Have you wondered why Governor Riley and his Anti-Gambling Task Force Commander, the district attorney in Mobile, haven’t raided the Greenetrack casino in Greene County?

There’s really a simple answer. The county’s sheriff has said he’ll shoot the first person who tries to shut down bingo machines at the racetrack. I don’t think the governor wants the overweight commander of his Anti-Gambling Task Force, Mobile DA John Tyson, to take one in the gut in order to stop a few pulls on a bingo machine, but there are some who might not mind.

One of those people who might relish a “Shootout at the GT Corral, (with no injuries of course) is Milton McGregor, president of VictoryLand in Macon County. When Tyson was running for state attorney general in 2006, he tried to shake down McGregor for a $150,000 contribution. McGregor contributed $100,000, and then Tyson attempted to raid VictoryLand with 200 state troopers a few weeks back. The raid was stopped, but the facility was forced to close because of the threat.

“That just goes to prove there’s no honor in politics,” one capitol observer noted last week.

McGregor is probably wondering what piece of meat Riley is dangling in front of Tyson to entice him to abandon his job in Mobile and work for free (we think). There is speculation around Goat Hill that the meat is in the form of a judgeship either at the appellate level or in Mobile.

Tyson, the district attorney of the 13th Judicial Circuit (Mobile County) took an oath to uphold the laws of Alabama and the United States of America, yet he now refuses to do so.

Alabama law very clearly states that district attorneys must spend their entire time working in the circuit in which they are elected. The only exception is if one is appointed to try a court case in another jurisdiction. That exception is for courtroom work in a specific trial and not for being a gadfly for the governor traveling about Alabama and costing the state millions of dollars. Then there is the question of whether Tyson is violating the law that forbids a person from holding two public offices of profit. Some in the port city think he should get back to his duties at home including the chairman of the county commission.

“I hope he’s taking care of his duties here to keep our city safe,” said Commission President Mike Dean,” in a statement to the Press-Register. “It’s very unusual and strange that this all of a sudden is a priority to him. We still have a lot of crime in Mobile, and we need to make sure that’s also one of his priorities,” Dean said about Tyson.

But back to Greenetrack. The governor and perhaps Tyson, but I’m not sure about him, know that a confrontation with guns in Greene County will bring in the feds and the national media. Riley, who has pretty good control over the big media in Alabama (with a few exceptions) knows the light will then begin to shine more broadly on his contributions from gambling sources and his son Rob’s connection with Paragon Gaming Corp.

The governor also knows that a shootout in Greene County would likely cause State Attorney General Troy King to intervene and do something many in the capital city think he should have done weeks ago — remove Tyson and take control of Riley’s task force. Unless the State Supreme Court reverses itself again in this controversy, King has full authority to take control of the Riley Task Force.

The attorney general is the only law enforcement official in the state to have actually conducted an investigation of the legality of the bingo machines at several of the locations, including VictoryLand.

Most candidates for governor not

interested

Despite the fact that Riley and Tyson have displaced nearly 3,000 workers in Macon and Houston counties who have swelled the state’s unemployment rolls, most of the candidates for governor at a forum in Hoover last Saturday seemed to have little concern.

Only candidates Bill Johnson, a former Cabinet official for Riley, Agricultural Commissioner Ron Sparks and former two-year college Chancellor Bradley Byrne seemed to grasp the severity of the effect 3,000 newly unemployed people will have on Alabama’s already overburdened unemployment compensation fund.

Sparks said if elected governor he would immediately halt the threats to the bingo venues and put the people back to work.

Bob Martin is editor and publisher of The Montgomery Independent. E-mail him at: bob@montgomeryindependent.com.