Two-year college system in headlines again

By Staff
Bob Martin, The Alabama Scene
A state senator from Birmingham received about $150,000 over a two-and-a-half year period from a nonprofit program called Heritage for Hope that was funded from grants through the state’s two-year college system and authorized by its former chancellor, Roy Johnson.
State Sen. E. B. McClain, D-Birmingham, says he doesn’t fall in the same boat with folks who have done nothing and received a check, but it appears he did very little for the organization other than see that the checks arrived.
Johnson agreed to send state money to the nonprofit in 2003, records viewed by The Birmingham News show. He arranged for the nonprofit to receive the contract with Bessemer State Technical College and he agreed to send the payments through the college, according to the News. The checks started out at $10,000 monthly and increased to $13,000. A total of $310,000 was provided the nonprofit over a period of about 30 months starting in 2004.
McClain was paid as a consultant by the program after helping it receive the two-year college funding, said the Rev. Sam Pettagrue, a retired pastor of a Baptist Church and creator of the nonprofit.
"He was the reason we actually got the grant," Pettagrue told the News. "He was kind of our consultant on the grant."
McClain would also call the state to prompt payment when checks were taking longer than expected to arrive, Pettagrue said. Three-fourths of the money the nonprofit received from state coffers went to pay McClain, Pettagrue and his son. Only 13 people completed at least one level of the organization’s program.
McClain, who has a full-time job, obviously thinks highly of what he did. I think this sham more accurately resembles one synonym of a rip off — highway robbery.
A coveted list
Dr. Randy Brinson, a Montgomery physician and chairman of the Christian Coalition of Alabama is being credited for the surge of GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee in Iowa.
The Washington Post reports that a coveted list of 71 million voters ages 25-45 — upwardly mobile, right-of-center, conservative households — who are controlled by Brinson is being used by Huckabee. Brinson, who replaced the discredited John Giles as head of the state’s Christian coalition, has Mel Gibson to thank. Brinson started rebuilding the Christian coalition lists and formed a voter registration organization he named “Redeem the Vote,” Using his contacts with the promotion of Gibson’s film “The Passion of the Christ” and the actor, Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in the film, he was able to build his list.
Huckabee, who had also gotten involved with Redeem the Vote, connected up with Brinson and bought the list for his campaign. In Iowa Brinson’s list has produced over 400,000 contacts for the Huckabee campaign, “a stunning number,” says the Post, since only a quarter of that number is expected to vote in the GOP caucuses. The latest Zogby Iowa poll has Huckbee pulling even with Mitt Romney.
The sucker punch still making news
The Senate Ethics wants to hire an outside lawyer to assist in its review of the formal complaint filed against Sen. Charles Bishop, R-Jasper, for delivering the blow heard around the world on the floor of the Alabama Senate.
But Sen. Tom Butler, D-Huntsville, a member of the Legislative Contract Review Committee, objected when a contract for the legal help was brought before the committee last week, calling the contract a waste of money.
Butler’s objection, which will delay the contract for 45 days, told the committee that an “old-fashioned handshake” ought to end the feud. The Democratic majority in the Senate had hoped to wrap up the controversy before the start of the next regular session on Feb. 5, but it now appears that won’t happen.
Bob Martin, editor and publisher of The Montgomery Independent, has taken over The Alabama Scene from longtime political columnist Bob Ingram, who died earlier this fall.