Don Siegelman
Donald Eugene Siegelman is an American politician who was the 51st governor of Alabama from 1999 to 2003. To date, Siegelman is the last Democrat as well as the only Catholic to serve as Governor of Alabama.
Siegelman is the only person in Alabama's history to be elected to serve in all four of the top statewide elected offices: Secretary of State, Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, and Governor. He served in Alabama politics for 26 years.
In 2006, Siegelman was convicted on federal felony corruption charges and sentenced to seven years in federal prison. Following the trial, however, many questions were raised by both Democrats and Republicans about allegations of prosecutorial misconduct in his case. On March 6, 2009, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld key bribery, conspiracy, and obstruction counts against Siegelman and refused his request for a new trial.
In October 2015, more than 100 former attorneys general and officials, both Democratic and Republican, contended that his prosecution was marred by prosecutorial misconduct; they have petitioned the United States Supreme Court to review the case. Siegelman was released from prison on February 8, 2017, and was on supervised probation until June 2019.
Personal life and early career
Siegelman was born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, the son of Catherine Andrea and Leslie Bouchet Siegelman, and raised in the Catholic faith.He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Alabama, where he was a brother of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, in 1968. Siegelman served in the Air National Guard for 19 months as a fuel handler and fuel truck driver, and was discharged for medical reasons in 1969. In his 1994 campaign for lieutenant governor, Republican Charles Graddick argued that Siegelman had been discharged as the result of mental health issues. Siegelman stated that he had received an honorable discharge as the result of several physical symptoms including high blood pressure, high pulse rate, headaches, and dizziness that were attributed to stress over family concerns including the illness of his father.
He earned a J.D. degree from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., in 1972. He studied international law at Pembroke College, Oxford from 1972 to 1973.
While at the University of Alabama, Siegelman served as the president of the student government association. While in law school, Siegelman worked as an officer in the United States Capitol Police to support himself.
Siegelman married Lori Allen, and they have two children, Dana and Joseph. His wife is Jewish and they reared their children in the Jewish faith.
His son, Joseph, was the Democratic nominee for Attorney General of Alabama in the 2018 election, losing to incumbent Steve Marshall.
Political career
After college and graduate school, Siegelman became active in the Democratic Party in Alabama. In 1978, he was elected Secretary of State of Alabama. He served two terms as Secretary of State, from 1979 to 1987.He was elected as Alabama's Attorney General in 1986, serving from 1987 to 1991. He ran for Governor in 1990 but lost in the Democratic primary runoff to Paul Hubbert, the executive secretary of the Alabama Education Association. Siegelman was elected as Lieutenant Governor in 1994, serving from 1995 to 1999.
In 1998, Siegelman was elected Governor with 57% of the vote, including more than 90% of the African American electorate. He was the first native Mobilian to be elected to the state's highest office. By that time, following passage by Congress in the mid-1960s of civil rights legislation, most African Americans in the South supported Democratic Party statewide and national candidates.
In 1988 as state Attorney General, Siegelman addressed the Alabama Chemical Association and met with Monsanto lobbyists. The state gave permission for Monsanto to direct their own cleanup of polychlorinated biphenyls at their plant in Anniston, Alabama. The waterways of the town had been polluted by PCBs from the plant. This work has been strongly criticized as inadequate. For instance, Monsanto dredged PCBs from just a few hundred yards of Snow Creek and its tributaries.
Governorship
Siegelman's term as Governor took place during, and contributed to, the dramatic growth in Alabama's automotive manufacturing industry. Mercedes-Benz had built the first new major automotive plant during the administration of Governor Jim Folsom Jr. During Siegelman's administration, Mercedes agreed to double the size of that plant.Siegelman worked to recruit other manufacturers, visiting several countries and securing commitments from Toyota, Honda, and Hyundai to build major assembly plants in Alabama.
Siegelman presided over eight executions, including that of Lynda Lyon Block, the first female executed in the state since 1957. He also oversaw the transition from electrocution as a sole method to lethal injection as the primary method. However, by 2021, Siegelman said he was opposed to capital punishment, and expressed misgivings about the executions that took place during his governorship.
State lottery and universal education
Siegelman had campaigned for voter approval of a state lottery. The proceeds were to be earmarked to fund free tuition at state universities for most high school graduates. Siegelman supported a bill that placed the lottery on a free-standing referendum ballot in 1999. The measure was defeated. Some advisors had suggested that Siegelman wait until the regular 2000 elections, when anti-gambling interests would command a smaller percentage of the electorate.After the defeat of the lottery, Siegelman struggled to deal with serious state budget problems. Alabama's tax revenues were down during most of his administration. Observers believed that Siegelman did a decent job of managing the limited revenue produced by this system during a national economic downturn.
Siegelman launched the "Alabama Reading Initiative", an early education literacy program that was praised by both Democratic and Republican officials. It has been emulated by several other states.
2002 election controversy
U.S. Representative Bob Riley defeated Siegelman in his November 2002 reelection bid by the narrowest margin in Alabama history: approximately 3,000 votes.On the night of the election, Siegelman was initially declared the winner by the Associated Press. Later, a voting machine malfunction in Baldwin County was claimed to have produced the votes needed to give Riley the election.
Democratic Party officials objected, stating that the recount had been performed by local Republican election officials after Democratic observers had left the site of the vote counting. This rendered verification of the recount results impossible. The state's Attorney General, Republican Bill Pryor, affirmed the recounted vote totals, securing Riley's election. Pryor denied requests for a manual recount of the disputed vote; he warned that opening the sealed votes to recount them would be held a criminal offense.
Analysts said that perhaps the most objective observation about this purported vote shift was that there was no corresponding vote shift in other issues and candidates on these same ballots, a shift that would be expected if they were anti-Siegelman voters. Largely as a result of this obvious inconsistency, the Alabama Legislature amended the election code to provide for automatic, supervised recounts in close races.
2006 election
Siegelman ran to become the Democratic nominee for the 2006 Alabama gubernatorial election; however, he was defeated in the primary by Lt. Governor Lucy Baxley, former wife of the controversial 1986 gubernatorial nominee, former attorney general and lieutenant governor Bill Baxley. In large part because of Siegelman's indictment for bribery and racketeering, Baxley was able to secure important endorsements from the Alabama Democratic Conference, the New South Coalition, and the Alabama State Employees Association. Although outspent by Siegelman, and criticized on her call for a raise of the state's minimum wage by $1, Baxley coasted to a relatively easy primary win of 60% to Siegelman's 36%. She lost the general election for governor later that year to Republican Bob Riley, 58% to 42%.Federal prosecution
2004 trial
On May 27, 2004, Siegelman was indicted by the federal government for fraud. The day after his trial began in October 2004, prosecutors dropped all charges after U.S. District Judge U. W. Clemon had thrown out much of the prosecution's evidence, stating that no new charges could be refiled based on the disallowed evidence.2006 conviction
On October 26, 2005, Siegelman was indicted on new charges of bribery and mail fraud in connection with Richard M. Scrushy, founder and former CEO of HealthSouth. Two former Siegelman aides were charged in the indictment as well. Siegelman was accused of trading government favors for campaign donations as Lieutenant Governor from 1995 to 1999, and as Governor from 1999 to 2003.Scrushy was accused of arranging $500,000 in donations to Siegelman's 1999 campaign for a state lottery fund for universal education, in exchange for a seat on a state hospital regulatory board, a non-paying position. Scrushy had been appointed and served on the state hospital regulatory board during the past three Republican administrations. He had been acquitted in 2005 of charges of securities fraud for his part in the HealthSouth Corporation fraud scandal which cost shareholders billions.
During his trial, Siegelman continued his campaign for reelection, running in the Democratic primary against Lt. Governor Lucy Baxley and minor candidates. On June 6, despite Baxley's relatively low-profile campaign, she defeated Siegelman with almost 60% of the vote compared to Siegelman's 36%.
On June 29, 2006, three weeks after Siegelman lost the primary, a federal jury found both Siegelman and Scrushy guilty on seven of the 33 felony counts in the indictment. Two co-defendants, Siegelman's former chief of staff, Paul Hamrick and his transportation director, Mack Roberts, were acquitted of all charges. Siegelman was convicted on one count of bribery, one count of conspiracy to commit honest services mail fraud, four counts of honest services mail fraud, and one count of obstruction of justice.
Siegelman was acquitted on 25 counts, including the indictment's allegations of a widespread RICO conspiracy. Siegelman was represented by Mobile attorneys Vince Kilborn and David McDonald, along with Greenwood attorney Hiram Eastland and Notre Dame law professor G. Robert Blakey, an authority on RICO. Siegelman was sentenced by Judge Mark Everett Fuller, a George W. Bush appointee, to more than seven years in federal prison and a $50,000 fine.
Siegelman said in his defense that Scrushy had been on the regulatory board of the state hospital during several preceding Republican governorships. He said that Scrushy's contribution toward the campaign for a state lottery fund for universal education was unrelated to his appointment. Siegelman and his attorneys said that the charges against him, in addition to being unfounded, were without precedent.
Scrushy was released from federal prison in April 2012. He resided in a Houston, Texas halfway house until he was released on July 25, 2012.