided over by United States Magistrate Judge John E. Ott. Langford waived a reading of the 80-page indictment, and LaPierre’s attorney followed suit. The defendants answered “Yes, sir,” when asked by Ott if they understood their rights and the charges against them, and “No, sir,” when asked if they had any questions.  Judge Ott instructed both defendants to surrender any weapons or passports, requested that Langford and LaPierre not leave the Northern District of Alabama without permission from the court, and indicated that US District Judge L. Scott Coogler will serve as trial judge.

After the short court appearance, Langford stood by while his attorney, Tom Baddley, addressed the press gathered on the courthouse steps. (Birmingham Weekly has video of Baddley’s statement, which we hope to have online soon.)

As voter registration closed with record numbers (more than 2.9 million!) even amidst problems with the new voter registration system, local and state races are heating up in Alabama. Doc’s Political Parlor is the hotbed blog for local races, and they’re always up with the newest ads.

Things have gotten pretty dirty in the Wayne Parker (R)/Parker Griffith (D) race for AL-05. Freedom’s Watch, an independent group, launched this ad that takes statements that Griffith made WAY out of context, which followed on the footsteps of a previous ad from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC). After reviewing the “truthiness” of those two ads, a Huntsville TV station pulled them from the air. You can read their press release here. Birmingham News has a lengthy piece on that campaign here.

In the third district, challenger Josh Segall (D) has received support from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the blogosphere’s Red to Blue initiative. Birmingham News ran an article on this race that put Segall’s name in the lede, but barely talked about him, instead fluffing incumbent Mike Rogers (R). It’s a bit ridiculous, because Segall’s a pretty talkative guy, it seems, and he loves talking about promoting local farming and the economy. Oh well.

Over in the Bobby Bright (D)/Jay Love (R) race for the second district, the pandering is very interesting. It hurts to watch Democratic candidates dance around the issue of supporting the Democratic nominee for President just because we’re in Alabama. I would transcribe Bobby Bright’s rather pathetic answer,but it hurts my head. He seems to be deathly afraid of fully supporting Obama. This race is pretty tight right now, say polls. A side-show story in this race is the unproven allegations that Love’s competitor in the Republican primaries, Harri Anne Smith, sold her endorsement to Bright for $150,000 (to retire her campaign debt). It’s not really clear at all that anything like that happened, but the allegation still sucks.

In Alabama’s Supreme Court race between Deborah Bell Passeur (D) and Greg Shaw (R), thihngs have turned rather negative. Press-Register blames this on Passeur, but it’s been dirty on both sides, which caused the judicial campaign oversight committee to call a meeting with the two candidates over the negative campaigning.

In other Alabama news, Regions is selling stock to the gov’t (look for them to purchase other banks soon), home sales are slipping, and foreclosures are up 53 percent. Southern Progress is cutting jobs. And the county’s general debt obligations are suffering from sewer debt problems.

In GOOD NEWS, the Magic City Classic seems to have been magically successful, attracting more than 69,000 folks!

As our brave editor Glenny Brock noted this morning, this is the last week for voter registration. If you haven’t registered, there’s info here. Hopefully your registration will get through, as the Justice Department is questioning why Alabama officials checked the social security numbers of more than 1 million voter registrations. From Phillip Rawls’ article in Montgomery Advertiser:

The Justice Department was concerned that the number checked was far higher than normal. In a letter to the Justice Department on Friday, Chapman said there has been a large number of voter registrations, and that a technical step in the verification process may have been a factor.

But she said an invalid Social Security or driver’s license number “does not and has not ever prevented a voter from registering in the state of Alabama.”

In some states, voters are automatically disqualified if the numbers don’t match. But Chapman and Riley’s spokesman said that in Alabama, discrepancies are reported to county voter registrars to review.

“We assume registrars went back and verified new and existing voters because it’s their job to make sure their lists are accurate,” Riley spokeswoman Tara Hutchison said.

Well, let’s just hope that those country registrars offices are doing their jobs, right? Being that nearly 3 million people are registered in Alabama, we’d hope that all the legitimate voters are able to vote. Some of that surge in voter registration is coming from counties in which there are more registered voters than census numbers would suggest is possible. County officials suggest the census estimates are simply wrong. There’s really no evidence that anything fishy is going on, but it does raise some questions.

I had planned on doing a rundown of local races, but over at Doc’s Political Parlor they’ve got that nailed down. First up, there’s a list of Federal Election Commission filings for Alabama politicians that is great for research. There’s ads from the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) in the second district, where Democrat Bobby Bright is running against Republican Jay Love, and the Democrats are running an ad against Love as well. Freedom’s Watch, a Republican-affiliated independent group is also running an ad against Bright. Love’s primary opponent has crossed party lines to endorse Bright, according to Doc’s. In the fifth district, allegations that Democrat Parker Griffith said something about materialism that some people find unsettling don’t yet appear to be hurting him in his race against Wayne Parker, and Parker is now running an ad in Huntsville about Griffith.

With the help of an AP article by the aforementioned Phillip Rawls, Doc’s looks into the ties that Alabama Supreme Court candidates Deborah Bell Passeur and Greg Shaw have to oil companies. In another post, Danny at Doc’s links to this Fortune magazine article on JeffCo’s sewer debt, which used Birmingham Weekly columnist Kyle Whitmire as a source.

Danny also posted an interesting poll of opinions on the potential 2010 Alabama Governor’s race, which puts Congressman Artur Davis on top.

Birmingham City Councilors are considering voting themselves a $30,000 pay raise, according to the Birmingham News. Over at Thomason Tracts, Thomason asks the right question: “Are these people crazy?“:

So, at the beginning of what everyone thinks is going to be a deep, dark recession, while the mayor is going around spending money like it’s going out of style, they’re going to give themselves a raise that more than doubles their current salaries.

Sure, the Council’s done a decent job of controlling some of Langford’s rampant spending proposals in recent months, and being a City Councilor is a tough job (lots of research if you’re trying to be a good councilor), but $30,000 seems a bit much… (Update: the $30,000 figure is based on a $20,000 raise for councilors, and $10,000 for council assistants)

Interested in making your thoughts about Birmingham’s schools known to all? There’s a town hall meeting on Tuesday at 6pm you should attend.

Death row inmate Tommy Arthur, a man who may well be innocent and has almost been to the chair like, a half dozen times, is getting a hearing on February 17. If you want to know more about Alabama’s problems with giving innocent people in prison a fair shake, may I suggest you read this article (here’s an excerpt):

The reality is that the state of Alabama is one of only seven states that lack a procedure for post-conviction DNA testing. This means that if someone who’s been convicted of a crime claims innocence, he has no guaranteed right in Alabama to have the DNA testing done that might prove his claim.

And Alabama Moderate did an interview with Montgomery Advertiser you should check out.

Don’t forget that, like every Wednesday, Birmingham Weekly columnist Kyle Whitmire will be on WBHM (90.3 FM) at 4:30 pm.

Yesterday, the Jefferson County Commission rejected a bankruptcy proposal in a 3-2, even as the U.S. Treasury rejected Gov. Riley’s request that JeffCo receive some money from the $700 billion federal bail-out (or as Thomason Tracts puts it, “Fed to JeffCo: Drop dead”). The treasury said the language of the legislation simply could not include municipalities. Birmingham News ran a compelling editorial today saying that JeffCo should keep up the fight to get its debt insured by the Federal government. The solution to the debt problem, County Commission President Bettye Collins suggests, is a rate hike for sewer customers. Kathy at Birmingham Blues isn’t happy. But Scott Stantis finds the humor in all this, at the end of the toilet paper roll.

In Birmingham news, Mayor Larry Langford is receiving help from a pro-bono legal group in his civil suit with Central Alabama Pride, which you can read about here. The legal group helping Langford is associated with Liberty College, which was founded by Jerry Falwell. Thomason Tracts asks “Seriously, did  you try Bob Jones U first?”

Republican Jeff Sessions, who is up enough in the polls so that this won’t matter, has decided against debating Democratic party challenger Vivian Figures.

Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative activist who founded the Eagle Forum to fight the Equal Rights Amendment, talked to the Kiwanis Club of Birmingham yesterday, and drummed up some fear about Obama (his autobiography is “downright scary,” she said) and a ’stolen election.’

That’s it for today.

Last week, Citigroup dropped out of talks to acquire Wachovia, a former Alabama bank that many Alabamians had investments in. According to a revealing report on court findings from John Downey of the Charlotte Business Journal (Charlotte is where Wachovia went after it left Birmingham) posted in the Birmingham Business Journal, Citigroup says its proposed $2 billion deal with Wachovia might have been better for taxpayers and Wachovia shareholders than Wells Fargo’s $15 billion deal.

The other big story this week is Alabama’s massive general fund budget shortfall, which Birmingham News writer David White says “could drop below budgeted spending this year by $75 million to $108 million or more.” The hardest hit areas could be prison agencies, state troopers, and health care. An amendment on the Nov. 4 ballot would help bail out the state by using its rainy day funds. Maybe Riley’s 2009 international trade trips will help. The Education Trust Fund may also be hit hard.

Speaking of education, Alabama’s colleges are likely to be hurt by the nation’s financial crisis, says Birmingham News writer Thomas Spencer:

The University of Alabama system was the most directly and immediately affected by market turmoil when, last week, a money market fund managed by Wachovia limited withdrawals. The UA system had $175 million in the Commonfund, which was used by 1,000 colleges nationwide.

That money was used for daily operating expenses at UA, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the University of Alabama in Huntsville and UAB Hospital, according to UA spokeswoman Kellee Reinhart. The university was able to withdraw $61 million and expects to get the rest back as the underlying assets mature. In the meantime, the system raised cash from other investments.

Physicians Medical Center Carraway was seeking assistance from the city of Birmingham to avoid bankruptcy last week, and they may have been successful (for the short term anyway).

Ye gods, there is more news related to the financial crisis, but it may be good news for Jefferson County. The county is looking to get some money from the federal bailout to help with sewer debt. The county is also cutting jobs, closing satellite offices, and otherwise heading towards smaller government. Bettye Fine Collins admits “This will bring a lot of inconvenience to our citizens.”

After initially strongly defending city workers in the case of the 11,760 dead endangered watercress darters, Birmingham mayor Larry Langford has softened his stance. Birmingham Weekly’s own Kyle Whitmire talked a bit about this on WBHM last week. The city is possibly facing ~$294 million in fines (that’s almost the city’s entire operating budget), but they might be cut some slack since the kill was likely an accident (even if it was a stupid accident). Keith Rizzardi, who writes a blog on law related to the Endangered Species Act called ESAblawg told Birmingham Weekly this:

The Endangered Species Act is a very powerful statute, and intent is not necessary to find a violation of the law.  Other local government entities have faced significant fines and even criminal investigations for inadvertent actions adversely impacting the environment and endangered species.

In other environmental news, the Alabama Cleans Fuels Coalition has announced that their I-65 biofuels corridor is almost complete. The Terminal has the story.

In other Langford news, the Mayor is urging donation of powdered milk, rice, and dried beans to aid Haiti disaster victims. Donations can be dropped off at Boutwell Auditorium.

There will probably be more on that in Thursday’s edition of the Birmingham Weekly.

Looking to get involved in Alabama’s Democratic party events? There are some good opportunities coming up:

7 pm Wednesday, Oct. 15th  Presidential Debate

Fox & Hound at the Colonnade

Sponsored by Over the Mountain Democrats

$25 contribution to Obama for America requested but not required.

Matthews Bar & Grill 2028 Morris Avenue Birmingham, AL

Birmingham Young Democrats

A voluntary donation to Alabama Young Dems appreciated.

5:30-7:30 pm Thursday, Oct. 16th

Fundraiser for: Judge Deborah Bell Paseur, candidate for Alabama Supreme Court

Judge Clyde Jones, candidate for Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 1

Aimee Cobb Smith, candidate for Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 2

Last chance to support the most qualified candidates running for statewide judicial positions.

$50 contribution per candidate requested.  Let’s help them to victory!

RSVP required: lindav0327@charter.net

Democratic Candidate Forum - Free & Open to the Public

6:30 pm Tuesday, Oct. 21st Birmingham Botanical Gardens

All statewide and local candidates are expected to attend.

Confirmed candidates at this time include Judge Deborah Bell Paseur, Judge Clyde Jones, Aimee Cobb Smith, Senator Vivian Figures, Shanta Owens, Jennifer Parsons Champion and J.T. Smallwood among others.

Judge Deborah Bell Paseur’s campaign for Alabama Supreme Court needs people willing to work phone banks and canvass.  Just a few hours can make a huge difference.

Contact kristi@judgedeborahbell.com 317.5354

Register voters with EmpowerAlabama.org.  Check their huge Halloween event, trickorvote.org.

Register voters with the Greater Birmingham League of Women Voters; contact karenthrelkeld@yahoo.com

Since I didn’t want to post a Bama Mix yeserday at about 7:30 pm, this post will cover yesterday as well.

One of the big stories from the past couple of days is that Alabama Power is raising its rates. Rates will go up 13 percent for residential customers (8 percent now, and the rest in January) and 9 percent for commercial customers. Andre at the Terminal quips, “Here’s to hoping that Alabama Power‘s long time spokesbirds, Ben and Mickey, enjoy their permanent trip south for the winter,” and Birmingham News cartoonist Scott Stantis takes a shot at the birds as well.

Many cities around Alabama held local elections yesterday, and 8 cities elected new mayors.

Don’t know whether to vote for Democrat Deborah Bell Paseur or Republican Greg Shaw for Alabama Supreme Court? This AP piece may or may not help. One major difference between the two candidates is their beliefs on partisan Supreme Court elections (currently, candidates for the Supreme Court may run with a party affiliation). Paseur says, “I believe that moving to the nonpartisan election of judges would be a step in the right direction,” and throughout the interview downplays the role partisan politics play in Alabama Supreme Court elections. Shaw, on the other hand, affiliates himself with McCain/Palin and Jeff Sessions and states, “I am not an advocate of changing our present method of judicial selection.”

In JeffCo sewer debt land, Jefferson County Commissioner Sheila Smoot sent out a press release yesterday that suggests JeffCo could receive help with their debt from the Federal Government, though nothing is clear just yet. On another front, Gov. Bob Riley asked legislators for help with the sewer debt, and the legislators said no thanks.

Apparently, the Lifetime Movie Network is working on a movie about Natalee Holloway, a Birmingham high school senior who disappeared in Aruba more than three years ago. Wade Kwon’s got the scoop (and he did scoop the local news outlets on this, I believe).

How did Alabama bloggers respond to last night’s debate? Thomason Tracts is wondering why McCain keeps bringing up Lieberman, ALModerate doesn’t think much about it at all, Loretta Nall suggets, uh, electro-shock therapy for the candidates, and over at Birmingham Blues they’re still processing. Wade Kwon doesn’t know why people who don’t know what to think…don’t know what to think.

Until next time…

The big question in Alabama today is one that probably should have been answered a little sooner: Who is eligible to vote in Alabama? The state can block people from voting if they’ve committed crimes of “moral turpitude,” but the problem is that moral turpitude isn’t defined very well. According to this in-depth Birmingham News article, The office of Attorney General Troy King has a list of 400 (that’s a 4, with two zeros after it, though this article says exactly 444) crimes that, in his interpretation, qualify for the ‘moral turpitude’ exclusion. According to the Montgomery Advertiser article on the issue, some of the crimes that make the list include drug use and shoplifting, and even “conspiring to set an illegal brush fire.”

Alabama’s Administrative Office of Courts says they thought a shorter list of only 70 crimes was being used to strike voters, but the Birmingham News article says they thought wrong:

AOC Legal Director Griffin Sikes Jr. said the governor had no legal authority to classify so many crimes as crimes of moral turpitude. Sikes said that, for months, the governor’s office had assured the AOC that only the shorter list was being used, but Sikes found out last month those assurances were given “in error.”

This would be a fine debate to have oh, say, 6 months from the election, but we’re 29 days from voting on new Senators, Representatives, and other offices.

Electronic bingo pops up again, this time in Mobile, as does the referendum on what Alabama should do with its rainy-day fund.

An opinion on Trinity Hospital’s decision to abandon Irondale and move into the former (or would-have-been former) HealthSouth “digital hospital” property discusses the ramifications of the move, as they apply to regional cooperation.

The Mobile Press-Register details Artur Davis’ regret about not heeding warnings about problems with Fannie May and Freddie Mac.

In other news, Thomason Tracts finds low attendance at Talladega to be somewhat ironic, and Wade Kwon waits for the bus (probably for the same reason).

Update: The JeffCo County Commission Environmental Services committee makes a move towards bankruptcy, and Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Wachovia fight it out.