#michael hubbard

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Original Jane Bond page by Michael Hubbard, which appeared in Tina Magazine.

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Denouncing “corruption, crime and cronyism at the highest levels of state government,” Mr. Hubbard created a sophisticated — some have said legally questionable — fund-raising machine to win control of the State House in 2010. Chairman of both the State Republican Party and the House caucus, he conscripted candidates — bank employees, foresters, waste haulers — and determined where campaign money should be spent. In November 2010, the Republicans not only took over the State House for the first time in 136 years, they won a supermajority, winning every court race on the ballot and every statewide office. Mr. Bentley, a dermatologist and low-profile legislator, was elected governor. Mr. Hubbard was unanimously elected speaker of the House, where his first priority was to pass an ethics law described as among the strongest in the country. Four years later, Mr. Hubbard was indicted on a charge of violating that ethics law, accused of using his positions as speaker and party chairman to solicit work and investments for his own financial interest by steering campaign work to his business interests and pushing bills that helped his consulting clients. That his moneymaking plans were running into the ethics law he helped pass is something he is shown lamenting in private emails released by prosecutors. “Who proposed those things?!” he wrote, apparently jokingly, to Mr. Riley, the former governor. “What were we thinking?” He would eventually argue in court that the ethics law was unconstitutional.

Scandals Embroil Alabama Governor, Speaker and Chief Justice - The New York Times

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If you owned a business, how would you respond to a powerful state politician wanting to invest in your company? Would you encourage politicians to invest or refuse their offers?

It was a campaign rally with a twist.

One day after the disclosure that a grand jury had indicted the State House speaker, Michael G. Hubbard, on 23 felony ethics counts, he and dozens of his supporters here dismissed the charges as entirely political.

“There is a bigger agenda out there,” said Mr. Hubbard, one of the most powerful Republicans in Alabama. “Over the next few weeks, we will be finding out and exposing why all of this is taking place.”

Mr. Hubbard denounced the prosecution as rooted in matters beyond the law. It was, he said, “about putting a stop on the positive progress that we’re making in the state of Alabama.”

The indictment against Mr. Hubbard accuses him, among other crimes, of improperly seeking or receiving investments in one of his companies and says he voted on legislation in which he had a conflict of interest.

That Mr. Hubbard, 52, the force behind the 2010 Republican takeover of the Capitol, was indicted — and that he promised an aggressive defense — came as little surprise in Alabama’s political circles, where for months as the investigation moved ahead, people had privately speculated about what charges the speaker might face. Mr. Hubbard himself had anticipated his arrest to the point that he had made advance arrangements for bond.

It was the other names that appeared in the indictment that provoked shudders around the state. They amounted to a directory of political power in Alabama that included a former governor, the chief of the Business Council of Alabama, leaders of major companies in the state and a recent candidate for Congress.

And while these people were not accused of wrongdoing, they have now become publicly enmeshed in a corruption inquiry that has stunned Montgomery, the state capital, for its breadth.

“They pulled out the Who’s Who and said, ‘Let’s check them off,’ ” said David Grimes, a former Republican lawmaker. “I was amazed that they named everybody like they did.”

The details in the indictment, though, signaled to some here that the interests of the grand jury may reach beyond Mr. Hubbard and his Lee County district.

The acting attorney general overseeing the inquiry, W. Van Davis, has refused to comment beyond statements that have described the investigation as continuing.

Mr. Hubbard’s lawyer, J. Mark White, said that the inclusion of Alabama’s “most prominent, decent private citizens” in the court filing was “as chilling and as frightening as anything I have ever seen.”

“Those people that are named in there have had a taint placed on their name that is totally unfair,” he said.

In a statement released after Mr. Hubbard’s appearance, the former governor named in the indictment, Bob Riley, offered his “unequivocal support” to the embattled speaker.

“At no point have I ever had reason to question Mike’s integrity, which is why I cooperated fully with the investigation and answered each and every question posed to me by investigators,” said Mr. Riley, who left office in 2011.

Others who were identified in the indictment declined to comment or could not be reached on Tuesday.

“After hearing the rumors for so long, to see it happen two weeks before the election and to see the scope of what’s alleged was surprising to me and throughout the political community,” said David Mowery, a political strategist.

Given the calendar, the focus at Mr. Hubbard’s news conference was on politics as much as it was on the courts. Mr. Hubbard jokingly described the gathering as the “kickoff of the final two weeks of my campaign.” Mr. Hubbard survived a primary challenge this year and will meet Shirley Scott-Harris in the general election. 

Mike D. Rogers, a Republican congressman from Alabama, condemned what he called “Chicago-style gutter politics,” and said that Mr. Hubbard’s record of political success had made him an appealing target for rivals elsewhere in state government.

“When you do big things, you make enemies,” Mr. Rogers said. “And unfortunately, that’s what’s happened here. What’s happening in this county is political.”

Mr. White, standing not far from Auburn University’s Jordan-Hare Stadium, said the defense “will be running a hurry-up offense” and planned an array of challenges.

Mr. Hubbard, who was elected in 1998 and later served as chairman of the Alabama Republican Party, is the third state legislator to be charged in Mr. Davis’s investigation. In the spring, Representative Gregory D. Wren pleaded guilty to an ethics charge and resigned. Another lawmaker, Barry Moore, is scheduled for trial next week.

Mr. White said that Mr. Hubbard would remain in office. And when a reporter asked Mr. Hubbard how much thought he had given to stepping down, his wife, Susan, replied first.

“Zero,” she said.

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